Sitting of 23 June 2000

Preamble
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Policing (London)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McNulty.]
9.33 am
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): It is a real delight to open today's debate on the policing of London. As I do, I should make to the House an apology that has already been communicated to the Opposition, which is that I shall leave after the Opposition Front Bencher has spoken. I hope that the House will accept in mitigation the fact that my attendance in the House has been fairly regular—in fact, this is the fifth occasion on which I have spoken from the Dispatch Box this week. [HON. MEMBERS: "More—not enough."] I thank my hon. Friends, but it is quite enough for me.
The debate comes at a pivotal moment in the history of London's policing, for, on Monday, the Metropolitan Police Authority is to be launched and the following week, on 3 July, the authority will formally assume its legal responsibilities. That will, in a sense, complete the first 171-year chapter in the history of the Metropolitan police. The change comes at a time of other fundamental reforms amounting to the biggest programme of change in the history of the Metropolitan police service. The focus of those reforms is improved performance and service delivery, especially in crime reduction. The new Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has pledged to make London the safest major city in the world.
Such a goal is realistic today only because of the Met's long and distinguished history. The Metropolitan Police Act 1829 provided for the setting up of the Met—the nation's first police force. That Act set in train legislation soon afterwards to empower and later require local government elsewhere to establish police forces throughout the country. The most distinguished of my predecessors as Home Secretary, Robert Peel, showed great foresight in setting up the Metropolitan police service, but that was not immediately appreciated at the time. Known because of the colour of their uniforms as "raw lobsters" or "blue devils", one historian has noted that hostility to the new London police was "immediate and universal". They were the butt of endless abuse from the public and the press and bitterly criticised for their alleged infringement of people's freedoms. None the less, by the end of the 1850s, they had gained the public's affection and, in the latter half of the 19th century, they proved instrumental in the steady fall in the capital's crime rates.
I shall deal later with matters of pay and recruitment in today's Metropolitan police service, but disputes over such matters are not new. In 1872, 180 officers mutinied
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over pay, and pay and appalling living quarters were major causes of the 1918 and 1919 police strikes, in which more than 1,000 striking officers were dismissed. The collapse of the 1919 strike led to the outlawing of industrial action by the police and the formation of the Police Federation, better to represent police officers. Throughout its history until now, the Met has been the responsibility of the Home Secretary, who has acted as its police authority. That arrangement ends on 2 July.
Over the past year, the Met has continued its record of operational success. The millennium night celebrations saw the successful policing of an event involving more than 3 million people. At the May day demonstrations, the police defused a potentially explosive situation and kept disruption and damage—unacceptable though any such behaviour was—to a minimum. Meanwhile the Met has continued to improve its use of resources, for example, through cutting sickness absence, which has resulted in absence falling from an annual average of 14 and a half days per officer in 1997–98 to nine and a half days now. That is lower than the average across England and Wales and equivalent to putting almost 200 officers back on duty each day during 1999–2000.
The previous Commissioner, Sir Paul Condon, was, of course, responsible for the millennium policing. I paid tribute to Sir Paul's outstanding record of achievement during last July's debate on the policing of London, and I do so again today. I am sure that the whole House joins me in congratulating his successor, Sir John Stevens, and his officers and staff, on their further successes and in thanking them for their continued dedication to duty.
In the past year, the Metropolitan police have made considerable progress in implementing the action plan on the recommendations of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. In particular, the Met has concentrated on improving its approach to diversity. Through its establishment of the racial and violent crime taskforce, the service has made great strides in combating racist and hate crimes. It is a huge compliment to the work of Assistant Commissioner John Grieve and his colleagues that, in the space of two years, the Met has developed such a reputation for the investigation of such crimes that people outside London now call for John Grieve's force to be brought in, the better to investigate such crimes—indeed, that demand was made during a recent demonstration in difficult circumstances. That is a real compliment to the service.
The Met has taken active steps in adapting its use of stop-and-search powers, in line with recommendation 61 of the Lawrence inquiry. The Government wholeheartedly support the use of stop and search, as did the Lawrence inquiry. Those powers are plainly important for the detection and prevention of crime. There has been a drop in the numbers of searches made in the past year, and there have been some ill-informed claims that the rise in street crime in London is attributable to officers not using stop-and-search powers for fear of being accused of racism. However, the research evidence shows that those claims do not stand up. It is simplistic and statistically unsustainable to make a direct connection between the falling number of stops and the rising number of crimes.
We have put in place an extensive programme of research with the Met to improve our understanding of stop and search and better to inform decisions about its fairness and effectiveness. Everyone wants to see fewer stops that do not reveal evidence of crime, and more stops

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that result in the arrest and conviction of those who prey on law-abiding citizens, but everyone needs to recognise that police officers are faced with difficult and near-instantaneous decisions. They are not clairvoyant and they are bound, by definition, sometimes to stop people who are entirely innocent and sometimes to make mistakes. Where those mistakes come within a reasonable range, we should support the police and not be overly critical of them.
Over the past 10 years, crime has fallen in London. Between 1992–93 and 1999–2000, discounting the changes in counting rules, crime fell by 8.6 per cent., but it has risen by about 11 per cent. in the past year. There is a mixed picture across the country. Crime fell in 23 of the 43 forces, according to the figures made available about six months ago. A similar pattern is emerging from the figures that are due to be published in mid-July.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): I accept what the Home Secretary said a moment ago about the need for research into the effects of stop and search, but does he concede that there is at least a prima facie possibility that the backwash of Lawrence and what has flowed from that, and the change in the pattern of police behaviour, may well have contributed to the increase in crime in London that he has just outlined? If that is the case, or even if it were possibly the case, can the Home Secretary give an undertaking that the research will be completed quickly, so that we can resolve the matter and give the police the freedoms that they require?
Mr. Straw: The research is being conducted as quickly as possible. Like all research, once it has been properly evaluated—not by Ministers, but by independent peer reviewers—it will be made publicly available. Of course we should draw whatever lessons are to be drawn from it. I understand—it would be idle to pretend otherwise—that the Lawrence inquiry process and the report's conclusions were traumatic for many police officers in the Metropolitan police service, particularly those who felt that they had been doing a decent and impartial job. I understand that.
Also I am wholly unapologetic for the fact that I felt it necessary to establish the Lawrence inquiry. There may be those who feel otherwise, but I do not believe that they are very many. I ask people to think for a moment what would have happened if that incredible resentment, not just of the Lawrence family but of the entire black and Asian community, had continued without any proper and legal focus.
There has been some increase in street crime in other metropolitan areas, so the phenomenon is not confined to London. We must identify the causes and above all—this is what the Commissioner is doing—implement Lawrence, put behind us the temporary trauma of the Metropolitan police and support the Commissioner in his determination to get street crime down.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Straw: I will of course give way to the hon. Gentleman, but first I want to make a little progress.
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Over the past year in London there has been a significant rise in robbery especially, which is up by 36 per cent. for the period April 1999 to March 2000, compared with the previous year. Thefts of mobile telephones have been a major factor in this increase. They account for up to a third of robberies in some boroughs, many of them committed by schoolchildren against other schoolchildren.
The increase in robbery is disappointing after three successive years of falling figures. The bulk of the increase was contributed by "hot spots" in eight boroughs, mainly in inner London. I shall return to two important steps that we should take with respect to robbery.
We should keep London's crime rate in perspective. London is still a remarkably safe city by international standards. Murder is one of the most reliable offences with which to make international comparisons and a good indicator of the general level of violence in society. London's homicide rate is roughly one fifth of New York's, a little over a quarter of Amsterdam's, and lower than that of most European capitals, including Madrid, Paris, Helsinki, Berlin, Dublin, Lisbon, Budapest and Prague.
Stemming the increase in street crime is a high priority in the coming year. Under our crime reduction strategy, the Met has set challenging crime reduction targets for the next five financial years, including a 15 per cent. reduction on the 1999–2000 levels of street crime. The targets also foresee a 10 per cent. reduction in domestic burglaries, and a 31 per cent. reduction in vehicle crime—that is, 7,500 fewer domestic burglaries and 50,000 fewer vehicle crimes.
To bear down on street crime, the Commissioner has launched the safer streets initiative, which began last month in Lambeth and will roll out progressively to other boroughs. It is an initiative led by individual borough commanders, who will liaise with partners and communities to develop street crime intervention plans, tailored to meet local needs. Boroughs will have access to specialist support in key areas such as intelligence gathering and analysis, surveillance and the investigation of offences. It is still early days for the operation in Lambeth, but the initial results are encouraging.
The Government are particularly keen to help the Met in its fight against robbery, which everyone understands is one of the most distressing of crimes for its victims. Last week—
Mr. Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central): Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Straw: In a moment, but I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).
Last week we announced an extra £20 million of funding to help the police fight robbery in the five big cities where it is on the increase, and £9 million of that will go to the Met.
Mr. Hughes: I do not dissent at all from the Home Secretary's proposition that London is much safer in terms of serious crime than many other cities, and the objective should be to make it safer still. Will he report on two matters? First, what is happening to the attempt to increase the clear-up of serious crime, particularly

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murder? There have been a number of murders over the years that have not been cleared up and the Met was going to make a particular effort to do so.
Secondly, will the Home Secretary think again about crimes that have not been solved, about which there is a feeling of great injustice in parts of the community, geographical or otherwise? Many people would welcome an independent examination of how those crimes were investigated, as in the Lawrence case.
Mr. Straw: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, following the Lawrence inquiry the previous Commissioner and the present Commissioner allocated hundreds of officers to the investigation of serious crimes. I believe the figure is 350, but if I am wrong, I will correct it during my speech.
On the second point, if there are specific crimes that have not been cleared up and about which the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me, I shall follow the matter up. However, I do not believe that a full-blown judicial inquiry of the kind that I established into the death of Stephen Lawrence is a mechanism that should be used other than very sparingly, for the most obvious of reasons, but there are occasions when other investigations need to take place. For the longer term, we are committed to establishing a much more rigorously independent complaints system, with an independent team of investigators, for the investigation of serious complaints.
Mr. Davies: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. First, does he know that in Croydon we have the largest population of 10 to 17-year-olds, and there has been a large growth in the incidence of thefts of mobile phones, Pokémon cards and so on in that age group? Will he factor that into resourcing and strategies? Secondly, I have written to my right hon. Friend about considering stop and search in respect of people carrying spray cans, in view of the massive increase in graffiti. Has he reflected on that?
Mr. Straw: As my hon. Friend knows, the allocation of resources in the Met is a matter for the Commissioner. I have no doubt that the new authority will also take a close interest in it. It is inevitable that there will be arguments between areas; it was ever thus, and that will continue, whoever is Home Secretary. I understand the anxieties in Croydon and I am delighted to know about several initiatives there, not least the Croydon against shop theft initiative which was launched recently.
Mr. Oliver Heald: Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Straw: May I finish the point first? The second point that my hon. Friend made was about spray cans. I have already replied to him; I took a lot of trouble over the reply. My hon. Friend asked whether paint spray cans could be placed in the same category as glue, which is prohibited from sale to over-18s—
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton): Under-18s.
Mr. Straw: Sorry, under-18s. Lord Patten and I and other hon. Members worked together in the early 1980s
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and were instrumental in introducing the change about the sale of glue. My hon. Friend will understand that, given the wider lawful use of spray cans, it is much more difficult to prohibit their sale to under-18s. I said that in my reply to him. However, as ever, we keep those matters under review.
Mr. Heald: There is anxiety about the acceleration of the increase in crime. Is the Home Secretary right to say that the rate of increase in crime in London is 11 per cent.? In an answer on 15 May the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), said that the figure was 12.6 per cent. Has the Home Secretary given us good news—that the figure has fallen—or is his figure wrong?
Mr. Straw: Both the figure that I gave and that which my hon. Friend provided are correct, but in different ways. [Interruption.] There is a straightforward explanation for that. Early on in my post as Home Secretary, I agreed with recommendations from the police and statisticians that we should change the counting rules to increase the total number of recorded crimes. It was not a self-serving change; indeed, it was the reverse because the change in the counting rules is one of the reasons for the significant increase in the number of recorded crimes of fraud and forgery.
In the past, the theft of a cheque book counted as one theft. Now the use of the cheques in the book amounts to 15 or 20 thefts. If an individual broke into a secure car park and broke into 15 vehicles in the car park, it counted as one offence. Under the new rules it counts—in my view, rightly—as 15 offences. However, the figures for robbery have risen because robberies have increased, and some crimes, such as burglary, have been unaffected by the change in the rules.
The statisticians have made comparisons between the figures that did not take account of the rule change and those that did. The figure that my hon. Friend the Minister of State gave–12.6 per cent.—took no account of the effect of the rule change and is correct; my figure–11.2 per cent.—is also correct and took account of the change. I hope that that is a satisfactory explanation.
Let us revert to the issue of robbery. We want to send a clear message to violent criminals that they can expect the stiffest penalties if they commit robberies or other street crimes. In recent years, the general response of the courts, especially to violent crime, has been to send greater numbers of offenders to prison, for longer periods. For example, the custody rate for offences such as wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm increased from 76 per cent. to 90 per cent. between 1992 and 1999, with average sentence lengths increasing from 36.5 months to 46 months. The trend is similar for other violent and sexual offences.
The one exception appears to be robbery. While custody rates for robbery offenders of all ages have remained static, average sentence lengths, especially for adults, decreased by 9 per cent. between 1999 and 1999. They have decreased from more than 39 months seven years ago to 35.7 months. There has been an increase in life sentences for robbery, possibly as a result of the mandatory life sentence on conviction for a second serious offence, which we implemented in 1997. However, for the vast bulk of robbery offenders there seems to have been a decline in the length of the prison term to which they are sentenced.

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I see no obvious justification for that. More to the point, neither does the Court of Appeal. In a series of appeals before it by the Attorney-General against unduly lenient sentences for robbery, the Court of Appeal significantly increased the sentence of the original court. On Monday, Lord Justice Rose increased from six months to three years the sentence for two defendants—Mullins and Edwards—who had robbed a student in Bristol city centre. So far this year, the Court of Appeal has increased the sentences in each of the nine unduly lenient robbery appeals it heard.
Robbery is a serious offence and extremely distressing to its victims. I am sure that that view is shared by every Crown court sentencer. However, it is important that they take full account of the clear guidance now emanating from the Court of Appeal that sentences should be severe. When courts are tempted to impose a lenient sentence, they should recognise that the Attorney-General is prepared to appeal those sentences and that the Court of Appeal has usually accepted those appeals.
I hope that the courts will also take into account the need to take serious and prolific offenders out of circulation while they await trial. There is nothing more disheartening for the police than to spend weeks tracking down prolific street robbers or burglars, many of them addicted to drugs, and some with 20 or more offences to be taken into consideration, only to see them walk straight out of the courtroom door on bail. There is a serious problem in several metropolitan magistrates courts which do not take proper account of police and prosecution representations on granting bail. The number of cases that I see from time to time of people who have committed offences on bail beggars belief.
I hope that the courts will begin to take the representations into account and recognise that it is distressing to the victims, and deeply demoralising to the police officers if they go to a lot of trouble to apprehend a prolific offender only for that person to walk out of court. Everybody knows, except, apparently, the court, that such offenders will commit more offences until they are convicted.
Mr. Barry Gardiner: Does my right hon. Friend agree that not only previous victims and the police are frustrated and incredulous, but subsequent victims who, when they discover what has happened, ask, "Why on earth were these people let back out into the community to perpetrate an offence on me?"
Mr. Straw: I agree entirely. If such cases are brought to the attention of hon. Members of all parties, I hope that they will write personally to me about them. The more detail they can provide, the better. I shall raise them with my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor. We have asked the courts to get a serious grip on the problem. Ensuring that persistent offenders are remanded in custody, when there is every possibility of their committing further offences if they are released, will make a significant difference to the instances of crime, especially street crime and burglary, in our capital.
Let us consider resources for the Met.
Mr. Heald: Is it not right that more and more youngsters get involved in robbery because they feel an
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increasing confidence in doing so, while the police are hamstrung by more targets? Those are the views of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter.
Mr. Straw: The purpose of the targets, which the Metropolitan police service agreed, is to try to tackle some of the serious crimes, including robbery. I have great respect for Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter, but, without knowing more about the context, I cannot say that I wholly share his view. We have agreed a robbery target, among others, with the Met to get robbery down. Officers in the Met fully support it and we are backing the target with money.
Until the early 1990s, the Met was the beneficiary of its history when it came to setting budgets, because each year's allocation between forces was largely based on what they had got the year before. However, a series of tight financial settlements in the 1990s and the new specific police grant based on a needs formula led to a tight squeeze on the Met and a reduction in officer numbers of some 1,800 between 1992–93 and 1997–98.
From the first budget that I set in 1998–99, I have endeavoured to ensure that sufficient funds are available at least to maintain existing strength. In the event, that has not proved possible. Despite a 4.1 per cent. budget increase in 1998–99, there was a reduction of 144 officers in that year, and there have been further reductions since then. In general, that has not been for want of funds, but principally because of recruiting difficulties.
The Metropolitan police budget for 2000–01 has been set at £1.842 billion. That includes a significant increase of 40 per cent. in the so—called special payments since 1997–98 to £182 million, which recognises the special demands of policing the capital and seeks to redress some of the anomalies inherent in the needs formula. The Commissioner intends to maintain overall police numbers at around 25,600 throughout the financial year 2000–01.
I am taking action in two ways to address the issue of police numbers in London. First, the crime fighting fund provides a guarantee that the police in England and Wales will have the resources to recruit 5,000 more police officers than they would otherwise have recruited over the next two years. The Met's allocation is sufficient to fund 1,113 additional front-line officers over the next two years.
Secondly, and perhaps even more important, there is no doubt that officers recruited to the Metropolitan police service since 1994 have been hit hardest of all by the double whammy of the loss of housing allowance, which followed the Sheehy report in 1994, and more recently by the rising housing costs in London.
I am therefore pleased to announce to the House today that the pay of all officers in the Metropolitan police service who joined on or after 1 September 1994 and who receive no housing allowance will increase from 1 July—next week—by £3,327, or £64 a week. That is a significant increase in their pay, and they deserve it. It means that post–1994 recruits and officers in the Met will be paid significantly more than other comparable public sector workers.
The £3,300 increase in pay for officers recruited on or after September 1994 will bring the starting salary of a constable up to £22,635. With five years' service, he or she will get £27,609. There is also sometimes substantial

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overtime, which on average amounts to between £4,000 and £5,000 a year for London constables, although that can vary between one constable and another.
The £22,600 starting pay for new constables in London compares well with the starting pay for a good honours graduate teaching in inner London, of £18,366. After a period of years, such teachers can earn a maximum of £26,374 and then be eligible for performance bonus.
This is a good pay package, which, I am pleased to say, has been warmly welcomed in a statement this morning by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. He said:
I believe this award recognises the loyal service of officers already working in London and will help both to increase recruitment and to prevent officers leaving the Metropolitan Police Service.
The tribunal decision, which I have accepted and on which this award is based, makes it very clear that there appears to be a worsening situation among post-Sheehy officers, but that there is
no real problem at the present time in the pre-Sheehy group
who, before the award that I have just announced, had a differential in their pay of, on average, £5,500.
The award will take the total London lead over officers outside London to £6,000 per year—£120 a week. It will substantially bridge the gap between them and those officers doing the same job who joined before 1 September 1994.
Mr. Edward Davey: May I welcome the Home Secretary's announcement, which restores to post-Sheehy London police officers the housing allowance which the Tories effectively abolished? However, may I ask him to keep this matter under review, because housing costs are a major factor for all public sector workers in London, particularly the police? Will the extra reward be funded with additional funds to the Metropolitan police service or will it have to come out of existing budgets?
Mr. Straw: We keep these matters under review, and there is a proper negotiating process for them. It is unlikely that I shall be able to persuade my colleagues in the Treasury to find an increase of another £3,300 very quickly. It shows the importance that we place on the work of London police officers that the starting pay of London police officers is now substantially more than, for example, another important group—I say this as a governor of a London school—namely, teachers in inner London.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford): Although the increase will be welcomed by Metropolitan police officers, what assurance can the Home Secretary give about the effect on recruitment and retention of officers in other forces, such as that in Surrey where my constituency is?
Mr. Straw: I have just been reminded that I have not answered the second point made by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). Most of the additional cost, which is, from memory, £24 million in a full year, will be paid by funds from money that was announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget on 21 March. A small proportion will come from the existing resources of the Metropolitan
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police service, but the Commissioner is satisfied that the additional moneys can be found—it amounts to £2 million or £3 million out of a budget of £1,800 million.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) asked me about the effect of the pay rise on recruitment in Surrey. We cannot say for certain; there is a continuing debate about the effect of higher—in this case, significantly higher—pay in London on public services in outer London. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), has already met chief constables from the home counties forces. If good evidence is put before us of serious recruitment problems in those forces, we will take that into account and look at it. Discussions are continuing.
Mr. Heald rose—
Mr. Peter Brooke rose—
Mr. Straw: I shall give way first to the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke).
Mr. Brooke: I am most grateful to the Home Secretary.
As the discussion about numbers and resources will continue, despite the announcement that the Home Secretary has made today, which of course I welcome, can he say whether the figure of £25,600—the target figure—is post-realignment of the boundaries?
Mr. Straw: It is post-realignment. Some 100 officers have been transferred to forces in the home counties.
Mr. Heald: The Home Secretary must know that we are well below that target, with the latest figure being £25,480. Will he comment on Sir John's comments yesterday? He said that although he welcomed the reinstatement of a form of housing allowance recommended a couple of days ago,
quite honestly, I do not believe this will be enough to attract the quality applicants we need.
Has something changed since yesterday, as this seems to be the package that the Home Secretary has just announced?
Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman would have to ask the Commissioner, rather than me. What has changed is that I have made the announcement, which I had not done yesterday. I believe, on any basis whatever, that this increase £3,500—£64 a week—is bound to make a difference to the attractiveness of the police service in London. It should be welcomed, and was unequivocally welcomed this morning by the Commissioner.
I am not announcing a pay rise that might happen some time in the future; this increase will be earned by officers from 1 July—next week—and those officers have welcomed it very much indeed. The Met's problem has been not in getting sufficient interest in recruitment—the number of people who express interest in recruitment has remained stable at about 40,000 to 45,000—but in closing the sale and getting those who express an interest into the recruiting schools. This award is bound to make a difference, along with other changes introduced by the Metropolitan police service.

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I shall now make progress because many other right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak. Of course we want to increase numbers in the Metropolitan police service, and I have announced the ways in which we are seeking to do that. However, as we know from other public services, numbers are by no means everything. Each of us has had experience of good schools and less good schools, good hospitals and less good hospitals, which get the same resources for the same kinds of people and problems, but do remarkably different things. The same is true in London.
It happens that London enjoyed its sharpest fall in crime when the Met suffered its sharpest fall in numbers. I do not say that a reductio ad absurdum is involved; I simply make the point that the relationships between police numbers, overall resources and effectiveness are complicated. We are committed to increasing Met numbers, but we are also committed to ensuring that the police right across London work to the level of the best divisions and police officers.
I shall briefly deal with the restructuring of the Met. Sir Robert Peel showed extraordinary foresight in 1829 by establishing geographical boundaries for the Met that were far greater than those of the then metropolitan city. They were still three times the area of the city administered by the London county council on its establishment in 1888, and even extended well beyond the boundaries of the Greater London council in 1964. At least a third of Surrey and significant parts of Hertfordshire and Essex were, until the beginning of April this year, policed by Met officers.
Following representations from hon. Members for those areas and from local authorities, I took the opportunity of the creation of the new MPA to re-align the Met's boundaries with those of the MPA and the new Greater London Authority. That will ensure that there can be borough policing in each of the 32 boroughs, which, in turn, means a reduction in the number of local operational command units from 60 to 32.
The Commissioner is building on those objectives with the agenda for action reform programme. Those reforms have removed a tier of management, resulting in savings of more than £4 million, and have transferred funding for 445 posts from central budgets, with the effect that, by the end of this financial year, an extra 300 officers will be put on the beat. There has also been a reduction in the number of senior officers. There used to be five areas—each of which was bigger than most police forces outside London—each headed by an assistant commissioner. Sir Paul Condon reduced those areas to three, and Sir John has abolished them entirely. Management is now much more streamlined between New Scotland Yard, at the centre, and the 32 boroughs responsible for delivering policing to local communities.
Those reforms will be greatly aided by the inception of the new Metropolitan Police Authority. I have long believed in the key role of police authorities in ensuring police accountability. You will remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you were elected at the same time, that back in 1979, just after I entered the House, I introduced a ten-minute Bill—the Police Authorities (Powers) Bill—which proposed, among other things, a properly representative and democratic police authority for
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London. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Thank you, but I failed. A year later, I introduced the Police Bill—again, without success.
All that those Bills did was to enhance my reputation as a dangerous left winger, who wished to hand over the operation of the police service to politicians—a reputation, of course, that I continue. One of the delights of being Home Secretary is being able to put into law ideas that one had 20 years ago. I was glad that we were able to do that under the Greater London Authority Act 1999.
My argument is the same today as it was 20 years ago—it was frankly an impertinence for one man, with many other and conflicting duties, to seek to represent the people of London on policing matters. Therefore, we now have a new police authority with a similar structure and virtually the same powers as those outside the capital.
Let me make it clear that the creation of the MPA and the election of a Mayor and the Assembly do not in any way erode the operational independence of the Commissioner. Neither the MPA nor the Home Secretary or the Mayor has the right to direct him on how he conducts operations. The Commissioner is accountable for his decisions. After any major event or incident, the MPA, and in some cases the Home Secretary, can order a report on what happened and on the lessons to be learned. That post hoc scrutiny is important, but it does not detract from the independence of the police in handling incidents at the time.
Although the MPA will not affect the Met's operational independence, it will of course have a major impact on the policing of London. It will have to work with the Met to deliver a first-class policing service, taking responsibility for the budget and securing best value, consulting local people, setting objectives, working with crime reduction partnerships and playing a significant role in the appointment of senior officers.
The 23 members of the MPA have now been appointed–12 are from the Assembly, seven are independents and four are magistrates. I am pleased that seven of them are from the black and Asian communities. I am particularly keen that the MPA should build on the links that the Metropolitan police already have with the diverse communities of London.
The duty of best value, which came into force on 1 April, will have a major impact on how all police authorities operate, including the MPA. Meanwhile, the Home Secretary still has the power, under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, to set a minimum budget for the MPA if he or she considers that the one set by the Mayor and Assembly is too low to maintain an efficient and effective police force. I assure the House that I will use that power if I have to. The Home Secretary also retains powers to ensure that the Met continues to perform its national and international functions, such as counter-terrorism and protection, to a satisfactory standard.
The Home Secretary will make recommendations to Her Majesty on the appointment of the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, given the national and international importance of those posts, as well as their importance to London as a capital. When major events

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occur, I have no doubt that I shall be expected to, and will, report to the House, as I have done in the past, in my capacity as Home Secretary.
Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead): In view of all the powers that my right hon. Friend is retaining, will he give an assurance that there will continue to be an annual debate in the House on policing in the metropolis and that it will not be shuffled off to the Greater London Authority?
Mr. Straw: I have no objection to there being an annual debate on policing in London, but that is a matter for business managers, as my hon. Friend knows. We must recognise that the House has voluntarily agreed to transfer to the new police authority some of the responsibilities that I hold as the current police authority.
Mr. Cohen: My right hon. Friend is keeping the powers.
Mr. Straw: I assure my hon. Friend that my powers are fairly limited. The main power is to ensure that a maverick Metropolitan Police Authority could not cut the budget of the Metropolitan police service and hand it over to some fanciful occupation. I do not think that that will happen, but I thought it necessary to take that power, as well as others in respect of national and international policing. If it is the will of the House, we can communicate my hon. Friend's view, and that of the House, to business managers.
I am sure that the whole House joins me in extending best wishes to the members of the Metropolitan Police Authority as they get to grips with their new role.
The Metropolitan police was the first police service in the country, and it has always played a leading role in the development of our very successful systems of policing. I am confident that, with proper resourcing, Sir John Stevens's programme of reform and the launch of an independent MPA, we can ensure that it continues to play that role and to win the fight against crime and that it continues and enhances London's reputation as one of the safest cities in the world.
10.18 am
Mr. Oliver Heald: I agree with the Home Secretary that this is an historic moment. For more than 100 years, Home Secretaries have acted as the police authority for the metropolis, and I echo his comment that the new Metropolitan Police Authority should have our best wishes. We hope that it will do a good job for London.
I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to the men and women of the Metropolitan police service. They perform a difficult and dangerous task, which should not be underestimated—I do not believe that it is in the House. I thank him for making proof copies of the final version of the Commissioner's 2000–01 plan available to right hon. and hon. Members before the debate.
Last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) opened the debate for the Opposition. He said that, as a former Metropolitan police officer, he felt honoured to do so. I have never been a police officer, but I feel that it is a privilege to speak for the Opposition today.
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I pay particular tribute to all the front-line crime fighters in London, from the specialist squads who are involved in some of the most high-profile cases, to police constables. They all do an excellent job in difficult circumstances. I was struck by what Sir John Stevens said yesterday:
We have some incredibly courageous and breathtakingly brave officers doing amazing things, but we see so little of it in the press.
It would be good to see more of the tremendous work done by the Metropolitan police reflected in media comments.
I echo what the Home Secretary said about the retirement of Sir Paul Condon and the appointment of Sir John Stevens. I, too, pay tribute to Sir Paul's work. As we have already seen, Sir John has adopted a distinctive, radical and hands-on approach to many aspects of his job, and we wish him well.
Times are changing. We live in the world of the Macpherson report and the Human Rights Act 1998, and we shall soon have the Race Relations (Amendment) Act. Officers must be aware of all their implications. They have been providing, and will continue to provide, particular challenges for the Metropolitan police, but progress is being made. I know that the Metropolitan police feel that very strongly. I was pleased to hear the Home Secretary repeat a point that has been made numerous times, but is nevertheless important: that the right of officers to stop and search should not be curtailed for other than operational reasons.
I have no doubt that the Metropolitan police will meet the challenges of the future as they have met those of the past, but there is a worry about morale in the force, which is reflected in recruitment. Last year, a survey of 6,000 serving officers produced separate results for the Metropolitan police. Eighty-seven per cent. of Met officers could not say that morale was high, and 78 per cent. said that they would take a job outside the police service with the same pay if it were offered to them. Sir John said yesterday:
We have taken one hell of a battering over the past two years.
In a debate on police numbers on 3 May, my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), who is present, said:
The council tax payers of Hillingdon want to know why, in the past three years, their precept for the Metropolitan police has gone up by 36.29 per cent., yet they are getting fewer and fewer police officers for their money. Four police stations in Hillingdon are now closed to the public or operate restricted schedules, with opening hours that generally do not include weekends, bank holidays or any hour after 6 o'clock in the evening … Only Uxbridge police station is open to the public for 24 hours a day.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 3 May 2000; Vol. 349, c. 47WH]
Mr. John Randall: I am afraid I have some bad news. Uxbridge police station is now closed between 2 am and 6 am. No police station front desk in the Hillingdon division is now open during those hours.
Mr. Heald: That reinforces the point that my hon. Friend was making on 3 May. There is real concern about access to the police at the times when people are most worried about crime, and most fearful.
We should not ignore that public concern, and the issue of numbers is crucial to it. It is the cuts in police numbers in London that have led to the cuts in police stations, and

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in the hours for which they are open. The numerical strength of the Met—the number of officers available, rather than the budgetary strength—has taken a battering recently. When the Government came to power in 1997, it was 27,166. Yesterday, Sir John said that the figure was 25,480. That is a drop of nearly 1,700 in just over three years. The thin blue line is becoming ever thinner. That is just the figure for the Metropolitan police; the City of London police have lost more than 100 officers in the same period.
Sir John has said that he needs to maintain at least 25,600 officers if he is to police London properly. He says that
if numbers continue to dwindle we're in trouble, make no mistake. We have reached a point where I am going to have publicly to say that we don't have enough officers to police London properly … We do not have enough officers to police London with confidence.
Those words speak for themselves. I believe that they are of great concern to hon. Members on both sides of the House, and especially to the police and the public in London. We have falling police numbers; we have what the Commissioner himself has described as a crisis in recruitment, and the impact of that has been plain on the streets of London. The chairman of the Police Federation, Glen Smyth, put it in a rather pithy phrase:
You've got to have feet on the beat to put hands on collars.
That is an amusing way of putting it, but it is a good point. If we have not got feet on the beat, we are not going to catch people.
Will the Minister tell us what analysis the Home Office has made of the impact on recruitment, and the number of extra feet on the beat, of an official offer to increase London weighting, which the Home Secretary announced today?
Mr. Straw: As I said, we are of course concerned about the reduction in numbers, and have introduced significant measures to ensure that they return to where they should be.
Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that about a third of the reduction that he mentioned is accounted for by the transfer of officers from London to Essex, Kent and Surrey? Will he also acknowledge, in a spirit of non-partisanship, that the Metropolitan police suffered a serious squeeze between 1992–93 and 1997–98, when it lost 1,700 officers? Since then I have sought, with only relative success, to stabilise numbers. We have seen nothing like that decline in the last three years.
Mr. Heald: I think the Home Secretary will recognise that there was a background of organisational changes in the force between 1992 and 1997, as in almost every other walk of life. Middle management was removed. It is true that police numbers fell slightly across the country, but there were 2,500 extra constables; and in London, although there was a small fall in the number of constables, it was nothing like the number quoted.
Mr. Clive Efford: The last Government announced their response to the Sheehy report in October 1993. The figure for April 1995 shows a drop of 1,178 in Metropolitan police numbers in 12 months, and a national
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drop of 2,069. That was the impact of Sheehy, from which we never recovered. Metropolitan police numbers in London peaked just before Sheehy.
Mr. Heald: I do not accept that the one follows the other. The fact is that a reorganisation was taking place—[Interruption.] There was a reorganisation, which meant that chief inspectors were no longer appointed and there were cuts in middle management. The present Government have taken no steps to reverse that.
If the hon. Gentleman feels that the numbers that existed under the Conservatives—which, after all, had increased across the country by 15,000 since 1979—were not satisfactory, how must he feel now? Even according to the Home Secretary's figures, if we take full account of secondments to Hertfordshire, Essex and Surrey, London numbers have fallen by 1,200 in three years, and it looks as though that fall will continue.
Let us examine the way in which the crime fighting fund is alleged to work. I understand from written answers given by the Minister that over the next two years the Met will recruit, or have transferred in, a total—this is the base figure—of 1,068 officers. Over the same period, 2,700 Met officers will leave the force or transfer out, making a net loss of 1,632 officers. Since then, a growth in the crime fighting fund has been announced, which should result in 1,113 recruits over two years. However, the Metropolitan police, despite the much-vaunted crime fighting fund, will lose 519 more officers between now and March 2002.
I am trying to discuss these matters in a non-partisan way by simply setting out the arithmetic contained in parliamentary answers. However, the Met has already lost 1,200 officers—taking account of secondments—and will lose 519 more. In addition, the City of London force has lost more than 100 officers. That is far from satisfactory.
Mr. Efford: The April edition of the police magazine, The Voice of the Service, contains an article headlined "Sheehy's chickens come home to roost". It states:
The "substantial savings" that resulted from the Clarke/Sheehy/Howard era have already inflicted great harm on the police service.
The service is fed up with being a political football. We must accept that mistakes were made in the past and that the Government are addressing them by tackling housing allocation.
Mr. Heald: Circumstances have plainly changed since the time of Sheehy, but I would never admit the point that the Home Secretary has made with the benefit of hindsight.
Mr. Straw indicated dissent.
Mr. Heald: It is true; at the time of the Sheehy proposals, the housing situation in London was much different to that pertaining today.
Mr. Straw: How does one admit a mistake except with hindsight?
Mr. Heald: Let us take this matter seriously. If one makes a decision on day one, and 30 days later something has happened that changes circumstances for the future,

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one was not wrong in the first place but must be sensible enough to change one's mind. We have made it clear that we are willing to reconsider housing allowances, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made clear to the Police Federation conference. I do not accept the admonitions offered either by the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) or the Home Secretary.
It is worrying that the position—the hon. Member for Eltham agreed that it was unsatisfactory—will get worse.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Charles Clarke)indicated dissent.
Mr. Heald: Yes, it will. A further 519 officers will be lost unless the Home Secretary takes some action.
Mr. Straw indicated dissent.
Mr. Heald: That is no good: even on the right hon. Gentleman's own figures, 519 more officers will be lost. That will be the overall effect of the crime fighting fund. If he says that he is introducing measures to improve recruitment, we shall welcome it. However, he is not budgeting for a return to the figures he inherited when the Government came to office. Over this Parliament, there will be a massive reduction in the number of officers available.
The effects of all that are being felt in London. Crime is rising—in London, it rose by 12.6 per cent. in the past year.
Mr. Geraint Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there would have been a reduction of 519 officers whether or not there had been an announcement today of the extra £3,500? If so, is he against that increase?
Mr. Heald: The Met is budgeting for a further loss of 519 officers by March 2002. The situation would have been far worse than that, however, because the Met has found itself unable to recruit necessary officers. Instead of losing 1,700 officers over the course of this Parliament, the force would have lost far more. Some people suggested that the Met would have had 23,000 officers available for ordinary duty–2,600 less than the figure identified as the absolute minimum by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The danger was that instead of the disaster of losing a further 519 officers, there would have been a catastrophe as numbers fell too far to allow any sensible policing of London. The Government are merely papering over the cracks, not sorting out the real problem—that numbers need to rise to the level in place at the 1997 general election.
Mr. Davies rose—
Mr. Heald: This has to be the last time on this point.
Mr. Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that today's announcement will make no difference to the projected number of police officers? Surely there will be more money for the police and per police person.
Mr. Heald: I certainly welcome that, but I urge the hon. Gentleman to read what Sir John Stevens had to say yesterday. He welcomed reinstatement of the housing allowance, but added that he "quite honestly" did
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not believe this will be enough to attract the quality applicants we need.
It is a step in the right direction, but will it be enough to reverse the position that the Home Secretary has created in London during the past three years?
The effect of cuts in police numbers and the number of stations open has been that crime rose by 12.6 per cent. last year. Street crime went up by 36 per cent. in 1999–2000. On four of the five main indicators, public satisfaction with Metropolitan police performance has fallen. Sir John is making every effort to reverse those trends, but he is not helped by the legacy of underfunding for police numbers during the past three years. Nor is he helped by policies such as the early release scheme, under which 811 robbers have been released early.
In an earlier intervention, I quoted Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter, who said that young criminals are feeling more confident. They know that there are fewer police officers and that a large number of people convicted of robbery have been released early. The chairman of the Police Federation has said that there is a crisis of no cash, no confidence and no colleagues. It is welcome that the Home Secretary is starting to address serious issues, but he is too late to reverse the trend quickly. Once young people become confident that they can commit offences without being caught or without serious penalty, a culture develops in which there is lax law and order.
Mr. Gardiner: The hon. Gentleman spoke about a crisis of cash and a lack of funding. To some extent, it is admitted that the lack of funds stems from the Sheehy changes of 1994. We have heard today about the increased funding that the Government propose for the police. What increased funding would the hon. Gentleman's party give to the police in London to address the very problems that he has discussed?
Mr. Heald: We have made a clear commitment to find the funds to restore police numbers to the 27,166 officers inherited by the Government.
Mr. Straw: How much money?
Mr. Heald: The Home Secretary can ask that, but it will clearly depend on when the Conservative party retakes office—[Interruption.] The way things are going, it will not be that long.
The Prime Minister denied that policing was in crisis on the same day that the Home Secretary spoke at the Police Federation conference under a great big placard—"Policing in Crisis". I suggest that the Government ask police officers what they think. It is easy to talk about police stations closing without fully realising the impact, but the people of Biggin Hill, Chislehurst, Westcombe Park, Collier Row, Lee Road and Barnes will realise it because their stations have closed during the past year. In addition, stations at Muswell Hill, Highgate, St. Ann's, Brockley, Banstead and Tooting have had their hours reduced. Other stations have closed or had their hours reduced, too. That causes concern and anxiety, of which the Home Secretary should be aware.
Mr. Keith Darvill: The hon. Gentleman mentioned that the police station at Collier Row had closed. I can assure him that it has not.
Mr. Heald: If that is so, the hon. Gentleman might tell the Minister of State, who said in an answer to me:

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The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me that six police stations closed during 1999.—[Official Report, 15 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 59W.]
One of the stations named was Collier Row. Perhaps the Minister needs to get out a bit more. He could visit Collier Row, if it is still open.
Mr. Cohen: Are Conservative Members making a commitment to reopen those closed police stations, or to ensure that those that have limited hours stay open 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
Mr. Heald: Our point is that the previous number of police officers has to be restored. Those police stations are not able to offer the service that they once did because there are not enough police officers to man them.
The detailed policing of London is always, of course, a matter for the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and the authority. We are making the point that, with the size of police cuts that we have had since the general election, fewer open police stations and reduced hours are inevitable. If the Home Secretary thinks that that point is wrong, I am very willing to allow him to intervene. It must be right that, if one cuts officers, the service offered to the public will be cut.
Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heald: No, not now; I should like to make a bit of progress.
The point that the Home Secretary made on the establishment of the first Metropolitan Police Authority and the end of his role in the job needs a little further examination. [Interruption.] If the Minister could listen for a moment, I should like to make a point that he might deal with in his reply. Will he comment on the very public intervention by the Mayor of London in the Lawrence family compensation case? I ask him to comment not on the details of the case itself, but on the Government's attitude to that type of intervention by the Mayor in Metropolitan police affairs. Surely the Metropolitan Police Authority is not the same thing as the Mayor. I should be grateful to know how the Minister thinks that the interaction between the Mayor and the authority will work.
Mr. Charles Clarke: I shall deal with that matter in my reply. Now, however, I shall simply say that responsibility for policing London is the Commissioner's and the Metropolitan Police Authority's, not the Mayor's. That is absolutely clear.
Mr. Heald: I am grateful to the Minister. However, it would be helpful if he would amplify on that a little in his reply, as there might be some confusion in the Mayor's mind about his exact role.
Mr. Clarke: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that I do not speak for the Mayor of London on anything, and that, in a long political history, I never have?
Mr. Heald: I fully accept that. I know that the hon. Gentleman certainly does not speak for the Mayor in that
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sense—far from it—but perhaps he could outline a little more fully how he sees things working in future months and years, as the issue has been widely commented on in recent days by both the public and the media.
The matter of the equipment available to the Metropolitan police—such as the Metropolitan police vehicle fleet—is also causing concern. In answers to questions that I tabled, the Home Secretary revealed that, in March 2000, about one quarter of the Metropolitan police vehicle fleet was taken off the road for repairs and was out of action. Why was that? Can the Minister give any assurance that, in future, police will have vehicles that work? How has the Met been coping with the decline in the number of available vehicles? What impact would he say that has had on street patrols?
The Minister will also be aware that great concern has been expressed about 999 calls. He will have seen the Evening Standard article on that matter, which made it clear that
Scotland Yard is in danger of being overwhelmed with emergency calls amid a staffing crisis and a surge in the number of people dialling 999 …
Many emergency calls to the police are now met with a recorded message telling people they are in a queue and will be answered shortly. Senior officers say they are coping with the surge in calls but one 999 operator told the Standard: "We are basically losing it. On one recent shift 20 to 30 calls were being held in a queue."
Will the Minister comment on that? For members of the public who are in fear or desperately worried about a relative or a crime victim, one of the most worrying things imaginable must be to ring 999, only to hear a recorded message and discover that they are in a queue. Is that the type of service that the Minister wants to be provided? If not, what will he do about it? It is just not good enough.
I should also like to deal with the recent report, "Winning Consents", into the Met's investigation of murders. The Commissioner's and the Home Secretary's responses to the report are welcome and thorough. However, does the Minister agree that the report shows that senior investigating officers have a very heavy work load of murder cases, and that their work load is heavier than those in any other part of the country? Does he think that the action that has been taken so far is adequate to deal with a very difficult problem?
Will the Minister also comment on liaison on state visits? When the Met admitted the difficulties that occurred during the visit of President Jiang Zemin of China, it seemed to emerge that the Home Office had had barely any involvement in discussions on operational policing matters for the visit, and that the work had been done by the Foreign Office. Could the Minister explain that, and also the overlap of responsibilities? As he will know, there is considerable public concern about the way in which that particular visit was policed, and about the fact that the Foreign Office, rather than the Home Office, seemed to be doing the liaison. In a letter to the Home Affairs Committee, the Home Secretary admitted that Home Office officials were not involved in liaising with the Foreign Office on planning policing of the state visit. It would be good to know which part of the Government deals with that matter, and that the issue is being addressed.
It is clear from this month's edition of the Police Federation magazine that one thing causing concern and some offence to police officers is the public's inability to

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visit as they wish the memorials to brave police officers. One result of the closure of Muswell Hill police station seems to be that the memorials to PC Nat Edgar, who was shot in 1948, and to PC Keith Blakelock, who was killed in the Broadwater Farm riot, are no longer accessible to the public. Could the Home Secretary look into that matter, and mention it to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner? The matter is obviously causing concern to police officers.
Will the Minister join me in applauding the work of the men and women of our capital's police service? They keep us safe and make many sacrifices—personal, financial, and sometimes even the ultimate sacrifice. I pay tribute to their work. I look forward to the force—under Sir John's leadership, and in the new era of the Metropolitan Police Authority—adding to its already considerable achievements. Long may they continue. I hope that the whole House will join me in sending a message of good will to the Metropolitan police on this traditional annual debate. From what we have heard, this may be the last such debate.
10.48 am
Ms Karen Buck: Crime and community safety are probably now at the top of my residents' list of concerns. I therefore very much welcome this debate on the policing of London, which is being held before the change in responsibilities that will introduce to the Met a long overdue element of local democratic accountability.
I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to assure me that he will ignore some of today's comments by Conservative Members—who, in recent years, cut police numbers; after Sheehy, removed the recruitment incentive of the housing allowance; and are now claiming that they have set themselves targets to restore police numbers which are completely incompatible with their tax guarantee.
I should like to make three sets of points. First, I congratulate the Home Secretary and the Commissioner on holding firm in the face of criticism from parts of the media, and defensiveness from some parts of the Met itself, in the wake of the Lawrence report. I know that the report's aftermath, and implementation of the changes that it requires, must have been very painful for the service—most of whose members have a sincere commitment to responsive and effective policing. However, change was, and is, necessary to build a service that can command the support of a wide range of London's diverse communities.
I deplore the hysteria with which negative stories about crime and policing have been reported in the past year, as though a commitment to anti-racist policing were completely incompatible with the fight against crime. I believe that the opposite is true and that we can tackle crime and anti-social behaviour effectively only by building a service that has the support of the whole community. The truth of that cannot be demonstrated in a matter of months. It will take years to establish, but I believe that the overwhelming majority of police officers know it to be true.
The use of stop-and-search powers has been at the forefront of that debate. Tiresome though it is to state the obvious, no one—certainly no one on the Labour Benches—objects to the use of stop and search. It is a vital element in the fight against drugs and the carrying of weapons in particular, but the powers must be used thoughtfully and the Metropolitan police service must be accountable for their use.
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There was clearly a defensive reaction against the use of stop and search post the Macpherson report, although it is coming back into balance. However, attempts, including by Conservative Members, to draw a correlation between the worrying rise in street robberies and the decline in stop and search are part of the backlash against anti-racist policing and should be resisted.
I am indebted to the Kensington and Chelsea police consultative committee for its comments on that issue. Chairman Peter Bull points out that
There has been a very significant change in practice under Steve Otter,
who is our borough commander and whom I hesitate to commend to my hon. Friend the Minister as a truly outstanding police officer because I am terrified that he will be poached. The police consultative committee letter states that, under his command, there has been
a huge drop in the number of Stop and Searches and a sharp rise in the number of arrests as a percentage of the searches. In other words, more intelligent policing and no racial prejudice: the percentage figure for arrests is broadly similar across the ethnic groups. That is most encouraging.
That demonstrates that, in practice, on the ground, intelligence-led policing can both tackle the problem of discriminatory use of stop and search and be effective in the fight against crime.
Mr. Geraint Davies: Does my hon. Friend accept that concern over stop and search in the community is as much, if not more, to do with the manner of stop and search—police officers should be polite and give respect to our community—than the number of stop and search incidents? The community respect the fact that stop and search is a necessary tool available to the police force to prevent crime.
Ms Buck: I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. He must have read my speech because I was about to come on to the fact that, as part of the welcome change post the Lawrence report, reflecting the attention on the operation of stop and search, complaints against the police in central London have dropped sharply. Since 1998, there has been a 13 per cent. fall in complaints on the grounds of harassment and unlawful arrests. In my borough of Kensington and Chelsea, there has been a 43 per cent. fall and a 34 per cent. fall in complaints on the ground of incivility. That is part of the same argument. The police have learned an important lesson about the operation of stop-and-search powers. That is to their credit and will help in building the confidence of the community and in tackling crime.
I welcome the new seriousness with which public agencies are responding to racial incidents and commend the work of Chief Superintendent John Grieve in particular. Since 1998, there has been a fivefold increase in reporting of racial incidents in Westminster, and a fourfold increase in Kensington and Chelsea. We have yet to establish whether that is worrying because it shows a dramatic increase in racial incidents, or pleasing because it shows greater responsiveness by the agencies and a willingness to report, but surely those matters are far better out in the open, where they can be tackled, than hidden away.
Secondly, I commend the Home Secretary for his success so far in winning the resources for the crime fighting fund and for today's announcement, but there is

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a need to strengthen his arm in negotiations with the Treasury on the comprehensive spending review, so that we can continue to move forward in tackling the recruitment crisis in the Met and in building on the success of the crime reduction initiative.
The 1,113 additional officers allocated to the Met through the crime fighting fund are welcome, but, again, in my local boroughs establishment figures are well down on 1998. The latest figures are that Kensington and Chelsea is 31 officers down and Westminster is 43 officers down. Westminster's establishment has declined from 1,708 to 1,622 since 1998.
Although I am assured that front-line strength will be maintained—I pay tribute to the management skill of both borough commanders in ensuring that resources will be directed to the front line—I am unhappy about that fall in numbers, which will, happily, be at least partially offset by a share of the 1,113 extra officers, but there is a real issue: residents, particularly in the areas that I represent in the north of those two city boroughs, do not feel that they are getting the visible policing that they want to give them confidence. The early indications are that those two boroughs will not do as well from the 1,113 as other boroughs. I fully understand and appreciate the need for the Commissioner to establish priorities, but again when I go to the estates of north Kensington and north Paddington, I have to account for the needs of those communities. They want visible and responsive policing.
I am aware of the fact that, whatever the establishment figures, we must recognise the recruitment crisis. I am delighted with the Home Secretary's announcement recognising the problems that police officers post-Sheehy have had with housing costs, in the light of London house prices increasing by almost half over the past couple of years. We need to do more. We should tackle that not simply through the money that we pay to police officers, but by pursuing what should be a classic example of joined-up thinking. The Home Secretary should be working with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to ensure that we tackle London's housing crisis.
We have 42,000 families living in temporary accommodation in London. The supply of affordable housing has fallen very sharply over recent years, again as a result of a long-term trend—the failure over many years to invest in affordable housing. Unless we create homes for rent and shared ownership homes throughout London, even with the welcome additional housing allowance for police officers we will not be able to ensure that our key public sector workers have the opportunity to live in the city and to have the family homes that they want to bring up their families.
The housing crisis in central London is, to go off at a tangent, an issue not just in the recruitment of police officers. It has a direct knock-on effect on the problems of crime and anti-social behaviour. It is worrying. Hundreds and hundreds of people with severe mental health problems and personality disorders live in bed-and-breakfast and temporary accommodation because we do not have the supply of affordable housing to deal with them. Therefore, I urge the Minister to do all he can to secure not just resources for the police, which he has
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already shown he can do, but the related resources to help us to tackle the housing crisis in central London for public sector workers and for others in housing need.
Thirdly, I speak in support of—and, naturally, ask for more of—some of the excellent crime prevention initiatives that are being developed to help us to be tough on the causes of crime. This year, the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea's community safety team bid successfully for £117,000 for closed circuit television in north Kensington—it made two bids to supplement police efforts to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. That will build on successful schemes elsewhere in north Kensington.
CCTV does not solve all our problems. It is not a panacea, but the recent evaluation of a major scheme in my constituency has shown—I quote from the evaluation report:
it is achieving its main aims in terms of reducing crime, providing a deterrent to crime and reducing the fear of crime, with a 19 per cent. reduction in total recorded crime during the evaluation period last year—nearly double the divisional average.
More than half the residents surveyed said that the scheme had increased their sense of security. We should be very pleased with the CCTV schemes and welcome the additional investment that has already been made, but if we ensure that the scheme rolls forward and helps us to tackle further problems on our estates, car parks and city centres, it will be extremely welcome.
I for one regret the fact that Westminster, which covers half my constituency, has so far concentrated CCTV bids—I am sure with good cause—on the city centre, which is represented by the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). The north Westminster estates have not benefited from the schemes, despite the fact that there is real fear—and experience—of street crime, and car crime in particular, in those communities.
Finally, I want to commend two important prevention schemes being developed, thanks to the Government, with single regeneration budget funding. The New Life for Paddington neighbourhood warden scheme, the first of its kind in London, will concentrate on community development, environmental improvement and crime prevention through visibility in the management of public spaces.
Early consultation on the scheme confirms the huge gap between the existing means of discussing policing and safety with the public and the public's needs and perceptions. We have a long way to go to convince people that we are recognising their fears, but schemes such as this, which complement the work of the police, make a valuable contribution to the process.
The other scheme is being funded through the single regeneration budget award to Golborne United in north Kensington. The community reward scheme, the brainchild of inspirational youth worker Barran Hulme from the Wornington green detached youth project, offers reward points to young people for their involvement in community projects such as graffiti clearance and gardening for housebound pensioners. The points can be exchanged for trips and activities. I gather that a day's jet skiing is one of the latest options.
The scheme is brilliant in its simplicity and I hope that the social exclusion unit will come to see it and hold it up as an example of good practice in involving young

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people and offering a deterrent to crime, making people feel that our young people are an integral part of our community and not a source of fear, which is unfortunately often the case at present.
We are running some excellent schemes, backed by Government money. Government investment in policing and the crime fighting fund is extremely welcome. We must continue to sell its benefits and to extend it into other needy and pressurised communities. The Mayor and the police authority must now take up the challenge of working with the Metropolitan police service to complete the process of change and convince all Londoners that we are tackling crime and policing for all our diverse communities. I wish them luck.
11.2 am
Mr. Simon Hughes: I am very happy to follow the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) and I will return later to her central point—the need for affordable housing in London for people in the public service. I share her view on that absolutely, and we need to go much further in public policy.
Since before I was elected, I have campaigned for London to have a democratic police authority, so it gives me pleasure to think that this is the last of these debates when the Home Secretary is the police authority and that next month there will be a transfer of power to the Greater London Authority. I pay tribute to the Government for implementing that commitment.
One of the reasons why that is important is that it is nonsense to have a system whereby the police authority is not present for the whole of the annual debate on policing. I know how often the Home Secretary is at the Dispatch Box, because I am normally here when he is, but the move to an accountable authority is welcome. In passing, I thank those in the Home Office who have supported Home Secretaries past and present, and look forward to working with the Mayor, the GLA and the police authority in the months ahead.
The Met police have wanted an accountable police authority for many years. At last, London will have a voice that is properly independent of Government and will put the case to Government. The failure in London has been the inability to speak independently to the Home Secretary and the Government with the same effectiveness as elsewhere in the country.
I thank those who were doing Met work outside the Greater London Authority boundaries before the handover to the three county forces. Again, that was a completely logical move and it is right for Surrey, Hertfordshire and Essex to do their own policing. I am glad that the change has taken place.
I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to Sir Paul Condon for his work as Commissioner. He bemoaned the fact that, as the longest-serving Commissioner of the previous century, he lost 2,000 police officers—not, I might say, through any lack of effort on his part. He certainly kept up the pressure on Government to ensure that London was given the resources that it needed. We welcome his successor equally strongly. He has started well, has the confidence of his force and is ensuring, as he said at the Press Gallery lunch yesterday, that the voice of London and its policing needs will not go unheard.
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In the year since we last had this debate, I have had exceptional reasons to be thankful to the Met police. As the Minister knows, for the first time in my life I suddenly found that I needed police protection in the way that normally only people such as Home Secretaries need it. Following the three or four months when the Met police accompanied me pretty well everywhere, looked after my home and guaranteed my security, I can testify to their competence, professionalism and dedication.
That experience was a very useful way of catching up with the issues of concern to special branch and others in the police and gave me the opportunity to check my presumptions about them. I had people with me 24 hours a day who were competent to talk about those matters. We owe an especial obligation in London to special branch officers, who play a background role but do it with thorough professionalism. I am personally very grateful to them.
The backdrop to today's debate is, first, the amount of crime in London and, secondly, whether we have the resources to deal with it. On the first, the sad reality is that crime figures in Europe's largest capital are still going up. Last year, we reached for the first time the sad figure of 1 million recorded crimes. That is just about a fifth of the recorded crimes in the country as a whole. That is not a trend with which any of us can be happy.
Crime is not the police's but society's fault. Unless we prevent and deter it, we have a hopeless task. We must also note that violent crime is the area about which people are rightly most concerned. The Home Secretary was right to say that stop and search is important in dealing with that. That is why I asked about the clear-up rate for murders. There was an inspectorate report in January about how murders and serious crimes have been dealt with in the Met. They have not been given the resources in the past that such crimes in other areas have got, probably because there are more of them, so they get downgraded.
I cannot stress too strongly that when murders are committed in London, as they are only too often, it is vital that they are given the necessary resources. Killings—murders or manslaughters—must be perceived to be as important here as they are in the rest of the country. More police are needed in big cities because there are higher rates of violent crime.
I have never moved from the position that, if the police have to put more officers in certain areas or communities in London because certain crimes are more common there than elsewhere, they must have our support in doing that. They must not be held back. A member of one of the neighbourhood consultative groups in my constituency, now a pensioner, whom I respect highly, complained that he got the impression that often the media, by hyping up particular issues, prevent the police from getting involved.
My constituent chose the example of the arrest of Neville Lawrence. That was a wrong stop, but the way in which it was reported carried the danger of making the police feel unable to go about their job. We must not be overly sensitive. The police must be able to operate without fear or favour. If people get stopped, so be it, provided that the way in which that is done is properly monitored and managed.
The other big issue is the fall in police numbers, which fell significantly in the last five years of the Conservative Government. During Sir Paul Condon's tenure, they have gone down by about 2,000. The Commissioner has made

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it clear that the numbers have sunk below a level that is acceptable and that allows him to do his job properly, and they are still going down.
The decrease has had an effect throughout London. Over the past eight years, the number of officers in each of Islington's police stations has gone down: in Holloway the number has decreased from 260 to 226 and in Islington it has gone down from 287 to 284. The same is true of the borough in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) and other outer London boroughs such as Bromley. In my borough, the number has decreased from 900 in 1990 to 851 in 1999.
What do we do about that? Yesterday, the Commissioner said that there are three issues to be tackled: bad morale, bad perception and bad pay. The last issue is important in dealing with the others, so the Home Secretary's remarks today are welcome. Rightly, he speedily accepted the arbitration proposal, and it will make a significant difference although the Commissioner said that it will not be the answer. We have to make sure that police pay in London is kept at the level necessary for recruitment.
That brings me to the point made by the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North. Whatever one-off pay increase we make, we will be unable to get public sector workers to stay in London if the city does not have a decent quantity of affordable housing for them. That is an absolute priority. The public policy position is that 25 per cent. of development in inner London boroughs, and certainly in constituencies such as mine, should be affordable housing, but I think that the proportion should be 50 per cent.
If the three main parties were to reach a consensus on that and were able to persuade the Government and the Greater London Authority of that view, we would begin to be able to persuade people who are making large profits by building homes—often second or third homes—for people on large incomes that meeting demand is not as important as meeting need. We cannot run a capital city unless we have a police service and the civilians to support it. Many of those people have to work anti-social hours at weekends and at night; they have to get in very early before public transport is running and they have to stay late.
One of last year's amusing episodes was when the Home Secretary miscounted extra police numbers and his Bournemouth conference speech had to be revised. In the process, he happened to leave out all the people being trained at Hendon. I am not sure who did the tallying up and was responsible for Hendon being discounted, but it was rediscovered. The only problem is that Hendon is not full of police trainees; there are many spaces because it is not getting enough recruits.
I have a proposal that I want Ministers seriously to consider, although I realise that the responsibility will move, in part, to the Metropolitan Police Authority. They should do as the armed services and industry have done and give young people a financial incentive to join by sponsoring them during their post-16 training in A-levels or City and Guilds and then at college or university. That could be done through public money or through the private sector. In return, those young people would be
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required to stay in the service for, say, 10 years. Such sponsorship persuaded many people to go into the services and into big firms such as ICI.
We need to consider ways of recruiting not just more people, but people of the quality that the Met needs. Policing needs people with good A-levels and degrees and those without. No academic background should disqualify someone from having as successful a career in the Met or another police service as they would have anywhere else. The Met does not consist of a few elite managers who are academic and who have done degrees and everyone else who is straight out of school with no qualifications. It needs a mix, and it needs to offer in-service training. Londoners want that because, at the moment, every London council tax payer is paying more for less: the council tax and the precept go up and the number of police goes down. Given the crime figures, that does not reassure people.
Over the past year the Met has done many things very well, such as policing the millennium, although it was not reimbursed for the cost of that. It managed the May day demonstration well, although there were criticisms. It did not handle the Chinese President's visit well, and we have had an explanation for that, but I hope that in future there will not be behind-the-hand briefings from Government Departments which mean that people's civil liberties are not respected. However, the Met has responded well to the Macpherson report on the Lawrence inquiry.
Many police officers were unhappy about the previous Commissioner's policy on tenure, which meant that they were moved around a lot. The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North made a similar point about a senior police officer. We understand the dilemma because there is a career structure for police officers, but that tenure policy is not good for community policing. The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), whose constituency is next to mine and has the same problems, knows that an area gets a community police officer who is well respected and manages their local team well, and then suddenly they are moved.
Many officers were told that they could do a particular job, in firearms, special branch or CID, for five years and then they would have to do something completely different for which they were not skilled. We need a career structure that makes use of expertise but takes account of the fact that the police are a public service for individual communities, so people cannot be moved around without consideration.
I turn now to my own patch. Southwark has suffered from the reduction in numbers, which is the unhappy and unpopular consequence of police stations having their hours cut, and being rationalised and closed. The test of that policy will be whether people get more responsive policing and more police on the ground. Our local police know that people are watching them like hawks to ensure that we do not lose local police stations, which does not help to reassure the public, and that the police respond speedily enough.
We must ensure that police attention continues to be focused on the area. There was a murder in Rotherhithe, which was then heavily policed, but the pressure on the police means that they may have to move on and the problems will reappear. The police, with the help of the public, must reassure every part of the community in Greater London.

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I pay tribute to the police because their comments on asylum seekers, refugees and the people begging on our streets have been much more sensitive and intelligent than those of the tabloids and the rest of the press. My constituency has many refugees and asylum seekers, and there are hundreds in one building. The police said that if they had put some 700 male police officers aged between 18 and 30 into one place, left them without work and without anything to do all day and given them £40 a week or nothing at all, there would have been far more trouble than there has been from the asylum seekers who are waiting for their cases to be dealt with.
Of course there are problems, but we must realise that the police and the community can deal with them. London has had supportive policing and very little trouble from asylum seekers or refugees. There has been little trouble from beggars, although the police have had to deal with spates of aggressive begging, particularly in the middle of London. Westminster police indicated that most of those beggars do not come from outside the UK.
As Parliament loses control of the Met to the Greater London Authority, we wish them well. Police officers have our support because they do a very difficult job extremely well. We want more of them, and we want people to believe that it is a good career because the capital is still under-policed. London needs to be better policed by more officers if Londoners' wishes are to be met in the year ahead.
11.19 am
Joan Ruddock: The fear of crime and the reality of crime are potent forces in my constituency, as undoubtedly they are throughout London. In the 13 years that I have been in the House—mainly, of course, under the previous Government's tenure—I have seen a rise in crime, a rise in the fear of crime and a loss of confidence in the police and, because one third of my constituents are from ethnic minorities, the latter has been especially important.
Under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, we have seen dramatic improvements. Much remains to be done, and none of us can be complacent about the terrible levels of crime that we still experience. None the less, there is a new mood in the community and a new sense that we are going in the right direction.
In the past, I felt that the police often had no idea how to develop a strategy for preventing and tackling crime, and that every crime was dealt with piecemeal. My constituency contains a block of flats primarily occupied by pensioners and I repeatedly had constituency cases from there. Eventually, the tenants association met me to discuss the problems that pensioners had with crime in that block. I was amazed to find that some individuals had been burgled as many as seven times. However, when I talked to the local police, they had no idea that they were dealing with such a huge number of crimes in one specific location. In truth, there was a complete lack of intelligence-led policing. The police recorded the figures manually and sent them to headquarters, but they did not examine them locally and nothing came back that would enable them to develop a proper strategy for preventing further crimes.
It is clear that great change has been required in the policing of London. It is our Government who have begun the process of new partnerships and innovation which is
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making the new strategy much more effective. I pay tribute to my borough commander, Mike Humphrey, who has embraced the new philosophy—which has been led by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—and has made effective partnerships with the local authority, the London borough of Lewisham, and with other key players in the communities. He has done so against a background of some difficulties—which other hon. Members have mentioned—not least, in our case, the lack of decent working accommodation for our police service and the critical need for a new police station to be built in Lewisham.
Staffing problems have also dogged the borough commander throughout the year. At one point, the police were 50 officers short, which is an unacceptable situation. I am glad to say that the shortfall has now been reduced, and I am confident that the problem is being addressed. However, as other hon. Members have said, numbers matter and we have to ensure sufficient resources for policing this capital city.
Despite the problems, the borough commander considers that the service has had a successful year, and I wish to record the fact that Lewisham is near the top of the Metropolitan police league table for the clear-up rate for robbery, burglary and vehicle crime. However, in two of my wards—Pepys and Drake—burglary is still more than twice the national average rate. That is why I am delighted that under round 2 of the reducing burglary initiative, we have been granted £143,800 for a project that will fund not only new security for homes, but the installation work, which has not been the case in previous projects. It is the most vulnerable and needy residents who are so frequently the targets and victims of burglars, and that project will be directed at their needs.
Last year in this debate, I referred to what was then the experimental ringmaster scheme. It is essentially a giant telephone tree which draws together people in localities so that the police can share with them information about matters such as a spate of a certain crime or an appeal for witnesses to a particular crime. In the beginning, we had 4,000 participants in that scheme, but today we have 22,000—a remarkable achievement. It has even drawn in some subscribers—and their families—who have been arrested and convicted of crimes in the past. It is an enormous and worthwhile initiative, with promising early results.
I also praised last year the work of undercover officers in policing Millwall football matches, which I know are regularly attended by my neighbour, the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), as well as myself. Those undercover officers are doing an intelligent and effective job, and I can report that 15 arrests have been made for racism and that 14 people have already been convicted. That is crucial to building confidence in my community.
Overall, the most disappointing aspect of crime in the area, as in the rest of London, is the rise in street crime. However, the local police are considering how to tackle it in a more effective and intelligent way. They have analysed the crime patterns and found that a large percentage of the crimes are gang-related, and occur within a narrow geographical corridor which reflects the bus routes. Some 75 per cent. of the robberies lie along five bus routes. That information has led to the formation of a new partnership between the police, London Transport Buses and our local CCTV team. Lewisham

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racial equality council, school heads and an independent advisory panel have been consulted about how best to tackle the problem. Some 40 officers are being used in a high-visibility operation on a daily basis, and the early results are promising.
That scheme has led to a determination to achieve a new partnership between London Transport Buses and the police authority against fare dodgers and criminals which will lead, we hope, to the installation of CCTV on selected buses in the autumn. That will have the benefit of catching those criminals perpetrating street crimes and riding on the buses to get away from the scene of the crime, and it will also help with the anti-social elements among schoolchildren, who have become a real nuisance on buses in the mornings and afternoons, especially to elderly passengers.
Other hon. Members have mentioned the issue of stop and search. For many years, the use of stop and search powers in my constituency led to much suspicion and anger among the black community, which had a huge sense of unfairness—much of it justified. After the Macpherson report, the situation has been uncertain and Lewisham police have been sensitive to that, as well as to the rise in street crime that we have all recorded. In response, the police have piloted a fairness health check, which examines fairness and proportionality across a range of police functions, including stop and search. All the police and the civil staff have received training in the investigation of racial incidents, in stop and search, and in race relations.
Those internal changes would not be enough if the new procedures could not be shared with the local community. The Lewisham community consultative group set up with the police a sub-group to examine what was happening because of the changes in stop and search and the new training. The group has worked effectively with the police and built new confidence in doing so, both within the group and in the police procedures. The group has concluded, as all hon. Members have done, that stop-and-search powers are important for the prevention and detection of crime.
The group has several recommendations to make. It believes that the Macpherson report recommendation on recording voluntary stops needs to be clearer. It believes that proper recording is necessary for vehicle stops, which are very contentious, and that ethnic data recording in relation to those stops is essential. The group also suggests the production of a booklet, which lays out the powers of the police and the rights of citizens and the appropriate behaviour for both parties, and which would be available to the community at large and not just to young people. I know that such a scheme has been piloted elsewhere in London. That information should also be part of citizenship teaching in schools, and police action should be underpinned by better communications with the community. Attempts to build more trust will be assisted by transparency, especially about the data collected.
I can report, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), that there has been a drop in stop and search. At the same time, the proportion of arrests has increased, which means that we have better targeting and more sensitive policing.
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I note that racially motivated crimes and racial incidents in my borough, as in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North, have risen. In my borough, they have risen from 411 in 1998–99 to 794 in 1999–2000. Once more, we are uncertain whether that is a genuine rise or, as the police believe, the result of increased confidence, leading to more people coming forward and better detection. The clear-up rate has gone up from 18 per cent. to 26 per cent. which, again, can only increase confidence.
I want to pay a brief tribute to three police officers who have contributed substantially to the black community's growing confidence. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Newman and Detective Constables Graham Aylett and Peter Burns have undertaken day-to-day work in the new investigation into the New Cross fire, which caused the deaths of 14 young black people in my constituency 19 years ago. Assistant Commissioner John Grieve is overseeing the investigation and I would remind him, as I would my hon. Friend the Minister, that we are now in the third year of the re-opened investigation. The families and survivors are desperate for the matter to be concluded. Excellent work has been done, but it must be brought to a conclusion, especially as many of the victims' parents are now quite elderly.
In conclusion, I want to join the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey and my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North in addressing the housing dilemma. There can be no doubt that this is an issue that affects not only the recruitment of police officers in London, but retention. People would like to become home owners and settle with their families close to where they work. As the Evening Standard revealed this week, the average house price in London has reached £185,000, which is an impossibility on the modest salaries of many of our public service workers. I therefore make an additional plea for more attention to be given to the problem and for new solutions to be found for affordable housing in the rented sector. The private sector, of course, will always depend on market value. We must acknowledge what is happening in London and address the need for decent, affordable family accommodation.
I believe, as others do, that we are now facing an important new development in London with the creation of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Having campaigned for such an authority throughout my political life in London, I, too, welcome its existence and the fact that it is democratically controlled; a major partnership now exists between the Government, the new authority, Members of Parliament and all our communities. We are in a new era in which partnership, innovation and intelligence-led policing will meet the needs of our communities, if we all continue to put our energies behind it.
11.34 am
Mr. John Horam (Orpington): My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), who opened the debate for the Opposition, quoted from a speech made by the chairman of the Police Federation as recently as 17 May. The chairman said that the police service is
facing a crisis of no confidence, a crisis of no cash and a crisis of no colleagues.

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The police seem to have picked up the knack of putting things succinctly these days and, undoubtedly, that is the core of the matter. The chairman went on to say that there is
a sense of disorder and anarchy
in urban areas. He also said that people in many rural areas feel that they are
unable to rely on the police.
I am glad to be speaking in this debate as I wish to express the concerns of London's suburban areas. A crisis of confidence in policing affects them just as much it does inner-city and rural areas. I accept that control is changing, but no doubt the Government will still have considerable influence in such matters. Will the Minister reassure us that London's suburban areas will receive fair treatment in the handling of Metropolitan police resources? I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) is here, as he pointed out in a previous debate that our residents feel that they are paying more and more for the police precept, yet are getting fewer and fewer resources. I therefore seek from the Minister a clear assurance that suburban areas will get proper treatment and that the present limited and decreasing coverage will not be reduced to even more exiguous levels.
The situation in suburban areas is deteriorating. Reported crime figures for Bromley for the past six months show an increase of 6 per cent. in overall crime. I am glad to say that there has been a 17 per cent. reduction in burglary, but there has been a 48 per cent. increase in street crime. I listened to the Home Secretary open the debate, but I am afraid to say that ordinary people are not convinced by the statistical machinations in which he indulged. People do, in fact, make a link between the lack of stop and search and the increase in street crime. Indeed, ordinary people's perception of that is more accurate than the Home Secretary's statistical analysis.
There has been an increase of 15 per cent. in criminal damage. In Orpington, which is the southern sector of the borough of Bromley, there has been a 7 per cent. increase in overall crime. There has been a 2 per cent. reduction in burglary, but there has been a 42 per cent. increase in street crime and a 15 per cent. increase in criminal damage. More worryingly, the offence clear-up rate has gone down dramatically. In 1994–95, that rate was 23 per cent., which is incredibly low. However, this year, it is down to 14 per cent., which is a significant reduction. I should be interested to know what the Minister makes of that because, in many ways, that figure is more telling than police numbers and other considerations.
Areas of my constituency which, hitherto, have been relatively crime free are now experiencing quite serious levels of crime. In Petts Wood, for example, seven cars were burned out and the lives of two young boys put in danger in a recent night of arson. One of my local papers said:
Once upon a time you would have said Petts Wood and Orpington were relatively safe areas … But it seems you are not safe anywhere these days.
Crime is not the only problem. There is also the element that we generally label anti-social behaviour. One of my constituents wrote to me:
We are getting large numbers (40–50) teenagers who are congregating on the green creating a nuisance, many who are under age, drinking alcohol and smashing the bottles in the road, and boys urinating in public and on private property in the area.
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When we request Police assistance, we get a car, if and when one becomes available, sometimes a considerable time later, which merely cruises around the area and drives off. This gives the teenagers the impression that it's OK so they carry on.
Another local resident has written to me to say:
we have had cars vandalised, house and shop windows broken, local library windows broken, flower containers upturned and stolen, bottle banks overturned, paper banks emptied—apart from cars racing round the roads driven by under-age, unlicensed, uninsured drivers.
Some people in my constituency and others in London live in a daily hell as a result of anti-social behaviour.
Yet another local resident writes:
In the year we have lived here, we have endured threats, things thrown at the our window, our back door kicked in, a fear for me to venture out with my children without my partner. My car windows were smashed and the car was then set on fire and the fire brigade had to be called. My mother came to see me and her car was stolen.
That is happening daily in suburban and inner London areas.
Another lady writes:
I called the police … The police had 15 calls on standby, and it would have taken them until midnight to get to me!
That is a common problem.
In a graphic e-mail I received yesterday, a resident said:
Without exaggeration, pretty much every other day I return to St. Mary Cray station from working in London, a column of black
smoke is visible across the other side of Cray Valley in the Star Lane area. This is obviously another car that has been torched. We need police in this area, we need cameras in this area, offenders need punishment that will act as a deterrent to prevent future offences.
The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) referred to the situation on the buses. Drivers refused to work after 7 o'clock for several weeks because they were fed up with the behaviour of young people. Fortunately, the police were able to sort that out.
The problems in my area are made worse by the fact that we have a large group of travellers living on a site, and they have spread into adjoining streets—some to housing association houses and some to private houses. As can be well imagined, that does not help the problem of anti-social behaviour—it considerably worsens it. Local people feel that the police are not in control of the situation.
The Government are putting regeneration funds into the area but the money will be wasted if the fundamental problems of law and order are not tackled. People want and need, and believe that they are paying for, effective and visible policing to deal with the problem. The first requirement is proper numbers of policemen on the ground—on the streets of our suburban areas.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire has said, police numbers in London are down by 1,200. In Bromley, the police are under strength. In Orpington, police stations have been closed to the public, and beat officers and the time they spend on the beat reduced to almost non-existent proportions. The police are rarely seen now, unlike several years ago.
The chairman of the Police Federation has said that there has been the largest fall in actual police numbers since the crisis days of the mid-1970s; and only yesterday Sir John Stevens said that numbers in London were at their lowest since the 1970s, and outlined the problems of retention and recruitment. It seems that every time we

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have a Labour Government, we have a crisis of this kind in the police. [Interruption.] That is absolutely true, I am afraid.
Mr. Tony McNulty: Which party is the hon. Gentleman in today?
Mr. Horam: One of the reasons I left the Labour party was because it could not deal with these things.
We need an absolute increase in numbers on the ground floor. Equally, we need effective support for proper policing from the top. The unfortunate fact is that the very top of the pyramid is occupied by the metropolitan intellectuals who largely run the Government. Their main concerns seem to be political correctness and the rights of minorities. The fact is that the way they have handled the Macpherson report has damaged morale.
My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire was right to point out that an opinion poll of policemen has indicated that 78 per cent. of them would rather now be doing something else—a frightening percentage. That is the consequence of the attitude of Ministers. The Minister of State, Home Office, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), is at it again this week with his comments on the probation service.
To use one of the Government's phrases that the Deputy Prime Minister thinks they should abandon, it is time to think about the concerns of the many and not just the political correctness problems of the few.
The Government have an attitude problem, as well as an experience problem. One of the most telling facts is that none of their leading members has spent a single day in a commercial organisation. Frankly, that shows, because they have no idea how to deal with the problems that they face, or how to get the right sort of management tools into place. They believe that it can all be done by central diktat and bureaucratic regulation.
It is quite clear that we need to devolve as much as possible to those on the ground floor, trust them and back them when they make mistakes—something that ordinary people feel has not been done. Many individual policemen have suffered in their careers as a consequence of making one very public mistake when they have not been backed up by their officers.
Mr. Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman's criticism of Government centralisation is correct in matters such as education and health, but one cannot say that with respect to policing in London. The new Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has taken out a middle rank of officers and now local divisional commanders have greater powers than before.
Mr. Horam: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me at least about health and education. I would argue that the trait is common throughout the Government in all of their policies—not least that on the police. They believe that top-slicing resources and centralised target setting are important. It is a disaster.
We must look at the record of the Home Office team. They started with the fiasco of the Passport Agency and the chaos at Croydon with the immigration service. They then moved to the mess with asylum seekers and got into
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difficulty with e-commerce. Most recently, we have seen the football hooligans and the blatant political manoeuvring over fox hunting. Underneath all that, we have the worsening crime figures and policing.
I have been in this House off and on since 1970 and this is the worst set of Home Office Ministers that I have ever come across, although I will pay them one compliment—they are good at talking. I am not surprised that the Home Secretary has been wheeled out for the fifth time this week to calm down the House of Commons. The Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), is becoming an accomplished parliamentary performer. However, it is all talk, as people up and down the country are recognising. There is no action and, frankly, that is a tragedy for the people of London.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): I call Miss McDonagh.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden)rose—
Mr. John McDonnell rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I said Miss McDonagh.
Mr. McDonnell: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
11.49 am
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden): First, I apologise for not being here throughout the debate and I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your kindness this morning. I have an eye infection and I had to go to the doctor to try to sort it out.
This is a timely debate. The creation of the Metropolitan Police Authority is welcome and will help the police and London's leaders to focus on the real priorities in the fight against crime in the capital. I hope that the new authority will help to strengthen links between the Metropolitan police and individual boroughs, because in that way we can do most to fight crime locally. To contradict the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), I believe that the devolved schemes that are currently developing have helped most of our constituents over the past two years. Now that boroughwide policing has become the norm, police and local authorities can work in close harmony on setting local priorities and can embark on joint local initiatives.
In my borough, Merton, we have had a boroughwide division for years and it has brought many benefits. Merton is not a high-crime borough; in fact, compared with other south-west London boroughs, it is a very low-crime area, with below average rates of nearly all categories of crime. The exceptions to that rule are racially motivated crime, of which the incidence in Merton is 28 per cent. above the south London average, and car crime, of which we have 17 per cent. above average incidence. Thankfully, we have recently had good news on both fronts. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has awarded funding to target and reduce racially motivated crime in Merton. That money will be used to identify and prosecute offenders, establish outreach teams to work with young people, establish a new neighbourhood warden scheme and make

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environmental improvements to enhance community safety. Car crime has been reduced from 4,755 reported incidents in 1988–99 to 4,042 last year.
The key to success is working in partnership—partnership between the police and the council, and between local people and the organisations and agencies working on their behalf. The police are at the heart of that approach, and I am pleased that in Merton there is an excellent relationship between the police and local agencies. That is paying off: in Merton last year, burglary declined by 21 per cent. and car crime by 15 per cent. In fact, over the past three years, Merton has achieved its best-ever performance, reducing overall crime by 2 per cent.
In addition, for the first time in years, there has been no reduction in police numbers, thanks to the additional funding that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary awarded the police from the crime fighting fund. Even so, it is important to remember that police numbers alone do not automatically lead to crime reduction. It is how the police use their officers that really matters. My local divisional commander recently wrote to me saying:
I believe that we are proof of the Home Secretary's claim that it is not numbers of officers that make a difference in reducing crime, but the local leadership, officer commitment and our use of intelligence-led policing initiative to target criminals. All of these things make a difference and really can reduce crime and improve the quality of life in the borough.
At the heart of today's debate lies the question how the police can be enabled to tackle those crimes that seriously diminish the quality of life of many people. The hon. Member for Orpington cited many examples of such crimes, which include so-called petty, non-violent crimes that can make life intolerable—graffiti, fly-tipping, nuisance neighbours and abandoned and untaxed cars cluttering up residential roads. None of those crimes is ever likely to feature on "Crimewatch UK", but, as every Member of Parliament knows, it is such problems that our constituents queue up at our surgeries to complain about.
That is why I take this opportunity to draw Ministers' attention to a bid by Merton council's partnership against crime to set up an anti-graffiti pilot project, involving young offenders in clearing up the offensive and often racist graffiti which have become increasingly prevalent in our streets. That is another example of the partnership approach. Only by joining up the experience and resources of the council, police and probation service can a solution to a serious social problem succeed.
Another exciting local initiative is the e-radicate project, which will allow the public directly to access council and police services via the internet and to report abandoned cars, graffiti and so on. That service will be free of charge and will be available in supermarkets, libraries and other public buildings. In addition, people will be able to access up-to-the-minute advice on crime prevention. The success of the bid depends on an initial allocation from the Government's invest to save fund, and I warmly commend it to my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Education and Employment and the Cabinet Office.
Such initiatives led my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to recommend the Merton partnership against crime as an example of good practice. I am sure that every Member of Parliament can tell of similar exciting and innovative schemes springing up all over London. I hope that the new Metropolitan Police Authority will be a place where best practice can be shared and spread.
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Let me close with a word of caution. As I said, I welcome the introduction of the new MPA—I believe it will help in the fight against crime. However, I should like to offer a word of warning to the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) and his colleagues on the Greater London Authority and the MPA: they should not forget that London is a very big city and that there is more to it than the glamour of the west end or the terrible deprivation of many large estates. We all know that the incidence of crime and disorder is greater in inner London and that the problems facing our colleagues there are immense, but suburban outer London, where most Londoners live, has its problems as well. I, and all outer London Members of Parliament, will be keeping a close eye on the workings of the MPA to ensure that the issues affecting outer London and the needs of the area are not overlooked.
11.56 am
Mr. John Randall: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), voiced the feelings of all of us in suburbia, which cannot be emphasised too strongly.
I always enjoy the Home Secretary's preamble to these debates and today was no exception, especially in the light of his references to the historic early days of the police force. I was surprised to hear that the term "blue devil" was regarded as derogatory; I think it rather fitting to the Conservatives, as we become increasingly blue devils in the fight against the red lobsters.
I pay tribute to the divisional commander in Hillingdon, Alan Matthews, and all those police officers and civilian staff who give of their best and are doing a good job in difficult circumstances. I also thank the Hillingdon community and police consultative group. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson)—who cannot be present today, as he has to attend a funeral—my close neighbour, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell), and I are beginning to get a consensus going on ensuring that desperately needed police resources come Hillingdon' s way. Sadly, despite our best efforts, that does not seem to be happening.
I have repeatedly raised the problems affecting us. Together with my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, I recently had a meeting with the new Commissioner, who assured us that there would be no further reductions in the number of police officers in the Hillingdon division. That is true, according to the figures that have now been given for the establishment. However, the Commissioner omitted to say that there would be a further reduction in civilian posts.
The Commissioner was, understandably, very careful in what he said. The number given for the establishment was 380, but because of the problems of recruitment and retention, about which we have heard time and again, the actual number of officers is 356. To try to fill some of those roles with civilians, four officer posts have effectively been swapped for eight civilian posts. I hope that that is only a temporary measure and that we will not lose four officer posts.
As I commented to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), the position regarding police stations in the Hillingdon division is

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worse than it was on 3 May. There is now no police station with a front desk open between 2 am and 6 am. That reinforces the worries of local residents. Although Hillingdon is not a high crime borough in statistical terms, the local authority's annual survey of local residents has consistently shown crime to be the No. 1 issue of concern.
One of the figures that concerns me greatly and which I do not think is generally known yet to the residents of Hillingdon is the clear-up rate. A parliamentary answer in the Official Report on 22 May this year shows that the clear-up rate in 1995–95 was 23 per cent. The figure rose to 24 per cent. the following year. In 1999–2000, incredibly, the clear-up rate for crimes in the Hillingdon division is 12 per cent. If that is not an indictment of the ever-falling number of police officers, I do not know what will get the message across.
Recruitment and retention is, of course, a serious problem. I welcome the news today about the housing allowance. As an employer, I worry about the retention of officers who are pre-Sheehy, who may see that as slightly divisive. I understand the difficulties involved in such a decision, but I say to the Minister that although the increase may encourage new recruits, it may also make some older officers feel that they are not quite as well regarded as they should be.
Not only my constituents, but businesses throughout the area, are worried about the increasing level of crime and the apparent difficulty in getting a police response. As we heard earlier, the problem is not just the time taken to respond to a 999 call, but the difficulty in getting through to the emergency services on 999.
If the situation were not so frightening, it would almost be farcical—the idea of someone dialling 999 and being greeted by a message saying, "I'm sorry, we are busy at the moment. Your call is held in a queue", or perhaps, with modern innovation, "Press 1 if you are being attacked; press 2 if you are being burgled; press 3 if you are lying in a pool of blood." However, it is not funny. It is one of the most nightmarish situations imaginable. People think that if they are the targets of crime, they can summon help by dialling 999. I can imagine nothing more awful for many vulnerable people than not being able to get through.
I understand the problems. I know of one case in which a constituent rang 999 to find out what happened to his correspondence with the Commissioner. I recognise that the system is abused, but we must ensure that those who require the service get an instant response.
In Hillingdon, and especially in the community and police consultative group, we feel strongly about permanent beat officers. The number of those officers has been cut, and they constitute one of the elements that have often been targeted. Reports from so-called experts state that bobbies on the beat are not efficient in catching criminals or deterring crime. However, police officers who know their patch and the people on it are essential to developing effective policing and good police-community relations, which are vital.
Such officers do not have to walk up and down the streets all the time, but local people must know that there are officers whose job is to take an interest in the area. Those officers can meet local residents, go into schools, make local contacts and gather intelligence. Those are
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essential parts of community policing. In the light of those observations, will the Minister tell me—in his winding—up speech or later—whether the Home Office has undertaken any research on the role and effectiveness of permanent beat officers? If it has not, perhaps there is scope for commissioning such research.
Is there any evidence that community policing helps or hinders the recruitment and retention of staff? If there is no answer because no one has looked into the matter, perhaps that, too, could be researched. Is there any scope in the current crime reduction programme for grant aid to local projects, which could test the benefits of community policing while acknowledging that there may not be an immediate reduction in crime statistics?
Hillingdon has faced repeated cuts in resources in recent years. As several of my hon. Friends have said, the precept has increased and residents do not feel that they get anything like value for money. We realise that resources for the Metropolitan police are allocated on a national basis and that the Met then has an allocation. Various formulae are used. We consistently ask for an explanation of the basis of allocation at London level. What is the magic formula? Is it on the back of a cigarette packet somewhere? If so, we shall never find out what it is.
Another factor that affects Hillingdon and that should be taken into account is that, although crime levels are important in allocating resources, the size of a place should also be considered. Hillingdon is the second largest borough in London, and the police have to cover huge distances to get to scenes of crime. There are some rural areas in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip—Northwood. Many of the suburban issues that we have discussed apply to rural problems. The Government have considered that problem, and, for various reasons, rural policing is beginning to come into line. I have a nasty feeling that, once again, suburbia, or even semi-urban areas, will miss out because we will be squeezed between the inner city and rural areas.
Many other hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall be brief. Pensions have not been mentioned. At some point, a Government will have to face up to that problem. It is a time bomb, and if the nettle is not grasped, our debates, whatever their form in future, will become increasingly difficult for the Home Secretary, whoever he will be. The fire service and the pensions issue will probably cause us more problems than anything else.
The major concerns of my constituents are the fear of crime and the visibility of the police. I urge the Minister to take note of the views from suburbia.
12.10 pm
Mr. Iain Coleman (Hammersmith and Fulham): I am pleased to have this opportunity to contribute to this debate. I shall be brief because I am acutely conscious that a significant number of other hon. Members wish to speak. I shall raise a couple of local issues and a couple of initiatives that are crucial to policing in my constituency of Hammersmith and Fulham.
I am pleased to report that there is an increasingly close working liaison between the police and the local authority, which continues to go well. May I take this opportunity publicly to thank our local borough police commander, Chief Superintendent Anthony Wills, for his strong commitment to a partnership approach with all the

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relevant major local agencies, such as the health authority, the business sector and the local council? Their work, with the support of volunteer, residents and tenants groups, has led to successful partnership initiatives to fight crime and disorder, and to build an environment in which a spirit of community and neighbourhood renewal is possible.
I recall the bad days of the 1980s, when the police and the local council were continually at war. They refused to consult each other and spent their time issuing increasingly negative public statements about each other. The effect of such a dire relationship between those two important bodies was that our residents, especially those in the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of the community, suffered. Now, a new environment of trust and tolerance exists. It is important that we continue to build on that relationship for the benefit of the people whom the council and I were elected to serve, and on whose behalf the police are paid to carry out their duties.
The House has already debated football hooliganism this week, but I want to discuss briefly the policing of football matches. Hammersmith and Fulham police division is unique in being the only police command in the United Kingdom—and probably in the world—to have three professional league clubs within its borders. Those are Chelsea, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers football clubs. Last season alone, 92 matches were played within the borough, including in the European Champions league, the FA Cup, other cups and the league. Those matches were policed by a total of 6,749 officers, many of whom came from other divisions in the capital. Inevitably, that creates a tremendous demand on the division, in both managerial and operational terms. However, the local police have had considerable success in meeting their crime objectives and deserve to be congratulated on their performance.
Over the past three years, because of efficiency measures and the remarkable success of police operations, it has become possible to reduce staff levels. However, I am reliably informed that there is now little scope for further reductions. I am concerned that the extra £80,000 awarded to the local police last year to deal specifically with football-related policing has been cut from the budget for next year. Although £80,000 from Hammersmith and Fulham's budget of more than £30 million may seem irrelevant, my hon. Friend the Minister will understand that the vast bulk of that budget is taken up by salary costs, and that the flexibility available in the budget to the senior management is extremely limited. Indeed, the entire overtime budget is less than £500,000, and it should be possible to review the decision to cut the extra resources that have been available to police football matches locally.
Although no responsible or sane person would wish in any way to condone the disgraceful scenes of English thugs causing mayhem and violence at Euro 2000 that we have witnessed on our TV screens—especially in the "Panorama" programme, which many hon. Members will have seen—one fact remains unchallengeable: the high-quality, intelligent and experienced policing of football matches in England is directly attributable to our going a long way to eradicate the appalling scenes of hooliganism at football matches that take place in England, London and Hammersmith and Fulham. That eradication is of course to be welcomed, but it comes with the price of often heavy policing to ensure that civil unrest and disobedience are not allowed to occur.
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The same category C thugs who organised the orchestrated violence in Euro 2000 are present at all our football league grounds. There are certainly some at Chelsea, Fulham and QPR every week. We should all remember who has the job of controlling them every week, and what a successful job they do, but I reiterate that that costs money.
I also draw to the attention of the House the ward-based policing initiative in Hammersmith and Fulham, which has proved to be especially successful. Each of the borough's 24 wards now has a dedicated community police officer to respond directly to local policy issues and build strong relationships with the community. An inspector oversees two wards and, following widespread local consultation, ward-based objectives specific to that particular area have been agreed.
Those objectives deal with problems such as graffiti and young people causing vandalism and disorder, which tend to be the ones mentioned most often by the local community as adversely affecting the quality of life and to which many hon. Members have referred. There is no doubt that that genuine exercise in community action has allowed police locally to devote more time and effort to the issues of principal concern to local residents.
In the truancy watch scheme being operated in my constituency, Hammersmith and Fulham police, working with their partners in the education department, are now utilising recent Government legislation to combat truancy. There is a clear link between absence from school and young people's involvement in crime and disorder, and the truancy watch initiative is intended to reduce the number of young people who become involved in anti-social behaviour.
Several of those operations have taken place and the last truancy watch was on 8 June 2000, when there were five joint patrols between police, education and social services departments. Four primary schools, as well as secondary schools, were targeted and a considerable number of young people were spoken to, including 30 who were stopped and questioned about why they were not at school.
Such co-operation and collaboration is another excellent example of partnership working in practice to deal with a perennial problem in a new, imaginative fashion, and all those working together should be congratulated on introducing yet another successful new initiative locally.
12.18 pm
Mr. Clive Efford (Eltham): The police service is essential, as are nursing and the fire service, and should be valued as such. Unfortunately, just being valued is not enough; it does not buy homes for police officers. They should be paid a salary that allows them to cope with the cost of living in London.
We face difficulties in retaining police officers and recruiting new officers to the service. A decade ago, there were more than 28,000 police in London, but there has been a steady decline in numbers since then. In the early 1990s, the previous Government set up the Sheehy inquiry into police pay and structure. Although many factors contribute to those recruitment and retention problems, Sheehy has brought specific difficulties to the Met. I shall illustrate them.

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Two of my constituents are serving Metropolitan police officers. One told me that he pounds the beat in central London with a colleague who joined the police force after he did. My constituent joined before Sheehy came into force in 1994. They do exactly the same job, but my constituent earns £4,600 a year more than his colleague. Another constituent came to London from Northumberland. He is a post-Sheehy officer, and cannot afford to remain in London. He is now looking for jobs in other forces.
Pre-Sheehy figures for the last decade show a steady decline. The peak in London was at 28,455 in 1990. By 1993, the figure had dropped below 28,000, to 27,867—a fall of 592. The Government published their response to Sheehy in October 1993; its main findings were to be implemented on 1 September 1994. March 1994 saw a drop of 173. By the end of March 1995, six months after the implementation of the Sheehy findings, the London figure had dropped by 1,178.
The pattern is similar in England and Wales. The peak occurred in 1993, at 126,164—an increase of 606 on 1992. By March 1994 the figure had dropped by 351, but by the end of March 1995—again, post-Sheehy—it had dropped by 2,069. After that there was a significant increase, due largely to a massive recruitment drive in the capital to stop the decline. Overall, the figure for England and Wales increased by 1,071 in 1996, but most of that is covered by an increase of 889 in the Metropolitan police. The figure fell in London, however—by 628 in 1997, and by a further 583 in 1998—although the overall figure for England and Wales remained static, in that it rose by 243 in 1997 and fell by a similar amount in 1998.
More recently, the recruitment problem has increased again, and the Metropolitan force is bracing itself for a large number of resignations. Joining the police is not an attractive option for many people. It is not just a problem of pay; serious problems were created in London by the removal of the housing allowance and the implementation of Sheehy, and the force has not recovered from that.
The earnings survey shows that police salaries have kept pace with other public sector salaries. They increased by 25.7 per cent. for all non-manual staff between 1993 and 1999, and police salaries in general increased by 20.1 per cent. The increase for other public sector workers was 18.5 per cent., however.
Our problem in London and the south-east is caused as much by the strength of the economy as by housing difficulties. The strong economy is creating opportunities outside the police force. As those opportunities increase, and as confidence grows, pay cannot keep pace with private sector salaries, and more and more officers are being attracted to other jobs. That is causing a growing recruitment and retention problem.
New recruits earn about £16,500. They receive a London allowance of £1,011, and London weighting of £1,662. That brings their salary up to £19,300. I understand from my local police force that the average basic pay of officers who have served for 10 years—who make up the bulk of the service—is about £24,306. In London especially, it is difficult to retain officers, who find that they cannot earn enough to buy a house and provide for their families.
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My local force also tells me that it has not been uncommon in the past for serving officers to receive family credit. As the economy forges ahead, the pressure on the Government to deal with the problem of salaries will increase. I think that it needs urgent attention. There is no doubt that recruitment problems can be traced back to the implementation of Sheehy. In addition to the problem of the cost of living in London, there was the disastrous decision to remove the housing allowance and the freeze applied to officers serving from before 1 September 1994. The Government are right to address those problems. History shows that the Metropolitan police has attracted officers from outside London, and the housing allowance has allowed them to come here. Its removal has prevented such recruitment—people who would come to London are choosing not to.
Attitudes towards the police are also a problem. There have been many problems in that area over the years, notably, though not only, the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) referred to compensation for the Lawrence family. The impact of the Macpherson inquiry on the Metropolitan police has been highly negative. I do not agree with everything said by the Mayor of London, and I will doubtless disagree with him in future, but he was right to say that we must draw a line beneath the Lawrence inquiry if we are to tackle underlying dissatisfaction. The police are not attractive to many people. A realistic settlement with the Lawrences to compensate for how the police treated them after the murder of their son should be achieved.
Several other high-profile cases have made the police unattractive to many people. There were areas of corruption in Westminster police and problems with Kent police. There has been racism and the Michael Menson and McGowan family cases. Each of those issues calls into question the standing of the police in the eyes of the public. They have brought about large-scale dissatisfaction, and they lead to problems of recruitment.
Several notable initiatives have been taken in my constituency. Greenwich police has led the way in racial awareness training through partnerships with local youth services and the local authority. That has allowed the police to bring young people—those whom the police confront on a day-to-day basis—into training sessions at which they can discuss problems. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies): young people do complain, not about being stopped and searched, but about the police taking the attitude that they are guilty before they are searched. Those people do not think it unreasonable that they should be stopped, but the manner in which it is done and the way in which they are spoken to are issues that the police must resolve.
Greenwich is about to lose 28 extra officers provided to deal with anticipated problems arising from the millennium experience. Those problems have not transpired, but the officers have been effectively used across the borough. High-visibility patrols have been provided, and partnerships in the community were created. Those officers have worked closely with the local authority.
Statistics for Greenwich show the difference that they have made. Burglary is down by 8 per cent., while it has increased across London by 4 per cent. Street crime is down 4 per cent., but across London it has risen by 36

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per cent. Arrests for intent to supply drugs rose by 20 per cent. in Greenwich, but there was a 20 per cent. reduction across London. In April and May, car crime was cut by 20 per cent. while London's figure remained almost static, and street crime fell by 17 per cent. and burglary by 30 per cent. Overall, notifiable crime was down by 8 per cent. in Greenwich.
I asked a local inspector how he would account for that. He said that we need good partnerships with the local community and officers to do the job. Today's announcement by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will start to address the decline in the number of officers, but whatever we do in future must ensure that we have enough officers to allow the police to do their job.
12.30 pm
Mr. Peter Brooke: The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), my immediate parliamentary neighbour, opened the debate from the Back Benches, and I agreed with a great deal of what she said. I geographically have been bracketed on the Opposition Benches by my hon. Friends the Members for Orpington (Mr. Horam) and for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall). Now, I speak for the heart of the capital.
It is a pleasure to follow directly the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford), who, if I may say so as a Londoner, always speaks most effectively on London problems. It is a genuine privilege to speak after him.
The Home Secretary opened his speech on the cusp between the first 171 years of the Met's history and the new era which is now opening out. Veterans of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 Standing Committee—whom I have seen in the Chamber today from all three parties—will remember our debates on the very provisions that are now being introduced. The template of legislation for rural forces obviously had to be significantly modified for the Met and for the special problems of Greater London.
I wish the Met and the Metropolitan Police Authority well, as I do Sir Paul Condon. I saw him on new year's eve. It was an evening when the Government set some of us a challenge by telling us to dress appropriately for one of their events. In Sir Paul's case, there was no problem, for he was in uniform. It is a great pleasure that that particular night passed off so well at the end of his career. I wish well, too, Sir John Stevens, with whom I had connections in Northern Ireland.
Inevitably, there is a constituency tendency to this debate. However, I should like to open with one or two general London and pan-London issues. I congratulate the Government genuinely and sincerely on the working of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and on the spirit of collaboration with local government that they have inspired by that. The Association of London Government has welcomed borough-based policing, and hopes that borough-based recruitment initiatives can be developed.
In that context, it is worth remarking on the subject of ethnic minority recruitment, for which the targets are well known. The general officer commanding, London district wrote to a number of London Members with large ethnic minority communities in their constituencies on the subject of recruiting ethnic minorities into the armed forces. Although not all of those Members acceded to his
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request, he has paid tribute to the quality of advice and help that he received from hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is an initiative that might have relevance to the Met as well.
I do not want to dwell at length on the issues of attraction, motivation and retention, very important though I recognise them to be, for they were dealt with at considerable and admirable length by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald). On the other hand, although of course we welcome the Government's housing announcement, which has been foreshadowed in the past couple of days, and has now been announced in this debate by the Home Secretary—I genuinely admire the way in which the Home Secretary deflected the Commissioner's thoughtful reaction to the announcement, which was quoted by my hon. Friend, the Member for North-East Hertfordshire—we shall need to continue to watch the practical effects of that housing announcement.
We cannot forget—I am talking about history, not seeking to make a partisan point—the loss of experienced police sergeants around the age of 35 that we sustained in the 1970s, until the Edmund-Davies report was introduced, and subsequently implemented by the incoming Conservative Government. The Met paid a very heavy price in the quality of officers that they lost in the middle of the 1970s. There is, therefore, a concern to see how that particular initiative works.
There is a genuine problem that effective policing can lead the commanders of those particular borough forces not to be reinforced, as there are greater problems elsewhere, which obviously creates problems for morale in the forces under them. There is no doubt at all that concern about police numbers is being reflected at sector working group meetings in south Westminster, as well as in the constituency of the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North. It is being noticed and then reflected in comment.
Still at the pan-London level, there was concern on the Standing Committee that considered the Greater London Authority Bill about the police community consultative groups' statutory cover being removed in that legislation. Westminster has always had strong groups, with three groups throughout the city and sub-groups on specific issues such as homelessness and licensing. I suspect that, over the years to come, one of the most valuable developments in that sector will be new sub-groups looking at specific issues such as licensing and homelessness, as the new sector working groups, of which there are 15 in Westminster, themselves gather strength in working within the community on the ground.
As I have mentioned homelessness and licensing in that context, let me dwell briefly on them in a police context. I am an admirer of the integrated approach to issues of rough sleeping, led by Louise Casey, but derived from earlier work. In the past year, that has been deployed effectively in Westminster, as it had been in Camden and Lambeth.
In terms of licensing, the police community consultative sub-committee, which is chaired by a notable west end licensee, my constituent Matthew Bennett, produced a very good report and has since taken central Government officials around Soho at three and four in the morning, which, I will remark neutrally, has had the effect of opening eyes. Of course, one can build in conditions

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for licences, and licence holders can make commitments when they are securing their licences, but if, overall, three times as many licensees are operating in the west end compared with 20 years ago, and the number of police monitoring them remains static, inevitably, the quality of monitoring must fall.
Licensing takes one with natural elision to the Government's enthusiasm for a 24-hour city. Let me make it clear that I realise that a lot of crime, especially robbery, occurs on commercial premises and in entertainment outlets. I salute the work in collaboration with Westminster city council and the police to prevent and to make crime less likely through a series of management initiatives on those premises, but, necessarily, entertainment outlets feel less responsibility for their patrons once they have left their premises. That is where much of the problem can occur, which makes for sleep-disturbed nights for local residents.
I am told that there are more people in Leicester square at 3 am than there are at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. There is a real risk of the police losing control of order in those circumstances. Westminster city council has already had to have second thoughts about pedestrianisation schemes in Soho. It is bound to have third, fourth, fifth and sixth thoughts about the pedestrianisation of Trafalgar square. It is close to Leicester square. The record thrower of a cricket ball in cricket history could just about cover the distance between Leicester square and Trafalgar square, but if there are potential problems in losing control in Leicester square, they are a fortiori worse in a space as large as Trafalgar square.
It can be safely policed on great occasions, but, if it is pedestrianised, we are talking about a 24-hour city, 365 days a year. It took three deaths at a Garibaldi demonstration in Hyde park in 1862 to persuade the then Government to create the narrower focus of Speaker's corner. The scale of space does matter.
I am conscious that the nature of my constituency in several ways—the size of the non-resident population and its high profile—attracts crime. In 1978, Home Secretary Lord Merlyn-Rees warned me when I visited him to discuss the El Al shootings in Mayfair that I had to expect at least half the terrorist crime in London to occur in the constituency. He and the Commissioner were extremely good in their response to a major street prostitution problem in Shepherd Market in the same year, to which 24 women police constables were posted for a prolonged and effective period. Prostitution is an activity that has been subject to local displacement throughout London's history, which one can trace in Stephen Inwood's new book.
In paying contemporary tribute to the Home Secretary and the Commissioner for the resources that have been put into combating street trading in drugs in Soho, I note that exactly the same displacement effect is occurring—which is at least a temporary index of success and effectiveness—and moving the problem to the top end of the Charing Cross road, which brings the London borough of Camden into the issue. I hope that the Met can continue to sustain the campaign, with all its implications for the tourism industry.
The same collaboration with the private sector to which I referred in connection with robbery also relates to the work in designing out crime, as previously done in
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housing estates, which is now being done on major thoroughfares in the west end, under the auspices of Sir John Wheeler, a most distinguished former Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee.
The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North referred to closed circuit television in the west end. Of course, that played a significant part in the nail bombs detection and the Soho drugs campaign. The Minister of State is always good enough to write and tell me about CCTV developments in my constituency. However, as with police speed cameras monitoring motorists, running costs are a problem and CCTV's effectiveness necessarily depends on its being switched on.
I want to say a quick word about drunks in custody. My constituency is not immediately affected by the current trend towards joint custody suites shared by more than one station, as mentioned in the Evening Standard. Given the problems of both cost and nimbyism surrounding detoxification centres, on which there have been no swifter developments under this than under the previous Government, I am delighted that the Kent experiment of having resident nurses on duty to help with drunks in custody is now being tested at the Met's Charing Cross police station. It will be interesting to see how it develops.
The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North referred to the commander in the royal borough. The last time she spoke in such a debate, she referred warmly to the commander in Westminster, Bob Currie. He is about to retire after 32 years in the police service, initially in Cumbria and latterly—and for a long time—in the Met. Westminster is grateful to him for his leadership.
Ms Buck: I was remiss in not paying tribute to Bob Currie on the eve of his retirement, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to offer my warm regards to him now.
Mr. Brooke: It adds pleasure to the event that I have stimulated that intervention from the hon. Lady. The fact that Bob Currie is to be succeeded by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner is a neat compliment to the national aspects of Westminster's policing, as well as the local ones.
I spoke about the City of London police at greater length in the two previous debates on London policing. I pay tribute to them today in recording the 1998 level of public satisfaction with them, reported by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, at 84 per cent., the highest for any force in the country with foot and mobile patrols.
My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire drew attention to that force's loss of personnel. I realise that that is due significantly to the ceasefire in Northern Ireland, but I hope that the loss would be swiftly corrected if, heaven forfend, Irish terrorism in the capital were to resume.
12.43 pm
Mr. Keith Darvill (Upminster): It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). I, too, served in Committee on the Greater London Authority Bill, and I had the pleasure of hearing many of his contributions, liberally sprinkled with historical and literary quotations which amused many of us.

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I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on his announcement today, which will go a long way towards addressing many of the issues about policing that have been a constant theme in many of the speeches in this debate. Decisions such as the one taken by Sheehy as long ago as 1994 have long-term effects that cannot always be seen in the first months or even years. Today's announcement is welcome, but its benefits will come through in years rather than months. London has enormous problems in the recruitment and retention of police, so it is good that the Government are attempting to address that.
I emphasise the importance of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which has significantly influenced the improvements in policing throughout the Metropolitan police area. There are always difficulties, as we hear from constituents who have not had an adequate response from the police, but generally the figures show that there is high satisfaction with the Metropolitan police, and they provide good service throughout London. The Act will continue to have a lasting and beneficial influence, and increased resourcing of local partnership will lead to even greater success.
By resourcing, I do not necessarily mean additional funding for the Metropolitan police service, although it will always welcome that. In my constituency, the local authority's adverse financial position means that it is unable to contribute to and participate in local partnerships as effectively as we would like. The 1998 Act places important obligations on local authorities which require adequate resources if benefits are to be forthcoming.
I can give a positive example. In Havering, the local community safety strategy, developed as a result of the 1998 Act, involves the police and the local authority working towards reducing injury in road traffic accidents. That is, admittedly, a small component of the strategy, but it illustrates my point. Community police officers and local government officers visit schools and emphasise the need for improved road safety. They concentrate, in part, on the need for seat belts. My young son, who attends a local school, had the benefit of one of those visits, and I can see by his actions that it has impressed on him the urgent need to belt up as soon as he gets into the car.
The important point is that since that strategy was introduced, there has been a 55 per cent. reduction in in-car injuries, and it is mostly young children who have benefited. There are also the knock-on effects of fewer visits to accident and emergency departments and fewer days off school. Community police officers and the local authority have worked together to deliver positive results. From talking to the local police and other members of the partnership in Havering, I know that they would like to develop other initiatives, but they are restricted by local authority resources. I am sure that many other benefits would flow from such work.
There are similar problems in dealing with youth crime. It is recognised locally that street crime, anti-social behaviour and vandalism can be targeted through better youth provision and the use of outreach workers. However, cuts made to those services, largely during the 18 years of Conservative Government, cannot be restored, so there is a lack of local youth provision. In my view and that of the local partnership, that is a contributory factor in youth crime.
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Some projects remain. My constituency has the particular problems of motorcycle theft and of motorcycles owned by young people being ridden over local fields, causing disturbance and nuisance. A motorcycle project is being developed through single regeneration budget funding. The local police participate in that and encourage disaffected young people, and those with records of offending, to participate. The police run training schemes and identify areas where the motorcycles can be used under supervision. The scheme has helped to reduce accidents and associated crime. Constituents are enthusiastic about the scheme, and when they see the benefits from it they wish that it could be extended elsewhere.
Funding is not the only issue. Londonwide, and indeed nationwide, the crime statistics and the Audit Commission's performance indicators clearly demonstrate that benefits accrue to policing by means other than additional funding. The key question from the performance indicators is why there are such large variations in performance between similar police forces. An example from the indicators is that in the west midlands—which also has a metropolitan police force—the clean-up rate is more than a third higher than that of the Metropolitan police. However, because of the change in the rules for counting crimes, it is difficult to compare the performance of individual forces over the past few years.
The Metropolitan police service has the highest number of police officers available for ordinary duty per 1,000 population at 3.2, when the national average is 2.1. However, the London figure has fallen since 1994-95 by 0.4 per cent., the largest decrease nationwide. The announcement today will, I hope, address that decline. At the same time, expenditure on the Metropolitan police per head of population is approximately £220, but the national average is £118. Again, the Met has seen the largest reduction in the years since 1994–95 of approximately £12 per head.
Almost all police authorities increased their expenditure, adjusted for inflation, over the past five years, but the Met has reduced expenditure by 5 per cent. That reduction has had a debilitating effect on the outer-London divisions, such as Havering, with lower police numbers and some reductions in services, including reductions in police station hours. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) mentioned the Collier Row police station, which was highlighted for closure. After an effective campaign, which was led by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mrs. Gordon)—who is unable to be present for the debate—the police station remains open, albeit with reduced hours.
I congratulate the local borough commander, Chief Superintendent Bob Youldon, and, in my own constituency, Sergeant Walford, who is responsible for community policing. I receive significant support and assistance from those officers in dealing with constituency complaints and inquiries.
During the year, the Havering police continued to respond to the many demands made on them. The borough, and Romford town in particular, continued to attract growing numbers of visitors to the many social activities and shopping facilities available, which inevitably has contributed to the increase in reported crime, especially street crime, vehicle-related crime and violence against the person. However, Havering is one of

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London's safest boroughs and the need to reassure and effectively communicate the actual levels of crime to the public is highlighted in the local crime and disorder audit.
The success in reducing residential burglary has been offset by the increase in the number of non-residential offences so that overall there has been a 5 per cent. increase in the total number of burglaries committed. Operation Arrow, a pro-active initiative funded by challenge money, was established to stem the increase and had a significant effect during the second half of the year, when non-residential burglaries were reduced by 22 per cent.
Street crime has shown a significant percentage increase, especially in the Romford town centre area, but that needs to be put into its true perspective in that the actual number of offences—an average of 20 a month—is the lowest of all London boroughs. Vehicle crime increased by 2 per cent., with areas in and around Romford town centre, and Harold Hill in my constituency, being identified as hot spots.
The offences of drug supply and of possession with intent to supply are measured by the number of judicial disposals. That number fell last year, and one probable cause was the deterrent effect of the positive action taken, with the management of late-night licensed premises, to identify and arrest drug abusers as they enter night clubs. That is another example of a good working partnership, and similar examples involve other agencies in the judicial process.
Crimes and other incidents with racial elements increased last year, with recorded offences at levels double those of the previous year, although improved public awareness and greater confidence in reporting crimes were almost certainly factors in the rise. The commitment to meet the challenges involved in all aspects of hate crimes or of crimes committed against vulnerable groups will place greater demands on police and community safety unit staff.
My regular meetings with chief superintendent Bob Youldon and his team are also attended by my hon. Friends the Members for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) and for Romford. They have proved positive and beneficial.
This is the third debate of this Parliament on policing in London. Even though the Greater London Assembly and the new Metropolitan Police Authority have roles to play, I believe that these debates should continue. Members of Parliament will continue to receive representations from constituents, and it is useful to be able raise in debate concerns about police issues in the Greater London area, as hon. Members of all parties have experience in this important area of public life and service.
I congratulate Sir John Stevens and all Metropolitan police staff on their achievements. I wish the new MPA and the GLA all success in the work that they are about to commence.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I cannot impose a time limit on speeches by Back-Bench Members at this stage in a debate, but if hon. Members can try to keep their remarks to about 10 minutes in length it will be possible for everyone to contribute.
12.57 pm
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford): I rise to speak in this debate as a Surrey Member of Parliament. A significant part of the Metropolitan police was transferred back to the county of Surrey this year. Some years ago I was a London councillor and I represented an area that stretched as far as Paddington Green, in which there were several police section houses. I have followed the fortunes of the Metropolitan police very carefully over the past few years.
In his opening remarks, the Home Secretary spoke about the recruiting difficulties faced by the Metropolitan police. His observations contrast with what the Financial Secretary to the Treasury told a debate in Westminster Hall. Only two months ago, on 24 May, he said about the Metropolitan police,
retention in the police is not a major problem.
He went on to make a favourable comparison between turnover in the Metropolitan force and in the economy as a whole, and he cited Confederation of British Industry figures for 1998–99. Clearly, the Home Secretary will have more up-to-date information, and one wonders whether the new recruiting difficulties that he has described stem from problems that have developed and grown since.
Mr. Edward Davey: I happen to have the Hansard report of the debate to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Although it is not my job to defend the Financial Secretary, I can tell the House that, immediately after the sentence to which the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) referred, he went on to say:
However, there have been recruitment difficulties, which are being dealt with through the police negotiating board.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 24 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 225WH.]
Mr. St. Aubyn: The hon. Gentleman is right. The Financial Secretary said that retention of police was not a problem.
Clearly, there have been growing difficulties in the past year. Why have they developed? The problem seems to be about more than money. House prices and the cost of living in the capital have risen dramatically over the past eight years, but the really decisive problem over the past year or two has been the deterioration in morale in the Metropolitan police.
Recently, I attended a meeting with the Surrey police authority at the Surrey police headquarters at Mount Browne in my constituency. We were informed of the very low morale in the Metropolitan police. There is no doubt that a key reason for that drop in morale is the impact of the Macpherson report. The problem has to be dealt with sensitively and carefully, but we must address it in this debate. In 1988, the number of stop-and-search operations undertaken on a quarterly basis by the Metropolitan police was 85,000; by the middle of 1999, the number had dropped to only 60,000. During the same period, street crime rose by 30 per cent.
Some of the more recent recruitment difficulties for the Metropolitan police have reflected the serious consequences of the change in operational performance and the constraints that the police feel that they are now under.
Mr. Heald: Was my hon. Friend making a distinction between retention and recruitment? Does he agree that

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about 6,000 officers a year are leaving the police service in Britain? Does he agree that that high figure is one of the reasons why measures such as the crime fighting fund will not achieve all that is hoped for them?
Mr. St. Aubyn: I agree and I feel that the Financial Secretary was being complacent in his remarks about the retention problems in the police force. I shall explain how retention in the Surrey police will be seriously affected by today's announcement by the Home Secretary, however well intentioned it may have been.
Clearly, the Macpherson report was well intentioned, but it has not achieved the results meant for it. In January, Sir Paul Condon said that police officers' lives had been damaged in a way from which they would never recover. The report was an attempt to address a real problem in the police—the problem, arguably even a culture, of racism. However, it was going too far to state that there was institutional racism. No one here would want to condone racism. I spent nearly a year living and working in Soweto in the era of apartheid. That was institutional racism. The Metropolitan police did not face a problem of that scale. Evidently, the way in which the problem was described had an impact on morale at a time when the police were already trying to deal with the problems in their ranks.
The new arrangements for post-Sheehy officers in the force are part of the price of failure that we have to pay for the Macpherson report and its consequences, and there will be a knock-on effect on other police authorities. In Surrey, we have a particular problem because part of Surrey's responsibility was taken over in April this year from the Metropolitan force. For a handover period, officers are being seconded from the Metropolitan police to Surrey. I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify the precise status of those officers and whether they are post-Sheehy officers, in terms of today's announcement.
If those officers are to be awarded the extra £64 a week on top of the existing differential over the Surrey officers with whom they will be working, that will highlight a discrepancy. If they do not receive the extra award of £64, they will find that they face all of the difficulties of their former colleagues—as very few of them will have moved house since they were seconded to Surrey—without any of the new help announced today by the Home Secretary.
That is a pivotal example of a wider problem that will face us in Surrey. Up until now, we have had a differential between Surrey and the Metropolitan police of around £3,000 a year. Following today's announcement, that will go up to £6,000 a year. The same will be true of the other home counties. I was grateful that the Home Secretary recognised the scale of the problem, which was expressed to me during the recent meeting at Mount Browne. The size of the differential has grown so much that there will be a transfer of police officers from Surrey and other surrounding forces, meaning that the recruitment problem has not been solved, but merely transferred. We fear that, at the same time, some of the problems of morale will be transferred, because we have discovered from London's experience of the past few years that it is one thing to lose morale, but a far harder thing to rebuild it.
Mr. Charles Clarke: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point and, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said earlier, I am discussing the matter with the chief constables of the forces concerned. However, does
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he believe that, for that reason, my right hon. Friend's announcement today should not have been made, or does he think it should have been made but more should be done? I should be grateful for clarification on that point.
Mr. St. Aubyn: I think that, as the Minister responsible for all policing in this country, the Home Secretary should have made an announcement that encompassed all policing in this country and not confined his remarks to the Metropolitan police. Of course, the Met will welcome the award and I acknowledge that there is a job to be done to rebuild the morale, effectiveness and success of the London force. The Home Secretary made the comparison between a London police constable of five years' experience who will now earn £27,600 a year and a London teacher of many years' experience who will earn only £26,300 a year and expressed the hope that that will attract more people into policing. However, the problems in policing cannot in the long term be addressed at the expense of other public services, so his approach is short-sighted.
The real problem at the heart of police and public service recruitment in London is the skills gap, represented by the fact that there are now in our economy 1 million vacancies, many of which are in the London area. That is the highest number of vacancies recorded at any time in the past 10 years or more, and it has serious consequences for the economy. In my opinion, it reflects directly the Government's failure to maintain the number of people going through college, especially further education colleges, that the Conservatives had achieved by the time they left office in 1997. Cumulatively, since 1997, 500,000 fewer students have completed FE courses. The knock-on effect of that is the growing skills gap. That, in turn, has affected recruitment to the police and other public services as private sector employers have used their flexibility to raise salaries. As a result, the police are now being forced to raise their salaries in London and I predict that there will be knock-on consequences for forces elsewhere in the country.
I am mindful of your comments, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have appreciated the opportunity to participate in a well-informed debate and to hear the speeches of other hon. Members. I hope that the Minister will deal with the points that I have raised when he replies the debate.
1.7 pm
Mr. Harry Cohen: To be able to speak in this important debate and reflect the views of my constituents, I have not gone on a visit to Northern Ireland with the Select Committee on Defence.
I recall a former Conservative Home Secretary meeting a group of Labour Members of Parliament and telling them that crime had a connection with enterprise. His audience was deeply unimpressed with that complacent excuse for the huge rise in crime recorded under Conservative Administrations. Crime doubled under the Conservatives: in London, violent crime increased by an astonishing 259 per cent. To an increasing extent, young offenders got away with their crimes; if they were caught, it took an age to get them to court. Nothing was done to tackle anti-social behaviour, including the vicious racial attacks that ruined many decent people's lives. In the capital, between 1993 and 1998, the number of police fell by almost 2,000. The right hon. Member for Maidstone

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and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), then a Home Office Minister, promised 5,000 more police officers, but instead delivered that reduction.
Turning around that legacy of lawlessness is a difficult task, but I appreciate that the current Government are making relentless progress. Crime has fallen by 7 per cent., and the Government are well on the way to fulfilling the Prime Minister's election pledge to halve the time taken from arrest to sentencing of persistent young offenders. In London, the time taken getting them to court was reduced by 35 per cent. between 1997 and 1999. Laws have been passed making racial violence and harassment crimes—something I first proposed to the House in 1985—and enabling local authorities to evict anti-social neighbours. Anti-social behaviour orders and detention and training orders are now available to the courts, and youth offender teams have been set up in many communities.
The Government have allocated cash to recruit an extra 1,113 police officers for London over the next couple of years. That is in addition to the Commissioner's plans. The Met has been set a target to increase the number of its ethnic minority officers from 865 to 6,526 to match the proportion in the local population. It is right to do that.
Targets have been set to reduce vehicle crime by 31 per cent., burglary by 10 per cent. and robberies by 15 per cent. in London over the next five years. Crime reduction partnerships have been set up, involving the police, local authorities and other key players. Those are up and running in every part of London.
Despite such programmes, there is a crime wave in my constituency. It is one thing to have the various youth offence orders in place; it is another thing to catch the youths in the first place. The 7 per cent. crime reduction is welcome. For some crimes, such as burglary, there has been a substantial reduction, but for others, such as vehicle and street crime, there has been an increase. In some parts of the country, there has been a big reduction in crime, which is welcome, but in other parts an increase has taken place. That seems to be the case in Leyton and Wanstead, and neither I nor my constituents like it.
There have been some horrendous exceptional crimes recently in my constituency: a murder, a robbery with a sawn-off shotgun, another robbery in which a security man almost lost his hand, a sniper with an air gun—I pay tribute to the police who apprehended the sniper—and a vicious racial attack. On top of that, there has been a high tide of youth crime, in which youngsters are the perpetrators as well as the victims. That spills over into the rest of the community. In some cases adults are the victims, and a fear of crime builds up as a result.
I know that the Commissioner has set up a safer streets programme, but it has not yet reached Leyton and Wanstead. What is it? When will it apply? That is the Commissioner's first real test, and my constituents are waiting to see whether he will pass it.
I refer the House to some comments from my recent constituency casework. A woman came to my last advice surgery from the Avenue estate, Leytonstone. She told me about a roaming bunch of youths, some as young as eight, who were very much into car crime. At 12.30 pm one day they were setting out to torch a car—a petrol can was found on the scene—but, fortunately, they were disturbed.
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The head of Norlington school in Leytonstone, Mr. Neil Primrose, telephoned me only yesterday and spoke about muggings having reached crisis levels and impacting on the performance of the children at his school. He said that whereas there used to be one or two muggings in a whole term, on Monday evening alone there were four. He has called a public meeting on the subject, which I shall have to attend.
Gill Morley of Voluntary place, Wanstead wrote to me, stating:
Wanstead has no wish to become a crime "hot spot".
Christchurch Green has, in particular, turned into a late night meeting ground and walking along the High Street after dark usually means hearing screaming, shouting and the sound of fights. The park in daylight looks like a war zone—lights torn down, trees, benches and anything else to hand are trashed.
Would you please make every effort to ensure Wanstead has an efficient and energetic police presence.
Mrs. S. J. Bass of Dangan road, Wanstead, a resident for 27 years, also wrote about the problems of Christchurch green and the George green, and listed a litany of crime and vandalism. She wrote:
My home is located near Christchurch Green. I am appalled to see that this precious and valued green area which has for many years been used for the recreation and enjoyment of local people old and young has now become the chosen "hang out" for the ignorant and uncouth … Large groups "hang out" on the green at night and are very threatening.
She continued:
Petty crime and petty vandalism if ignored and tolerated eat their way through an area and it becomes a bad place to live.
Mr. and Mrs. Green of Spratt Hall road came to my advice surgery. They have been residents for 20 years and said that crime levels were the worst that they could remembers. They called for a visible police presence patrolling locally.
Mr. Baptiste of Warren road in Wanstead also visited my advice surgery. He has been a resident for 30 years and is shocked at the current position. He said:
Wanstead is being targeted as a soft touch because there is no police presence.
That situation cannot be allowed to persist.
The safer streets programme must become effective; police must be around to capture youths so that the relevant orders can be implemented. The courts and the authorities must act because long-term, generalised plans alone are no good. There should be foot patrols and a car presence when needed—for example, at night and at weekends. Response times must be faster. The police charter talks about police responding to 80 per cent. of calls in 12 minutes. That is not being achieved. One Wanstead family who were threatened with violent assault by a gang who were stealing the wheels off their car in broad daylight waited 28 minutes for the police to arrive. The criminals were long gone by then.
I support the provision of CCTV for small shopping and business areas, and the campaign by the local Guardian. However, I suspect that the Government would not. They emphasise large shopping and business centres, not smaller ones. There is also a problem of matching funds: it is more difficult for smaller businesses to contribute. However, smaller urban centres are important. The Government's priorities for CCTV should change to help them. I have written to the Chancellor urging a tax break and an insurance premium break for those who install CCTV and take other security measures.

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The number of police for normal borough policing should be increased. Police are currently siphoned off for other purposes, which are perhaps laudable—for example, to supplement murder teams and murder review teams, and to go on secondment to the home counties. However, the Government should tackle the problem. I am pleased that they have made a start with today's announcement of a £64 a week pay rise for junior officers. Police numbers must increase, and that must permeate to the boroughs.
Let us consider small police station closures and limited opening times. My constituents argue strongly that Wanstead police station should be open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Monday to Friday opening, from 10 am to 6 pm, is the plan. Even that is not achieved because of the inability to recruit suitable reception staff. A sergeant and two officers are based there. My efforts have led to the appointment of another two officers, but they cover a slightly larger area. The assumptions about the closure programme for small police stations should be reconsidered. Closures are made on the basis of cost and on the presumption of faster response times, which are not happening. The closures and run-downs make areas such as Wanstead vulnerable to crime.
Small urban shopping areas are like rural areas, but it is easier for the villains to gain access to them and to get away from them. The Government are trying to improve the policing of rural areas; they should do the same for smaller, urban parts of London. I note that there was no Conservative commitment to reopening police stations that have been closed or to opening them for longer.
The Tory years emphasised consumerism and instant gratification, without having to earn it. The Tory Government ignored young people: they did not listen to them, they took away their training and education opportunities, they did not provide proper work for them, and they closed down their youth clubs. That has created a yobbish culture, which is a serious problem at home and abroad. It shames Britain, as happened in Brussels last week. That is compounded by allegedly pro-British boorishness, lack of civility, xenophobia and racism, and the belief that other races and other nationalities are less human and can, therefore, be disrespected.
The Government have acted on several fronts, some of which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. Youth employment has been a particular achievement. We need to tackle the youth issue from several directions. The general plan of anti-crime partnerships must result in sustained action on the ground. That is not happening yet.
The Home Secretary should set up an urgent inquiry to ascertain what more needs to be done to turn the tide. The Chancellor of the Exchequer should loosen his purse strings to implement its recommendations, which I would expect to include more youth clubs, more mentors and ways to utilise our youth as an asset to the community, rather than a threat. Obviously, there must also be more effective policing throughout London.
Crime gets people down; the Government must get crime down. I know that Ministers are determined to do that.
1.20 pm
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton): May I put on record my thanks to, and admiration for, the Metropolitan police in general and, in particular, every single police officer working in Kingston division? They
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are ably led by Chief Superintendent Alan Given, Chief Inspectors Keith Free, Paul Dowell and Nick Jupp, and DCI Kevin Hurley. Many PCs, such as Robert Newman, are embracing some of the new ideas and opportunities provided in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. They are doing a very good job and are committed to policing the streets of Kingston.
However, all the innovation in the world cannot make up for the lack of numbers, which is a serious problem in Kingston division. It suffered cuts in the run-up to the last election and has suffered cuts since, and now finds that it cannot even recruit to the establishment numbers that the Commissioner has allowed.
Recruitment has been the theme of this debate, but it is in real crisis. The Home Secretary made a welcome announcement at the beginning of the debate, but the question for the House and for the Government is whether the measure goes far enough to meet the extent of the recruitment crisis facing the Metropolitan police. I do not think it does.
The number of recruits going to the training colleges is down. The number coming from the training colleges to Kingston division has been down this year—the division has not had a new recruit for the past three months and is not expecting one until August because of the reduced number going through the training colleges. The increased salary allowance will be helpful, as it will presumably attract new recruits. The question is, is it large enough? Before the police arbitration board reached its conclusions earlier this week, the figures that were being discussed were significantly higher—we were looking at 5,000 and 6,000.
Another question is whether the pay award is wide enough. It is being made only to post-Sheehy police officers. As the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) said, the morale of pre-Sheehy senior police officers may be damaged by the fact that they are not covered by the award. Let us remember that they have withstood a lot of pressure over the past few years as numbers have dropped because of the Sheehy reforms. It is they who have stood by and taken on the extra work load. They have borne the brunt of the pressures, but their loyalty and commitment are not being rewarded. The Government must look after the pre-Sheehy Metropolitan police officers as well.
An awful lot of recovery is needed from the damage perpetrated by the Tories with the Sheehy reforms. That damage is severe, so it will take a good many measures from the Government to heal it. It will not be healed simply by a housing allowance or the future provision of houses; any measures must be wider than that to ensure that a career as a Metropolitan police officer is attractive and regarded as worthy and respectable. I cannot emphasise that point enough.
May I exemplify how the shortage of police officers has affected conditions in Kingston? Morale has fallen because of various changes that have been forced on the divisional commander as a result of the lack of police officers. For example, the division has had to move from a shift of five to a shift of four, which has meant that officers who are already under pressure now have more night duties and fewer weekends off. That has an effect. Unless more officers are recruited, morale cannot be raised and we cannot get out of the vicious circle and into a virtuous one.

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All that must be viewed in the context of a group of officers in Kingston who are trying to do everything that the Government have allowed them to do. They have entered partnerships with businesses. New business watch schemes have been set up in Kingston, New Malden, Surbiton and Chessington. There is a pub watch and an industrial estates watch in Chessington. The police have joined the safer stations initiative, which I set up. They are responding to ideas that I proposed, such as a school safety net, borrowing an initiative that was used in Hillingdon division. The police communicate with the schools in the borough, using e-mail as a rapid messaging system to ensure that if there are problems—for example, with potential sexual offenders, child molesters or drugs—messages can be communicated to schools so that they are aware of those problems and are linked to the police.
Such initiatives are very effective in tackling crime, and they are being embraced. Officers in Kingston are being more productive—to use an economics term—in tackling crime, but the problem is that there are just too few of them. It takes the police longer to respond to 999 calls for help made from the perimeters of Kingston division.
Low-level crime has increased significantly in the past two years, primarily because of the cuts. Graffiti, which hon. Members have mentioned, are rife in Kingston. The police are taking an anti-graffiti initiative and working with the local authorities and the probation service. The youth offending teams are tackling graffiti, but this is a real problem and the reduction in police numbers that has taken place over the past five years is one of the major contributory factors to its being so severe.
I make no apology for pressing the case for having more officers in the Metropolitan police overall and in Kingston yet again in this annual debate. The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) was right to argue that the Chancellor needs to make that a priority in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review. The Metropolitan police service has suffered significantly in the past 10 or 15 years. Its share of the national police budget cake has declined, and it is time that decline was reversed significantly.
I have some good news for the House from my patch in Kingston. Because of the campaign that my colleagues and I have waged and because of the excellent leadership of Chief Superintendent Alan Given, the police station in New Malden, which has been closed for some time, will now be the home of the dog-handling section for south London. I welcome that important development, which will guarantee that station's future. It will not be sold off in the Metropolitan police force's efficiency programmes. Moreover, it means that many marked police vans will move in and out of the station and that those police officers will be able to respond to emergency incidents in the Kingston division.
Kingston division has implemented the diversity strategy. We want the divisional commanders to respond to the Macpherson report, and that has been done remarkably well in Kingston, where a comprehensive strategy has been set out. Officers have been designated to deal with certain race and hate crimes and the police are liaising with the local authority to enhance emergency rehousing for victims of race-hate crimes. There is a
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determined recruitment drive, with a long list of activities by Kingston college, Kingston university and so on to try to recruit members of the ethnic minorities to the local police force.
The strategy includes providing religious support for Muslim prisoners and victims of crime at Kingston station. The Korean business community watch has been developed, which is a welcome initiative. All that has happened under the scope of the diversity strategy for Kingston. Some of the best practice in the Metropolitan police service is being developed in Kingston, and I recommend it to Ministers in the Home Office and the Commissioner.
We have had to form a community team in Kingston because of the lack of resources and the need to respond to all those challenges. It pools the nine or 10 beat officers who remain in Kingston—five years ago there were about 30—to try to ensure that they focus on particular crime hot spots. The arrangement has worked very well in the case of the truancy patrols that were mentioned earlier and in the attempt to focus on groups of youths who have caused problems in certain communities such as the Sunray estate in Tolworth, the Verma Drive estate in Surbiton and the Chessington Hall estate in Chessington. It has been effective in tackling the surge in youth crime in my area.
The problem is that there are still too few police. Chessington, which has a population of more than 10,000, has half a beat officer.
Mr. Forth: Which half?
Mr. Davey: I mean half the officer's time. For the other half of her time, the lady officer concerned has to join the community and become involved in various programmes and initiatives elsewhere in the borough.
Chessington therefore does not have the beat officer cover that it needs. We have the smallest possible number of officers, and we need far more. Not only do we need to engage properly in the fight against crime in order to reduce the number of offences—incidentally, the number increased by 11 per cent. last year in the Kingston division—but we need to respond to the public's desire to see beat officers on the streets, and that will be possible only if the Government provide resources to give communities such as mine the support that they need.
I would have liked to make many more points on behalf of local residents and Kingston police, but I am conscious of the time. Let me ask the Minister a final question. During a recent debate on graffiti, he referred me—and other hon. Members—to, I think, section 12 of the London Local Authorities Act 1995, saying that it gave local authorities power to try to clean up graffiti. My local authority, with which I have discussed the issue, tells me that although the power is welcome, it takes a long time to use it, and that the costs involved make it prohibitive for a cash-strapped authority. I do not expect the Minister to reply today, but perhaps he will consider whether that welcome power could be altered to make it more effective and more easy to use.
I end by praising the officers of the Kingston division.
1.32 pm
Mr. John Cryer: The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) sneeringly referred to what he called the cosmopolitan elite on the Government Front

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Bench. It is deeply ironic that someone like him should make such a comment. He used to represent a working-class constituency in the north-east. Working-class men and women put him here, but what did he do when he got down here? He kicked the ladder away, joined the Social Democratic party and then disappeared. I am sure that those people were glad to see the back of him, given that they had not seen the front of him too much for the previous few years.
The last royal commission report on the police was published in 1962. Since then, both society and the police have changed almost beyond recognition. There are now 4 million illegally held handguns in the country. A range of statistics demonstrate a clear link between crime involving drugs—especially class A drugs—and other crimes. There is a huge network of motorways that did not exist in 1962, which has enormous implications in terms of car crime.
Even in the supposedly leafy borough of Havering, which I represent, and in the area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Mr. Darvill), who spoke earlier, drug crime, gun crime and knife crime combine to constitute a serious problem. Although it is not given a great deal of attention by the media, there is an enormous problem in outer London generally. The media tend to focus on what happens in inner London, but outer London contains pockets of severe deprivation. I want to draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister of State to the fear that outer-London boroughs will suffer if officers are drawn from outer London and concentrated in inner London. There is fear in Havering that that will happen—it has happened in previous years, and there is a danger that it will happen again.
There is no substitute for bobbies on the beat. All sorts of attempts have been made over the past 30 or 40 years to come up with substitutes for officers on the beat. It does not work. Investment in CCTV and information technology is welcome, but those things complement people on the beat; they do not replace them. We need people on the beat to reassure our constituents.
Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to the work of police officers—in my case, those in Havering. Chief Supt Bob Youldon, the borough commander, has done a terrific job. Since he and his team arrived in Havering a couple of years ago, the profile of community policing has increased enormously, and partnerships of the kind envisaged in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 have been established. Other boroughs were already pioneering such partnerships, and arrangements of the kind had been made for many years. In Havering, they simply did not exist, and much pioneering work has now been done.
I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster about the pathetically inadequate standard spending settlement that the Government have provided for Havering. That hits a range of public services, particularly the police. Partnerships cannot be properly fulfilled and community policing is put under enormous pressure as a result of cuts in social services and other services. The SSA is made under a formula introduced by the previous Government, but we'have persisted with it. Discussion of SSAs is not directly in order for this debate, but the system has direct relevance to how the police conduct themselves.
Recruitment is a problem in the whole of London. There is no shadow of a doubt about the key factor in the Metropolitan police's inability to recruit more officers—
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the Sheehy proposals of 1994 and the abolition of the accommodation allowance. I welcome wholeheartedly my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's announcement today, which will go some way to repairing the damage inflicted in the early and mid-1990s by the previous Conservative Administration. The hon. Member for Orpington was completely wrong to say that the Labour Government had damaged the police—the Labour Governments of the 1970s implemented the Davies report, which gave one of the biggest-ever lifts in police pay.
The police have suffered more under Tory, and even Liberal, Administrations than at any other time; we should not forget that the police strike of 1919 was broken by Lloyd George. He had the leaders of the strike in and made a deal with them, then he stabbed them in the back by making the strike and their union illegal. The Police Federation that has existed for the past 80 years was the result.
The federation has called for a royal commission to investigate the state of the service, and there is a case for doing that. The bottom line is that we need more resources for the police and public services. We always hear that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has billions at his disposal, and he must open the coffers and sink a lot more money into the police. Moves are being made in the right direction, but much more money is needed for the police service and public services in general.
1.39 pm
Mr. Eric Forth: In deference to Labour Members who wish to speak, I shall give the potted version of my speech, and shall try to do so quickly. I wanted to add my voice to the sentiments expressed this morning by saying that although there is much in life that is not just about numbers—class sizes, for example—the number of police officers is extremely important. The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) has just said so, and so did most of his hon. Friends. It is equally evident to the citizens of London.
Rather than developing the argument, I shall simply put to the Minister a few simple questions. Could the Minister please tell us exactly how many Metropolitan police officers are currently available for ordinary duty? Can he tell me the current wastage rate and, therefore, how many officers he projects will be available for ordinary duty over the next three to four years? Those are very simple and straightforward questions, and it would be helpful to have answers to them.
I should like to mention—in passing, but only because of time, not because of a lack of importance—the closure of police stations. I have had one police station closed, in Chislehurst, which, for understandable reasons, has caused much local disquiet. Police stations are a visible sign of police commitment to the local community and are a reference point for that community.
Police have tried to explain the closure of my police station and to make substitute or alternative arrangements, but the local community is not and will not be satisfied. The community believes that the disappearance of the police station is a symbol of how much the Government do or do not care about what is happening locally. It can be no coincidence that, since 1997, two police stations in the borough of Bromley—one at Biggin Hill, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), and one in mine at Chislehurst—have closed. I should love to hear the Minister's explanation for that.

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It is one thing to talk about the incidence of crime, but another to examine clear-up rates—which best reflect the police's perceived and actual effectiveness and affect us most. The figure that I have on the Metropolitan police area clear-up rate is 16 per cent. If that figure is correct, it is scandalous. However, it is supported by the figures that I have for Bromley.
I have glanced through the latest figures that I have on the Bromley division's clear-up rates, and they vary from as high as 30 per cent for violence against the person, and 26 per cent for sexual offences, to as low as 13 per cent for robberies, and 6 per cent. for burglaries. On the figures that I have, the overall clear-up rate is 14 per cent. I do not want to blame my excellent local police service for that—it has my admiration for what it does—but, with those clear-up rates, I should think that the unease felt in Bromley and across London is very understandable.
I should like to add to the comments of the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) on the huge distress caused in our communities by anti-social behaviour, neighbour problems, property damage and extreme misbehaviour, very often by very young people. We really have to find a way of dealing with that. The types of measure that the Government have introduced recently are simply not working. It seems that, for whatever reason, police and local authorities are not yet prepared to use the powers available to them to try and demonstrate that we really have to get to grips with the problem.
All London Members must be aware of the distress caused daily—usually to elderly, vulnerable and frail people, even in their own homes—by the type of anti-social and violent behaviour that can be caused by a small number of very disruptive people. We have to find a way of getting a grip on that. If we do not, it would be unforgivable. I shall give whatever support I can to police, local authorities and the Government in introducing measures to deal with the problem.
I am grateful for the opportunity to put those few points on the record. The brevity of my remarks should not be taken as an indication of any intention to skip over them. However, I want to give as many Labour Members as possible an opportunity to contribute to the debate.
1.44 pm
Mr. Martin Linton (Battersea): I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) for his brevity. It is nice to hear him talking about local issues in his constituency.
I pay tribute to the quality of policing in my part of London, which I think can be attributed to four factors. The first is the strong sense of partnership between police, council, health authority and probation service in working together on an effective crime reduction strategy.
The second is the community's active involvement in the neighbourhood watch and Battersea crime prevention panel, which raises huge sums to pay for summer schemes for young people—this year, the Home Secretary opened the scheme—and to provide security locks for the elderly.
The third is community policing, which began many years ago in Battersea and has ensured that we now have many police officers with knowledge of the community that they serve.
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Fourthly, leadership has been shown by the borough commander Brian Wade and by Battersea's former divisional commander Mike Fuller. They have done a lot to reduce burglaries and to fight auto crime, drug crime and especially racial crime. I do not think that they can be blamed if they are suffering from the Londonwide problem of a rise in street crime. The figure for April was 156, nearly twice what it was in the same month a year ago. It is often 10-year-olds robbing nine-year-olds in what are essentially designer crimes. It used to be trainers, mountain bikes and scooters; now it is mobile phones and Pokémon cards.
Local crime reduction strategies alone cannot always solve such crime surges. The mobile phone industry might be able to do a lot more. It could learn from the car industry, which has been working in partnership with police and the Home Office to deliver the Prime Minister's target of a 30 per cent. reduction in auto crime. The mobile phone industry could lend its mind to that problem.
In such a debate—I am keeping my eye on the time—we should look beyond crime fashions of the day and local issues to the underlying problems of London policing. I see those as essentially recruitment and retention. The Macpherson report was right to identify ethnic minority recruitment as a vital issue. A community that is 25.5 per cent. ethnic minority cannot be policed with a police force that is only 3.9 per cent. ethnic minority. That is why the advances being made are so important. The Met deserves to be congratulated on passing the 1,000 mark; it had 1,015 ethnic minority officers at the end of April.
The Met is putting huge efforts into not just recruitment, but retention. The unit that co-ordinates that effort, the positive action team, is concentrating on ways in which to improve the retention rate, especially among ethnic minority police officers with nought to five years service—which is the most vulnerable period—and to improve the progression of ethnic minority officers through the ranks of the service. After all, the promotion of ethnic minority officers will do most to encourage people in the ethnic minorities to join in the first place. The promotion of our former divisional commander Mike Fuller is a great encouragement to many serving black officers.
The issue is whether the police force is representative of the community that it polices. That is a much wider question than ethnic minority recruitment. On the latest figure, the Met takes 56 per cent. of its recruits from outside London. That has significant consequences for the police, the community and, indeed, criminals. It means that the police will never fully understand the community that they are policing. Even recruits from the home counties, who form a quarter of the Met's intake, live in a completely different world, which is 3 per cent. ethnic minority, not 25 per cent. It means that the police will never be an integral part of the community, as they are in many other parts of the country.
If people live in London, certainly if they live in inner London, they can discount the possibility that their neighbour, or the man sitting at the next table in the pub, will be a police officer. It simply does not happen. That means that the whole community feels less protected and that the criminal has more air in which to breathe.

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Many very good officers in my area live in Surrey and come in every day, mainly for reasons to do with the cost of housing. One or two do live in the constituency and on their beat. It may be uncomfortable for them sometimes to live among people whom they have arrested, but I salute their dedication and determination to make community policing a living thing.
That is why it is important that the Met is coming home to London. On 3 July, the Metropolitan Police Authority will be established, ending an injustice that has been tolerated for 171 years and giving us what the rest of country has taken for granted for at least 100 years: a police force that is accountable to the community that it serves.
The first thing that the MPA will want to see is a Met that is largely drawn from the ranks of Londoners. It will not need to convince the Met itself of that. It is already committed to it. In a recent Home Affairs Committee report on police recruitment and training, the Met says:
it remains our clear intention to draw recruits from London communities, who have had exposure to the nature of London life and understand the local issues. Applicants from beyond the Metropolis are likely to be less well equipped to deal with all the different features of the London environment and are less likely to reflect the diversity of our public.
The Met does not lack the will, although it may lack the money. In that context, the extra £3,327 allowance offered to post-1994 recruits is extremely welcome. It is a clear sign that the Government understand the problem and are prepared to do something about it. Some will say that it is not enough, because finding a flat in inner London is still likely to be beyond the realistic reach of a new recruit.
Most people can afford to live in inner London only because they already do so. They have already bought their house or qualify for social housing. New people coming in on salaries of £22,635, for example—which I understand will be the salary—will often fall between the two stools, earning too much to go on the waiting list but too little to qualify for a mortgage. It is a crying shame that the Met was allowed to sell off so much of its police accommodation in London. We could desperately do with it now. Housing is important for the Met to allow it to attract new recruits from other professions such as teaching and nursing.
It is well known that the northern police authorities practically encourage applicants to go and join the Met and then to go back up north when they are trained. A leading police officer in the north said:
We quite often used to say to candidates that they would have more of a chance if they got some experience in one of the bigger city forces, such as the Met, and then they could transfer back.
That was Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, who is well known to Ministers. That is why an increasing proportion of the Met's premature wastage—up from 14 per cent. to 17 per cent.—is caused by officers transferring back to provincial forces. The reasons are always the same: cheaper housing, lower cost of living and better quality of life.
I am saying not that the Met should not accept good applicants from the north—we have many good officers from the north in my area—but that we need people who know or can get to know the area, who stay with the problem and integrate with the community. The whole point about modern policing methods is that we must
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enlist the help and support of the community to win the fight against crime. The best policeman is the guy next door, because people are more likely to listen to him and tell him what they know. Somebody who comes for a short time and goes on somewhere else does not have the chance to win the confidence of the community.
We are beginning to get a change towards preventive policing, with success no longer measured by the number of arrests but by the actual crime rate. The police's job is seen as the prevention of crime, rather than screeching around on two wheels, sirens blazing, to the next emergency.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is using his budget to fund some very imaginative projects. In my constituency, we have had £73,000 for CCTV in Battersea park and, recently, £19,000 for a burglary reduction initiative in the area that we now know as New Balham.
In contrast to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, I do not think that the number of officers is the key issue. So often in crime prevention people concentrate on the wrong issue—the number of arrests, the prison population or police numbers. The issue is the reduction of crime.
Of course, increasing police numbers has a part to play, but we should never forget the fact that under the previous Government police numbers were increased from 110,000 to 125,000 between 1979 and 1992, during which time crime doubled. Over the next six years, under the same Government, the number of police officers in the Met fell by 2,000 and, for the first time, crime was reduced. To base a policy on the assumption that police numbers are the key to solving crime is completely wrong; indeed, history seems to indicate the reverse. We must keep our eye on the essential ball—the number of crimes.
1.55 pm
Mr. Barry Gardiner: Some things are so important that they must be said at the beginning of a speech in case the Whips make sure that one does not get to the end. I begin, therefore, by expressing my thanks and those of the whole community of Brent for the lifetime of service to the police force given by the Brent borough commander, Chief Superintendent Paul Green. He has been an exemplary leader of the force and has brought openness and confidence to the dealings between the police and local community groups in Brent. His retirement will be a great loss, and I wish him and his wife Pauline all good things for the future. Commander Green developed a style of policing which was intelligence-led and based on resolving community problems, and that is what I want to speak about.
I confess to thinking that the local crime and disorder strategy is a misnomer because it should be the anti-crime and disorder strategy or the strategy for combating crime and disorder. It was proposed only after extensive consultation with the local community, which I welcome. The consultation showed that local people are concerned about violent crime to an extent that is disproportionate to their risk of being a victim of it, but although perception is not everything, it is a fact that those who seek to serve the community must always take into account.
Under the Conservatives, violent crime in London increased by 259 per cent. Last year, violent crime in the borough of Brent increased by just 2 per cent. I am the

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first to say that that figure is still moving in the wrong direction; I want it to go down, but it is clearly stabilising and that is critical to turning the figure round.
I speak in a week when my excellent local newspaper, the Wembley Observer, has as its headline "Mother shot". It is a tragic story of a young mother of three who was shot twice, in the head and arm, in my constituency in a long-running feud that appears to have started as a dispute over children playing. I extend my sympathy to the victim and her family, and I want to make two points about the incident.
First, it underlines the importance of reducing firearms incidents in the borough, which is one of the force's key target objectives under the strategy. It is absolutely right that guns must be made less freely available so that small incidents cannot escalate to that level of violence. Secondly, I point out that such incidents still make the front page of the Wembley Observer. They are news because they are so uncommon. People's fear of crime is of course heightened by such headlines, but they must realise that in many cities in north America or western Europe, such stories would never make front-page news.
What can the police do to make sure not only that people are safe, but that they also feel safe? Time and time again, residents associations and local neighbourhood watch schemes in my constituency tell me that they value above all else their relationship with their local beat officers. They are a vital human face in an increasingly high-tech police force.
I thank in particular the two sergeants at Wembley police station who are responsible for community safety, Richard and Geoff. They are a great double act in persuading local people to fight back against crime, and I enjoyed attending their presentation in Sudbury last week, where yet another neighbourhood watch scheme was established. It is communities that beat crime, and not coppers on their own. I commend all the beat officers, the residents associations and the neighbourhood watch schemes working in Brent, North to such good effect. They ensure that the fight against crime is truly an effort of the whole community.
Brent is one of the most ethnically diverse boroughs, not only in London but anywhere in Europe. I cannot speak in this debate, therefore, without referring to the action being taken by the police in response to the Macpherson report. The issues of stop and search and the effect on street crime have already been fully discussed. I wish to focus on other sorts of crime and their differential effects on the black and Asian communities in Brent.
Whereas the average burglary rate for Brent residents as a whole is 8.5 per 1,000 population, if one is an Asian resident, it rises to 13.3 per 1,000. For black residents, the chance of being burgled rises still further to almost double the average at 15 per 1,000 population. The good news is that burglary in Brent has fallen by 15 per cent. in the past year, but the bad news is that black and Asian residents are more likely to be victims of crime. That must change. My local force in Brent has set targets to achieve that, and I commend it for doing so. However, I must circumscribe that praise with the harshest criticism and roundest condemnation of the lingering attitudes in the police service that Macpherson publicly labelled institutionalised racism.
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Yesterday, on the day of the Tottenham by-election, caused by the death of Bernie Grant, the magazine for the Metropolitan Police Federation, Metline, arrived in my office. The front cover is a full-page photograph of Lord Tebbit and the interview it contains is a panegyric to a politician who is remembered in the black and Asian communities in London for his remarks about the cricket test. Contrast that with the anonymous page three editorial, entitled "Bernie Grant MP is dead", which gloats about
The controversial left-winger who appeared to moderate his views.
The article is a disgraceful attempt to trash the work that Bernie Grant did for community relations in this country. It is in my view a disgraceful article that will be condemned, by every police officer who is working to heal the division between the police and the ethnic communities in our capital, as simply reinforcing the old stereotype of the police that good officers are striving so hard to do away with.
I value the close, cross-border co-operation that I have with my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) and for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). We work closely together, especially on the Kenton road, which borders our two communities, to ensure that community safety issues are examined by both boroughs and both sets of police. However, I would gently ask my hon. Friends to keep their prisoners out of my cells. I know that there is a shortage of cells in Harrow, but the transfer of prisoners stretches resources at Wembley, and I trust that they will attempt to increase the provision in Harrow itself.
My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) mentioned the Sheehy report earlier, to great effect, and the consequences that it had had on policing in London. I am delighted to add my welcome today to the remarks from the Home Secretary announcing the reinstatement of moneys to the police force which will do so much to increase recruitment and retention in the force. I also wish to express my delight that at the GLA elections the member returned for Brent and Harrow was Lord Harris, who will take an active role in the new police commission for London. I look forward to working with my noble Friend and the local community to do all we can to keep the crime figures in Brent coming down.
2.4 pm
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest): I have not read or seen the article to which the hon. Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner) referred. I am sure that we are all in agreement, and I remind him and the House that no article in any magazine is as disgraceful as the horrific murder of PC Blakelock.
We have had a lively and diverse debate as a result of the diversity of views on both sides of the House. More interesting, however, is the fact that hon. Members have reflected different issues in different areas in their constituencies. It is that diversity which makes the job of the Metropolitan police so difficult and such a challenge. I am not an official London Member, as my constituency is proud to be part of Essex. However, until this April the Metropolitan police looked after a large part of my Epping Forest constituency. We are now in the changeover period and I am pleased to have the opportunity this afternoon to give my sincere thanks to the Metropolitan police who

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have looked after my constituency so well. The officers at Barkingside are highly respected and the work that they did and are still doing in my area is greatly appreciated.
Many Metropolitan police officers live in my constituency so, although I am not a London Member, I certainly have an interest in the subject. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) made some extremely important points about the changeover from the Metropolitan police to police in the home counties around London. I shall not reiterate his points, as he made them so well, but I hope that the Minister will give them serious consideration.
I welcome the Home Secretary's announcement of an extra housing allowance for the Metropolitan police, although I share the reservations of my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford. I note with irony, however, the concerns about affordable housing expressed by the hon. Members for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) and for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock). I agree with them, but the irony is that I have raised the issue on many an occasion as affordable housing in my constituency is difficult to find. I have raised the matter in connection with stamp duty and other taxes, for example, only to find that Labour Members simply laughed at my comments on house prices. The issue is important, and I hope that the Government will take it more seriously, now that it has been acknowledged by their own Members. I therefore look forward to the Minister's response.
The diverse duties of the Metropolitan police have been emphasised by those who have discussed the suburban, country and inner-city aspects of policing in London. My hon. Friends the Members for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) and for Orpington (Mr. Horam) and the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made those points extremely well. Most unusually—indeed, for the first time ever, I believe—I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer). I hope that he is not upset about that, but I agree with him about the benefits of police partnerships and community policing. The policeman whom he mentioned has done a lot of good work in my constituency, and I join the hon. Gentleman in commending him and his officers.
A couple of weeks ago, I was approached by a rightly concerned constituent, who told me that he was worried now that the Metropolitan police are not looking after Loughton in my constituency. I am sorry that the Home Secretary is not here—I understand why, of course, and am not criticising him—as I am referring to an area that he knows extremely well. Indeed, he was born and brought up there. I know that he cares a lot about it. My constituent told me that he was most concerned that Essex police might not have a wildlife protection officer which, previously, the Metropolitan police had provided for that part of Loughton. I thought that a wildlife protection officer might be needed for the deer in Epping forest, which are a protected species.
I discovered that the issue was the breeding of slow worms under carpets on the allotments of Loughton. Hon. Members may not be aware that the slow worm is a protected species, that it is rare and that it breeds very well under carpets on allotments. I had to ask Essex police to continue the important role of wildlife protection. I mention this to illustrate the diversity of what we expect of policing in London. One might imagine that the problems faced by the police are all to do with inner-city
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crime and the dramatic things about which one reads in the newspapers. But not so: the real problem with the slow worms is that they are being stolen by teenage boys.
We expect a lot of the police. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) paid tribute to the police, through his personal experience, and we are probably all pleased that he has been so well protected. The hon. Member for Deptford surprised me with her point about young people escaping on bus routes. It is amazing to hear—I do not make light of it—that the bus service in Deptford is so good that getaway cars are not needed. Every cloud has a silver lining.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), with his customary wit and eloquence, has drawn our attention to many issues concerning the inner cities. The House will agree that when he is no longer in his place, we shall miss him very much.
My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) addressed all of the key issues that face us, especially the 999 service. What he said was extremely worrying and I hope that the Minister paid attention and will answer his remarks in a few moments. My hon. Friend was right to emphasise the concerns of the new Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, which he expressed earlier this week.
We expect so much of the people who serve as police officers. They deserve our financial and moral support, and our confidence. Individual officers have told me—and, I am sure, other Members—how difficult their jobs have become; not because of rising crime, which they are trained to deal with, but because of increased bureaucracy, form-filling and overstated and sometimes misplaced political correctness which makes their jobs so difficult. I do not mean reasonable political correctness.
Mr. Forth: There is no such thing.
Mrs. Laing: My right hon. Friend says that there is no such thing. I appreciate the importance of the Lawrence report, but it is simply not fair to ask a police officer to operate with, metaphorically speaking, one hand tied behind his back with the other filling in forms instead of getting on with the job of policing.
Mr. Efford: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Laing: I am sorry but I do not have time to give way. I want to leave enough time for the Minister to answer the important questions that have been asked.
We ask police officers to face danger and take risks. A young lady who lived in my constituency, WPC Nina Mackay, was tragically murdered about two years ago during a drugs raid. She and many other members of her family, including her father, devoted their lives to the police service. Too often, we get carried away with our criticism and forget the heroism of those who serve us as police officers.
Sometimes, I am ashamed when I hear Members of Parliament complaining about the unsocial and long hours that we have to devote to working in this place. When we are here at midnight or in the early hours, we are sitting on these comfortable—well, relatively comfortable—green leather Benches and we can go and have a cup of tea if we want. We ask police officers to work extremely

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unsocial hours and think nothing of it. I am ashamed when Members of Parliament do not take their public duty more seriously—
Joan Ruddock: Oh, come on.
Mrs. Laing: Our constituents expect of us as much as we expect of those who serve as police officers and other servants of the community who work seriously unsocial hours in risky and dangerous conditions.
The Home Secretary said that London compares well with other capital cities. I am sure that the House will give the new police authority and those who police London our confidence and our support, in the hope that London continues to compare well.
2.16 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Charles Clarke): First, I should like to say how strongly I agree with the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) that the debate has been an extremely good one. We have debated for five hours, in which time 17 Back Benchers have contributed. I note all the tributes to the police expressed by Members on both sides of the House and associate the Government with them. That the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) made the shortest speech in the debate might be an historic first—I shall ask the Library to check—but we all appreciate that he did so. Every speaker, with the exception of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), who made a poisonous and insubstantial speech, made a substantive point that requires a response, and I shall go through them as rapidly as I can.
My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) made powerful points about CCTV and affordable housing. We issued new guidelines recently on the use of CCTV. They prioritise, first, parades on the outskirts of cities where people congregate, but which have not been a priority for inner-city funding; and, secondly, transport—the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) mentioned his involvement in safer station schemes. We have tried to shift CCTV into areas where it will make a real difference, and there is a rolling programme for bids and applications, so there are no deadlines. I hope that people will see the potential and bid for resources to enable them to achieve the provision they want. I agreed with my hon. Friend's comments about affordable housing, but, owing to pressure of time, I cannot accept the invitation to discuss in detail that important issue here and now.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) raised the question of tenure—I am surprised that that important issue did not come up more often in the debate. The Commissioner is currently consulting widely with colleagues in the Met on an interim policy to provide a significant step toward succession planning. The purpose is to ensure that periods of time in post are made more flexible to take account of the nature of the role and individual circumstances—for example, shorter times in stressful roles and longer periods in which there is considerable investment in training or in community relations and other, less stressful, roles. I believe that that positive approach to the issue will strengthen community policing.
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I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) focused on intelligence-led policing, which is key to our whole approach. She will be aware, but other hon. Members may not be, of the recent decision following the Budget to allocate resources to Operation Lion, which is being piloted in Lewisham. It is designed to improve communication between partners under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, and the 12-month pilot study is designed to examine the way in which local authorities, the Metropolitan police and the fire service share data, and to move the whole programme forward. That sort of intelligence-led approach, advocated by my hon. Friend, is essential if our efforts to reduce crime are to be effective.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made a powerful speech. She is right to emphasise organisation on a borough basis and, with that, the change to the borough boundaries which is taking place. It is a pre-condition for effective partnership organisation and for transparency in public debate about police performance and crime reduction, which is a key element in raising standards. I was glad that my hon. Friend drew attention to those important aspects. It is only a recent development, as was clear from the debate, but over time it will lead to a steady improvement in the quality of policing throughout the capital.
The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) raised a number of points. With regard to the basis for allocating resources across London, which has been raised by other hon. Members as well, the distribution of resources is a matter for the Commissioner, as has been acknowledged, but needs are assessed using an apportionment process known as the resource allocation formula.
The five key policing functions on which the formula is based are identified as 24-hour response, tackling crime, maintenance of the Queen's peace, community safety and partnership, and traffic management. I understand that the Met acknowledges that the resource allocation formula is slower than it should be to respond to operational needs, and it is continuing to refine the formula. No doubt the various points made in the debate will be noted. I am well aware of the suburban point, so to speak, which has been powerfully expressed in the debate and previously.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Coleman) made several important points, but I shall comment particularly on the truancy watch initiative and the key need to develop a much more powerful relationship between police and schools. We are examining the matter closely, partly because, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, much of the street crime that has been described takes place among young people, often outside school gates, and involves mobile phones, among other things. We need far stronger relationships between police and schools, and the truancy watch initiative is part of that. We are actively examining further steps that could be taken.
If I may say so, my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) made the most learned speech of the day, on the subject of pay, reviewing the issues in detail. My right hon. Friend's announcement today will go some way towards dealing with the points that he raised. I acknowledge, as does my right hon. Friend, my hon. Friend's close interest in the subject.

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I appreciate the comments of the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). He made a number of points—for example, about licensing—which are important. Our recent announcement of an initiative concerning prostitutes' cards in call boxes, which my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North has pressed, is important for the right hon. Gentleman's constituency and other city centre areas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Mr. Darvill) made an important point about partnerships. In several respects, partnerships are patchy. They do not have the necessary involvement of education, social services, health and so on, as my hon. Friend said. I draw attention to the fact that funding is available from the invest to save programme for local authority systems in England to develop partnership approaches. The Metropolitan police, for example, have submitted a bid in a partnership with the Crown Prosecution Service to support joint administration of the criminal justice system, and I gather that in Sutton, there has been a joint local authority-Met bid to build resources. I hope that we can direct more resources to the development of those important partnerships.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) made some significant points. Let me clarify my right hon. Friend's announcement today, in response to the hon. Gentleman's specific question. The Met officers seconded to shire forces as a result of Metropolitan police boundary changes will qualify for the pay award announced today where appropriate—that is, post-Sheehy officers. Those who have been seconded retain their Met terms and conditions. On the more general issue of the police authorities' attitude around the capital, as my right hon. Friend said earlier, we are discussing that actively with them and we will examine the evidence as it comes through.
Mr. St. Aubyn rose—
Mr. Clarke: I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will excuse me. I must respond to a large number of points.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) raised the safer streets initiative. All borough commanders have been required to develop a street crime intervention strategy. Boroughs with the most significant problems of street crime will receive additional support from the Met's specialist operations division. We will gradually spread that out. I hope that, over time, the policy will tackle some of the points that my hon. Friend raised.
The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton made several points. We have discussed graffiti previously, and I shall consider the legislation, as the hon. Gentleman requested. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) made one of the few references to drugs in the debate. It is surprising that so few references were made to that subject. He was right to raise it; it is a critical issue, which is at the top of our agenda.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst will excuse me if I reply to his particular questions in writing. It would take too long to answer them now. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) made an important point about recruiting ethnic minorities and police who reflect the communities that they serve. That is a priority for the Metropolitan police, and requires a series of different sorts of changes.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner) was the final Back-Bench speaker. He made a crucial point about violent crime. We are tackling that issue urgently because trends show that, while we are moving in the direction that we want on burglary, vehicle crime and so on, we are not doing that on violent crime. There are several important explanations for that, including statistical factors, and the fact that we want more reporting of violent crime, which means that the figures will increase. However, my hon. Friend highlighted major issues, and I want to assure him that we are tackling them urgently. I hope that we shall make public announcements on that soon. I am glad that my hon. Friend gave it priority in his comments.
The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) made several serious points, to which I shall respond as rapidly as I can. He mentioned the 999 service. The Met is currently experiencing a substantial increase in demand. Calls were increasing at 6.3 per cent. a year, but, since March 1999, growth has shot up to 22 per cent. a year. The early months of this year suggest that the growth in demand is more than 20 per cent. higher than in 1999. Analysis by the Met revealed that more than half the calls were not about police business and only half required immediate deployment.
New working practices and shift patterns have been introduced, together with additional staff on Friday and Saturday evenings to cope with identified peaks. Extra recruiting for people to work on the service is being undertaken. I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman's point about the seriousness of the issue.
Beyond that, we have a major control communications and information project, the contract value of which is approximately £1 billion over 10 years, to modernise the whole system. Responsibility for signing the contract will fall to the Metropolitan Police Authority. We are currently considering that in great detail.
If the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire will excuse me, I shall write to him on his point about the car fleet rather than go through it now because of constraints of time. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the Chinese state visit. Discussions between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the police are a standard part of preparations for state visits. We have learned a lot from the visit to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and future discussions are being minuted to try to avoid the sort of behind-the-hand comments, which were mentioned.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned memorials. I am advised that PC Keith Blakelock's memorial will be relocated to Hornsey police station when it has been refurbished, and people will be able to pay their respects there.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the role of the Mayor. I should love to give that a lot of time, but in the two minutes available to me, suffice it to say that the Metropolitan Police Authority holds the Commissioner to account for securing an effective and efficient police force, best value in policing, setting targets, consulting Londoners and playing a major role in the appointment of senior Met officers. The Mayor's role in policing is much more limited than that of the MPA. Subject to the Home Secretary's override power, the Mayor, in discussion with the London Assembly, sets the budget of the MPA. He also appoints 12 Assembly Members to the MPA. However, he has no direct powers over the Metropolitan

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service. The Commissioner is accountable to the MPA, not the Mayor. I wanted to clarify that in view of the anxieties of the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire.
I intended to say more about numbers and morale, but we have debated those subjects widely elsewhere. I want to comment briefly on murder. For me, the most shocking part of the Macpherson inquiry was that on murder. The Commissioner has responded positively by allocating significantly more staff to murder inquiries, providing an enhanced response, maximising forensic opportunities, increasing the use of intelligence, and improving the training and usage of house-to-house staff. The number of staff of all ranks and grades who investigate murder has increased from 816 before April 1999 to 1,020 in that month. In May 2000, the figure was 1,105. There has been a massive increase for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman identified. It is an important matter, which the Home Office will consider closely.
In a short time, I have tried to respond to as many of the points as possible. I am sorry that I have not spoken about some of the more substantive issues on police numbers and morale, which we debated previously. I hope that the statements that have been made today will play some part—
It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Rail Franchises (Sussex)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McNulty.]
2.30 pm
Mr. Norman Baker (Lewes): I welcome the opportunity to raise the important issue of rail franchises as they affect my constituency and others in East Sussex. This is an opportune time to debate the issue, given that the franchises are shortly to be renewed. I have been in touch with the Minister's office, so I hope that he is aware of some of the issues that I wish to raise. I have seen and read carefully his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake), so I hope that that helps the Minister in his reply.
I am slightly disappointed that the Government's rail policy has not been as proactive and hands-on as I would have liked. It has taken a long time to establish the Strategic Rail Authority, and we are still not there yet. Indeed, I was told the other day that fewer miles of new railtrack have been opened in the three years since the Government came to power than in the equivalent period of the previous, Conservative Government, which itself was poor.
In those circumstances, and given that Railtrack is still sluggish in spending its money rather than handing it to shareholders, the franchise renewal process is important in securing long-term improvements to the rail network. I would go so far as to say that, if that opportunity is not grasped properly, nothing much will happen in the next 20 years other than what has been agreed in the franchise renewal process. That would be a great pity.
Will the Minister explain why, when three companies were being considered for the short list, South West Trains was eliminated? My written question on this matter must have been slightly misinterpreted because, astonishingly, the answer did not answer the question, but simply set out the criteria used to judge which applicant would be successful. The rail passengers committee thought that South West Trains had put in a good bid. It drew my attention to the fact that the company had set out in detail, with time scales and dates, what it intended to do. The same could not be said of Connex, GoVia or Thameslink.
In a sense, all that is slightly historical: we have two companies left. I want to go through elements of what I think should be the successful shopping list for the franchise bid, which I hope will be considered not only by the Government but by Mike Grant at the shadow Strategic Rail Authority. First, however, may I make a plea to the Minister, which he might be slightly surprised about? It is to avoid the temptation to hit Connex over the head.
A number of complaints have been made about Connex, and some of them are justified. I use Connex regularly from my constituency to this House. It handled the drivers' dispute badly last year and unnecessarily inconvenienced the public, its trains have not been as clean as they might have been, and there are measures that it could have taken relatively cheaply to improve passenger comfort. However, Connex is trying to improve the rail network in my constituency and the surrounding area. I find it receptive to ideas that I put to it. In response to requests that I have made, it has introduced, for

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example, extra stops on the service at places such as Plumpton. Moreover, it always gets me here on time, as witnessed by my presence in the Chamber this afternoon.
I do not say that Connex is perfect by any means; it is not. It could and should have done better. However, it would be tempting for the Government to say, "We are in charge of this process. We must make at least one change to the companies that currently run our railways to demonstrate to the public that we are doing something." The Government may feel that, when the first bids are made, someone must change somewhere, otherwise the public will think that the Government are not taking a hands-on approach. I understand the politics of that, but it would be wrong to pick on Connex in making those calculations.
Connex is far from perfect, but I am deeply unimpressed by the way in which GoVia and Thameslink have approached the bid process so far. Connex has set out its plans in great detail in its document "20:20 Vision". It has contacted myself, other Members of Parliament, local authorities and many others and been upfront about its plans, but getting information from Thameslink is like getting blood from a stone. I had to ring up the managing director myself two or three times before I finally managed to get any details of its bid. I had to ring up again to get its document, "The Welcoming Network", which finally arrived only yesterday. If Thameslink is that unresponsive to Members of Parliament, I wonder how unresponsive it is to the public. Its PR on the bid has not started well with me.
I can understand why Thameslink has not contacted me—there is nothing much for East Sussex in its bid. I want to be parochial; I am here not as a party spokesman, but to speak for my constituents this afternoon. East Sussex features hardly at all in the Thameslink bid, but it does in the Connex bid. The general opinion of those of us who have looked at the bids is that Connex is offering more than Thameslink to East Sussex. Thameslink has managed to miss off entirely the Lewes-Seaford line from its map. Not only does the route not feature in its plans, but it has even disappeared from its map.
One of the crucial differences between the bids that affects my constituency is the Lewes-Uckfield line. Connex has pledged to re-open the Lewes-Uckfield railway line as part of its bid. Of course, it needs to be tied down to a date early in the franchise, if it is successful. Thameslink has made no such pledge. That is the key difference to my constituents in terms of the rail network in my constituency involved in determining which bid is successful. I have initiated previous Adjournment debates on that matter, which is absolutely crucial to my constituency and that of the right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), who was asked that his support for the re-opening of the Lewes-Uckfield line be communicated to the House this afternoon in his absence. He and I are at one on the issue. The seven-mile gap in the line could be easily re-opened because the track bed has been preserved. The SRA has stated that it wants the problem of congestion on the Brighton main line to be solved; it has a capacity problem, and Connex is 84 per cent. reliable on that corridor.
The re-opening of the Lewes-Uckfield line would solve the problem neatly and relatively inexpensively by providing an alternative route from East Sussex to London. The solution proposed by Thameslink and GoVia is to increase the capacity on the Brighton line and to
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tinker with the Arun line in West Sussex. That would do nothing for my constituents in East Sussex. If they were to pursue that suggestion, it would involve major work on three tunnels and the wonderful Balcombe viaduct, which is grade 1 listed, and cause disruption and inconvenience during the construction phase. The only line from Lewes to London crosses Balcombe viaduct; it is an important piece of the railway network. What a shame it would be to miss the opportunity to introduce another line by simply widening the existing line or increasing its capacity.
The re-opening of the Lewes-Uckfield line is regarded as crucial not simply by me and the right hon. Member for Wealden, but by other Members of Parliament with constituencies in East Sussex, including Labour Members, East Sussex county council, Lewes and Wealdon district councils, Sussex Enterprise and the South East regional development agency, the chairman and chief executive of which I met yesterday for lunch. In my view—I have tabled an early-day motion to this effect—the franchise process will fail if the Lewes-Uckfield line is not part of the successful bid. I cannot put it more strongly than that.
I should like to see other important items on the shopping list. The Government must grasp this one-off opportunity to achieve a major improvement to the rail network in Sussex. We want new rolling stock, and I think that we will get it whichever company wins. We want the Polegate-Pevensey link to be restored so that fast trains and freight trains bypass Eastbourne. I do not wish to be rude to Eastbourne, but the journey would be quicker if the trains did not have to go in and out of Eastbourne. That involves a half-hour diversion. A piece of land could be cheaply and quickly connected, which would enable that improvement to occur.
Business men in my constituency want access to the channel tunnel. They want to travel to Brussels or Paris. At present they must go up to London, because the line between Lewes and Ashford is so hopeless. When I went to Brussels, it took me longer to get from Lewes to Ashford than from Ashford to Brussels. That is how poor the line is. Moreover, it is a diesel line. We need electrification of the line between Hastings and Ashford, the restoration of the Polegate-Pevensey link, and a commitment to through services.
We also need major improvements at Newhaven. The Minister may have read the reports of two earlier Adjournment debates responded to by his predecessor, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson). If so, he will know that, when replying to the more recent debate, the hon. Lady promised to visit Newhaven and to investigate the situation that I had described. As she is no longer with us in her former capacity, I extend the opportunity to the Minister.
I assure the Minister that such a visit would be worth while. Newhaven is suffering as a result of our atomised rail structure. We have three stations, none of which work terribly well. The consensus is that we need one new station delivering top-class passenger services and proper car-parking facilities. Permission should be given for land to be developed for rail freight. English Welsh and Scottish Railways has been to Newhaven: I took its representatives there myself, and they were interested. We are on the trans-European rail network, so we are eligible for European Union money. Moreover, there is considerable growth in Newhaven, which is making

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progress as an economic unit—thanks partly to the Government office for the south east, which has been very supportive.
The difficulty is this. Connex wants one station, not three. Railtrack says that it is a good idea, as do the county and district councils: it accords with their local transport plan. I say the same, as the local Member of Parliament, but it does not happen because of the atomised nature of our railway system. No one wants to take the lead. There is a case for the Government, either directly or through SEEDA—I discussed the matter with SEEDA yesterday—to take that lead, and to bring the parties together to secure a significant improvement in Newhaven. A rail renaissance could be brought about there, at very little cost—if any—to the taxpayer. We must take the opportunity presented by the franchise renegotiations.
The chief executive of the Newhaven Economic Partnership, Julian Rea, wrote to me:
I consider that Connex's initiative in proposing a new line together with new rolling stock from Lewes to London … will transform East Sussex and Newhaven in particular. If this line is constructed and combined with Newhaven's industrial base and port connections it would make the town a major economic motor for the SouthEast. I feel certain that the NEP Board would support Connex's application for an extension of their licence.
Connex proposes regular through services from Seaford and Newhaven to London on an hourly basis; Thameslink does not. According to its proposals, people will have to change at Lewes. There will be a major difference in the quality of service provided for my constituents.
As for fares, I hope—this point has been made to me strongly by the rail passengers committee—that there will be no relaxation of the commuter cap. There is a captive market—people who have to travel to London by train whether they like it or not, because the alternative of driving is so horrendous. Those people could be exploited, but they are currently not being exploited because of the cap. I hope that there will be no problem as a result of the franchise process.
I also hope that some attempt will be made to use the spare capacity on the rail network. I live in Beddingham, in a house that is sandwiched between the railway and the road at a low-level crossing. In the morning, the road is chock-a-block with cars driving from Eastbourne to Lewes, from town centre to town centre. The train from town centre to town centre is half empty, because the fares\are too high. It is as simple as that. If the fares were cut, it would help the Government's own transport policy dramatically by shifting people off the road and on to rail. They could easily transfer along that corridor.
Some ingenuity needs to be exercised in the franchise renegotiation in regard to fares. We could, for example, consider the idea of carnets. Many people nowadays do not work a nine-to-five-day week; they do not follow the office routine. They may want to come in by train on four days, and use the fifth day for visits. Surely the carnet system that operates on the French metro—and, indeed, on our own London underground: it is possible to buy a number of tickets at a discount if a pack are bought together—could be introduced here. We could have a season ticket for five days, but five days chosen by the person who buys the ticket, and not determined by the calendar. That would provide extra flexibility.
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My final point relates to the transport corridor study. The Government have rightly put on hold road schemes for East Sussex, such as the proposal for a dual carriageway between Lewes and Polegate, which would have been immensely environmentally damaging. They have begun a transport study of a south-coast route, which will consider road and rail, and that is absolutely the right policy. I am concerned, however, that the study will report after the franchise has been awarded. If it argues that there should be extra rail—and I think that it will—it may come too late. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that the two things are co-ordinated?
I have set out why these matters are so important to my constituents, and I look forward to the Minister's reply.
2.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): Let me begin, conventionally but with complete sincerity, by congratulating the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) on securing a debate that provides the House with an opportunity to discuss rail franchises in Sussex. I am grateful for his assistance in providing my office with advance notice of some of the key issues that he wished to discuss.
Sussex is served by several train operators, including Connex South Central, Thameslink, Wales and West, Gatwick Express, Virgin CrossCountry and Connex South Eastern. I shall refer to those operators throughout my speech.
I share the hon. Gentleman's concerns about performance and quality of service. In spite of many welcome improvements over the past year by the rail industry, it is clear that there are still too many late trains, too many cancellations and too much overcrowding. In the refranchising process, the franchising director will seek evidence of a commitment to a step change improvement in service quality that covers the whole door-to-door journey experience.
At last month's national rail summit 2000, we warned train operators that we wanted the worst performers to reach the standard of the best. Performance will be a key criterion when we judge requests for franchise replacement. At the summit, operators committed themselves to improve punctuality over the next year, and we expect them to meet that commitment. In autumn 1999, the shadow Strategic Rail Authority carried out the first of its national passenger surveys. The purpose of the surveys is to provide an overview of customer satisfaction with rail travel. A pilot study identified the factors of most importance to passengers, and satisfaction levels will now be tracked over time.
The second wave of the survey took place in March 2000, and it showed that 76 per cent. of passengers nationally were fairly or very satisfied with the day's journey. Only 11 per cent. were dissatisfied. National satisfaction levels were high for punctuality and reliability, at 74 per cent., and for frequency of trains, at 72 per cent. The highest level of dissatisfaction was for value for money—only 41 per cent. of passengers were satisfied.
An improved public performance measure to give a better indication of the actual performance of Britain's passenger rail services was introduced by the shadow SRA on 6 June. The public performance measure

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combines, for the first time, figures for punctuality and reliability. It covers all scheduled services—seven days a week. Initial data cover the second half of the past financial year—mid-October to the end of March 2000. When the figures are compared with those for the same period in 1998–99, it is disappointing that only two of the six operators that serve Sussex—Wales and West and Virgin CrossCountry—improved.
The new public performance measure will provide the Government and passengers with a clearer, more accurate picture of train operators' performance. Train operators will no longer be able to choose to exclude days—so-called void days—when performance is poor. There were too many large loopholes in the way in which performance was measured under the passenger charter system that we inherited. The public performance measure is much more comprehensive, consistent and suitable. Train operators will be rightly judged on the performance of all trains, seven days a week, with no exclusions.
Let me turn now to the replacement franchise proposals. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has issued new instructions and guidance to the franchising director, asking him to deliver improvements through renegotiation of replacement franchise agreements. The instructions and guidance ask him to seek the Deputy Prime Minister's consent before entering into commitments to let any new franchise. As I have said, performance will be a key criterion when requests for franchise replacement are judged. A continuous increase in customer satisfaction will also be a requirement of any replacement franchise.
On 22 December 1999, the franchising director announced that Connex Rail, GoVia and Stagecoach had pre-qualified for the first phase of franchise replacement for the Connex South Central franchise. As the hon. Gentleman will know from the answer to his parliamentary question of 14 June 2000, having evaluating Stagecoach's bid the franchising director did not consider that it met the six criteria for assessment of proposals given to him in his instructions and guidance from the Deputy Prime Minister.
The shadow Strategic Rail Authority, on behalf of the franchising director, is therefore currently considering the detailed offers submitted by Connex Rail and GoVia. It is not yet known when the franchising director will be able to announce the outcome of the Connex South Central franchise replacement negotiations. I note the hon. Gentleman's positive remarks about Connex. Although, as he will appreciate, it would be inappropriate for me as a Minister to comment, I assure him that the franchising director will reach his conclusions on the bids on an entirely objective basis.
The franchising director is operating an inclusive consultation process for franchise replacement. The instructions and guidance require him to consult the chairman of the British Railways Board, local authorities, passenger transport executives, the rail regulator, regional planning bodies, regional development agencies and rail passengers committees. He has consulted widely on the replacement of the Connex South Central franchise, and there will be further consultation. However, the scope for making large-scale changes will be strictly limited. The shadow Strategic Rail Authority does require investment to improve infrastructure on the south coast line.
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An issue in which I know the hon. Gentleman is especially interested—he has mentioned it today, and has done so in previous debates—is the reinstatement of the Uckfield-Lewes line. Connex Transport UK Ltd, formerly Connex Rail, has included in its franchise replacement proposals a commitment to take the reinstatement of the line to a Transport and Works Act 1992 inquiry. If it is awarded a new franchise and the Transport and Works Act proposal is approved, it would build the line for an agreed price.
Connex believes that reinstatement of the line is the only way of delivering sufficient increased capacity and relieving pressure on the Brighton main line. GoVia has proposed a study of the viability of the line, which it would take forward depending on the conclusions reached on value for money and appropriate subsidy levels.
The shadow Strategic Rail Authority's position is that it requires bidders to demonstrate value-for-money proposals for delivering capacity to meet expected demand. It recognises the potential value of the line's reinstatement, not only in environmental and social terms but in delivering additional capacity between the south coast and London.
The shadow Strategic Rail Authority will evaluate the proposals made by the counterparties and take account of the costs and benefits of the scheme before reaching a decision. Before a counterparty can commit to reinstatement of the line, there would have to be due process, which is expected to include the requirement for a Transport and Works Act order. As that is dependent upon parliamentary approval, the reinstatement cannot be made—as the hon. Gentleman has occasionally suggested—a pre-condition of the bids.
Overcrowding is a matter on which improvement is needed, and it has been a particular problem for Thameslink. Thameslink has strengthened a number of its services by borrowing four class 317 units from West Anglia, and two class 319 units from Connex, resulting in an extra 3,540 seats per weekday. It has also secured an extra path, from 26 September 1999.
Earlier this week, Sir Alastair Morton, chairman of the shadow Strategic Rail Authority, presented the future map for United Kingdom rail. He said that the current refranchising process has paved the way for further progress on replacement of the 18 short-term franchises and was a big step towards development of a 20-year railway strategy.
Additionally, the franchising director has explained that the shadow Strategic Rail Authority intends to complete the replacement of shorter-term franchises before the end of next year, which entails selection and agreement on principal terms by autumn 2001. The shadow Strategic Rail Authority has outlined the strategy and approach that it wants to adopt on re-drawing those parts of the franchise map that need to change to achieve a better grouping of service patterns than emerged at privatisation. The views of all affected stakeholders have been considered and will be used to take a substantial step forward in the provision of improved passenger rail services for this and the following decade.
The emphasis will now be on early delivery of the proposals following proper consultation. The aim is to secure the investment to make it all happen. We can expect the shadow Strategic Rail Authority to drive that process forward as quickly as is reasonable.

637
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of fares. I mentioned earlier that the national passenger survey showed a high level of dissatisfaction with value for money. When franchises were first let, the contracts incorporated a number of restrictions on the level of certain fares. It is accepted that, for many journeys, competition is not adequate protection. The current range of regulated fares will remain subject to regulation and continue to be subject to an overall cap of RPI minus 1 per cent. Those include season ticket fares in the south-east and saver fares.
With increasing demand, transport objectives require that operators meet demand, rather than price it off. Price limits will need to be reconsidered in the light of the competition position of the railway in relation to road and the costs of providing extra capacity.
The transport White Paper called for a simplification of the ticketing arrangements. A simple range of tickets is in the interests of operators, who want their customers to understand what is on offer. The initiative proposed by the Association of Train Operating Companies to focus on six easily understood fare types is welcome. We are asking operators to be innovative in devising new products to encourage new travellers on to the railway when capacity is available. I note that the hon. Gentleman's suggests the introduction of a carnet system of railway ticket purchase.
It is important to remember that the franchising director is not committed to accepting any proposal. If any application is to succeed, it will have to guarantee better performance, more investment, expansion of network capacity and improvements for passengers, as well as providing value for money for the taxpayer.
If the proposals on offer fail to deliver those improvements, the franchising director may decide instead to allow the existing franchises to run their course.
638
Of course, that is the second best solution, but it is preferable to agreeing to a new, longer franchise without having secured additional passenger benefits.
I understand the issues concerning the reorganisation of the stations and lines in Newhaven. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's tribute to the Government office for the south east. Those issues are largely for the local authority and for the Strategic Rail Authority, but I will consider carefully his proposals and his generous invitation to visit Newhaven.
The hon. Gentleman raised the Southampton-Folkestone multi-modal study. Draft terms of reference have been circulated to relevant parties. It is anticipated that the study will take approximately 18 months to complete. The output of the study will then be referred to the relevant regional planning body which, in turn, will advise Ministers on the way forward. Ministers will need to take decisions in the light of that advice. I note the hon. Gentleman's concerns about the time scale of that work.
I return to the franchise replacement bids. As there is no fixed programme, I cannot inform the hon. Gentleman when announcements about the replacement of the Connex South Central or the other franchises are likely to be made. However, I will ensure that the franchising director is made aware of all the matters that have been raised in the debate.
I have described briefly some of the measures that we are taking in the context of the franchise replacement programme that are particularly relevant to the hon. Gentleman's interests. I hope that I have made it clear that, through those measures, we are determined to drive up the quality and performance of rail services and lever investment into the industry. I thank him again for allowing us to discuss those important issues by means of an Adjournment debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Three o'clock.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Social Fund
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the administration cost of recovering(a) budgetary loans and (b) crisis loans for each year from 1996–97 to 2001–02 shown as (i) total expenditure and (ii) percentage of total expenditure on those benefits. [125288]

  Angela Eagle
  The administration of the Social Fund is a matter for Alexis Cleveland, the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. She will write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Alexis Cleveland to Mr. Steve Webb, dated 22 June 2000:
  I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking the Secretary of State for Social Security, if he will estimate the administration cost of recovering (a) budgetary loans and (b) crisis loans for each year from 1996–97 to 2001–02 shown as
  (i) total expenditure and (ii) percentage of total expenditure on those benefits.
  The total Social Fund administration costs for 1999–2000 are not yet available but will be given in the Departmental Report in spring 2001.
  It is not possible to provide a projection for future years as administration costs are based on the level of expenditure in that year.
  The breakdown of information requested is not available for earlier years as the cost of some parts of the recovery process were included with other unrelated processes.
  I hope this is helpful.

  Television Advertisements
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many television advertisements have been commissioned by his Department since 1 May 1997; and, of these, how many were provided with closed caption subtitling. [126896]

  Mr. Rooker
  There have been 20 television commercials commissioned by the Department since 1 May 1997. All were provided with closed caption subtitling (teletext).

  State Pension
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would have been the difference in cost to the Exchequer if the state pension had been linked to earnings since 1 May 1997. [127618]

  Mr. Rooker:
  The information requested is in the table.
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  £ million

  Gross

  Net of income-related benefits

  1998–99

  220

  160

  199–2000

  790

  600

  2000–01

  2,150

  1,640

  Notes:

  1. Costs assume earnings uprating begins at the next uprating date following 1 May 1997 (April 1998).

  2. Figures are rounded to the nearest £10 million and are in 2000–01 price terms.

  3. Gross costs estimated by the Government's Actuary's Department. Costs net of income-related benefit savings are estimated using the Policy Simulating Model.

  4. Average earnings assumptions are based on an average of seasonally adjusted figures for the three months to July of the previous year, as originally published.

  Stakeholder Pensions
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much money was paid by his Department to the Financial Services Authority for its work on stakeholder pension decision trees. [127416]

  Mr. Rooker
  None.

  Written Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many of the written parliamentary questions tabled to his Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000 have not received substantive answers, excluding those not answered for reasons of(a) disproportionate cost, (b) information not available, not held centrally or not held in the form requested and (c) commercial or other confidentiality. [127442]

  Mr. Rooker
  None.

CABINET OFFICE

  Agenda Computer System
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what were the annual running costs of the Agenda computer system for each year from 1 May 1997 to date. [126505]

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what has been the cost so far of the Government's new Agenda computer system. [127420]

  Mr. Ian McCartney
  The annual IT running costs of the Agenda computer system, excluding manpower costs, since it became operational in February 1998 are as follows:

  £

  Financial Year

  Cost1

  1997–98

  9,166

  1998–99

  57,736

  1999–2000

  87,836

  2000–01

  87,836

  1 Excluding VAT

  Written Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many of the written parliamentary questions tabled to her Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000 have not received substantive answers, excluding those not answered(a) citing disproportionate cost, (b) stating that the information is not available, not held centrally or not held in the form requested and (c) citing commercial confidentiality or other confidentiality. [127441]

  Mr. Stringer
  I refer to the answer I gave to the right hon. Member on 22 June 2000,Official Report, columns 267–68W.

  No other written questions tabled between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000 did not receive a substantive reply.

HEALTH

  Digital Hearing Aids
  Mr. Collins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many digital hearing aids are currently available on the NHS. [126750]

  Mr. Hutton
  There are currently no digital hearing aids available via the National Health Service Logistics Authority or any contract arranged by the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency.

  However, all NHS trusts throughout England are free to prescribe the most clinically appropriate product that best meets an individual patient's circumstances and need. Therefore, trusts are free to purchase any digital product that is available from hearing aid suppliers. There are no centrally held figures for the number of digital hearing aids purchased through this route.

  In order to evaluate the benefits of digital hearing aids we have recently announced a two-year project involving twenty NHS trusts to evaluate the costs and benefits of digital hearing aids and associated service delivery changes. £4 million is available for the project in 2000–01.

  Dental Services
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS dentists were registered in Shrewsbury and Atcham in(a) May 1997 and (b) for the last available date; and if he will make a statement. [126592]

  Mr. Hutton
  The number of General Dental Service principals on Shropshire Health Authority's list for the Shrewsbury and Atcham Local Authority District was(a) 35 on 31 March 1997 and (b) 45 on 31 March 2000. There were no assistants or vocational dental practitioners working in the Shrewsbury and Atcham Local Authority District at these points in time.

  Our strategy for National Health Service dentistry was originally proposed in 1998. The current intention is to
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  publish it this summer, in conjunction with the National Plan for the new NHS. It will contain proposals for improving both the availability and quality of NHS dentistry, including the introduction of clinical governance to dentistry and strengthened professional self-regulation.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health for what reason patients registered with an NHS dentist are struck off the list by the health authority if they do not visit their dentist for 15 months; for what reason this period was reduced; and if he will make a statement. [127013]

  Mr. Hutton
  Patients who are registered with a National Health Service dentist are not struck off a list by the health authority. Dentists are paid a monthly sum for 15 months for each registered patient. If a patient does not visit their dentist within 15 months of their last attendance to renew their registration, their registration automatically lapses. Also, dentists may themselves terminate a registration arrangement at any time after giving due notice. Dentists are free to re-register their patients who have lapsed. It is up to dentists to decide whether they wish to accept any patient onto their list.

  From 1 September 1996, the registration period for both adults and children was harmonised at 15 months to provide a period of continuing dental care following each course of treatment. This streamlined administrative procedures and reduced bureaucracy for dentists. It was also intended to improve value for money by focusing payments on those patients receiving active care.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Milk
  Mr. Robertson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much milk was consumed in the UK in the last year for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [126953]

  Ms Quin
  1999 is the latest year for which United Kingdom milk production and consumption figures are available. The figures are as follows:

  United Kingdom milk production, supply and utilisation: 1999 (provisional)

  Million litres

  Gross production of milk

  14,594

  Imports of raw milk1

  111

  Exports of raw milk1

  465

  Total supply

  14,241

  Utilisation by dairies for drinking milk2

  6,854

  Utilisation by dairies for manufacturing dairy products3

  6,988

  Dairy wastage and stock change

  56

  Other uses4

  343

  Total domestic use

  14,241

  1 Milk imported or exported as packaged drinking milk is excluded.

  2 Closely represents consumption of drinking milk in the UK as little drinking milk is imported or exported.

  3A proportion of dairy products manufactured will be exported and not consumed in the UK.

  4Includes farmhouse consumption, milk fed to stock and on farm waste. Excludes suckled milk.

  Subsidies
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the effects of subsidies in the past 30 years on agricultural innovation, competitiveness and diversity; and if he will make a statement. [126321]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 19 June 2000]Agricultural innovation, competitiveness and diversity have undoubtedly been affected by the levels of subsidy, support and protection offered by the Common Agricultural Policy. The Government are therefore continuing to press for production-related subsidies to be reduced and to seek reforms which will bring about a more market-orientated Common Agricultural Policy, as well as promoting the Rural Development Regulation as a more effective way of promoting competitive agriculture.

  Dairy Farmers (East Sussex)
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to help dairy farmers in East Sussex. [126296]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 20 June 2000]Following the Prime Minister's Action Plan for Farming, dairy farmers in East Sussex will share in the £22.1 million in agrimonetary compensation being paid to UK dairy farmers in the autumn. Dairy hygiene inspection charges, worth almost £1 million for English dairy farmers, were abolished in the spring. Last autumn's deferral of cattle passport charges was worth some £12 million to dairy farmers.

  The Government also facilitated the generic milk promotion campaign. The abolition of the OTMS weight limit also is a significant benefit to dairy farmers.

  Organic Farming
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the total amount of money paid under the Common Agricultural Policy to farmers in the UK in the last financial year; and what percentage of this money was paid to organic farmers. [127018]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 20 June 2000]Forecast UK and EU expenditure under the CAP and on national grants and subsidies for 1999–2000 was £3,172 million. Most but not all of this sum will be transferred to the farming industry. The farming industry also benefits from higher food prices as a result of the CAP, which are paid for by consumers.

  £11.35 million was spent under the Organic Aid Scheme in 1999–2000. However, organic farmers may also benefit from other aid under the CAP, including the following direct aid premium schemes:
  Suckler Cow Premium;
  Beef Special Premium;
  Sheep Annual Premium;
  Extensification Premium;
  Arable Area Payments.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Best Value
  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what representations have been made to his Department on the compliance costs associated with the implementation of Best Value by local authorities; and what account he will take of such representations in deciding funding allocations for local authorities; [126757]

  (2) what annual incremental costs he estimates will be incurred over the next five years by local authorities (a) on average and (b) in total in ensuring compliance with the Best Value programme. [126756]

  Ms Armstrong
  A minority of local authorities, mostly smaller District councils, have made direct representations about the estimated costs of implementing best value. In any particular case, the actual costs will depend on the existing performance of an authority and the arrangements that are already in place to secure year-on-year improvements. Such costs are being considered as part of the current Spending Review, as are the potential benefits arising from the fundamental reviews of performance which best value requires.

  For 2000–01, the Government provided an additional £40 million to cover the costs of audit and inspection, £24.25 million of which was provided through Revenue Support Grant (RSG) and £15.75 million in grant to the Audit Commission. In setting their fees for 2000–01, the Audit Commission were asked by the Government to use grant to equalise the impact on different classes of authority, taking into account average predicted levels of RSG, and the Commission consulted on this basis.

  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate his Department has made of the average start-up costs for a local authority of implementing Best Value. [126758]

  Ms Armstrong
  The start-up costs of best value will depend on local circumstances, including current levels of performance, as well as on authorities' own judgments about the management arrangements needed to support it. The Government will commission a programme of independent research later this year designed to measure the full impact of the new policy, including the subsequent savings on service provision and the improvements to service quality.

  West Coast Main Line
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what recent representations he has received with regard to fare increases on West Coast mainline services between Liverpool Lime Street and Euston Station; [127204]

  (2) what discussions he had with the Rail Regulator with regard to fare increases on West Coast mainline services between Liverpool Lime Street and Euston Station. [127202]

  Mr. Hill
  The Franchising Director, not the Rail Regulator, is responsible for fares regulation. The Secretary of State has not had any discussions with the Franchising Director about fare increases on West Coast
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  Main Line services between Liverpool Lime Street and Euston station, nor has he received any representations about fare increases on these services. On InterCity routes the Franchising Director regulates the Saver fare which between Liverpool and London has fallen from £48.30 in September 1999 to £45 from May 2000. All other fares between these two points are unregulated.

  Regional Development Agencies
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what has been the total cost to his Department of the setting up of the Regional Development Agencies. [127432]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) spent £5.138 million in the four months before they were established on 1 April 1999. Some additional set-up costs may have arisen, but these are not separately identified in RDA's administration budgets.

  NATS
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what discussions he has had with(a) Lockheed Martin and (b) the New Zealand air traffic control system, Airways Corporation, on the future of air-traffic control; and if he will make a statement. [127213]

  Mr. Mullin
  The Department has held discussions with a number of companies in connection with the NATS PPP on the future of air traffic control. In accordance with our agreements with those companies, their identities cannot be revealed. Furthermore, in order to maintain a competitive and level playing field, the Department does not intend to release the identities of bidding companies and consortia in future stages of the PPP process.

  School Travel Resource Packs
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how much his Department has spent on the school travel resource packs launched in May; and what budget is allocated for this publication. [127593]

  Mr. Hill
  The Department spent £13,500 researching the content of the resource pack and has so far spent £46,500 on production and distribution. The budget allocated for the publication (excluding research) is £110,000.

  Transport Plan
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he
  has made of the level of funding necessary to meet the requirements of the 10-year transport plan. [127594]

  Mr. Hill
  The Ten Year Plan, including the levels of funding, will be published after the Spending Review.

  Written Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many written parliamentary questions were tabled to his 312W
  Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000; and how many have not received substantive answers, citing disproportionate cost as the reason. [127433]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  For the period in question, there have been 36 occasions where my Department has cited disproportionate cost as the reason for not providing substantive answers out of a total of 2,865 parliamentary questions.

  British Airways
  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the reasons which caused him to overturn the CAA's Decision 4/99 of 23 December 1999 in favour of British Airways. [127366]

  Mr. Mullin
  The Secretary of State's reasons were set out in full in my Department's Decision Letter issued on 5 April this year, a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the occasions, since 1 May 1997, on which he has upheld an appeal by British Airways against a CAA route licence decision, setting out, in each case, the route involved and the original CAA decision. [127365]

  Mr. Mullin
  The only occasion on which the Secretary of State has upheld an appeal by British Airways against a CAA route licensing decision since 1 May 1997 was in respect of CAA Decision 4/99 of 23 December 1999 on the appointment of scarce bilateral capacity between the UK and South Africa. The CAA originally decided in favour of Virgin Atlantic Airways, but the Secretary of State overturned its decision on appeal and directed it to award the available capacity to British Airways.

  Correspondence
  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 10 May on behalf of his constituent Mr. Page. [127367]

  Ms Armstrong
  I have now responded to the right hon. Member's letter.

  Director General of Water Services
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has for the post of Director General of Water Services. [127959]

  Mr. Prescott
  Sir Ian Byatt steps down on 31 July 2000, after 11 years of distinguished service as Director General of Water Services, the head of Ofwat.

  Following an open competition, and after consultation with the First Secretary of the National Assembly for Wales, I am pleased to announce I intend to appoint Philip Fletcher as the new Director General with effect from 1 August 2000.

  Mr. Fletcher is currently the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Post Office Users National Council
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of each of the options outlined in the consultation document on the structure of the Post Office Users National Council. [127614]

  Dr. Howells
  Peter Carr, the new Chair of the Post Office Users National Council, has been asked to consider what structure will best allow the Consumer Council for Postal Services being established under the Postal Services Bill to champion the interests of consumers. The consultation document was issued to help him formulate his recommendations, which I expect to receive shortly. It would not be appropriate to comment until these have been received.

  Written Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many written parliamentary questions tabled to his Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000 have not received substantive answers on the grounds that the information is(a) not held centrally, (b) not held in the form requested or (c) not available. [127096]

  Mr. Byers
  [holding answer 21 June 2000]We have answered 1,707 written parliamentary questions between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000. The information requested is as follows:(a) six, (b) 12 and (c)

  In some of these answers we were in fact able to provide part of the information requested, while citing the above reasons for not providing all of the information requested.

  Low Pay Commission
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the Low Pay Commission has been given its new terms of reference; and if any new members have been appointed. [127856]

  Mr. Byers
  The Government sent new terms of reference to the Low Pay Commission on 15 May and asked it to report by July 2001. I am also pleased to announce the appointment of two new members of the Commission: David Coats and Ian Hay are replacing Bill Callaghan and Laurie Dewar. David Coats is Head of the Economic and Social Affairs Department at the TUC and Ian Hay is the Chief Executive of the Scottish Association of Master Bakers.

  Under its new terms of reference, the Commission is asked to:
  (i) continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of the National Minimum Wage, with particular reference to:
  the effect on pay, employment and competitiveness in low paying sectors and small firms;
  the effect on particular groups of workers, such as young people, women, ethnic minorities, homeworkers, people with disabilities and voluntary sector workers;
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  the effect on pay structures, including the effect on differentials and different pay systems, and the impact of the special rules for output work, unmeasured hours work and salaried hours work;
  the interaction between the national minimum wage and the tax and benefit systems; and
  the interaction between the national minimum wage and the New Deal 18–24 and the New Deal 25 plus
  (ii) recommend whether there is a case for increasing the main national minimum wage rate and the development rate, and if so, by how much, and whether there is a case for making any change to the maximum accommodation offset. In reaching views on these matters, the LPC should take into account movements in earnings and the actual and likely future impact on the economy, on employment and on training, with particular attention on the youth labour market. The recommendations on the rates may include a further examination, in the light of fuller evidence, of the case for changing the age at which workers become entitled to the adult rate.

  In making its recommendations, the Commission should have regard to the wider economic and social implications; the likely effect on employment and inflation; the impact on the costs and competitiveness of business, particularly the small firms sector, and the potential costs to industry and the Exchequer.

  The Commission is asked to report to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry by July 2001.

  Ministerial Cars
  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many cars are used by ministers and officials in his Department and its non-departmental public bodies; and how many of those cars are Rovers. [125690]

  Mr. Byers
  [holding answer 12 June 2000]In line with the policy of successive Administrations, contracts for Ministers' cars are entered into with the Government Car and Dispatch Agency. 26 cars are used by Ministers and officials in my Department. Two are presently Rovers, including my own car.

  I am currently reviewing this whole area, including the option of giving preference to UK-built cars when this is consistent with securing value for money and meeting our legal obligations.

  Gas and Electricity Consumers Council
  Mr. Sarwar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement about the regional organisation of the proposed Gas and Electricity Consumers Council. [127855]

  Dr. Howells
  Following extensive consultation and discussion, I can announce the future organisation of the Gas and Electricity Consumers Council. It will have a head office based in London. It will have offices in Glasgow serving Scotland, in Cardiff serving Wales, and further offices in Manchester, Birmingham, London, Newcastle and Bournemouth serving England.

  Single Currency
  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the costs to his Department of switching from the pound to the euro. [126400]
  315W
  Mr. Byers
  Should the UK decide to join the euro, the cost of a changeover would depend on the detailed approach taken to a changeover.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Indonesia and the Moluccas
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to offer(a) assistance for managing peacekeeping operations in Indonesia and (b) funds for emergency relief assistance to the Moluccas. [126281]

  Mr. Battle
  We fully support President Wahid in his efforts to bring a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Maluku and other regions. As part of the international effort through the United Nations Development Programme, we have already funded two conferences on reconciliation in Maluku and a BBC seminar on objective conflict reporting for journalists there. We stand ready to help with further conflict prevention projects.

  The Department for International Development is helping the United Nations Development Programme to promote reconciliation in Maluku and other areas of conflict in Indonesia. It has also seconded a specialist to work with UNDP to establish mechanisms to manage the UN humanitarian response and that of the international community, within a framework agreed by the Indonesian Government.

  Sanctions (Iraq)
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of recent research published in The Lancet on the number of babies and young children dying in Iraq following the Gulf conflict and the initiation of the United Nations sanctions; and if he will make a statement. [126277]

  Mr. Hain
  We remain extremely concerned by reports of high rates of infant and child mortality in central and southern Iraq. But we welcome the fact that in northern Iraq—where Saddam Hussein's writ does not run—child mortality rates are now lower than they were before the Gulf War. The UK has always advocated and supported initiatives aimed at better targeting the humanitarian efforts to help the most vulnerable. We led the way over the last year in introducing significant changes to the UN humanitarian programme in Iraq, through the adoption of Security Council resolution 1284 and 1302. Those changes mean that there will be an estimated $10 billion this year alone for the programme. As the UN Secretary-General has concluded, this will put the Government of Iraq in a position to reduce malnutrition levels and to improve the health status of the Iraqi people.

  Appearance Bail Guarantees
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on how many occasions in the last two years appearance bail guarantees have been given by the British Embassy to the Saudi authorities in respect of Britons detained in that country. [126250]
  316W
  Mr. Hain
  The British Embassy in Riyadh has given no appearance guarantees on behalf of Britons detained in Saudi Arabia during the past two years. A locally engaged member of staff gave his personal guarantee on one occasion on 8 December 1999 to enable a British Citizen to be released from prison. This was a personal act on the part of the individual and not an official act by the Embassy.

  United Nations (Preventive Diplomacy)
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much the United Kingdom's financial contribution to the UN was in each of the last five years; and what proportion of this was spent on preventative diplomacy. [126249]

  Mr. Hain
  The United Kingdom's total financial contribution (ie comprising total assessed contributions and total voluntary contributions) to the United Nations organisations and peacekeeping for the calendar years 1994 to 1998 has been:

  £

  1994

  304,969,947

  1995

  328,855,981

  1996

  304,577,521

  1997

  309,260,413

  1998

  330,058,906

  A breakdown of these totals appears in the Departmental Reports of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1995 to 2000, copies of which are in the Library of the House.

  Due to difficulties in extracting from the overall budget figures which may be attributed to preventive diplomacy, the United Nations Secretariat has been unable to estimate the proportion of UK contributions that has been spent in this area.

  Coptic Christians
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations he has made to the Egyptian authorities about the rights under Egyptian law of the Coptic Christian minority. [126492]

  Mr. Hain
  The Egyptian Constitution provides for equal public rights and duties without discrimination because of religion or creed and guarantees the freedom of belief.

  We regularly discuss inter-faith issues with the Egyptian authorities; indeed this was one of the focuses of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's discussions when he visited Cairo in January this year.

  Kashmir
  Mr. Hilary Benn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations he has made to the Governments of India and Pakistan on Kashmir; and if he will make a statement. [126849]
  317W
  Mr. Hain
  We regularly raise the issue of Kashmir with the Governments of India and Pakistan. Both Governments are well aware of our concerns over human rights and external support for terrorism in Kashmir. We have also made clear our view that progress on the issue will only be made through dialogue. Most recently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State discussed Kashmir with the Indian Government during his visit to India in April.

  Sierra Leone
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the(a) powers and (b) resources made available to the Chairman of the Board of the Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development under the Lomé Agreement; and what assessment he has made of the relationship between that appointment and the funding of the Revolutionary United Front. [126889]

  Mr. Hain
  The Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development was created to help the Government of Sierra Leone exercise full control of the exploitation of gold, diamonds and other resources for the benefit of the people of Sierra Leone.

  Under the Lomé Peace Agreement, the Chairmanship of the Commission was offered to the leader of the Revolutionary United Front, Foday Sankoh. The Board of the Commission was to comprise two representatives of the Government of Sierra Leone, two from the Revolutionary United Front party, three representatives from civil society, and two representatives from other political parties appointed by Parliament.

  Under its bilateral aid programme, the Department for International Development provided the Commission with three Land Rover vehicles, a computer, some office equipment, a satellite telephone and some items of furniture.

  We have seen no evidence that any funds which may have been provided to the Commission were used by the Revolutionary United Front party, or that Sankoh's position as Chair of the Commission gave him access to new sources of funding for the Revolutionary United Front.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what training of Revolutionary United Front officials took place as a result of Article III of the Lomé Peace Agreement; and if he will make a statement. [126885]

  Mr. Hain
  Article III of the Lomé Peace Agreement provides for the transformation of the Revolutionary United Front into a political party, and for training for the RUF in party organisation and functions, in order for it to enter the democratic process in Sierra Leone. No training of officials of the Revolutionary United Front has yet taken place. The holding of free and fair democratic elections remains an essential part of Sierra Leone's efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he made(a) to and (b) via the Commonwealth Secretariat
  318W
  regarding the release of prisoners and award of amnesty during the period of negotiations of the Lomé Peace Agreement on Sierra Leone. [126891]

  Mr. Hain
  We remained in regular touch with the Commonwealth Secretariat throughout the Lomé peace negotiations.

  The Commonwealth is one of several international moral guarantors of the Lomé Peace Agreement.

  FCO Management Board
  Ms Ryan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on new appointments to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Management Board. [127854]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  The Board of Management is chaired by the Permanent Under-Secretary and oversees the administration of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and all its resources at home and overseas. It has in the past been composed of Senior FCO officials together with the Chief Executive of British Trade International. They will now be joined by two non-executive members, Mr. Alan Gormly, Chairman of BPB Industries, and Ms Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Director of Corporate Affairs of Tesco plc. I am sure that the Board will benefit greatly from their experience of private sector management practice.

DEFENCE

  SA80
  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the current status of the programme to make modifications to the SA80; when he plans to award a contract; if the modifications will be carried out in the United Kingdom; what is the value of contracts to modify the SA80; how many SA80 rifles have been modified to date to correct identified faults; and when the planned modification work to the SA80 will be complete. [126425]

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the current status is of the upgrade programme for the SA80 and the LSW. [127324]

  Dr. Moonie
  The SA80 is an effective weapon system, we plan to retain in service until 2020. There has, however, been concern expressed over its reliability in certain circumstances. We therefore commissioned Heckler and Koch (H&K), a subsidiary of Royal Ordnance, to assess its reliability and to design potential modifications. H&K identified a number of design problems that affected the weapon's performance, especially in extremes of climate. Their proposed modifications were subjected to extensive trails in Alaska and Kuwait. The final report from H&K demonstrated that significant improvements in the reliability of the SA80 could be achieved to make this weapon system among the best in the world.

  Having considered all options, including the procurement of a new weapon system, we have concluded that the modification of the SA80 represents the most cost effective solution to the provision of reliable weapons in all climatic conditions. The Secretary of State has,

  319W
  therefore, approved, subject to satisfactory contractual negotiations, the award of a contract to H&K to modify some 200,000 SA80 weapons, including both the Individual Weapon and the Light Support Weapon. The overall cost of the modification programme is estimated at around £80 million, taking account of the cost of trials and support. The contract will provide for numbers to be varied, up or down, as our assessment of the overall final requirement for modified weapons evolves over the next few years.

  We will apply the principles of Smart Procurement to achieve the earliest possible in-service date. The first modified weapons will be produced next January, with a total of 22,000 weapons to be delivered by the end of next year. The modified weapons will be subject to a rigorous testing and acceptance programme in the hands of troops to ensure that the production weapons are both effective and reliable.

  The Ministry of Defence is exploring with the company the scope to maximise the number of UK jobs involved in the modification programme. Early indications are that work on the stripping and refurbishment of weapons prior to modification will be done in the UK. The modifications

  Royal Navy/Royal Marines

  Rank

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  19960

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  Total

  Commander

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Lieutenant (RM)

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Midshipman

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Warrant Officer (RM)

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Charge Chief Petty Officer

  0

  2

  3

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  5

  Chief Petty Officer

  4

  4

  1

  2

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  14

  Colour Sergeant (RM)

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Petty Officer

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Sergeant (RM)

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Leading Rate

  0

  1

  0

  3

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  5

  Corporal (RM)

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  2

  Ableseaman

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  3

  0

  2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  6

  Marine 1 (RM)

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  2

  Ordinary Rate

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  2

  Total

  4

  8

  5

  6

  1

  6

  1

  5

  2

  0

  4

  0

  43

  Rate per 1,000 Strength

  0.06

  0.13

  0.10

  0.10

  0.02

  0.11

  0.02

  0.11

  0.04

  0.00

  0.09

  —

  —

  Average Strength (thousands)

  64.2

  62.7

  62.3

  61.5

  58.4

  54.4

  50.2

  47.2

  44.8

  44.2

  43.5

  —

  —

  Army

  Rank

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  Total

  Lieutenant Colonel

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Major

  0

  0

  2

  0

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  4

  Captain

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  2

  Lieutenant

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  2nd Lieutenant

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  2

  Warrant Officer 1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Warrant Officer 2

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  0

  1

  1

  1

  2

  0

  0

  7

  Staff Sergeant

  1

  1

  1

  0

  2

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  1

  0

  7

  Sergeant

  3

  1

  4

  0

  1

  0

  2

  2

  3

  0

  0

  1

  17

  Corporal

  1

  5

  4

  4

  1

  3

  0

  3

  1

  2

  0

  0

  24

  Lance Corporal

  6

  1

  2

  2

  1

  4

  4

  4

  1

  1

  1

  0

  27

  Private

  10

  10

  7

  13

  10

  12

  7

  6

  8

  3

  3

  0

  89

  Junior

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Total

  22

  20

  22

  19

  18

  19

  16

  17

  15

  9

  5

  1

  183

  Rate per 1,000 Strength

  0.14

  0.13

  0.14

  0.13

  0.13

  0.15

  0.14

  0.15

  0.13

  0.08

  0.04

  —

  —

  Average Strength (thousands)

  161.8

  159.1

  155.3

  150.9

  138.6

  125.7

  114.8

  113.5

  113.0

  113.4

  112.9

  —

  —

  320W
  package itself was designed by H&K at Oberndorf in Germany and it is likely to make sense to conduct most of the modification work there.

  Suicides
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the annual suicide rate is of active service members of(a) the Army, (b) the Royal Navy and (c) the Royal Air Force in each year since 1989, stating in each case (i) the number of suicides and (ii) the number of attempted suicides recorded classified by rank; what measures have been taken to improve the armed forces' approach to preventing suicide; and if he will make a statement. [126902]

  Dr. Moonie
  Since 1 January 1989 there have been 285 recorded suicides in the Armed Forces. A breakdown of this number by Service and rank is given in the tables1. Information on the number of attempted suicides is not recorded.
  1 The information is as recorded up to 16 June 2000. Figures are for those cases of self-inflicted death recorded as suicide by a Coroner's Court. The information covers regular Armed Forces personnel including Gurkhas. It does not include Territorial Army, Reserve forces, Foreign Service personnel or the Gibraltar Regiment.321W

  RAF

  Rank

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  Total

  Wing Commander

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Squadron Leader

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Flight Lieutenant

  0

  1

  0

  0

  2

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  4

  Pilot Officer

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Chief Technician

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Flight Sergeant

  0

  1

  0

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  3

  Sergeant

  0

  4

  3

  2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  10

  Corporal

  3

  2

  0

  1

  3

  3

  1

  2

  0

  0

  1

  0

  16

  Junior Technician

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  2

  Senior Aircraftsman

  2

  3

  4

  1

  4

  2

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  18

  Leading Aircraftsman

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Aircraftsman

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Total

  5

  14

  8

  7

  9

  6

  3

  2

  4

  0

  1

  0

  59

  Rate per 1,000 Strength

  0.06

  0.16

  0.09

  0.08

  0.11

  0.08

  0.04

  0.03

  0.07

  0.00

  0.02

  —

  —

  Average Strength (thousands)

  90.6

  89.3

  87.8

  84.5

  79.4

  74.1

  70.0

  63.6

  57.2

  55.7

  55.0

  —

  —

  For most age groups (including the vulnerable group of single males below the age of 25) rates of intentionally self-inflicted death (ISID) are no higher than in the civilian population. All three Services take the problem seriously and have measures in place, both within and independently of the chain of command, to enable vulnerable individuals to seek help. These include procedures for putting people in touch with voluntary organisations and access to help lines (including the Samaritans). Service personnel can also seek help and advice from unit welfare officers, the Defence Medical Service, and from their chaplain.

  Commanders and managers are provided with awareness training, so that they are aware of the various sources of advice and help available for vulnerable people under their command. All three Services convene formal Boards of Inquiry following self-inflicted deaths to examine the circumstances and to assess whether steps can be taken to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

  Compensation
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much money he has paid in compensation to service personnel in each of the last five years; how many personnel received payments; and if he will make a statement. [127175]

  Dr. Moonie
  The amount and number of common law compensation paid to Service personnel or their dependants for injuries sustained or death during service in each of the past five financial years is as follows:

  Year

  £ million

  Cases settled

  1995–96

  12.1

  235

  1996–97

  14.5

  348

  1997–98

  25.3

  369

  1998–99

  26.7

  412

  1999–2000

  31.0

  490

  In addition to the increase year on year in the number of claims settled, the general level of payments has increased in accordance with case law above the rate of inflation.

  Departmental Land
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps he is taking to open up his Department's land for recreational use by the general public. [127230]

  Dr. Moonie
  There is already a presumption in favour of public access to the Defence Estate, subject to operational safety, security and conservation considerations. The recently published Defence Estate Strategy, "In Trust and on Trust", which was launched by the Secretary of State for Defence on 7 June, both reiterates this presumption and our commitment to future public access. Furthermore, it includes an assurance that the byelaws in force under the Military Lands Act 1892 and 1900 will be kept under review to ensure that access opportunities are not restricted unnecessarily. A copy of the strategy was placed in the Library of the House. The Ministry of Defence has also published a booklet entitled "Walks on MOD Land". This has recently been revised, and I anticipate that an expanded edition will be issued around the end of this year.

  Written Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many written parliamentary questions were tabled to his Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000; and how many have not received substantive answers, citing disproportionate cost as the reason. [127440]

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

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Millennium Dome
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will publish the correspondence between the Millennium Commission and his Department relating to the latest grant of additional funds to the Millennium Dome. [124386]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 5 June 2000]I wrote to the hon. Member on 7 June in my capacity as Chairman of the Millennium Commission on this issue. Copies of the letter have been placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Television Licences
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the television licence(a) schemes and (b) fees that are available to retired people. [125984]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  Under the Accommodation for Residential Care concessionary licence scheme, pensioners and disabled people living in residential homes and in qualifying sheltered accommodation are entitled to a £5 television licence. In order to qualify for the concessionary scheme, sheltered accommodation must.

  (a) form part of a group of at least four dwellings within a common and exclusive boundary (though up to 25 per cent. of units in a scheme can be properties purchased under the 'right to buy' legislation);

  (b) be specially provided for occupation by disabled people or retired people aged 60 years or over.

  (c) be provided or managed by a local authority, a housing association or a development corporation; and

  (d) have a person (e.g. a warden) whose function is to care for the needs of the residents and who either lives on site or works there for at least 30 hours a week.

  Approximately 650,000 people qualify for the £5 concessionary licence. From November this year, people aged 75 or over will be entitled to a free television licence. Approximately 3.5 million households will benefit from this concession.

  Mr. Hurst
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what estimate he has made of the number of pensioners who will be eligible for the concessionary free television licence. [127611]

  Janet Anderson
  Everyone aged 75 or over will be eligible for a free television licence from 1 November this year, but television licences cover households rather than individuals. Approximately 3.5 million households will benefit from the concession.

  BBC (Advertisements)
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if it is his policy to prohibit the introduction of commercial advertisements on BBC1 and BBC2. [126301]

  Janet Anderson
  [holding answer 20 June 2000]Under the Charter and Agreement the BBC is unable to introduce commercial advertisements on any of its public services without my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's approval. We would not permit commercial advertisements on licence fee-funded services.

  Television Arts
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what steps he is taking to encourage national training schemes for television and film scriptwriters; [127107]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the future funding of the Television Arts Performance Showcase. [127108]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 21 June 2000]I am aware of the work of the Television Arts Performance Showcase and the significant contribution to television and film by writers who have participated in the scheme. It is at present largely for the industry to 324W
  determine which training schemes to support and we have asked the Audio- Visual Industries Training Group, which we established to consider how to meet broadcasting industry skills needs to include scriptwriting in its considerations. The Group is due to report towards the end of the year. The new Film Council has identified training for scriptwriters as a priority area for funds which will be available from the autumn to support training.

  Dunkirk (Little Ships)
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what representations he has received concerning proposals to preserve for posterity a number of the little ships which took part in the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940; and if he will make a statement. [127305]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 22 June 2000]My Department has received a number of letters about the Dunkirk Little Ships Restoration Trust's application to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for support of a project involving the restoration of four vessels and the acquisition of a fifth for use as a visitor centre. The application was rejected last October, but the HLF has since then been in discussion with the Trust to offer advice on how best to submit a further application. I understand that the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum are prepared to offer professional support to the Trust with a view to ensuring a viable future for these historic vessels.

  Battle of Britain Memorial
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what representations he has received concerning proposals to erect a Battle of Britain memorial on the Thames Embankment; and if he will make a statement. [127304]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 22 June 2000]My Department has received correspondence about the proposal to erect a memorial on the Thames Embankment by the Battle of Britain Historical Society, though matters have yet to reach a stage where we are officially involved. Westminster City Council has identified a potential site for a monument but as yet no application for planning permission has been received from the Society. Large outdoor monuments to the Battle of Britain already exist in Folkestone and Croydon, and the Imperial War Museum last week opened a major permanent exhibition at Duxford which will educate and inform future generations and act as a continuing commemoration of The Few.

  Interactive Voice Response Systems
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many agencies of his Department use interactive voice response systems when dealing with telephone inquiries from the general public. [127549]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  The only agency of my Department is the Royal Parks Agency, who do not use any interactive voice response systems for public telephone lines.
  325W
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many departmental telephone lines used by the general public are responded to by interactive voice response systems. [127550]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  My Department does not use any interactive voice response systems for public telephone lines.

  Written Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many written parliamentary questions were tabled to his Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000; and how many of them have not received substantive answers, with disproportionate cost cited as the reason. [127335]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 22 June 2000]1,044 written parliamentary questions were tabled to my Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000.

  Seven questions were answered in which disproportionate cost was cited as the reason for not providing all the information requested.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Magistrates
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the(a) ethnic background and (b) gender of (i) lay magistrates, (ii) stipendiary magistrates and (iii) recorders in (1) numerical and (2) percentage terms. [127144]

  Jane Kennedy
  The following tables set out the ethnic background and gender of (i) lay magistrates (ii) stipendiary magistrates and (iii) recorders. The trends are changing, however. For example, the table shows that 4.5 per cent. of lay magistrates are of ethnic minority origin. In 1997 and 1998, however, 6.5 per cent. of new appointments were of ethnic minority origin and in 1999 7.6 per cent. of new appointments were of ethnic minority origin.

  The information on lay magistrates is held on a relatively new database. The information on ethnic origin was taken from a survey conducted in 1997 and, since then, from declarations made by new appointees. The information held in the database has not yet been validated. It is expected that this will take place in the autumn.

  Post

  Total

  Of ethnic minority origin

  Percentage

  Lay magistrates

  25,917

  1,157

  4.5

  Stipendiary magistrates

  96

  2

  2.1

  Acting stipendiary magistrates

  146

  4

  2.7

  Recorders

  1,352

  35

  2.6

  Post

  Total

  Male

  Female

  Lay magistrates

  25,917

  13,218 (51.0%)

  12,699 (49.0%)

  Stipendiary magistrates

  96

  82 (85.4%)

  14 (14.6%)

  Acting stipendiary magistrates

  146

  121 (82.9%)

  25 (17.1%)

  Recorders

  1,352

  1,188 (87.9%)

  164 (12.1%)

  326W
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many magistrates have been recommended for removal from sitting on the bench by a local advisory committee and how many have been removed in each of the last three years. [127146]

  Jane Kennedy
  No information is kept on the number of recommendations for removal received from Advisory Committees. In each of the last three years the numbers of magistrates removed from the bench were as follows:

  Year

  Number

  1997

  13

  1998

  11

  1999

  15

  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what information he collates on the number of magistrates referred to local advisory committees for failing to attain required competencies. [127145]

  Jane Kennedy
  Since the Magistrates New Training Initiative came into force in 1998 there have been no such referrals.

  Warrants of Possession
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many warrants of possession were issued in respect of residential properties in(a) Great Britain and (b) each county court, in each year since 1990 to date. [127206]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Lord Chancellor's Department is responsible for the courts in England and Wales. The number of warrants of possession issued on residential properties in each year since 1990 is as follows:

  Year

  Number of warrants issued

  1990

  106,980

  1991

  133,101

  1992

  124,209

  1993

  124,271

  1994

  115,577

  1995

  117,301

  1996

  111,473

  1997

  115,646

  1998

  129,961

  1999

  136,718

  A table, setting out, for each county court, the number of warrants of possession issued on residential properties in each year since 1990, will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

PRIME MINISTER

  Performance and Innovation Unit
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the topics which have been considered by the Performance and Innovation Unit since its inception. [126501]
  327W
  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 20 June 2000]The PIU has published the following project reports:Encryption and Law Enforcement (May 1999);
  e-commerce@its.best.uk (September 1999);
  Rural Economies (December 1999);
  Wiring it up: Whitehall's Management of Cross-cutting Policies and Services (January 2000);
  Adding it up: Improving Analysis and Modelling in Central Government (January 2000);
  Reaching Out: The role of Central Government at Regional and Local Level (February 2000);
  Winning the Generation Game: Improving Opportunities for People aged 50–65 in Work and Community Activity (April 2000);
  Recovering the Proceeds of Crime (June 2000).

  The Unit has also considered the key long-term Strategic Challenges that government will have to face. A Paper on "The Future And How To Think About It" has been published on the PIU website.

  The following projects have been announced, but have not yet published their reports:
  The future of the Post Office Network;
  Trade, Social, Health and Environmental Objectives on the Global Stage;
  Electronic Delivery of Government Services; and
  Effective Leadership in Delivering Public Services.

  The PIU is also providing support to the Prime Minister's current review of adoption.

  Ministerial Residences
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 5 June 2000,Official Report, column 50W, if he will list in respect of council tax liabilities for each residence (a) which Ministers have council tax paid for them from Government funds and (b) which Ministers declare these properties to be their (i) main and (ii) secondary residence. [126467]

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 20 June 2000]The Deputy Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Education and Employment have the council tax on their official residences paid for by their Departments, as their primary residences are elsewhere.

  The Minister for the Cabinet Office and myself declare our official residences as our main residences.

  Ministerial Meetings
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Prime Minister how many times he met President Clinton outside the UK and the United States of America between 1 May 1997 and 1 July 1998; and what were the(a) dates, (b) locations and (c) purpose of each meeting. [127129]

  The Prime Minister
  On 26–27 May 1997 I attended the NATO/Russia summit in Paris at which President Clinton was also present, although no formal meeting took place.

  Neill Committee's
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Prime Minister for what reason he has not yet responded to the Neill Committee's Sixth report into Standards in Public Life. [127093]
  328W
  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 21 June 2000]The Government response to the report has not been delayed. The report deals with serious issues across a wide range of subjects, some with constitutional implications. The Government intend to respond to Parliament by the summer recess.

  Official Spokesmen
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the role of his Official Spokesman in relation to party political activities. [127428]

  The Prime Minister
  Alastair Campbell is the Government's Chief Press Secretary. He does this on my behalf and on the Government's behalf. He is bound by the Model Contract for Special Advisers and his role is entirely in accordance with that contract.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister if he plans changes to the(a) contract and (b) salary of his Chief Press Spokesman. [127429]

  The Prime Minister
  No.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister what changes have been made to the duties and responsibilities of his Chief Press Secretary. [127421]

  The Prime Minister
  None.

  Strategic Communications Unit
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister to whom the Strategic Communications Unit is answerable. [127423]

  The Prime Minister
  The Strategic Communications Unit is managed by the Chief Press Secretary and is answerable to me.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister (1) if the Strategic Communications Unit has the power to veto announcements from Government Departments; [127424]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the work of the Strategic Communications Unit; and what plans he has to review its work. [127422]

  The Prime Minister
  The background to the decision to establish the Strategic Communications Unit was set out in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), on 14 January 1998,Official Report, columns 233–34W. Since its inception, the Strategic Communications Unit has provided general advice to me and is responsible for the co-ordination of announcements across government. It has also worked on specific projects such as preparing the Government's Annual Reports and is responsible for the No.10 website.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister what safeguards have been put in place to ensure that the Strategic Communications Unit is not engaged in party political activities. [127427]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to his hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Mr. Bottomley) on 15 June 2000,Official Report, column 701W.

  Prisoners of War
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Prime Minister (1) if he will have another meeting with the Royal British Legion over compensation for former prisoners of war held by the Japanese; [127626]

  (2) if the final decision to pay compensation to former prisoners of war held by the Japanese will be made by him; [127629]

  (3) which Departments are involved in considering whether compensation should be paid to former prisoners of war held by the Japanese; [127628]

  (4) when he will make a decision concerning compensation to former prisoners of war who were held by the Japanese. [127627]

  The Prime Minister
  No further meetings with the Royal British Legion are anticipated at this stage, as a decision is expected shortly. The final decision will be taken in consultation with colleagues in the Departments listed in the answer given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) on 13 June 2000,Official Report, column 568W.

SCOTLAND

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many parliamentary questions were tabled to his Department between the 19 October 1999 and the 20 April 2000 which requested information, pursuant to his previous answers. [127443]

  Dr. Reid
  Six, of which three were from the right hon. Member.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  University Admissions
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many pupils on assisted places at independent schools have obtained places at(a) Oxford University, (b) Cambridge University, (c) universities which are members of the Russell Group and (d) other universities, in each year for the last five years; and, in each case, what proportion this number represented of all pupils obtaining places at those institutions. [125303]

  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 9 June 2000]The information requested on pupils on assisted places is not centrally available.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what proportion of candidates obtaining places at(a) Oxford University, (b) Cambridge University and (c) universities which are members of the Russell Group came from (i) grant-maintained and former grant-maintained schools and (ii) grammar schools in each of the last five years. [125304]
  330W
  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 9 June 2000]The available information is given in the following table, based on students gaining places on full-time and sandwich undergraduate courses through UCAS. Because of a change in classification of school types in UCAS statistics in 1998, comparative figures for Grant-Maintained schools and grammar schools are not available for earlier years.

  UCAS UK-domiciled acceptances to higher education institutions by previous education establishment Accepted applicants

  Percentage

  Year of entry

  Institution/school type1

  1998

  1999

  Oxford

  Grant Maintained

  14.2

  14.7

  Grammar schools

  5.5

  5.8

  Others

  80.3

  79.5

  Total known

  100.0

  100.0

  (Numbers incl. not known)

  3,044

  2,964

  Cambridge

  Grant Maintained

  14.8

  15.1

  Grammar schools

  6.9

  7.6

  Others

  78.2

  77.3

  Total known

  100.0

  100.0

  (Numbers incl. not known)

  2,982

  2,985

  Russell Group2 (excluding Oxford and Cambridge)

  Grant Maintained

  12.7

  13.1

  Grammar schools

  5.2

  5.1

  Others

  82.0

  81.8

  Total known

  100.0

  100.0

  (Numbers incl. not known)

  49,974

  52,618

  All institutions

  Grant Maintained

  9.8

  10.2

  Grammar schools

  4.7

  4.7

  Others

  85.5

  85.1

  Total known

  100.0

  100.0

  (Numbers incl. not known)

  298,220

  303,065

  1 Classification of school type as designated at the conclusion of the acceptance cycle.

  2 Russell Group institutions comprise the universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, King's College, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Southampton and Warwick together with Imperial College, London School of Economics and University College London.

  Connexions Service
  Mr. Prior
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what safeguards will be put in place in respect of the new Connexions Service to ensure that personal advisers, learning mentors and Connexions advisers will provide impartial advice and guidance to learners to the standard and level of competence of careers service organisations. [125866]

  Mr. Wicks
  The Connexions Service will offer at least the same level of impartial careers information, advice and guidance for 13 to 19 year olds as is currently provided by careers services. Local managers from the Connexions Service will agree with schools how personal advisers operating on their premises will be deployed and managed. This agreement will show how careers advice and guidance will be delivered in the institution, and ensure that students know which individuals can offer
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  advice which is impartial. However, in order to remove the significant barriers to learning that many young people face, the range of information, advice and guidance provided by the Connexions Service will be extended to cover matters relating to, for example, housing and health.

  Learning Mentors and personal advisers will work side by side in schools in order to provide coherent advice, support and guidance to pupils.

  Learning Mentors will work closely with the pastoral and other staff of the school with the individual achievement of the pupil as the common focus. They also provide one stop access to specialist support services where necessary.

  Mr. Prior
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what safeguards will be in place to ensure that personal advisers in schools with sixth forms, appointed and managed by headteachers, will deliver impartial, independent careers advice to pupils. [125867]

  Mr. Wicks
  The provision of impartial careers information, advice and guidance will be a core function of the Connexions Service. Connexions Service Personal Advisers will bring essential knowledge of the range of post-16 and career opportunities to school pupils, their parents and teachers. Local managers from the Connexions Service will agree with schools how personal advisers operating on their premises will be deployed and managed. This agreement will show how careers advice and guidance will be delivered in the institution, and ensure that students know which individuals can offer advice which is impartial.

  University Funding
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment which universities have received support from the(a) Higher Education Reach Out to Business and Community Fund, (b) the University Challenge Fund and (c) Science Enterprise Challenge Initiative; what is the value of each award; and for what period of time each award has been allocated. [126585]

  Mr. Wicks
  The following tables provide details of support universities and colleges have received from the(a) Higher Education Reach Out to Business and Community Fund, (b) the University Challenge Fund and (c) Science Enterprise Challenge Initiative.

  (a) Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community Fund

  Institution

  Total funding allocation(£000)

  Time period of award

  Anglia Polytechnic University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  Aston University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Bath

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Bath Spa University College

  275

  2000 to 2003

  Birkbeck College

  466

  2000 to 2003

  University of Birmingham

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Bolton Institute of HE

  550

  2000 to 2003

  Bournemouth University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Bradford

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Brighton

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Bristol

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Brunel University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Cambridge

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Canterbury Christ Church University College

  275

  2000 to 2003

  University of Central England

  550

  2000 to 2003

  332W

  (a) Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community Fund

  Institution

  Total funding allocation (£000)

  Time period of award

  Central School of Speech and Drama

  275

  2000 to 2003

  City University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  City University—Collaborative

  550

  2000 to 2003

  De Montfort University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Derby

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Durham

  1,008

  2000 to 2003

  University of East Anglia

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of East London

  550

  2000 to 2003

  Edge Hill College of HE

  275

  2000 to 2003

  University of Essex

  536

  2000 to 2003

  University of Exeter

  1,092

  2000 to 2003

  Falmouth College of Arts

  25

  2000

  Harper Adams University College

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Hertfordshire

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Imperial College

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Keele University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  Kingston University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  King's College London

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Leeds

  1,098

  2000 to 2003

  University of Leeds—Collaborative

  98

  2000 to 2002

  Leeds Metropolitan University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Leicester

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Lincolnshire and Humberside

  550

  2000 to 2003

  London School of Economics

  100

  2000

  London Guildhall University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  London Guildhall—Collaborative

  425

  2000 to 2002

  Loughborough University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Manchester

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  UMIST

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Manchester Metropolitan University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Manchester Metropolitan University—Collaborative

  550

  2000 to 2003

  Middlesex University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University College Northampton

  25

  2000

  University of Newcastle upon Tyne

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Newman College—Collaborative

  185

  2000 to 2003

  North Riding College

  147

  2000 to 2003

  University of Nottingham

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  The Nottingham Trent University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  The Open University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Oxford

  1,001

  2000 to 2003

  Oxford Brookes University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Plymouth

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Portsmouth

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Reading

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Royal College of Art

  275

  2000 to 2003

  Royal Holloway

  480

  2000 to 2003

  Royal Veterinary College

  550

  2000 to 2003

  College of St. Mark and St. John

  275

  2000 to 2003

  St. Martin's College

  275

  2000 to 2003

  St. Mary's College

  147

  2000 to 2003

  University of Salford

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Sheffield

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Sheffield Hallam University

  1,093

  2000 to 2003

  University of Southampton

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Southampton Institute

  550

  2000 to 2003

  South Bank University

  966

  2000 to 2003

  Staffordshire University

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Sunderland

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of Surrey

  1,099

  2000 to 2003

  Surrey Institute of Art and Design

  147

  2000 to 2003

  University of Sussex

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Teesside

  550

  2000 to 2003

  Thames Valley University

  550

  2000 to 2003

  Trinity and All Saints

  147

  2000 to 2003

  University College London

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Warwick

  1,005

  2000 to 2003

  University of Westminster

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University of the West of England

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Wolverhampton

  550

  2000 to 2003

  University College Worcester

  275

  2000 to 2003

  The Queen's University of Belfast

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  University of Ulster

  1,100

  2000 to 2003

  Total

  62,353

  333W
  A second round of proposals to the Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community Fund were

  (b) University Challenge Fund

  £ million

  University of Leeds/University of Sheffield/University of York1

  4.5

  University of Manchester/UMIST

  4.5

  University of Bath/University of Bristol

  3.75

  University of Birmingham/University of Warwick

  3.0

  University of Cambridge/The Babraham Institute

  3.0

  University of Cardiff/University of Wales College of Medicine

  3.0

  Imperial College, London

  3.0

  King's College London/Queen Mary and Westfield College London

  3.0

  London Business School/King's College London/Queen Mary and Westfield College/University College London University of Oxford

  3.0

  University of Strathclyde/University of Glasgow

  3.0

  University College London/Institute of Cancer Research/Cancer Research Campaign Technologies Ltd./School of Pharmacy London/Imperial Cancer Research Fund/Royal Veterinary College

  3.0

  University of Edinburgh/The Moredun Foundation/The Roslin Biotechnology Centre/The UK Astronomy Technology Centre of PPARC/Edinburgh Station of the British Geological Survey

  2.25

  Queen's University Belfast/University of Ulster

  2.0

  University of Aberystwyth/The Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER)

  1.0

  Total

  45.0

  1 White Rose Consortium

  Details of how the University Challenge Fund operates are set out in "The University Challenge Fund Guidelines 1998–99", a copy of which is in the House Library.

  My noble Friend Lord Sainsbury of Turville announced on 10 March 1999 that there will be a second University Challenge competition in due course.

  (c) Science Enterprise Challenge Initiative

  £ million

  Time period of award

  Bristol

  2.6

  1999–2004

  Cambridge1

  2.9

  1999–2004

  Glasgow

  4.0

  1999–2004

  Imperial College of Science and Technology

  2.0

  1999–2004

  London Business School

  4.6

  1999–2004

  UMIST

  3.2

  1999–2004

  Nottingham

  2.5

  1999–2004

  Sheffield

  2.9

  1999–2004

  Total

  24.7

  1 Cambridge will have an enterprise centre, but funded out of the money made available for the Cambridge-MIT Institute, not out of Science Enterprise Challenge money.

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what criteria are used to assess the success of the Higher Education Reach Out to Business & Community Fund awards. [126586]

  Mr. Wicks
  The Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community Fund is a new fund. The first activities supported under the fund started in January this year. Annex B of the Higher Education Funding Council for England's invitation to bid (HEFCE Circular 99/40) provided details of the monitoring and evaluation arrangements. This document is available in the Library and on the Council's website.334W
  invited in February 2000, the results of which are due to be announced in July 2000.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Pearson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when he will reply substantively to the question from the hon. Member for Dudley, South (Ref. 122261). [126598]

  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 19 June 2000]I refer my hon. Friend to my answer of 22 May 2000,Official Report, columns 332–33W.

  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many parliamentary questions were tabled to his Department between the 19 October 1999 and the 20 April 2000 which requested information, pursuant to his previous answers. [127444]

  Mr. Wills
  Thirty questions were tabled to the Department between these dates requesting information pursuant to replies given to Parliamentary questions.

  Student Support (Disregards)
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the disregard for bursaries and other payments for students against their assessment of income for the purpose of student support; and what plans he has to amend them. [126769]

  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 20 June 2000]For the 2000–01 academic year, students can receive bursaries of up to £1,025 a year, plus any amount of other payments that are made for specific educational purposes, such as books and other equipment, before entitlement to support is affected. For most younger students other income of up to £840 a year is also disregarded. The sum disregarded is higher for most mature and independent students at £7,500 a year.

  From 2001–02 we plan to change these arrangements to enable low-income students to retain in full the higher bursaries which some colleges are now intending to

  335W
  award, without losing any part of the support they receive for fees and the loan to which they are entitled. Further details will be announced in the Autumn.

  Vocational Training
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will take steps to compensate students for the loss of tax relief on the costs of vocational training. [126807]

  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 21 June 2000]The Government aim to widen participation in work-related learning by helping people overcome the financial barriers. New financial benefits for adult learners have been introduced through Individual Learning Accounts which will become available on learning starting from September. Individual Learning Accounts provide discounts of 20 per cent. on a wide range of work-related learning and discounts of 80 per cent. on a number of specified key courses in Information Technology and Maths. There is also a contribution of £150 towards the cost of learning for the first million people to use their Individual Learning Accounts. At the same time employers will receive tax relief on their contributions to their employees' learning costs and employees will not have to pay tax or national insurance on their employees' contributions.

  Sure Start
  Dr. Desmond Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the voluntary sector organisations involved in trailblazer Sure Start areas. [126878]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 21 June 2000]I have been asked to reply.

  Eleven of the 60 trailblazers are led by voluntary organisations. A total of 51 voluntary organisations are members of local Sure Start partnerships. Several of these are members of more than one local partnership. The organisations are as follows:

  National Childrens Homes Action for Children

  National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
  (NSPCC)

  Parent and Toddler Care at Home (PATCH)

  Council for Voluntary Service

  Francis Scott Trust

  Home Start

  National Childminders Association

  Priory House—St. Basil's Hostel

  Barnardos

  National Childminding Association

  Barnardos Inclusion Project

  Voluntary Action Camden

  Youth and Community Leader

  Enfield Temporary Accommodation Play Project

  Voluntary Action Sheffield

  Great Yarmouth Young Women's Project

  Wealden Federation of Voluntary Organisations

  West Green Playgroup

  1066 Housing Association

  Voluntary Sector Forum

  Education Services for Travelling Children

  Telford and Wrekin Council for Voluntary Services

  336W

  The Childrens Society

  Blackpool Art Gallery

  Credit Union

  Relate

  Victim Support

  Citizens Advice Bureau

  Home Housing

  CTR Triangle Ltd. Tenant Management Association

  National and Newham Newpin

  Toynbee Housing Association

  Hull Childcare Network and Information Service

  Newpin

  National Association of Care and Resettlement of Offenders

  Thorney Close Nursery Centre

  Norwich and Norfolk Voluntary Services

  Family Services Unit

  SEHA Health Promotion

  Thurrock Council for Voluntary Service

  Voluntary Action Waltham Forrest

  Penwith Housing Association

  Penzance Housing Association

  Ormiston Children and Families Trust

  Royal Society of Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults
  (MENCAP)

  Brook Advisory Centre

  Pre-School Learning Alliance

  Stoke on Trent and District Gingerbread Centre

  Council for Voluntary Service.

  Class Sizes
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what the average class size was for classes taught by one teacher in(a) 1979 and (b) 1992, for (i) pupils in Key Stage 1, (ii) pupils in Key Stage 2, (iii) primary schools and (iv) secondary schools in each parliamentary constituency. [127211]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The information is not held in the form requested. Information on class sizes by Parliamentary constituency is only available from 1996 onwards. Class size figures by key stage in maintained primary schools have only been collected since 1996.

  Information on class sizes by Parliamentary constituency for January 2000 has been placed in the Library.

  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many children have been turned down for their first choice of school, as a result of the limit on infant class sizes set out in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, who(a) have applied for a place at a denominational school, (b) have a sibling in that school, (c) are new to the area and (d) are in any other category. [127487]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The Department does not hold this information. The admissions framework we have established aims to ensure that local admission arrangements accommodate parental preference wherever possible, but there have always been cases where this cannot be met. Our infant class size initiative, which is being pursued in such a way that popular schools are able to expand, enables more parents to obtain a place for their
  337W
  child at their preferred school. A net gain of 12,000 places at popular schools is being provided as a result of the policy.

  We are well on course to deliver our pledge to limit infant classes to 30 pupils. £620 million is available to support the pledge, and allocations so far to Trafford LEA amount to some £2 million. This has helped to reduce the size of the average Key Stage 1 class in the Altrincham and Sale, West parliamentary constituency to 25.9. The figure in January 1997 was 29.6.

  Correspondence
  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 11 May on behalf of his constituent Mrs. Morgan. [127371]

  Mr. Wills
  A reply to the right hon. Member's letter was issued on 21 June.

  Agricultural Wages Board
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what representations he has received in favour of retaining the Agricultural Wages Board; and if he will make a statement. [127070]

  Ms Quin
  I have been asked to reply.

  I refer to the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Sawford) on 12 June 2000, Official Report, column 456W.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Sex Offenders
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners subject to the provisions of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 have been released on the Home Detention Curfew Scheme to date; what offences they committed; what was the sentence(a) received and (b) served in each case; and if he will make a statement. [117718]

  Mr. Straw
  [pursuant to his reply, 6 April 2000, c. 599-600W]I stated that as of 3 April 2000, only one prisoner subject to the provisions of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 had been granted Home Detention Curfew. I was recently informed on 20 June that a second sex offender subject to the 1997 Act has been placed on the scheme.

  The offender—a female aged 18 with no previous convictions—was convicted of indecent assault against a 14-year-old, and was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment. She was considered as a candidate for Home Detention Curfew in view of the exceptional circumstance that she was imminently due to give birth. She had a suitable address with her mother and was judged at an enhanced risk assessment board to pose a low risk of reoffending. She was placed on the scheme on 5 August 1999 until her conditional release date of 30 August. She successfully completed the curfew and is not known to have been arrested, charged or convicted of any further offence since.
  338W
  Under existing arrangements, sex offenders subject to the 1997 Act may be released only in exceptional circumstances and then only with the personal authorisation of the Director General of the Prison Service. In this case, as in the other case previously notified, I regret that this requirement was not followed by the establishment. Although I am satisfied in this particular case that there was no risk to the public, I have asked the Director General for a report into the circumstances of the release.

  The original Prison Service Instruction which set out the Home Detention Curfew policy and procedures did not contain the requirement to seek the Director General's consent. Establishments were first informed of the requirement just before the scheme commenced, in a letter of 26 January 1999 from the then Director of Regimes. In October 1999, the Director General wrote to remind all establishments of the requirement, and in January 2000 a consolidated Prison Service Order which incorporated and highlighted the requirement.

  In both these cases, the releases occurred last August, before the Director General's letter of reminder and the consolidated Prison Service Order. No sex offenders subject to the 1997 Act have been placed on the Home Detention Curfew scheme since, and I am confident that all establishments are now fully aware of the requirement to seek the consent of the Director General before allowing any such offender onto the scheme.

  Under the amendment to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill, which the Government brought forward on 12 June 2000, sex offenders subject to the Sex Offenders Act 1997 will be excluded from the Home Detention Curfew scheme altogether.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mrs. Ellman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what specifications have been drawn up to identify accommodation for asylum seekers under the Government's dispersal policy. [126436]

  Mrs. Roche
  Contracted providers from both the private and public sector were and are responsible for identifying suitable accommodation for asylum seekers. They work to specifications drawn up by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) in consultation with other organisations, including the Refugee Council.

  The requirements for the provision of accommodation are set out in model contracts for the provision of accommodation and related services to asylum seekers—one for private sector providers and one for local authority regional consortia. I am arranging for copies of these to be placed in the Library.

  Criminal Injuries (Compensation)
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many victims of crime have been paid compensation by the Criminal Injuries Board(a) in 2000 and (b) in 1999; and how many suffered deductions because they sought to defend themselves when assaulted and were thereby deemed to have contributed to their injuries. [126569]
  339W
  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The figures relate to awards made by both the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (which administers the tariff-based scheme effective from 1 April 1996) and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (which administered the old scheme effective prior to 1 April 1996).

  Awards under the schemes are unlikely to be reduced in the case of a blameless victim who acted entirely in self-defence. A reduction on grounds of conduct is made when it is considered that the applicant's own behaviour contributed to the incident in which he or she was injured.

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  Total cases settled

  74,859

  75,917

  Total money awards

  40,164

  39,700

  Total cases rejected

  34,695

  36,217

  Total reduced awards

  2,453

  2,711

  Reduced due to conduct

  732

  792

  Rejected due to conduct

  4,123

  3,838

  The reductions and rejections due to conduct are included in the totals. The total number of reduced awards is also included in the money awards total.

  Anti-social Behaviour
  Mr. Coaker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what response he has received from Gedling Borough Council on improvements to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 following his letter to local authorities on 15 October 1999 and subsequent requests for councils' views on tackling anti-social behaviour. [126789]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  None.

  Immigration
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in the case of Mr. A. S. A (reference A1012793/8(s)). [126962]

  Mrs. Roche
  Mr. A. S. A.'s application has now been resolved and the Integrated Casework Directorate wrote to him on 20 June.

  Written Questions
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many written parliamentary questions tabled to his Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000 have not received substantive answers on the grounds that the information is(a) not held centrally, (b) not held in the form requested and (c) not available. [127099]

  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 21 June 2000]My Department answered a total of 2,751 written parliamentary questions between 19 October 1999–20 April 2000. Sixty

  Percentage clear-up rate by police force and in total1,2

  Police force area

  1979

  1987

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1997–98

  1998–993

  Avon and Somerset

  43

  30

  17

  17

  21

  23

  24

  26

  26

  24

  Bedfordshire

  48

  29

  20

  21

  22

  22

  33

  35

  35

  33

  Cambridgeshire

  47

  35

  27

  25

  25

  19

  24

  27

  28

  29

  Cheshire

  58

  40

  29

  26

  30

  31

  34

  36

  34

  37

  Cleveland

  51

  34

  32

  27

  19

  25

  24

  25

  23

  23

  Cumbria

  56

  46

  37

  38

  37

  40

  36

  40

  41

  44

  Derbyshire

  50

  45

  22

  21

  21

  20

  21

  25

  26

  31

  340W
  non-substantive replies were given to hon. and right hon. Members where information was 'not held centrally', one where the information was 'not held in the form requested' and 20 where the information was 'not available'.

  It is my practice to provide as full a reply as possible to all parliamentary questions, and to provide all relevant information even where that specifically requested is not available.

  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions he has deposited papers in the Library in response to parliamentary questions tabled to his Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000. [127438]

  Mr. Straw
  I deposited papers in the Library in response to parliamentary questions on 150 occasions between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000.

  Humberside Police
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the 5,000 extra police he has announced will be allocated to Humberside Police Force; and how many are already in post in Humberside. [127393]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Humberside have been allocated 74 additional recruits from the Crime Fighting Fund: 47 in 2000–01 and 27 in 2001–02.

  All forces in England and Wales have been asked to profile their planned recruitment over the 12 months of 2000–01. Based on the profile provided by Humberside police, the table shows the number of officers recruited, or planned to be recruited, by Humberside police that will be deemed to be Crime Fighting Fund officers.

  Humberside police

  Recruitment dates

  Officers deemed to be crime fighting fund recruits

  6 April 2000

  8

  15 June 2000

  11

  20 July 2000

  7

  25 August 2000

  12

  28 September 2000

  9

  Total

  47

  Crime Clear-up Rate
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the total clear-up rate of recorded crimes in each police force in England and Wales and in total in(a) 1979, (b) 1987 and (c) in each year since 1992. [127210]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The requested details are given in the table.
  341W

  Percentage clear-up rate by police force and in total1,2

  Police force area

  1979

  1987

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1997–98

  1998–993

  Devon and Cornwall

  46

  39

  18

  25

  27

  27

  30

  32

  34

  36

  Dorset

  46

  36

  32

  33

  30

  28

  27

  29

  30

  31

  Durham

  52

  42

  30

  30

  32

  30

  30

  31

  30

  33

  Essex

  42

  35

  29

  32

  36

  33

  29

  27

  28

  29

  Gloucestershire

  51

  38

  24

  20

  24

  27

  23

  24

  26

  31

  Greater Manchester

  45

  27

  35

  34

  34

  24

  17

  20

  20

  25

  Hampshire

  46

  34

  26

  26

  27

  28

  28

  30

  30

  35

  Hertfordshire

  54

  44

  26

  21

  24

  28

  30

  32

  33

  34

  Humberside

  45

  32

  23

  16

  17

  19

  20

  20

  21

  22

  Kent

  50

  33

  27

  25

  29

  26

  32

  31

  31

  34

  Lancashire

  56

  46

  37

  35

  33

  34

  33

  29

  29

  34

  Leicestershire

  54

  45

  30

  28

  30

  29

  31

  34

  34

  34

  Lincolnshire

  60

  37

  39

  37

  32

  39

  42

  48

  46

  40

  London, City of

  21

  19

  20

  22

  27

  23

  27

  26

  28

  33

  Merseyside

  42

  43

  42

  39

  33

  27

  29

  31

  31

  31

  Metropolitan Police

  21

  16

  16

  17

  23

  25

  23

  26

  25

  22

  Norfolk

  47

  36

  34

  28

  34

  31

  32

  37

  36

  37

  Northamptonshire

  48

  41

  30

  27

  31

  28

  34

  35

  35

  33

  Northumbria

  53

  44

  17

  20

  22

  23

  24

  26

  26

  30

  North Yorkshire

  51

  34

  33

  30

  25

  23

  25

  26

  26

  33

  Nottinghamshire

  51

  34

  26

  29

  28

  23

  28

  28

  26

  25

  South Yorkshire

  51

  43

  26

  20

  24

  24

  23

  29

  32

  32

  Staffordshire

  51

  42

  30

  29

  31

  32

  34

  35

  34

  32

  Suffolk

  57

  45

  39

  37

  35

  34

  33

  37

  39

  41

  Surrey

  47

  34

  22

  20

  30

  31

  29

  33

  35

  40

  Sussex

  53

  32

  23

  24

  24

  28

  29

  26

  26

  25

  Thames Valley

  45

  31

  19

  21

  22

  23

  25

  24

  25

  25

  Warwickshire

  46

  34

  23

  21

  24

  25

  24

  27

  29

  26

  West Mercia

  49

  42

  34

  29

  29

  28

  26

  28

  27

  34

  West Midlands

  37

  36

  27

  27

  25

  24

  23

  24

  25

  30

  West Yorkshire

  37

  39

  25

  18

  20

  21

  24

  27

  27

  27

  Wiltshire

  42

  36

  37

  35

  36

  32

  29

  32

  32

  38

  Dyfed-Powys

  62

  51

  53

  50

  53

  57

  58

  61

  62

  69

  Gwent

  60

  53

  44

  45

  47

  50

  50

  51

  51

  55

  North Wales

  59

  43

  33

  36

  39

  32

  33

  34

  36

  43

  South Wales

  46

  39

  30

  28

  24

  29

  32

  36

  36

  39

  England and Wales

  41

  33

  26

  25

  26

  26

  26

  28

  28

  29

  1 1979 to 1997 figures are for calendar years, and 1997–98 and 1998–99 are years ending 31 March.

  2 Figures up to 1997–98 are based on the recorded crime counting rules in use up to 31 March 1998. They also exclude offences of criminal damage under £20.

  3 The figures are based on the number of crimes recorded in the financial year using the expanded offence coverage and revised counting rules which came into effect on 1 April 1998, and including all offences of criminal damage. Owing to these changes, these clear-up rates cannot be compared directly with previous years.

  Police Officers
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the number of police officers in each police force in England and Wales and in total on(a) 31 March 1979, (b) 31 March 1987 and (c) 31 March in each year since 1992. [127212]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested for March 1979 and March 1987 is set out in the table. For 1992 and subsequent years, I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) on 10 November 1999,Official Report, column 590W.

  Police numbers for 1979 and 1987

  Force

  Police numbers as at 31 March 1979

  Police numbers as at 31 March 1987

  Avon and Somerset

  2,825

  3,009

  Bedfordshire

  902

  984

  Cambridgeshire

  1,064

  1,142

  Cheshire

  1,778

  1,830

  City of London

  829

  771

  Cleveland

  1,334

  1,462

  342W

  Police numbers for 1979 and 1987

  Force

  Police numbers as at 31 March 1979

  Police numbers as at 31 March 1987

  Cumbria

  1,056

  1,118

  Derbyshire

  1,563

  1,777

  Devon and Cornwall

  2,660

  2,774

  Dorset

  1,128

  1,202

  Durham

  1,312

  1,307

  Dyfed-Powys

  910

  932

  Essex

  2,461

  2,718

  Gloucestershire

  1,076

  1,152

  Greater Manchester

  6,419

  6,780

  Gwent

  965

  973

  Hampshire

  2,949

  3,098

  Hertfordshire

  1,462

  1,579

  Humberside

  1,849

  1,964

  Kent

  2,724

  2,879

  Lancashire

  3,097

  3,134

  Leicestershire

  1,701

  1,712

  Lincolnshire

  1,171

  1,173

  Merseyside

  4,427

  4,598

  Metropolitan Police

  22,214

  26,890

  Norfolk

  1,223

  1,312

  Northamptonshire

  905

  1,047

  Northumbria

  3,272

  3,402

  343W

  Police numbers for 1979 and 1987

  Force

  Police numbers as at 31 March 1979

  Police numbers as at 31 March 1987

  North Wales

  1,268

  1,286

  North Yorkshire

  1,342

  1,353

  Nottinghamshire

  2,117

  2,226

  South Wales

  2,936

  3,100

  South Yorkshire

  2,546

  2,862

  Staffordshire

  1,978

  2,113

  Suffolk

  1,064

  1,166

  Surrey

  1,440

  1,609

  Sussex

  2,758

  2,830

  Thames Valley

  2,639

  3,421

  Warwickshire

  841

  965

  West Mercia

  1,743

  1,929

  West Midlands

  5,981

  6,656

  West Yorkshire

  4,727

  5,142

  Wiltshire

  997

  1,044

  Total police force strength

  109,653

  120,421

  Compulsory Voting
  Mr. Love
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent representations he has received concerning the introduction of compulsory voting; and if he will make a statement. [127831]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We have recently been sent a copy of a Fabian Society pamphlet making the case for compulsory voting. In addition, we continue to receive a small number of letters both in favour of and against compulsory voting.

  We have no plans to introduce compulsory voting.

  Correspondence
  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 20 May on behalf of his constituent Mr. Berisha. [127369]

  Mr. Straw
  I wrote to the right hon. Member today. I am sorry for the delay in replying.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 9 May on behalf of his constituent Mrs. Djukic. [127375]

  Mr. Straw
  I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman today. I am sorry for the delay in replying.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 26 April on behalf of his constituent Mr. Jones. [127372]
  344W
  Mr. Straw
  I wrote to the right hon. Member on
  22 June in response to his letter of 26 April on behalf of his constituent, Mr. Jones. I am very sorry that I was unable to do so sooner, and would like, through the right hon. Member, to extend my apology to Mr. Jones for the delay.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 13 April on behalf of his constituent Mr. South. [127377]

  Mr. Straw
  I wrote to the right hon. Member on
  23 June, in response to his letter of 13 April on behalf of his constituent, Mr. South. I am very sorry that I was unable to do so sooner and would like, through the right hon. Member, to extend my apology to Mr. South for the delay.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 14 April on behalf of his constituent Mr. Meakins. [127370]

  Mr. Straw
  I wrote to the right hon. Member on 23 June in response to his letter of 14 April on behalf of his constituent, Mr. Meakins. I am very sorry that I was unable to do so sooner and would like, through the right hon. Member, to extend my apology to Mr. Meakins for the delay.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 9 May on behalf of his constituent Mrs. Putaj. [127376]

  Mr. Straw
  I replied to the right hon. Member's letter of 9 May on 23 June.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 11 May on behalf of his constituent Mr. Block. [127368]

  Mr. Straw
  I wrote to the right hon. Member on
  22 June.

  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire will receive a reply to his letter of 2 May on behalf of his constituent Mr. Harris. [127373]

  Mr. Straw
  I wrote to the right hon. Member on
  23 June in response to his letter of 2 May on behalf of his constituent, Mr. Harris. I am very sorry that I was unable to do so sooner and would like, through the right hon. Member, to extend my apology to Mr. Harris for the delay.

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

Postal Services Bill
Lord Carter: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Sainsbury of Turville, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

Clause 1,

Schedule 1,

Clause 2,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 3 to 62,

Schedule 3,

Clauses 63 to 81,

Schedule 4,

Clauses 82 to 95,

Schedules 5 and 6,

Clauses 96 to 118,

Schedule 7,

Clauses 119 to 126,

Schedules 8 and 9,

Clauses 127 to 130.— (Lord Carter.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Trustee Bill [H.L.]
11.6 a.m.
Report received.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham): My Lords, in calling Amendment No. 1, I hope that your Lordships will not think me too far out of order if, in view of today's unusual circumstances and because it is Friday, I were to say to the noble and learned Lord on behalf of the whole House, many happy returns of the day.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Clause 28 [Trustee's entitlement to payment under trust instrument]:
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg)The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg) moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 9, line 37, leave out ("and") and insert ("to").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 2. I move them in substitution for Amendment No. 16 on the Marshalled List in Committee, which I did not move on that occasion
562
having concluded that it was defective. With your Lordships' permission, I shall deal with the amendments in reverse order.
Clause 28 establishes a trustee's entitlement to remuneration under the terms of a trust instrument in certain circumstances and introduces new rules of construction of express professional charging clauses. It also reverses the common law rule which requires a charging clause to be strictly interpreted against the professional trustee who could previously be remunerated only for work which could not have been done by a lay trustee.
The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who is unable to be here today because he is abroad, raised with me a proposal that charitable trustees ought to be treated more strictly than other trustees in these circumstances because of the nature of their responsibilities and I was pleased to agree with him. Thus, the amendment will provide that where a charitable trustee who is not a trust corporation fulfils the other requirements which would entitle him to payment under the trust instrument, he must surmount further hurdles in that he may not be a sole trustee and must have the agreement of the majority of the other trustees. The first amendment merely tidies up the drafting to take into account the addition of another subsection.
Before I sit down, perhaps I may put your Lordships on notice of one matter. I fear that I intend to introduce further amendments to Schedule 2 to the Bill at Third Reading. Only the other day, my officials received a letter from the legal office of the Church of England asking that we make certain amendments to take into account the coming into operation of the Cathedrals Measure 1999, which was not in being when the Bill was first published. We shall, of course, seek to do so. I beg to move.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am happy to support the amendments moved by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. Furthermore, we are more than likely to support any amendments necessitated by the coming into force of the Cathedrals Measure. My noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who is in Kosovo today, was concerned about the general principle applying to Amendment No. 2; it is whether trustees can take a majority decision by correspondence between them or can do so only in a meeting at which they are present.
While that is not a matter to be cleared up in this Bill, will the noble and learned Lord consider adding it to the subjects to be referred to the Law Commission for examination?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I shall respond to that question so that the answer is on the record. My officials have written on this point to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, but as he is out of the country he may not have seen the letter. We have consulted both the Law Commission and the Charity Commission. Neither of them reports any difficulty arising from the fact that some charitable trusts carry out much of their business other than by meeting. No doubt there are

563
charitable trusts whose trust documents specify a particular way of carrying out business and whatever the trust document says will prevail. However, where they do not, trustees in practice have arrived at a pragmatic way of doing their business. I do not believe—and I appreciate that the noble Lord is not making the suggestion—that it is the place of this Bill, without consultation, to insist that this class of decision should be reached in any way other than that in which they generally do business—and do business satisfactorily.
There are two sets of reasons for that. First, action by majority has not caused the Charity Commission any significant difficulty. Neither have the courts been troubled by disputes arising from pragmatic decisions about how the business of particular trusts or classes of trust should carry out any or any particular business.
The second reason is purely practical and turns on the possibility of disenfranchising certain classes of trustee. If, for example, we were to require charitable trusts to take a decision such as the one under discussion here only at meetings, trustees who lived at a considerable distance from the venue for the meeting, or perhaps out of the jurisdiction altogether, might be put to significant expense in terms of time and travel if they wished their views to be taken into account; or they would in effect find that they were unable to carry out their personal duties if literally unable to attend. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, can think of other problems, too.
Therefore, I am satisfied that the amendment, as now drafted, allows trustees of charitable trusts to make an appropriate decision on remuneration for one of their number, using whatever system of decision-making they generally apply, and that that is the appropriate way to deal with the matter. However, I am certainly willing to consider the reply which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, will no doubt send me in due course.
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I wish to associate the Opposition with the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, with regard to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. In the circumstances, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, can be well satisfied with the response of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I also foresee no circumstances in which the Opposition are likely to oppose amendments tabled at Third Reading by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor as a result of the coming into force of the Cathedrals Measure.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, I wish to raise a niggling point which reflects on nothing other than my stupidity in the face of amendments. The first amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord causes the initial words of Clause 28 to conclude with the words "subsections (2) to (3)". My question is whether the figure "3" applies to the existing subsection (3) or to the new subsection introduced by Amendment No. 2, which I understand may be
564
renumbered "(3)". If that is so, the words "subsections (2) to (3)" may have to read "subsections (2) to (4)". I am sorry to raise this point; it reflects my inability to deal with amendments proposed with brackets.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I shall not opt for either possibility. I rather suspect that renumbering is required, but we shall revert to that.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 10, line 5, at end insert—
("( ) Subsection (2) applies to a trustee of a charitable trust who is not a trust corporation only—

(a) if he is not a sole trustee, and

(b) to the extent that a majority of the other trustees have agreed that it should apply to him.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.

European Union (Implications of Withdrawal) Bill [H.L.]
Report received.
Suspension of Hospital Medical Practitioners Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Sea Fishing Grants (Charges) Bill
11.16 a.m.
Lord Burlison: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Hayman, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill fulfils a government commitment to introduce legislation as soon as the legislative programme permits in order to give statutory authority to charges made by the Sea Fish Industry Authority for handling applications for fishing vessel grants. Those charges were discontinued in May 1996. The Bill is short and straightforward but, as with many legal issues, the background is complex. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords will find helpful my introduction to the issues which required the Bill to be introduced.
First, I should make it clear that the Bill is not a vehicle for introducing financial assistance to the fisheries industry. It is intended solely to deal with charges levied in the past. The Bill's purpose is to ensure the validity of charges levied by the Sea Fish Industry Authority between 1st October 1981 and 3rd May 1996 in connection with its administration of grant schemes made under the Fisheries Act 1981. It also ensures the validity of charges made by the Sea Fish Industry Authority's predecessor, the Herring Industry Board, between March 1972 and October 1981. The Herring Industry Board was abolished in 1981 but its liabilities were transferred to the SFIA.

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The first charges which the Bill intends to validate are those known as "technical charges". They were levied by the Sea Fish Industry Authority to cover the costs of various checks and inspections during the period from 1st October 1981 to 3rd May 1996 under five different fishing vessel grant schemes.
Under a succession of schemes made under Section 15 of the Fisheries Act 1981, grants have been made available to fishermen in the UK for the construction, improvement and safety of vessels. They have all been administered by the Sea Fish Industry Authority on behalf of Ministers, as provided for by Section 16 of the Fisheries Act 1981. The SFIA is a non-departmental public body established under the Fisheries Act 1981 to promote the interests of the fishing industry.
The SFIA's technical charge covered the costs incurred by SFIA marine surveyors in inspecting a vessel at the application stage to check on what work was needed, including the examination of technical specifications and plans, and an inspection on the completion of the work so that the surveyor could satisfy himself that it had been carried out properly. The charge was calculated on a sliding scale, but was roughly 4 per cent. of the work, although a maximum ceiling was set to limit the charge applied to larger applications. The charge was eligible for grant aid and the SFIA deducted the total charge from the amount of grant paid to the beneficiary.
When material that the SFIA produced to implement a fishing vessel grant scheme in 1995 was examined, questions were raised within the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food about whether the charging powers given to the authority under Section 3(2) of the Fisheries Act were sufficient to cover the technical charges. A key consideration was that the SFIA was administering the schemes under Section 16 of the 1981 Act as the agent of Ministers. In that role, the authority could have no powers which the Ministers themselves lacked. Ministers did not have the statutory power to levy the technical charges if they had administered the schemes themselves, so it was considered most unlikely that the authority had that power. However, I must make it absolutely clear that at all times the SFIA acted in good faith, believing that it had the power to levy the charges.
This was an extremely complex legal issue to unravel. To help noble Lords who are interested in these legal arguments, we have placed a note on the legal background to the Bill in the Library of the House. As soon as lawyers concluded that, in all probability, the technical charge did not have a statutory basis, the SFIA was told and stopped. MAFF wrote to the SFIA on 3rd May 1996 confirming the instruction given over the telephone that day to cease levying the charge immediately.
It was subsequently decided that the charge should not be reintroduced, as the nature of the grant scheme had changed and much less technical work was involved in processing applications. The Bill does not give authority to any charges made after 3rd May 1996, so it gives no authority for their reintroduction.
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Noble Lords may also be concerned about whether the Bill has human rights implications. That has been looked at very carefully. It is considered that, if challenged, the provisions of the Bill would be likely to be held compatible with Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relates to the protection of property, in particular by virtue of the public interest defence in that article.
The charges concerned were reasonable and were never challenged or questioned by those making the payments. The cost of repaying them would be disproportionate to the benefits that such repayment would confer on those to whom it was made. On those grounds, the usual statement has been made that the provisions of the Bill are compatible with the convention rights. That is why the Government always made it clear that they did not intend to meet any claims that were brought before the legislation was in place.
There are precedents for the provision of retrospective statutory authority for similar charges. The Birds (Registration Charges) Act 1997 validated charges levied under Sections 6 and 7 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for the registration of the selling of certain dead wild birds. Similar legislation was also agreed for fees that the Department of the Environment levied in respect of local planning authorities and the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1954 gave authority to past payments made to the Postmaster General for wireless transmission and receiving licences.
Background work for the introduction of the Bill raised the possibility that similar charges levied by a predecessor body of the SFIA—the Herring Industry Board—in connection with the schemes of financial assistance made under the Sea Fish Industry Act 1970 and earlier legislation consolidated in that Act might also have been ultra vires. After careful consideration, it was concluded that the HIB also had no power to levy those charges. Consistent with the treatment of the SFIA charges, it was decided to extend the coverage of the Bill to the HIB.
A total of £7.3 million in charges covering 13,000 cases was levied over a period of about 30 years. That amounts to an average of no more than £560 per case. A small part of many of the charges was levied for technical advice—such as assisting applicants to choose the appropriate equipment—that was not directly connected with handling the grant application. The SFIA has powers under the Fisheries Act 1981 to charge for such advice, but it would be extremely difficult to separate that now from charges for the work that has necessitated the Bill.
Because of the time delay, it is difficult to be more precise about the exact amount of the charge. Many of the boats that were subject to the charge in the early days of its application may no longer exist and their owners may, sadly, have passed away. Boats will also have changed hands, and because they may have had multiple owners it would be extremely difficult to follow up each case. The Government carefully considered all those factors before deciding to legislate.

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The Bill's first main operative provision in Clause 1(1) is to ensure the validity of the charges levied by the Sea Fish Industry Authority between 1st October 1981 and 3rd May 1996 in connection with its administration of the five fishing vessel grant schemes made under Section 15 of the Fisheries Act 1981 and specified in subsection (2)(a) to (e).
Clause 2(1) makes provision to ensure the validity of the same technical charges levied by the Herring Industry Board between March 1972 and October 1981 in connection with its administration of the two fishing vessel grant schemes specified in subsection (2)(a) and (b).
Clause 3(1) cites the full name of the Bill. On legal advice, the SFIA ceased to levy charges for this administration work from 3rd May 1996 onwards. Clause 3(2) is necessary to make it clear that the Bill does not facilitate their reintroduction after that date. Clause 3(3) is necessary to establish that the Bill extends to the whole of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.— (Lord Burlison.)
11.27 a.m.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, given the Minister's full explanation of this retrospective and technical Bill and given that there was no opposition from the industry to it, we have no points to make.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, first of all, perhaps I should thank the Government for the Bill. For three years, between 1990 and 1993, I was the chairman of the Sea Fish Industry Authority. Suddenly I discover that we were levying charges illegally. On behalf of my predecessor and my successor, I thank the Government for clearing up the issue.
If this debate had taken place while I was the chairman, I would not have been able to speak in it, because my interpretation of the Addison rules is that I should not speak on issues to do with a non-departmental public body that I chaired. I detect that that view is not observed in quite the same strict way as I observed it in the early 1990s.
Had the Minister been here, I might have chosen to make a slightly longer speech on the problems of the fishing industry and the role that the Sea Fish Industry Authority plays in it. I want to say, however, that the work done over many years by the marine surveyors employed by that authority was of huge importance. Some of the schemes mentioned in Clause 1 were very important in modernising the British fishing fleet and building new vessels.
I do not expect the Minister to answer this point but I want to put it on the record. One of the worries that we had in the early 1990s—and it is of even greater concern today—is that our fleet is an ageing one. New vessels are still coming in because, despite the problems, many parts of the industry are still quite
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vibrant and economically successfully. But new vessels are not coming in at the same rate as they were in the 1980s and early 1990s when those schemes were available to give grants to help fishermen build new boats. That problem is increasing. Although I am not entirely sure of the statistics now, they were certainly beginning to be rather worrying in the early 1990s.
Of course, the problem with an ageing fleet is that fishing is not carried out so efficiently. That may not be a bad thing when we consider the pressures on fishing stocks. But the more worrying problem of an ageing fleet is safety and concern that vessels were often not built to the same modern safety standards we should expect today.
That is a worry. But I do not suggest for a moment that the Government should reintroduce the grants. It would be slightly odd if the Government were paying out for a new build at the same time as paying out for decommissioning. I find it rather strange that some of our European Union friends are happily going on helping and encouraging new build while at the same time trying to pretend that they are obeying the MAGP targets for the size of the fleet.
I have described part of the work of the Sea Fish Industry Authority. The marine surveyor staff has been reduced markedly. One of the difficult tasks I had to do as chairman was to make quite significant redundancies in that department simply because the grant schemes for the new build were coming to an end for all the reasons I have outlined.
The two grant schemes which continued while I was chairman and which have now ceased are those contained in Clause 1(2)(d) and (e). They relate to safety. The Government have stopped the safety grants. I understand why they have done so. They feel that if there are mandatory requirements to obey safety rules, then the industry should pay for them. I understand that.
But one of the problems in the fishing industry is not just safety equipment; it is the way fishermen behave and how they treat and deal with safety. That involves training. The authority fulfilled that role. I wonder whether the noble Lord will convey to his noble friend the Minister the need to look seriously at some form of help for training in the fishing industry.
After coalmining—and with the reduction in deep mining, it may now well not be after coalmining—fishing is one of the most dangerous industries in which to work. Your Lordships will know that every winter and, indeed, sometimes in the summer, fishermen's lives are lost at sea. So it is an industry where training and safety measures are of the utmost importance. It would be of benefit to the industry if the Government were to reintroduce grants for safety operations, even if they only helped with training. It would not cost very much and the fishing industry

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receives little help from the Government compared with, for example, agriculture. It would be help which the industry would certainly welcome.
I have said all I need to say. I welcome the Bill. As the Minister said, absolutely nobody has complained about the charges because the fishermen all greatly appreciated the work, help and advice they received from the marine surveyors. In so far as anybody is ever happy to pay charges, they were happy to pay for the services they received.
11.34 a.m.
Lord Burlison: My Lords, I am grateful for the comments made on the Bill. In particular, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish. He is well qualified to judge the Bill legally. His experience of the sea fish industry perhaps exceeds that of any other noble Lord here today.
In relation to the point which the noble Lord made about ageing vessels, we agree that fleet renewal needs to take place. But we want that to happen on a sustainable basis, using the industry's own assets and earnings potential. There can be no justification for using public money to subsidise the investment which would not otherwise take place or which risks creating capacity beyond what the stocks will bear.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, mentioned safety grants. Indeed, safety at sea is an important issue. The Government are concerned for the fishing industry to improve its record. The Government believe that the old scheme, which grant-aided mandatory safety equipment, was not effective in reducing the number of accidents. The Government are looking to change the safety culture of the industry, perhaps with an emphasis on the very point the noble Lord made in relation to training and in particular in the context of any funding available for the new programme of structural measures.
The question of training for fishermen is entirely outside the scope of the Bill. But the noble Lord's comments are perfectly acceptable in view of his experience of the industry. We recognise that the fishing industry is one of the most dangerous and that the level of accidents is unacceptable. The Government are keen to promote safety in the industry. Under the 2000–2006 EU grants programme, the Government are considering with the industry whether those funds could be directed towards the training of fishermen in safety matters in order to change the safety culture in the industry and encourage more safety consciousness. The funding priorities for the grants programme have not yet been agreed by Ministers and I shall keep the noble Lord informed of developments in that area. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

European Food Authority: Select Committee Report
11.37 a.m.
The Earl of Selbornerose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the European Union Committee on A European Food Authority (7th Report, HL Paper 66).
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is the first report to come before the House from the reconstituted Sub-Committee D of the European Communities Committee. That sub-committee, formed from the previously separate agriculture and environment subcommittees, has responsibility for considering European Union measures concerned with agriculture, food, the environment, consumer protection and public health. It is perhaps a remarkable coincidence or a devious design that, in fact, this report covers all those interests.
However, I assure the House that the subject was not chosen as a means of forging a common agenda within the sub-committee. Rather, this is an important measure which has been delineated in the Commission's White Paper on food safety in the European Union. It requires careful consideration by the Select Committee and by this House.
At the outset, I acknowledge the gratitude of the sub-committee to our Clerk, Mr Radice, and to our specialist adviser, Professor Philip James, who has had long experience in matters concerned with food safety and has played a major role in establishing the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency, which the House will remember started in April of this year. So we were extremely glad to be able to call on the services of our Clerk and our specialist adviser.
On a personal note, perhaps I may say how grateful I am to those members of the previous two subcommittees who gave me a very tolerant reception when I returned to the sub-committee after some years' absence.
The outline proposal for a European food authority is part of a much wider-ranging White Paper on food safety. Although our report deals specifically with the European food authority, I should first say a few words about the White Paper itself. It sets out no fewer than 84 separate measures, the first 18 of which are described as priority measures.
We were most grateful to Commissioner Byrne for meeting us and answering some of our questions when we met in Brussels. He acknowledged that the timetable for implementing the 84 measures was ambitious. We agreed with some Members of the European Parliament whom we met, including Caroline Jackson and Phillip Whitehead, who considered the timetable, respectively, as "wildly unrealistic" and an "omnium gatherum" to divert attention from the lack of focus in the main European food authority proposal. In paragraph 23 of our report we feel bound to criticise both the timetable and the lack of a clear indication of priorities. Frankly, this is

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not an impressive background against which to launch this new and important initiative of the European food authority.
I think everyone would accept that in recent months, and perhaps even years, the issue of food safety has become a major concern to European consumers. One only has to think of this country and the BSE crisis and, more recently, the scandal in Belgium of animal feed contaminated by dioxin. Such matters have highlighted serious deficiencies in the European Union food safety policy and in the way in which scientific advice has been marshalled to support decision-making. Clearly, something must be done if European consumers are to have greater confidence.
Everyone who gave evidence to the committee accepted the need for a more co-ordinated approach to bringing about higher standards of food safety in Europe and for European consumers. Many drew attention to the lack of consistency across member states. That is not surprising when one considers the varying levels of scientific expertise or different cultures, and perhaps different methods of addressing the issues in member states. Nevertheless, it often amounts to a failure of the Commission to make an effective contribution towards accomplishing what is desirable to achieve consistency. That is not being achieved at present.
The problems which have to be tackled by a new authority were well summarised in evidence given to us by the Consumers' Association. That is reproduced in box 1 on page 11 of the report. Of the present problems which have to be addressed, 14 are listed. I shall draw attention to only three. First, at present there is a reactive rather than a proactive approach, or, to put it another way, too little too late. Secondly, there are problems of enforcement. It is difficult, at present, to see an effective or consistent enforcement policy across the European Union. Thirdly—this is the fundamental issue—there is a general lack of confidence in the level of scientific advice available to the Commission, the Council of Ministers or to Europe as a whole.
If one considers box 1 on page 11, one has to agree with the Consumers' Association that whatever one thinks of the proposals for the European food authority, something must be done. The issues need to be addressed. There is every reason to criticise the present position, as indeed, European consumers do consistently, and correctly, I believe.
If the new authority is to be an effective initiative, it will have to be judged against two criteria. First, and most important, will it command scientific credibility of the highest order and, therefore, ultimately the respect and confidence of consumers? The White Paper refers to the new authority as aspiring to become the scientific point of reference for the whole Union. I believe we would all agree that that is a worthy aspiration. However, when we come to judge the merits of the proposals, we have to determine whether or not that is likely to be achieved.
The second criterion which we must take into account is whether a new authority will complement and add value to the work of existing national
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agencies. I refer, for example, to the UK Food Standards Agency and existing European Union organisations. If those two criteria were to be met, and we were satisfied that the new organisation would add scientific credibility to the debate and complement and add value to the work of national agencies and others, we would give the proposals our full support, without hesitation.
However, I have to say that at present we have a number of reservations. We do not think that sufficient thought has been given to how this scientific point of reference of the highest order can be achieved. Six serious deficiencies in the arrangements for scientific advice concerning food safety are listed in paragraph 72 of the report. I shall not go through all six but shall draw attention to two.
The first concerns expert committees. There are expert committees in member states and expert committees advising the Commission. At present, they do not interact effectively. Again, I do not have to remind noble Lords that the BSE crisis has drawn attention to that, as, indeed, have many others. It causes confusion in the minds of consumers and clearly is a failure to interact.
Secondly, I refer to the lack of an adequate scientific secretariat available to the Commission. After all, the Commission has the responsibility of managing risk and implementing the proposed measures. If the Commission does not have access to an adequate scientific secretariat, it will fall back on advice of an unknown quantity and quality. That seems to be one of the fundamental problems facing the Commission at present. Clearly, we would expect any new authority to be able to call on an adequate scientific secretariat. That does not mean to say that it has to do all the research itself. However, it has to be able to call upon a suitable secretariat in order to identify where the best advice and risk assessment can be obtained.
If the new authority is to achieve scientific credibility of the highest order, it must also ensure that it can identify where the best science is coming from. It does not really matter where in the world that is; whether from the European Union or elsewhere. It simply must know where the best advice is. We do not expect scientists to agree on the precise assessment of risk. That is not the nature of science. Science tries to measure areas which are not clearly understood. But ultimately it can and should be possible for the authority to act as a point of reference for scientific advice and ultimately to build towards a scientific consensus. We see that as the role of the authority. That is not to say that it will override the national agencies, but that it would act as the forum within which, through iterative scientific debate, a consensus can be achieved. That would be astonishingly helpful and would be exactly what European consumers would be looking for.
There are a number of models which should be looked at carefully to see how one should set up such an authority. In our report we mention, with qualification, the United States Food and Drugs Administration. Although in some respects that

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organisation commands a high reputation, it should be noted that it is prone to political influence. The Swedish national food administration commands a high reputation as a national agency. Other European Union agencies are not mentioned in the report but I would personally add the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, which is based in London. Those are examples of the smooth functioning of the interface between scientific assessment and risk management.
Clearly, there are models which need to be looked at. It is important not to think that the authority should simply override other advice. The Commission refers to the guiding principles which should underpin the European food authority. We agree with its assessment, and refer in paragraph 31 to scientific excellence, independence and transparency.
One of the matters which alarmed us was that we felt there was an implication in the White Paper that the Joint Research Centre, which is effectively the in-house corporate research laboratory of the European Union, was somehow to be given an inside track. If you want scientific excellence, you have to go to the best in the world, wherever it is. If you want independence you do not go to the in-house research organisation. The record of transparency also suggests that it has to he seen that you have gone to the best in the world. I hope that we are wrong in fearing that the Joint Research Centre will be given preferential treatment.
If we recognise that building up the scientific consensus is the first and most important role on which the authority will be judged, the second area would be that of adding assistance to member states in the international dimension. By that I mean beyond the boundaries of the European Union.
The European Union is the world's largest importer and exporter of food products. Therefore, food safety becomes an important aspect of the World Trade Organisation negotiations. We feel that the authority could make a significant contribution in helping to establish uniform food standards around the world, and certainly for imports coming into the European Union. It is not clear in the White Paper what role the authority is to assume on this aspect.
The authority is to be given the role of leading on risk assessment, which is clearly a scientific role. Risk management is to remain with the Commission. This division of responsibilities is an important element of the proposals. If risk management were to be included within the powers of the authority we understand it would require an amendment to the EC Treaty. That is not the reason we agree with the Commission's proposal, because if a case is strong enough you can amend treaties, but we recognise that until this organisation gets the scientific credibility that we all hope it will, it would be unwise for it to be saddled also with responsibilities for regulation and enforcement.
That raises the question as to what its relationship will be with the existing organisations available to the Commission for surveillance, regulation and enforcement. Also it raises the question as to why it is
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not to have a risk management role. It is implied that the authority will be responsible—in part at least—for managing the rapid alert system. It seems to us that that is clearly a risk management function.
I mentioned risk communication earlier. That is clearly an important function of the national agencies. It is also one in which the authority should be involved. So we would hope that the agency would have the authority, and indeed the duty, to be proactive, to relate to all national organisations or others as it wished, but to give advice ultimately to the Commission and to the national agencies. Therefore, it must expect the Commission to give its full support. If the Commission backs away and does not put in place the surveillance for the enforcement required in order to achieve the necessary risk assessment, then the authority's credibility will suffer.
The Food and Veterinary Office, based in Dublin, at the moment fulfils a role of information-gathering and surveillance. Therefore, it is clearly an important component in the mechanism of achieving risk management, as well as a link between risk assessment and risk management. It is most important that there should be total transparency between the two organisations, the Food and Veterinary Office and the new authority. In fact, we go further. We would put the two together, because information-gathering and surveillance seem to us to be part of achieving adequate risk assessment.
Others may wish to speak about nutrition, which we dealt with briefly. It is a controversial issue in some ways, as indeed it was when legislation was passed in Parliament setting up the UK Food Standards Agency. Finally, let me say that we support the concept of the proposed European food authority. However, we do not think that the White Paper gives a clear enough idea as to how scientific credibility and consumer confidence in the authority are to be achieved.
The authority must be independent; it must have a culture of transparency; and above all it must demonstrate scientific excellence. It will need the appropriate scientific secretariat. That will cost a great deal more than some of the figures we have heard mentioned. We share with the Commission the aspiration to establish an authority which will become the scientific point of reference for the whole Union. We hope that the full proposals to be produced after the present round of consultation will be more explicit on how this will be achieved. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the report of the European Union Committee on A European Food Authority (7th Report, HL Paper 66).—(The Earl of Selborne.)
11.54 a.m.
Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, I rise to speak as a member of Sub-Committee D and in support of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, our distinguished, experienced and most able chairman, who has spoken so eloquently today to the recommendations which are the unanimous recommendations of the committee.

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Therefore, I should like to highlight the recommendations which I have most experience of and can with a degree of confidence report to your Lordships.
For over 25 years I have been in business as a fish trader and processor and supplier to supermarket chains within and outwith the European Union. I have worked and lived in continental Europe. I have come to terms with the difficulty of our fine common law system here being at variance with the essentially Roman law system of the European Community. Therefore, it is of no surprise to me that the White Paper on food safety,
"is to ensure that Community institutions and legislation bring about a high standard of food safety for European consumers",
and that the guiding principles on which the proposals are based are that,
"food safety is the overriding objective … primary responsibility for safety lies with producers, manufacturers, retailers and other operators … there must be a comprehensive and integrated approach to food law, covering the whole of the food chain 'from farm to table' … all inputs to the food chain should be transparent and traceable … controls must operate consistently across all Member States".
Who could not agree with that set of admirable objectives? Certainly not I.
I support the idea of a European food authority, as outlined. But, as so often in the European Union, this is an "aspirational" paper, something to sign up to in a spirit of co-operation and comradeship, not something to have cold water thrown over by British pragmatism or held up by our annoying, exasperating British habit of wanting to know: will it actually work; what is a rapid alert system; who is going to make it work; who is going to manage the rapid alert system? And the proposal will be slowed down by our insistence that these matters and the mechanisms to support them should be decided at the outset.
As we point out in our general conclusions:
"The White Paper leaves unresolved a number of questions, not least on the status and powers of the proposed European Food Authority. Although in general we support the concept of the Authority, in our opinion the proposal stands or falls on whether the EFA, as constituted, can be given the resources and powers to enable it to establish a track record in scientific excellence … and to develop rapidly an effective monitoring and surveillance capability".
As an international trader, I can see that politically and globally that will be viewed with enormous suspicion. In my view, the United States will immediately view it as a trade war; and the United States has already been rocked by the use of our European precautionary principle.
With regard to genetically modified grains, there was the thoughtless granting of permission—without consultation with the consumer DG in the European Union—by the European Union to the Monsanto Corporation to sell unsegregated grain in the European Union. The outcry that followed from the consumer groups, faced with a food industry that was unable to label food that identified the GM ingredients, has had huge repercussions. The American consumer groups are now looking at what
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they have been eating since 1985, when the FDA, on their much simpler system of equivalents, passed GM foods into the nation's system. "If it looks like a carrot; if it smells like a carrot; if it tastes like a carrot; then it is a carrot", is not the system we use with the precautionary principle. Ours says that, "It may look like a carrot; it may smell like a carrot; it may taste like a carrot; but has the genetic base been altered?" If it has, we proceed with all caution; a system which I very much applaud.
If this authority is to be well viewed and trusted on the world stage, scientific excellence must be its overriding goal and the best of the world's scientists should not be excluded. They should be encouraged, invited and welcomed to help us to deliver the scientific work of the authority.
As for national enforcement—already referred to by my noble friend Lord Selborne—I have seen and worked with our zealous enforcement of directives in this country. After all, we are the country which reported itself for having dirty water—you cannot get more clever at enforcement than that! But we have to be careful in this area. I have seen in the time I have worked in the European Union how little enforcement is in evidence. Some countries, and certainly some of our warmer-country partners, to my despair, have flouted so many laws that it has made trading with them almost impossible.
Our common law system leads to a general recognition and approval of enforcement. But the continental system seems to recognise much more the fallen nature of the human race. It feels it is natural to pass laws to which it aspires, and the area of enforcement therefore becomes uneven. As we have already heard, it is an aspect about which the report expresses grave concern.
In recent years I leapt the counter and became chairman of the National Consumer Council, and am now president of the National Federation of Consumer Groups. Therefore for me, nowadays, regaining consumer confidence and trust, certainly in the British food chain, is extremely important. I would be delighted if that were recognised within the new food authority. I have great hopes of that, particularly if the EFA is set up to the same standard as our own independent Food Standards Agency. That would be an excellent start.
Wherever possible, the more clear information we can obtain for consumers the better able they will be to make an informed choice. I understand that people may see the proposal on nutrition as being very much a "nannying" proposal, almost a "big brother" proposal. But I am concerned about some of the novel foods that are coming into our system, particularly those being bought by the young. But the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, will speak on that area so I shall say no more in that regard.
The big question people ask is, "What is the risk to me of eating this food and using this product?". If the new authority is to be successful, the assessment, management and, above all, communication of

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information to the consumer is vitally important. I should like the authority to be able to communicate directly with people.
Finally, there should be transparency and openness. It is my hope that we in this country will soon have a freedom of information Act and a presumption of openness. It has been infuriating for me over the past 10 years, when it is written that I should be able to look at any papers I wish and ask any questions I want, to go to the Commission and find that there are no papers; they cannot be found; and it is weeks and months before we can obtain any information. I hope therefore that the new authority will start as it means to go on; that is, setting a standard and, wherever possible, showing openness.
These proposals for a European food authority raise important questions. I have been able to touch on but a few. We now have an opportunity within the European Union to aspire to the highest ideals of food safety. But with new members joining us who are light years away from the best practice and the best science already achieved in some of our member states and who will need enormous help and support, achievement of those aims will depend on the political will on the part of member states and the Commission. Otherwise, I fear that this exercise will prove to be an expensive waste of time.
12.3 p.m.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, this House should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Selborne for bringing before us this report on the Commission's White Paper on food safety. Having been concerned with food safety in an earlier part of my life, the report is particularly pertinent and of interest to me.
Of course, food and its safety are essential issues in the daily lives of us all. But safety can be compromised at numerous points along the food chain, from the basic supply (the farmer, for example) through manufacturing and retailing to the table or kitchen, and finally to the dinner plate. Hence surveillance and enforcement at all those stages is increasingly complicated.
The food chain is complex and made even more so by the fact that we now have a global market. Whereas production methods may be adequate in this country and the European Union, that may not be so for food coming from elsewhere. Nor can health standards be amenable to inspection or, indeed, to enforcement to the same level that exists within the European Union. For example, the attractively packaged soft fruit from distant lands may bear unseen burdens of noxious agents due to irrigation or washing with water contaminated by sewage. That has been found to be an important issue in the United States with materials from central and South America.
Despite the establishment of food standards authorities in several European Union member states, all purporting to aim at a high level of safety, there is nevertheless a clear need for harmonisation of procedures and methodologies used and for a
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transparent and open regulatory system. It is also important to be clear what the food standards authority will be responsible for—clear not only at the top end, to the administrators and directors, but also at the bottom end to those who will be at the cutting edge of safeguarding the food chain, the food inspectors, the meat inspectors and so forth.
The White Paper states that food safety is the overriding objective. Hence, there should be an avoidance of issues that have no direct relevance to food safety, even though in themselves they are important. For example, I am the last person to negate the importance of animal welfare in general, but I do not believe it is an important issue when considering food safety. Other examples are nutrition and food quality. I can assure your Lordships that decision making at the bottom end, on issues of safety, can become extremely clouded if nutrition and quality have to be part of the assessment. Similarly, environmental issues are not directly related. Nor, for that matter, are issues relating to genetically modified organisms. For those reasons I support the opinion expressed in paragraph 108 that,
"the EFA's role should … he primarily focused on food safety",
and subject to close liaison with the Food and Veterinary Office as expressed in paragraph 104.
A further important reason why it should focus its interest is that there is already an abundance of food safety issues to be addressed; and if scientific excellence is "the overriding goal", as stated in paragraph 116, then in-depth concentration on those factors must be the goal in collaboration with other agencies.
I give an example of such an issue. The food chain is well recognised as the source of enteric infections, particularly antibiotic-resistant organisms, which can cause either direct illness as a result of, for example, resistant salmonella, or indirectly by passing on antibiotic resistance to the commensal organisms in the human intestine which is then passed on to noxious or harmful organisms. But we do not know the extent of this environmental pool of resistant organisms. We have no quick test for detecting it, and we cannot detect it in food or meat inspection.
Following the House of Lords Select Committee report on resistance to antibiotics, which I had the honour to chair, there has been very useful action by the Department of Health and other agencies, the World Health Organisation and the Copenhagen Declaration. There is to be set up a new expert advisory committee on antimicrobial resistance. The over-arching committee, which was recommended 30 years ago by the Swann Committee, and reiterated by the recent Select Committee report on antibiotic resistance, is now being established and will, I am sure, perform a very useful service.
This is an example of excellence being combined with surveillance and a detailed knowledge of, for example, antibiotic resistance. An important point to be considered is the surveillance of food safety. The development of quick and accurate detection tests in collaboration with some well known agencies, such as

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the Public Health Laboratory Service surveillance unit and the World Health Organisation, should provide a very effective, in-depth and well regarded scientific approach—an approach characterised by scientific excellence.
Finally, I turn to the question of consumer confidence in the field of food safety and the regulation of it, which has sadly slipped in recent years. However, I believe that it can be regained, based on top class science, whatever its source, adequate peer review, publication of such science and a transparency of the work and the implications of the work that has been taking place. I believe that at that point consumer confidence will return.
12.13 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Selborne for his excellent chairmanship of our Committee. He was firm but fair, which are the ideal attributes of a chairman. I also join with him in thanking our clerk, Mr Radice, and our professional specialist scientific adviser, Professor James, who was so normal and level headed that I quite forgot that he was a scientist. This is a well balanced report. In view of the conflicting evidence, it was difficult to get something as sound as has been produced by my noble friend Lord Selborne. A number of different views were expressed about food safety, which I found rather confusing and conflicting.
The background Muzak to our inquiry was the loss of consumer confidence in food and food regulation in Europe and in this country, as noted by my noble friend Lord Soulsby. It was felt that the public need more scientific advice and more regulation before they can safely put food into their mouths. We heard evidence from LACOTS that we need to harmonise the implementation and enforcement of food laws. Other witnesses wanted improved systems of pan-European regulation. A group named "Scientists for Labour" said:
"An authoritative transnational body is obviously required in Europe to enforce and police standards, to ensure co-ordination of food safety policy between Member States".
Another witness, Sustain, was bang up to the minute with a demand for,
"innovative things like citizens' juries, consensus conferences, stakeholder dialogues … (and) focus groups".
This is exciting, advanced thinking. But I think that we already have some citizens' juries.
One has only to look outside to see the evidence. There are Bunteresque masses of people stuffing their faces with food on streets, planes, buses, trains, pavements, cinemas and theatres. People are, as never before, eating burgers, frankfurters, pizzas, chocolate, ice cream, sandwiches, and even the deadly doner kebab—which is quite acceptable as long as one knows who the "donor" is! Therefore, I see no pent up demand for consumer conferences or indeed for stakeholder dialogue, unless the word "stakeholder" is spelt rather differently.
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The demand for more regulatory bodies seems to come from consumer organisations and special interest pressure groups which need to believe, and need to make others believe, that there is indeed a crisis in consumer confidence. In this respect, I include the Commission, which in its White Paper states:
"Public confidence in food safety is badly affected by food alerts and crises".
Exactly so. It is all too often the case that hyped alarms and crises affect people rather than the food itself.
Where is the evidence that people believe that food is unsafe? I see very little evidence; indeed, rather to the contrary. We have compelling evidence from the British Hospitality Association. Its members serve nearly 9 billion meals a year without any serious illness among the people who consume all that food. If food is seen as such a risk, why is eating out now such a growth area? Why cannot one get a table at a restaurant? Why are more and more restaurants opening all the time? These matters are not at all consistent with the arguments that there is a massive crisis in consumer confidence.
In Britain—more statistics, I am afraid—people eat about 60 billion meals per year, of which about 200 people die from food-related diseases, including CJD. That suggests to me that there is a far greater risk of being killed or injured by a police car on one's way to dinner than actually eating that dinner. Surely we ought to retain a sense of proportion about this before calling for yet another food authority and another layer of bureaucracy, at vast expense and with probably little gain, except to the army of scientists, regulators, lawyers and bureaucrats, whose jobs, salaries, pensions and research grants often depend on the illusion of maintaining a spectre of food scares.
It seems to me that there is a food scare industry, just as there is a human rights industry, which is largely self-referential. Both are dependent upon persuading the public that another layer of expensive legal bureaucracy is vital to the freedom and safety of the individual. Indeed, they do not seem to have any regard to the reality which can be seen on the streets to the individual or to the industries that are involved.
An illustration of that can be found in the Meat Hygiene Service, which is busy destroying the perfectly worthwhile industry of raw meat. We have had compelling evidence that there is no risk from raw meat, as everyone seems to realise, because raw meat is cooked. But this is now at European level. This British Government seem powerless to change it. When anyone complains about it, we are told that we are merely fulfilling our treaty obligations. Under the guise of treaty obligations, a whole industry is being knocked on the head. I am nervous about the introduction of a European food authority which will give more power to more people to do exactly the same thing over a much wider field.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of the various food scares of the past few years. We had the Edwina Currie salmonella sensation; listeria in cheese; cancer in Perrier water; and, of course, the beef-on-the-bone fiasco, which encouraged many people to break the

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law because everyone realised that the Government were talking absolute rubbish. These are just examples of the classic scares, which did not, I believe, cause any deaths in particular.
We then had the unfortunate Barr case in Scotland, with E-coli, as a result of which, sadly, people did die. There was also the Belgian dioxin scare, where no one died. Those cases were due to the failure of the existing regulations and systems and did not in any way demonstrate the need for something different. The inspectorate that dealt with the Barr incident was at fault, as was Mr Barr, the butcher involved. Such incidents do not call for a new system; they call for existing systems to be much better implemented.
Therefore, I respectfully ask noble Lords: why do we need another layer of expensive bureaucracy, when all the evidence suggests that we do not need one? The Commission's White Paper states that,
"the European food chain is one of the safest in the world".
If that is the case—hooray! But why do we need something else? It does not seem to me that the case has yet been made.
In its written evidence to us, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, said:
"It is a fundamental principle that greatest management control and highest accountability and consumer assurance are achieved when the points of control and assurance are located close to the processes that need to be controlled".
I am in absolute agreement with that view. In its White Paper, the Commission says:
"Greater transparency at all levels is the golden thread throughout the White Paper".
But, as I believe our special adviser, Professor James, so sensibly observed, the Commission would not recognise transparency if it fell over it. He did not actually say those words, he said:
"Commission officials literally do not understand the process of transparency".
It seems transparent to me that the case has not remotely been made out for handing over more power to the Commission. Consumers are already very well protected by UK food law and by World Health Organisation surveillance programmes. Until it has been established that a European food authority would seriously add value to consumer safety, I believe that the idea should be quietly shelved. The Commission should be reminded of the wise words of its past president; namely, that it should do less but do it better.
12.21 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, the one area where, as a member of the sub-committee, I can agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, is in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, our chairman. He had the quite difficult task of, first, bringing together a new committee and getting us all to work together; and, secondly, addressing what ended up as a very wide-ranging topic encompassing not only our attitudes to food but also the structures of the EU and how they work. I should very much like to thank the noble Earl for never quelling opinion but
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enabling us to focus in such a way that I believe we have produced a report which deals well with the questions raised by this topic and which voices some very worthwhile observations that I hope both the Government and the EU will find useful.
However, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, in his view that there is no need for such an authority even to be considered. The fact is that the production, processing and distribution of food have changed dramatically and are continuing to do so at an ever-increasing rate. It is the new technologies, new production methods and the new ways of feeding livestock that have produced disasters like the BSE crisis and engendered tremendous concerns, such as those relating to GM technology, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. Public concerns about what people are eating and how safe it is do exist.
As the noble Lord pointed out, the quality, quantity and choice of food available suggests that the public should be very happy: but the fact is they are not. People have become suspicious about the science behind the testing of these new methods of production. They are suspicious that, at a national level, science has become politicised. I believe that there is a gap to be filled here and one that the EU is ideally placed to fill.
The EFA should, as we firmly state in the report, be in the business of gathering the best of scientific opinion; it should not be in the process of reinventing the wheel. It should produce scientific opinion as to risk assessments that is reliable and consistent. That would be an excellent first step for it. It is an area of work where people in this country and in other European countries will easily see the point of having a champion for their concerns—not only for their domestic market but also to ensure that the European food market is seen as a place of safety, not of risk, worldwide. I shall return later to the point about the EFA's place in the world trade context.
If the EFA is to fulfil that role, it is important that the accountability between it and the European Parliament is strong. If the EFA is simply a creature of the Commission with no lines of accountability, it will be likely to be viewed as distant, remote and, therefore, less trustworthy. Our committee's opinion is that there may not be formal accountability and that there needs to be close, well-developed links between the European Parliament, its MEPs and the EFA. We say that that relationship should be constructive and positive and avoid the sort of reactive stance that can develop—and, indeed, has developed historically in many areas—between the Commission and MEPs.
There is also an opportunity in the EFA's ability to report on enforcement implementation, which would include work on one of the most high-profile bad aspects of public perception of the food industry in Europe. I believe that Caroline Jackson, MEP, hit the nail on the head when she explained how important it

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was that there should be continuous dialogue between the European Parliament and the EFA. As she put it:
"MEPs must provide answers to the problem that all MEPs encountered at the last European election. Our electors now know that EU laws are not applied in the same way everywhere and they want something done about it".
MEPs do have to account for that fact and, in turn, they should be accounted to.
I turn to the question of laws not being evenly applied, which was especially evident in the area of risk management. It is an area with which our committee grappled hard. I have in mind the difficult issue of where national responsibility should lie for risk management and enforcement. We were quite clear that, at a national level, risk management must be undertaken and that, once a risk has been assessed, the weight of evidence pointed to the fact that risk management should occur at a national level. Although enforcement should happen at that level, we felt that the EFA must be able to highlight failures of enforcement—a particularly important point. The ability of the EFA to communicate its opinion on risk assessment to all citizens in Europe is crucial if it is to prove worth while. In response to the concerns in this country, we have made the move to establish our own Food Standards Agency, which is very welcome. Producers and government are beginning to accept the demand for clearer, more informative labelling.
We have heard that only eight of the 15 member states have set up, or have firm plans to set up, food agencies. With further expansion of the EU, it is very likely that more member states will benefit from having an EFA. There are those who might say that there is little benefit for those states like ours which already have an agency. But I do not believe that to be the case. There are two reasons why we should be enthusiastic about this proposal.
First, we need a strong European voice in the global context. Given the level of imports and exports, as mentioned by our chairman, the time must have come when it is essential to establish a European food authority. Our inquiry found the case for the authority especially strong, so that the EU would have a means of a strong input into the Codex Alimentarius—that rather invisible, but all-powerful body that determines what happens in a global food trade. As mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, there continues to be a wide difference of opinion between Europe and the United States on what is safe in some areas; for example, the use of hormones. Europe definitely needs a strong body of collective scientific opinion so that we can test our concerns scientifically and not be accused of reacting on the grounds of fear that may be founded or unfounded. The export of food is of enormous importance to the EU economy. We need a body to ensure that food produced by the EU is known to be of a consistently high standard.
One of the committee's debates related to the role that the EFA would play in the nutrition aspects of food safety. The remit of the EFA is to deal with food safety. We grappled both long and hard with how wide the definition of "safety" should be. It is clear that a
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poor diet or a bad diet can be a killer, albeit in the longer term. With the increase in the use of novel foods, foods that may contain nothing that we would traditionally recognise as food but a complex mixture of artificially created substances, we need to have an authority that looks at the long-term effects of eating such "food" and at the effect of a "cocktail" of such substances. There is some public awareness developing around the relationship between the consumption, for example, by children of fizzy drinks and behaviour problems. These kinds of effects will need much further exploration in the future.
The committee heard from Dr Godfrey, who is the vice-chairman of the Consumers in Europe Group. He said:
"I do not take the view that [food] safety is more important than public health; if you are going to tackle the issues which are really important to the people of Europe then you cannot leave outside of consideration the problems of food nutrition and health".
I very much share that view but I can understand why we as a committee reached the conclusion that we did. Given the amount of work that a newly established EFA would have, we came to the rather more cautious opinion that the EFA should deal with nutrition issues only to the extent that they have implications for food regulation policy and that other aspects should be given separate and careful consideration by the Commission. I believe that President Prodi's original vision of an authority that had a wider remit will come to be recognised as a good but long-term aim. In the short term I can live with our committee's conclusion.
Overall, I find the proposal to create a European food authority to bring together the best of scientific advice and expertise in an area that concerns the public so greatly is an exciting one. I hope that the issues highlighted by our sub-committee as potential areas of difficulty will be a stepping stone to producing an accountable, useful and respected EFA.
12.31 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Selborne and his committee on an admirable report. Let me immediately add to that my appreciation of my noble friend's equally admirable introduction to this debate, which set out the key issues so concisely. It may sound unoriginal to say this but it is none the less true: this is a report which deserves to be read and reread by all those to whom it is addressed, not only by government but also by the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament. It is a veritable model of sound analysis and common sense.
After those eulogies I must confess that in the first instance I approached the notion of a European food authority in a mood of a priori scepticism. A good deal of that feeling was rooted in the fact that the Commission's White Paper has something of the look of a Swiss cheese about it. Proposals presented with so many significant lacunae and with so little detail fleshed out are inclined to make one fear the worst. The potential for creating a new EU body with all the

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attributes that we would deplore—bureaucratic, intrusive, duplicatory, ineffectual—is apparent to those of a somewhat fearful disposition.
That need not happen, as the report points out, provided there is the political will to avoid it. Perhaps the two key questions that need to be asked at the outset are: what is the mischief to be addressed; and what is the added value that the new body will bring? The mischief is not properly analysed in the White Paper but it is clearly set out by the committee. Many people would start with the thought that on the large issues of food safety—those with an international dimension—the European Commission has not in the past shown itself to be as joined up or as effective as we would wish it to be. As my noble friend Lord Selborne pointed out, the dioxins scandal exemplified an apparent inability to respond rapidly to a crisis. Certainly the Commission is not regarded by consumers as a body that either involves them in the formulation of EU food policy or communicates meaningfully with them. Nor is it seen as transparent in the way that it takes policy decisions.
So the case for an EFA rests essentially on a need for improved confidence. An EFA is not, and should never be, an excuse to increase the power of the Commission but rather a means of making the Commission more effective in fulfilling its existing functions. One of those functions is that of overseer of the proverbial level playing field. In food issues, the level playing field is not, of course, solely—or even primarily—a competition issue. It is an issue of consumer safety. What the report rather endearingly refers to as,
"the probability of continuing asymmetry between member states in their national arrangements for implementing and enforcing EU food safety law",
makes it essential that there is effective regulation and guidance at Commission level. That is especially true with the prospect ahead of us of an enlarged Union. Aspirant countries need to have in place legislation, standards and procedures that are uniform in relation to food manufacturing and food imports.
In the single market, any food imported into the EU and passed as safe by the receiving country can be traded freely thereafter. So the safeguards for European consumers on third country products are only as strong as those that are applied wherever the food is checked upon its entry to the EU. I share the view of the committee that promoting uniform standards would be one of the main tasks for a new EFA. I agree also that there needs to be an effective input by the EU into the Codex Alimentarius which is nowadays an absolutely vital facilitator of world trade.
This, then, points to an EFA which is capable not just of thinking and acting in a proactive way—it certainly involves that—but also of anticipating new developments and practices in the food chain and understanding the science behind them. If those tasks are to be performed effectively, an EFA must have the necessary degree of public confidence—in other words, living up to its name as an authority. That means the EU being careful to endow the EFA with
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only those powers and responsibilities—no more and no less—which it needs to fulfil its remit. But the lynchpin of all that, as the committee stresses time and again, is the need to ensure that the EFA is a repository of unbiased scientific excellence. Without that, it is nothing. Indeed, without that, it is not even worth beginning to think about it.
Comparisons are difficult, but my suggestion is that in time it should aspire to the same level of international esteem as that enjoyed by the US Food and Drugs Administration. But its role should remain that of expert adviser. It must contribute to political decision-making but be kept apart from it. It must forge close links with food agencies in member states but not undermine or duplicate them. In member states without adequate standards or administrative structures, it must feed off best practice elsewhere in the Union.
Establishing its reputation as the authoritative "single voice" for food safety, in the words of Commissioner Byrne, will take time. My noble friend Lord Selborne referred to the barriers that need to be overcome. I simply add, as one or two witnesses to the committee pointed out, that there is all the difference in the world between a body with the highest possible scientific credentials and one which is capable of communicating its findings in a way that is easily intelligible to lay people as well as to other scientists. So the skill of the EFA in communicating effectively will need to be built at several levels. Equally, the process of risk assessment—one of the authority's key tasks—will be quite distinct from mechanisms to ensure that the process is transparent. That is separate again from the process of effective risk communication. From personal experience in MAFF as a former Minister, I share the committee's conclusion that the EFA should be open about minority opinions and be free to communicate risk to whatever audience it chooses.
My noble friend argued persuasively about the function of risk management. One obvious area of discussion will be the role played by the EFA in the enforcement of food safety law. For it to do so directly would require a change in the treaty and would not, I think, be acceptable to member states. What it can and should do, however—here I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer—is to be in a position to highlight failures in enforcement. It is a feature of the EU, as I found even during my time as a MAFF Minister, that information about the implementation of EU law in other member countries is extremely difficult to obtain. MAFF was reliant on asking our embassies to carry out ad hoc inquiries, which, although conducted diligently enough, were seldom able to provide Ministers with more than an anecdotal picture. That needs to change. If we in Britain are suspicious of what may or may not be happening across the Channel, the suspicions are no doubt mutual. A surveillance and monitoring remit for the EFA, provided that it does not duplicate systems in member states, would go a long way to removing an insidious barrier against international trust.

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One of the committee's conclusions that I am less sure about is the section of paragraph 61 which suggests that the EFA's credibility will depend on the Commission's willingness to act on its advice. Perhaps it will in part. I do not share the fear that, otherwise, the authority will be seen as responsible for the Commission's failure to act. The authority and standing of the European Court of Auditors do not seem to be undermined to any great extent by any perceived foot dragging on the part of the Commission in relation to EU fraud and waste. It may be relevant to note in passing that there are close links between the European Court of Auditors and the various committees of the European Parliament which oversee budgetary and financial issues—a model perhaps for the EFA.
I started by expressing some scepticism. So far as concerns the theory, the committee has succeeded largely in dispelling that scepticism. The rub lies in the way that the proposals are put into practice; they have to work. My noble friend has provided valuable pointers to making the new authority both practical and credible; I very much hope that the committee's conclusions will find favour with the Government.
12.41 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and the Select Committee on the European Union on holding their inquiry into the European food authority and for bringing forward this debate on their report today. As the noble Earl suggested, it is the first report of the reconstituted Sub-Committee D; I hope that it will be the first of many. I wish to pay tribute to the noble Earl and to the members of the committee, many of whom have spoken today. We have had a high quality debate.
The issues in relation to food safety and public confidence go very wide, as the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, suggested. I am glad to pay tribute to him and the work that his committee undertook in relation to antibiotic resistance. That is a good reflection of the influence your Lordships' committees are having in these very important areas.
There is no doubt that today's debate and the committee's report will be important contributions to the overall debate and great aids to the Government in their deliberations once the proposals are issued by the Commission in October. They are also very helpful in relation to the need to improve public confidence in food issues.
I listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, as he recounted to us the enormous appetite of people living in this country. When he referred to 60 billion meals a year, I began to feel rather hungry. I am sure that other noble Lords felt the same. As a health Minister, I became rather alarmed when I realised that the "Healthier Nation" targets in relation to people's weight may prove to be more challenging than they are already.
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I understand the substantive point, made by the noble Lord, that he wishes to avoid, if you like, another set of arrangements which may be piled on to current arrangements. However, notwithstanding the happy and healthy appetites of the British people, there is concern, too, among the public in relation to food safety issues, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, pointed out. We have to address those issues of public confidence.
There is no doubt that the committee's report cogently addresses the multiplicity of views heard in evidence and a wide range of issues. The Government's response to the report will be available shortly after this debate.
As the committee appreciated, and as has been demonstrated in this debate, the Commission's proposal for a European food authority, as set out in its White Paper on food safety, raises a good many questions. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, said, the present proposals, while addressing the fundamentals, are silent on much of the detail. It will be interesting to see how the Commission reconciles the many different comments it will receive from different countries. Certainly, the Government have submitted their owns views to the Commission, which, in advance of greater detail, set out our main suggestions and points of concern. These are very similar to many of the issues raised by the committee.
Before commenting on the authority, I should touch briefly on the action plan set out in the White Paper. It is certainly an ambitious programme, as the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, said—perhaps even overambitious. The Commission recognises this. But the document contains a number of measures on which the Government have been seeking action for some time—such as the consolidation of hygiene directives and a radical review of food labelling rules—and, in this light, we await more detailed individual proposals being brought forward by the Commission.
In due deference to the suspicions of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I should point out that we do not regard all of the Commission's proposals as of equal weight. While our overriding concern has to be the protection of public health, we shall also be scrutinising each individual proposal against the criteria of need and proportionality. If I am to take one theme alone away from the debate today, it is the issue of proportionality.
Of course, the proposed establishment of an authority has its critics—indeed, if I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, was an eloquent critic—but, apart from the principle, some of those criticisms may be due to a lack of detail, a matter to which I have already referred. Certainly, it is clear that there are some who consider that the proposals do not go far enough; others consider that there may not be a need at all for a European body, suggesting that the rationalisation of existing Commission services might produce better results. However, it is clear that there is an urgent need to review structures which have evolved over the past 30 years. I accept the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in relation to consistency.

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Given the importance of protecting consumer health, it is important to welcome the proposal to draw existing responsibilities together in a new, independent EU body. I stress the words "existing responsibilities". In the light of what I and other noble Lords have said, we do not expect that this will involve creating any new competencies or transferring responsibility away from member states.
I also accept that such a body must be open and transparent and that it must provide the best scientific advice possible, utilising all available expertise, but I share the concerns that it must be careful not to duplicate work performed effectively elsewhere. It is particularly important that such advice is not based solely on in-house science—a point emphasised in the report. We share the committee's anxiety on that. I shall return to that issue in a moment.
There are number of unresolved questions about the proposed authority which are reflected in the committee's report and the Government's response, and I should like to reflect on the main issues.
The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, referred to the relationship between risk management, risk assessment and risk communication. In its report, the committee accepted that, for the present, there should be a clear division of responsibility, with risk assessment going to the authority and risk management staying with the Commission, along with regulation and enforcement. It also recognised that there should be a close two-way interaction across the divide. This point was among those of particular concern to the Government, as reflected in their response to the Commission.
We agree that legislation should remain with the Council and with the European Parliament. The implied division of the official/technical level functions of risk assessment and risk management between the authority and the Commission is, however, felt by the UK to be the least satisfactory aspect of the Commission's proposals. The Government believe that coherence in the processes of risk analysis is vitally important if policy decisions are to be properly based on sound science and public confidence is to be maintained and enhanced.
I accept that part of the difficulties may have stemmed from different understandings of the terminology. What is absolutely clear is that we must avoid compartmentalisation of the different parts of the task of risk analysis. That could result in risk managers proposing legislation or other controls not firmly based on science or, on the other side of the coin, risk assessors, in giving their opinion, taking no account of the solutions risk managers can practically and effectively apply to safeguard consumer health.
At the end of the day, risk management, risk assessment and risk communication are not individual "steps" but are part of a complex interactive risk analysis process. Certainly, as was pointed out so clearly by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, the separation of these activities between different EU bodies will require effective co-ordination mechanisms to ensure that policy decisions are based on sound
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science. Therefore, as the committee identified, there needs to be close and effective communication between the authority and the Commission.
The authority should at the very least be able—or perhaps even be required—to identify practical solutions and options and make recommendations on courses of action. We have suggested that the Commission should then be obliged to respond in each case by explaining what action it proposes to take. It seems that the Commission is receptive to these ideas and we hope that that will to some extent be reflected in its forthcoming proposals.
Perhaps I may turn to the question of the provision of scientific advice. Several important points have been made by noble Lords. I was interested in the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, who, from her experience in business, spoke of the credibility of what is proposed depending on scientific advice being of the highest quality. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, also raised a number of important issues, including the need for a high quality scientific secretariat.
The Government firmly believe that the proposed European food authority must be able to draw on and represent the best scientific advice available. An existing structure of scientific committees is of course in place; those committees report to the Commission. It is envisaged that they will fall within the remit of 1 he authority. We accept that it is essential that they are well structured and adequately supported by a strong secretariat which can properly frame requests for advice so that the scientific considerations can fully inform and—dare I say?—be understood by policy makers. I also agree with the point made about effective communication with the public. Such scientific advice has to be made available to the wider public in a clear and comprehensible way.
The committee has commented on the authority's remit. Its view matches the UK's response in that we would not wish this to be too widely extended. We see a role for the authority in labelling issues, acting as a source of scientific data on nutrition matters and encouraging co-operation on nutrition issues between member states. But we do not believe that the remit should extend to healthy eating advice or to responsibilities for subjects such as environmental protection or animal welfare. We think that those matters should be dealt with as policy areas in their own right. Those aspects are covered in more detail in the response to the Commission.
I now turn to another important matter; namely, the relationship of the proposed authority with the UK's Food Standards Agency. Again, I share the consensus apparent in our debate today. The European authority must add value to the work of other authorities, but it must not duplicate the work of those other authorities. Arising from that are questions of how it would relate with the UK Food Standards Agency; whether the authority would be able to overrule national agencies; and, indeed, whether it would ultimately make our own agency redundant. I should like to respond very firmly to that final point. The establishment of an authority will not make our own agency redundant.

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There is a substantive difference in the proposed remit of the authority and that of the UK's agency. The Food Standards Agency encompasses risk assessment, risk management and risk communication on all food safety issues. It deals with compositional and quality standards, animal feed, nutrition and diet advice, food authenticity, surveillance and enforcement. That is a much wider scope of responsibilities than those proposed for the European authority.
Perhaps the best way to view the role of the European food authority is that essentially it will improve the arrangements for co-ordinating food safety at the European level, with individual member states retaining responsibility for implementing the necessary measures and controls within their own territories. In terms of the authority's ability to overrule the opinions of national agencies and scientific experts, as the committee is already aware, no such formal rule has been proposed. We see the role of the authority as one of aiding consensus on difficult or divisive issues rather than acting as an arbiter or pressing its own views on member states.
While the relationship between the proposed authority and agencies in member states is not clearly defined in the Commission's communication, we do expect any recommendations from the authority to be based on full consultation and careful analysis of the best available scientific information. It is obvious, given that scientific opinion can rarely be stated with 100 per cent confidence, that there will be scope for disagreement or differences of opinion. We should not run away from that. However, with active collaboration with agencies and authorities in member states, the scope for such instances might be reduced.
In this regard, the Commission has proposed some form of network between the authority and national authorities. That is eminently sensible in order to tap the wealth of expertise and resources resident in member states, as well—I return to the point I made earlier—as avoiding duplication of effort.
Many other issues were raised in the debate. I apologise to noble Lords if I am unable to respond to every one, but a number of points were made to which I should like to refer. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, asked what model should be adopted by the European food authority. He suggested that the Commission should look at successful models already in existence. We share that view and we understand that the Commission has expressed an interest in the UK's own Food Standards Agency.
Several questions were raised as regards transparency and openness. I have already said that I very much share the opinion that, if the authority is to sustain credibility within the Community and in this country, openness in relation to its functions and communications to the public as well as to agencies in member states is absolutely vital. It is a matter on which we shall keep a close eye.
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The Commission is currently considering all the comments that have been received on the authority from member states and other interested parties. It is also awaiting the European Parliament's opinion which, I understand, is not expected until October. We therefore expect to see a detailed proposal from the Commission around the end of October, on which detailed and more focused discussion can take place. We await the Commission's proposals with interest. There is no question that the handling of food safety issues is of great importance to this Government. It was for that very reason that we established the Food Standards Agency.
This has been an interesting and informed debate. We shall take into consideration all the points that have been raised, as well as the substantive points raised in the committee's report.
I conclude by once again thanking the noble Earl and the sub-committee members for the splendid job that they undertook in producing not only a very informative report but one that can be clearly understood in an area which is often not necessarily so clear.
1 p.m.
The Earl of Selborne: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful response. Indeed, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate. If nothing else, I believe that we have demonstrated that within the committee we have the ability, indeed the inclination, to challenge every concept that is put to us from different standpoints. I hope the House will agree that the fact that we produced a unanimous report demonstrates that we have achieved a consensus among ourselves. In asking the EFA to achieve a scientific consensus, we are asking it to do what scientists have clearly failed to do thus far; indeed they disagree radically.
I make the point to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke that those who are dubious about how an EFA can add value have only to look at the inconsistency between the advice of the highly regarded UK Food Standards Agency and that of the national organisation in France, which apparently has two quite different scientific views about the safety of British beef. There may be good political reasons for that, which we all understand, but there simply cannot be good scientific reasons. That is why we need a forum in which scientists can test the science objectively. Ultimately, science should not be dictated by policy; policy-makers involved in other considerations may fail to take risk assessment into account.
We were delighted that my noble friend Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior was able to speak in the debate. He was the one Back-Bencher to do so who was not a member of the committee. I congratulate my noble friend on his contribution. I congratulate him also on the fact that today is his birthday.
On Question. Motion agreed to.

Carers and Disabled Children Bill
1.2 p.m.
Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill comes to this House from another place, where it was introduced by my honourable friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde. I want to record my thanks to him, and particularly to the Minister in another place for accepting significant amendments to the Bill on Report which have made it more sensitive to carers' situations. All carers organisations are grateful for that.
I should like also to record my sincere thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester. His wisdom, experience and advice have been extremely helpful to me. The noble Lord is, of course, very experienced on Private Members' Bills as well as having been a Minister. His commitment to the carers' cause long pre-dates that of everyone else. I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
I am delighted also that the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, whom I first met during the course of discussing carers some years ago, is to make her maiden speech in this debate.
About five years ago, I sat below the Bar and watched the noble Lord, Lord Carter, bring to this House a Private Member's Bill, the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill, which had been sponsored in another place by Malcolm Wicks and which the noble Lord steered through this House. It was the first piece of legislation specifically aimed at carers. It enshrined in law a broad definition of "carer" and enabled carers to receive an assessment of their own needs alongside the assessment of the person for whom they are caring.
Although that Act provided important and valuable recognition for carers, carers are still unable to access services directly in order to support their caring role. It was always accepted that further legislation would be required —that was accepted by carers themselves, by the carers organisations and by the Government in their national carers strategy published last year. If this new Bill is successful, it will enable carers to ask for an assessment in their own right and to access services provided by the local authority.
At some time in our lives many of us will be in the position of caring for someone else. We give care willingly because we love those who nearest and dearest to us. For some, the caring role will become a larger part of their lives, taking up more of their time, because someone close to them becomes ill or disabled.
Providing a substantial amount of care on a regular basis can be very hard work and may be emotionally draining. Like many noble Lords, I am acutely aware of the manifold problems that carers face, particularly from my role for 10 years as chief executive of the Carers National Association. Often, carers are struggling to continue in their caring role and want help in maintaining their valuable contribution to the care of a loved one.
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The main aim of the Bill is to enable local councils to offer new support to carers. That will not only help carers to continue to care; it will assist carers, so that they can be assured that their own health and wellbeing are being considered.
Clauses 1 to 5 and Clause 8 introduce changes to the law which affect carers aged 16 or over who provide or intend to provide a substantial amount of care on a regular basis for another individual who is aged 18 or over. Clauses 6 and 7 make specific provision for people with parental responsibility for disabled children.
Clause 1 provides that the carer who is 16 or over has the right to an assessment, on request, from the local council of his or her ability to provide and to continue to provide care for the person cared for. This request will be met if the carer provides or intends to provide a substantial amount of care on a regular basis for another individual aged 18 or over. The provision will be particularly helpful where, as sometimes happens, the cared-for person has refused an assessment for community care services or the delivery of community care services following assessment.
That assessment will enable the local authority to decide whether to provide services to the carer under Clause 2 of the Bill. The local authority must consider the assessment and then decide whether to provide services to meet any assessed needs which are identified.
It is important to point out that the Bill is sensitive to the complexities of the relationship between the carer and the person cared for. Clause 2 details that if the carer and the person cared for agree—and it is important to stress that—services, although provided to the carer, may be services that could be delivered to the person cared for by way of community care services. That might be either because the person cared for has refused help from the local authority, as sometimes happens, or because in the particular circumstances of that relationship it is more appropriate for the service to be provided directly to the carer to support him or her in the caring role or maintain his or her own health and well-being.
Such services, when provided to the carer but delivered to the person cared for, may not, except prescribed circumstances, include anything of an intimate nature. Again, this relates to sensitivity about the relationship between the carer and the person cared for. There is a power to set out in regulations what is or is not a service of an intimate nature. It might include, for example, dressing, feeding, lifting, washing and so on.
The Bill does not offer carers of adults the right to determine the services to be delivered to the people they care for; nor does it give the local council the power to provide as carers' services those services of an intimate or personal nature which are usually delivered to cared-for people as community care services. However, the Bill recognises that the lives of users of community services—persons cared for and their carers—are closely linked, arising as they do out of a pre-existing relationship. The Bill ensures that

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local councils can now look at meeting the needs of carers as well as, but not instead of, those of the person who is cared for under community care legislation.
The effect of subsections (2) to (4) of Clause 4 is that when a local authority proposes to provide a particular service either to the carer under the Bill or to the cared for person under community care legislation it must decide who is the recipient of that service. For example, for the purpose of deciding who is to be liable for any charges and who may complain in relation to the service in question, it is important to know to whom the service is being provided. It is also important to point out the restrictions. The user and carer must agree on who is the person to whom the service is provided. Another important proviso is that the council's decision must be made with absolutely no regard to the means of the carer or the person cared for; in other words, it cannot decide who is better able to pay for the service and then say that that is the party to whom the service will be provided.
I turn to an interesting part of the Bill to do with vouchers. A key issue for many carers is whether they can get a break from their caring role. A short break helps a carer to maintain his or her own health and well-being and often helps to maintain the relationship by providing a little time off. A break is an opportunity for carers to have a life of their own and perhaps spend some time relaxing with family and friends or with those for whom they are caring but free from the usual caring responsibilities. Two important issues dictate whether a carer can enjoy a break. First, is there flexibility in the timing of the break? Breaks are of no use if they are provided only every fourth week and the person may not need it at that particular time. Secondly, does the additional community care service that is provided while they take a break benefit the persons for whom they are caring? The carer simply cannot take a break unless adequate services are provided as a substitute.
Clause 3 enables the Secretary of State, or, in relation to Wales, the National Assembly for Wales, to make provision in regulations for local authorities to issue vouchers for short-term breaks. This scheme will enable the person who is cared for to arrange for someone to provide services to him or her in place of the care which would otherwise have been provided by the carer. The person cared for may choose to remain at home or move into residential accommodation for a short period. In either case it is intended that, whether expressed in a monetary value or for the delivery of services for a period of time, or both, vouchers may be redeemed only in exchange for services delivered by local council-approved providers. I know that that is also of importance to carers.
The short-term break voucher scheme will introduce a simpler way to achieve a level of flexibility and choice in the delivery of short-term breaks than is currently available to community care service users via direct payments. This is an additional option which some may find simpler than using the direct payments scheme. As to direct payments, at the moment disabled people may ask their local council to assess their needs
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for support to live independently in the community. As an alternative to receiving services from the local authority, the money can be given to them to purchase the support that they need.
Clause 5 of the Bill amends the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996 to extend local authority power to make direct payments to carers aged 16 and over. Carers must use the money to purchase for themselves any carer services that they have been assessed as needing to support them in their caring role and to help maintain their own health and well-being.
I turn to an important addition to the Bill which was made in another place to deal with those with parental responsibility for children with disabilities. Clause 6 provides that a person with parental responsibility for a disabled child has the right to an assessment by the local authority of his ability to provide, and continue to provide, for the care of the child. The local council must take that assessment into account in deciding what services, if any, to provide to the child and family under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
Clause 7 inserts new Section 17A into the Children Act 1989. The provision extends the option of direct payments to people with parental responsibility for a disabled child for services for the family and to disabled children aged 16 and 17. The responsibilities of parent carers and others with parental responsibility for disabled children are often made more arduous by the difficulty of accessing mainstream services, for example childcare, including after-school clubs and leisure activities. Where those carers do not think that services are sufficiently tailored to meet the needs of their individual families, direct payments will offer more choice in the way that services are delivered.
The extension of the option of direct payments to 16 and 17 year-old disabled people may be helpful at what is often a very difficult time for them in the transition from childhood to adulthood, in particular when they seek to become more independent of their parents. These direct payments will give such young people more control in deciding how to receive services.
Clause 7 also inserts a new Section 17B into the Children Act 1989 to enable the Secretary of State, or, in relation to Wales, the National Assembly for Wales, to make provision in regulation for local authorities to issue short-term break vouchers to people with parental responsibility for disabled children. Vouchers will provide additional flexibility and choice to carers who will be able to exchange them for services, such as respite care, at times which are most convenient for their families.
Clause 8 enables local authorities to charge carers for services provided to them. That is achieved by an amendment to Section 17 of the Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudications Act 1983. This is a contentious issue with which carer organisations have been much concerned. While this is a simple Bill, it is not really an uncomplicated one, because charging for services is a difficult issue. We already know from the report Charging with Care, published in May by the Audit Commission, that

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charging regimes have been applied in such a way as to leave a proportion of individuals in receipt of income support with very little on which to live.
A recent survey carried out by the Carers National Association entitled Caring on the Breadline, which I have quoted in your Lordships' House in the past, also found that 33 per cent of carers who responded to that survey were in receipt of income support but still had to contribute towards charges for services. The other problem about charging is the tremendous lack of consistency and varied interpretation of charging policies. One of the culprits is poorly written and in places contradictory guidance. That is why the guidance to accompany the legislation when it becomes law will be of considerable importance. It will offer a new opportunity to set the record straight and make guidance on charging clear and consistent, which is what everybody wants.
If a charging regime is to be applied, it must be done in a fair and equitable way. It would be very welcome if the guidance emphasised that local authorities could use their discretion not to charge carers, since many carers are already on low incomes. I hope that the Minister's other review of charging for non-residential care services will take on board the issues raised during the passage of this Bill. I also hope that the Minister will be able to assure the House that on this issue consultation with the carers' organisations, which is absolutely vital, will take place as the guidance is developed. There are other clauses which make consequential amendments or deal with financial provision, interpretation and commencement at the end of the Bill.
In conclusion, carers' needs are diverse. As individuals they have particular needs, relationships and support to enable them to continue with their chosen role—I emphasise that most people care willingly and lovingly and want to continue to do so—while maintaining their own health and well-being, which is also important. The Bill offers local councils the opportunity to be innovative in the ways that they support carers, thereby helping them to maintain that caring role.
Services to carers are not defined in the Bill as such. The social services department may provide any service that it sees fit which in its view, with the agreement of the carer, will help the carer to care. Such service may take the form of physical help, assistance round the house or other forms of support, for example help with transport costs and taxi fares for those who live far away from frequent public transport routes.
Thais Bill empowers carers, not by taking away any of the rights of the people who need care and support, but by introducing for the first time support for carers which ensures that both people in the caring relationship are valued. On that basis, I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Pitkeathley.)
1.19 p.m.
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to make my first speech in this House on a Bill which has commanded so much respect and support in another place, among carers' associations and all the people who care about raising the status and independent rights of carers.
Before I turn to the Bill, perhaps I may say a few words of thanks not only to noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber who have been extremely welcoming and encouraging over the past few fraught weeks but also to the officials and Officers of the House who could not have been kinder or more supportive in the help they have given.
I know that I have tested your Lordships' collective patience in many ways, not least that of my parliamentary mentor, who has been splendid. However, I managed to escape her kindly but vigilant eye on my first day in this House. I sat down and was delighted to be greeted by warm smiles, even a few waves, from my Front Bench. I thought that I had "arrived" when I received a written note from the Doorkeepers, I assumed welcoming me in the form of written evidence. I was dismayed when I read, "Do you realise you are sitting on the Cross Benches? Why don't you join us on our Benches?" If it had not been for the kindness of the Doorkeepers—I think that they are still on red alert—I would probably never have come back. But I have and, I think to the relief of my Front Bench, intend to remain on these Benches.
At this stage, I should own up—it is clearly a time for confession—that I have had a somewhat wayward parliamentary career so far. I began life as a parliamentary clerk in the Library of another place. After many happy years I defected and crossed the corridor to become a special adviser to Neil Kinnock when he was Opposition leader—without whom I am sure we would not have the renewed Labour Party we have today. I am proud to have been able to serve it. I am glad to say that, although I believe my defection was a precedent, it did not become a trend. No one has followed me; and if clerks are thinking of taking this route I would counsel them. I count it as a very great privilege to have served Parliament in two very different ways and now, if I may use the expression, in a third way.
The Bill before this House has long tap-roots reaching back to the 1970s, when I first came across some of the issues associated with carers and, as my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley said, first became indebted to her and the Carers National Association, with its enormous expertise and commitment, without which we would not have the Bill today. I became inspired by the concerns for disabled people, not least those of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, who has played a unique role in improving the lives of disabled people. We are very much in his debt, and that of my noble friend Lord Ashley of Stoke.
The Bill builds on the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995. It gives all carers over 16 new status, new independent rights, new services and new

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choices. I want to focus on young carers, between 16 and 18. Those young people, I believe, will now have a great opportunity. It is hard to be certain about statistics in this area where so much caring is invisible. We believe that as many as 50,000 young carers provide a substantial amount of care. Of those about 14,000 between 16 and 17 will have new rights under this Bill. These young people are still in education. Those figures may be greatly under-estimated. We also know that many carers provide significant amounts of care.
Perhaps I may mention one case which illustrates what these young people do. Khalid is 16 and attends Falinge Park School in Rochdale. He looks after a severely disabled mother. He provides her care and also does all the domestic chores. He looks after a younger brother and sister. He sells Betterware catalogues in his spare time to raise income for the family. He has an attendance record of almost 100 per cent in school. He has just received a Diana, Princess of Wales Award, from the charity which I have the privilege of running. His head teacher has told me that were it not for the primary school which discovered that he was undertaking this caring at a very young age, the secondary school would never have known because it would have had no way of finding out. He would not have told the school.
Many young people are not as successful as Khalid in keeping home, family and school life together. Those who look after mentally disabled parents are particularly at risk because, by its nature, that care is more isolated and problematic. Despite their responsibilities, as my noble friend said, young carers are positive and proud to be carers. Much of what they do is at enormous cost to themselves. It is unacceptable that their lives are often difficult. By definition, they are often poor and isolated. Many feel guilty when they are not at home caring, and fearful of outside interference. Despite their best efforts, and indeed all the skills they develop which go uncredited, a third of them miss school or have educational difficulties. A recent report from Loughborough University—it is so excellent in this field—confirms that many carers at the point of transition to adulthood are at risk of educational failure and unemployment.
It is, therefore, all the more serious that only one in 10 seek assessment under past legislation. There are good reasons for that. They are less well informed and less likely to find out about their rights. Many are afraid that if they make their own needs felt, social services will have no option but to split up the family. Many feel that asking for help is a sign of weakness and inadequacy. More significantly, the research also suggests that the educational services, with which they have greatest contact, play a minimal role in identifying young carers or referring them for help.
The Bill will, I hope, empower young carers in three specific ways: by meeting their needs for information; by providing for someone to talk to; and providing for more practical help and support. Without wanting to institutionalise the burden of care on these young
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people—it is a serious issue—high priority should be given to providing the right information in the right way.
Schools can hold the key to that. I believe that they would want to do more. I hope that it will be possible for schools and education authorities to play a more proactive role in listening to and supporting young carers and in identifying them. I should like to see the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Employment working closely together, nationally and locally, providing more help and advice to schools about how to spot young carers and help them without being intrusive or reducing their confidence. They need to find more ways of providing flexible learning opportunities so that those young carers have a second chance not only to do their homework and catch up with their friends but also to meet friends and socialise. After school opportunities can be a lifeline for many of these young people. I recommend the Swale Young Carers project which is doing excellent work.
I should also like the new social inclusion programmes, such as the Excellence in Cities programmes, to see how they can best help young carers who have special needs and gifts—there is good practice in this area—and to ensure that the young carers projects (which are sometimes the only institutions with which young carers are in touch) are within their reach so that they are sustained and supported at local level. Once they know about their rights, young carers will use them. Their lives and their life chances will be infinitely improved.
Finally, I thank noble Lords for the courtesy they have shown a maiden speaker and for the opportunity to support a Bill which I believe meets the best instincts of a modern and coherent welfare state.
1.30 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, first, perhaps I may congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, on her extremely courteous and most effective maiden speech. This is a maiden for me, too; it is the first time I have had the honour of paying tribute to a maiden speaker and I am delighted that the noble Baroness chose a subject which is so dear to all our hearts. She will be a great asset to your Lordships' House and I can assure her that should she ever want to cross the Floor, she will be most welcome back to these Benches.
I also want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for so ably introducing the Second Reading. If I repeat some of her remarks, I apologise. However, I believe that any repetition of carers' needs, whatever their age, is all to the good.
It is four years since I introduced my own Private Member's Bill—Disabled Persons and Carers (Short Term Breaks) Bill—in this House, seeking to extend the support available to carers, who at that time were having to voice on the social policy agenda. I am delighted that over the years, there has been a growth of awareness of the issues facing carers, and greater attempts to recognise and support their worthwhile practical and emotional commitment to others.

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The Bill will be a welcome addition to the statute book, giving carers a legal entitlement to an assessment in their own right for the first time. Carers' needs should no longer be secondary to those of the disabled person. It is hoped that both parties will have the opportunity to access individualised support and to enhance and maintain their welfare.
This legislation enshrines an important principle, but I am concerned at the limitations of what it can deliver in practice. A right to an assessment is one thing; a right to a service is quite another. My Bill of four years ago sought to address the issue of lack of provision on the ground for carers, an issue which unfortunately has not been resolved. Perhaps noble Lords will permit me, as President of Mencap, to provide a number of statistics which may be difficult to digest during the pace of today's debate, but should provide many with food for thought in tomorrow's Hansard.
Caring for a person with a severe learning disability can be a 24-hour a day job, seven days a week for anything up to 50 years. Almost all children with learning disabilities are cared for by their relatives and only about 30 per cent of those children will move away from the family home into adulthood. That means that 60 per cent—more than half of all adults with severe disabilities—are looked after by family carers making a lifelong commitment.
Many carers are not getting the time off from caring which they urgently need. It is estimated that more than 100,000 people with learning disabilities and their carers are not receiving any short-term break support. Research by Mencap demonstrates that more than 40 per cent of carers of people with learning disability have not been out in the past six months for an evening with their family, partner or friends. Two-thirds of carers who do receive breaks say that they need more to meet basic family needs.
We have in place a National Carers Strategy which has injected some resources into help for carers, but there is still a long way to go. We cannot be complacent when hundreds of thousands of "unsung heroes"—to quote the Prime Minister—are not receiving any support to minimise their social exclusion. Giving carers the right to an assessment for themselves is an important step, but it is only part of the solution to a much bigger problem. Without an expansion of provision, assessed need will rapidly become unmet need, which is unsatisfactory, to say the least, for all involved.
In terms of ironing out the detail of this legislation, much has been done in another place. While I am not in favour of charging either disabled people or carers for community care services, I believe that the Government are taking a sensible approach to sorting out the consequences arising from the Bill. However, implementation will be difficult. Perhaps the Government will advise the House of how they plan to monitor the working of the charging system in practice and whether they plan to review it if that becomes necessary.
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The other critical factor in the implementation of the Bill will be getting the message out to carers about their new rights. It has been difficult enough reaching carers with information about existing legislation, let alone new and quite complicated changes. Those noble Lords familiar with surfing the Internet—I have to confess that I am not one of that minority in this House and the instruction I was due to take next Tuesday has had to be postponed because I shall be back in the House debating the child support Bill—may be aware of the Government's website for carers. That is one way of reaching carers, but I would hazard a guess that the good old written or spoken word is likely to capture a wider audience, particularly among older carers.
I want to say just a few words on the other important strand of the legislation; the extension of direct payments to the parents of disabled children and to disabled 16 and 17 year-olds. These are both very welcome extensions of the scheme, which can empower families with greater choice and flexibility as to the services they receive. Again, a fairly simple change in legislation will require much support on the ground if 16 and 17 year-olds with learning disabilities are to benefit from it.
Under the present arrangements, very few people with learning disabilities use direct payments, principally because support has not been in place to enable them to make use of the scheme. There is evidence in the Department of Health's London Learning Disability Strategy that there are only nine direct payment users in the London region, which is an appalling figure given the size of our metropolis.
I would therefore welcome assurances from the Government that support from 16 and 17 year-olds with learning disabilities will be factored into any guidance on the use of direct payments. Additional funds should be set aside for advocacy, and young people with learning disabilities should be involved in the pilot schemes. Regrettably, many have been excluded from such schemes and then refused access once schemes have been rolled out because the right support is not in place. Once again, every effort is required to publish accessible information about what choices are available to people with learning disabilities.
To conclude, I would just like to reiterate my support for the legislation and to express my personal gratitude for the sterling work undertaken by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and Tom Pendry, Member of Parliament for Stalybridge and Hyde, and indeed the Carers National Association for bringing these issues to the fore. I do hope that the Bill forms a small part of an ongoing project to support carers and I look forward to seeing it pass through your Lordships' House absolutely and completely unopposed.
1.37 p.m.
Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, the debate has been hugely enriched by the outstanding maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Andrews. Over the

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years, I have heard a great many speeches informed by her expertise and nothing could have given me more pleasure today than to have heard her deploying her expertise in a strikingly impressive and very moving speech of her own. I am sure that the whole House looks forward to hearing from her very often in the future.
Naturally, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley on her clear and helpful introduction to this important Bill. I thank her for the characteristic warmth and kindliness of her reference to my parliamentary work. I also congratulate my honourable friend Tom Pendry both on his good fortune in the ballot for Private Member's Bills in another place and on the humanity of his choice of Bill. "Tom Pendry's Bill"—as this measure will inevitably be called—offers significant new benefits to carers and parent carers of disabled children; and I feel sure that your Lordships' House will want to facilitate its early enactment.
My noble friends Lady Pitkeathley and the Minister know why Tom Pendry has kept in close rapport with me on his Bill. He said, in commending the Bill to another place, that our friendship "goes back a long way" and that he was sustained in the work of promoting his Bill by my encouragement. We have been friends for 50 years and very few of his friendships or mine can go back much longer than that. We first met when Tom was 15, when I called him to speak at a meeting that he was too young to attend. I am delighted now to support him again and that he asked me to advise him on his Bill's progress.
The Bill is, of course, a lineal descendant of the Bill, enacted 25 years ago by the Labour Government in which I was the Minister for Disabled People, to introduce the invalid care allowance: the first-ever statutory cash benefit for carers in any country. No one did more then to assist me in introducing that allowance than the late Dame Flora Robson who, with her colleagues in the National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants, one of the parent bodies of the Carers National Association, worked so long and hard for the landmark legislation which they helped to enact. The Crossroads Care Attendant Scheme, then only recently founded and of which I was a Patron from its earliest days, also played a leading role in creating the climate of parliamentary opinion that made the invalid care allowance possible. Its pioneering work, too, should be remembered today as we build further on what it achieved.
It was the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 that first gave carers the right to an assessment of their ability to provide or to continue to provide:
"substantial…care on a regular basis".
That Act raised the profile of carers and made clear the importance of taking account of their willingness and ability to continue to care in assessing the support needs of the person cared for. But as many of us are only too keenly aware, implementation of the 1995 Act has been patchy. While some carers are being offered sensitive practical and emotional support, others receive very little or no help whatsoever.
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Local authorities and others can do much within existing community care legislation to increase flexibility and choice for carers; but even where the person being cared for is happy to be assessed, there are legislative obstacles that prevent the provision of services direct to carers. Yet it can be self-defeating not to give a local council the power to provide services direct to carers; for example, the cost of a taxi to help a carer to go shopping or take part in leisure or educational activities. For to do so can often be very much cheaper than the alternative of providing more hours of a "sitting service".
The Carers and Disabled Children Bill goes further than the 1995 Act by enabling local authority social services departments to supply certain services direct to carers following assessment. And the services they supply will support carers in their caring role and enable them to go on caring by maintaining their own health and well-being.
I hope very much that local councils that have not so far provided or commissioned such services as shopping only, cleaning only or other low-level help, will review their failure to do so even before the enactment of this Bill. Such services, if targeted purposively, can be of crucial importance to carers and the people they care for in saving them from higher dependency and the tax and council tax payer from the need to provide costlier forms of help.
New freedoms are conferred by this Bill for the local authority to deliver the services best suited to the needs of carers and most likely to help them to maintain their caring role; but they are limited to protect the independence of disabled, learning disabled and frail elderly people. Thus help for carers which takes the form of a service delivered to the person cared for may not, except in prescribed circumstances, include anything of an intimate nature.
Carers and those they care for alike will want to know how "prescribed circumstances" will be defined. I have been given by Tom Pendry the example of a non-intimate sitting service being delivered to the person cared for. If the carer's return to the house is delayed, the person cared for may need to be lifted and helped with toileting, and clearly it would be illogical if a paid sitter could not give that help in an emergency.
A second limitation on the new freedoms for the local authority to provide services to carers is that, while the Bill gives carers the right to services, even when the person they care for has refused an assessment or the delivery of services following assessment, services will not be provided to cared-for people against their wishes. Where a person being cared for has refused services, she or he might, of course, be happy to have a person they already know well come and sit with them while their normal carer takes a short break. In such circumstances this non-intimate sitting service could be delivered as a carers' service. I am very glad that in this way the Bill addresses the important issue of the balance to be struck between the needs of carers and the important principle of defending the independence of disabled people; and indeed that it does so in such a thoughtful way.

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We know what carers want. They want good quality services for the person they care for so that she or he will have the best quality of life possible. Carers and parent carers want recognition of their caring role and practical help to maintain that role without detriment to their own health and well-being. They want to be supported so that they may, as my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley said, still have a life of their own outside of their caring responsibilities without being made to feel guilty for wanting to stay in work or for needing a break from time to time.
I am convinced that this Bill will help carers and parent carers of disabled children to achieve a better quality of life. For the first time, carers will have their own needs met. Moreover, the support carers receive will be delivered in ways sensitive to the needs of cared for people, recognising that carers often care in difficult circumstances and need support that is tailored to their individual needs.
Of course, there will remain much more to do when this Bill becomes law; but it is undeniably an important step forward for carers. In wishing the Bill all possible speed in reaching the statute book—and experience teaches that speed is most important to any Private Member's Bill at this stage of a parliamentary Session—again I thank my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her further endeavours in keeping up the momentum of helpful change for those whose work as carers is so very important to people they care for. Any Bill that helps and makes life easier for them deserves well of your Lordships' House.
1.48 p.m.
Baroness Uddin: My Lords, I begin by expressing my apologies for being unable to be present when my mentor rose to her feet to introduce this very important Bill. I also congratulate warmly and sincerely my noble friend Lady Andrews on her excellent maiden speech. I know that such congratulations are given often but I believe that not enough can be said on these occasions. On my third or fourth day here, I believe, I sat next to the noble Lords, Lord Rix and Lord Weatherill, on the Cross Benches. I was extremely comfortable there and did not want to get up. The Doorkeepers had to remind me to move but, not liking, as an adult, to be told what to do, I insisted on staying. I stayed there throughout Question Time before returning to my place. I was pleased to see my noble friend in her place today.
My contribution can be only a small addition to the comments of experienced and distinguished campaigners who have been interested in the issue since well before my time. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley and the Carers National Association for their valiant efforts and campaigns, which have helped us to get this far—the passage of the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 and the introduction of this Bill to bring in new provision for all carers.
The Bill will make it easier for this country's estimated six million carers to receive further support. The fact that it is a Private Member's Bill speaks
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volumes about how far we still have to go in recognising the rights of people who are disabled and their carers.
My right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, have added their weight to those six million unsung heroes. I should be very grateful to hear from my noble friend the Minister any statistics that are available about the different ethnic origins of carers. That point may have been covered by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, in which case I apologise.
It is estimated that at least 1.7 million carers provide between 20 and 50 hours of care a week. The Bill is the first recognition of the sums saved by local authorities, which I am sure can be calculated in these days of best value unit costing. I would be interested to hear what the figures are.
The Bill will provide consistency and a recognition of carers' rights as well as recourse to the law if the authorities fail in their responsibilities. Although, as others have said, the 1995 Act provided important and valuable recognition of carers, they are still unable to access services directly to support their caring role. The Bill will enable them to ask for an assessment in their own right and to access services provided by their local authority. That will be welcome throughout Britain and perhaps looked at by other countries.
There has been some excellent practice in the absence of legal recourse and provision for disabled children and their families. I declare an interest. I have worked with the disabled children's services in Newham. Newham is an example of good practice, because it believes that it has a responsibility to provide mainstream services and assess the needs of all disabled children and their carers. The social services team has sought over many years to provide comprehensive and thorough assessment of disabled children from birth. The needs of their carers have been a central element of the strategy.
However, that has not always been the case in every part of the country, although many examples of good practice can be cited. The Bill will resolve that problem, establishing the right of all parents and carers to ask for an assessment by their local authority and, more importantly, providing direct payments or vouchers for them to buy in whatever appropriate services or breaks they need. It is particularly good news for carers from minority ethnic and faith communities, as they are more likely to want to purchase services more attuned to their particular needs rather than being restricted to in-house provision, which often lacks choices and sensitivity to their cultural, linguistic, social and religious needs.
Clause 2 allows the services to be anything that, in the local authority's opinion, helps the carer to care. I have some concern about the discretion given to local authorities to determine what it may be acceptable for carers to ask for. What will happen when authorities are not as enlightened or as committed as Newham social services?

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The vouchers for short-term and respite breaks provided for in Clauses 3 and 7 are an excellent addition to the Children Act 1989. Boroughs such as Newham have used such ideas very imaginatively over the years. I should like my noble friend the Minister to tell us whether it will be possible for parents to use such schemes for trips abroad.
Clauses 5 and 7 deal with direct payments. I welcome the fact that disabled 16 and 17 year-olds will be able to receive direct payments for the first time, as my noble friend Lady Andrews said. The fact that parents can be more flexible in meeting the needs of the family is great progress.
It has already been said that the concept of charging for services is a matter of concern and needs to be monitored properly. We must ensure that service decisions are not based on ability to pay—an issue dealt with in Clause 4. Cash-strapped or not, local authorities have discretion and the needs of the carers and their families should be paramount.
Community care has always been based on putting needs first. That must not be confused when some authorities may be gazing at the market principle. It is good news that the Bill will ensure the maximisation of employment opportunities for carers. That is one of the key factors that keeps carers isolated from the community. Ensuring the integration in the community of carers and the people they care for is critical.
I hope that there will be wider consultation on local needs, particularly those of ethnic minority children and their carers. We are truly behind on that. It saddens me to have to repeat myself, but the mention of this need appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Will my noble friend the Minister consider researching and reporting back to the House on the matter?
When the Bill becomes law, there needs to be a proper campaign to ensure that excluded communities are made aware of their entitlements. What plans are in place for that? Will my noble friend the Minister also ensure that any resources allocated for that purpose are ring-fenced so that local authorities do not spend the money on other pressing priorities? As a local councillor, I know that vulnerable groups such as disabled people often lose out to so-called mainstream priorities.
There is no point in wasting financial resources and setting up structures simply to make assessments without recourse to resources to back up the physical and practical needs of carers. Any Bill must be accompanied by a commitment to resources. We do not want to have to come back to the issue in a year or two with another Bill to correct that anomaly. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend the Minister what resources are being put in. Funding for implementation, with the patchy progress of the 1995 Act, has become a concern for social services departments across the country. The issue can sometimes be seen as a burden rather than a duty.
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The involvement of the NHS is critical to ensure that families are not shunted between local authorities and the health service. What plans are there for a co-ordinated effort, with truly joined-up services? The NHS cannot escape its responsibilities for the carers of disabled children, as it has done for so long, relying on education and social services to carry the load.
I look forward to the Bill becoming law. It is a privilege to be part of the process. I want to support the work of my noble friends and my heroes, my noble friends Lord Ashley of Stoke, Lord Morris of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Rix. Without them, this work would have fallen behind on the Government's agenda.
I speak today with some personal knowledge and understanding of these issues. For 22 years, my husband and I have been carers of our child. Like millions in this country, we have not done that out of obligation or duty but simply because we love the person we care for. We have saved the authorities from their responsibilities and financial obligations for too long. That has often left us totally disabled and incapacitated as a family. Families and children deserve the recognition that they should be able to live with dignity in the absolute knowledge that they are valued and entitled to be equal in our society. This Bill gives dignity and respect to us as carers.
2 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, my duty as the first speaker, indeed the only speaker, from these Benches is to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, to this House as a fully-fledged Member. It is said that the most difficult step on any journey is the first. The noble Baroness has started well. As regards sitting on the wrong Benches, I freely invite her to come and sit on these Benches any time she feels like it, especially as there is no great press for room at the moment. The offer is there.
The Bill which the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, is presenting today is extremely important for one reason in particular which features increasingly in any discussions relating to carers and people with disabilities; that is, the needs of the individual. That is an aspect of the Bill which really attracted me to it. It addresses individual needs and circumstances.
That is usually done by identifying groups of individuals. But assessments for people in their own right, as opposed to merely for their function, is something which I take from this Bill. It will help in trying to get people involved.
We cannot do without carers for one simple reason. A few weeks ago, I asked a supplementary question of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. We were discussing carers and the impact of their contribution. I asked what the cost would be to the state if it had to take on all the aspects of caring. I asked also whether it was not possible to give them more money. That is a fairly standard political knock-about. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, rose to her feet and drove me straight to the boundary by saying that carers provide a service

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which is so valuable—I believe it was in terms of billions of pounds—that if the state tried to provide such a service it would eat up the entire social services budget.
However, if we can start to give help around the edges of the problem, surely we should do so. This Bill addresses that head-on. It talks about making sure that individuals can be assessed for the help that they need so that society can continue to function in the way it does now. We should give this Bill our full support and make sure that it has as easy a passage as possible.
We all know that once the Bill is enacted, that is only the start of the process. We must then make sure that we provide the right types of services in the right areas. Then there will be the interminable—or at least it seems so for anybody involved with charities which are trying to attract public services—effort of making sure that local authorities know about the provisions available. People need to be convinced of the availability of the services and the fact that they should ask for them. On and on it goes. That always happens.
Most charities which are helping any group in society initially push for legislation, and then spend the rest of their time saying that the providers of the services know what they should be doing; and then they find out the client-base so that the right questions are asked. We have only just started here. The Minister nods his head. That is a great acceptance of his fate. But this is the start of the process.
It may be that we need to come back and address the position again with subsequent legislation. That should not be seen as a failure. It merely embraces the fact that this is an ongoing situation which must be revisited. Definitive legislation does not seem to exist unless something is being abolished altogether. Therefore, we are starting on a process which must continue. But the Bill promotes the idea that certain groups must be addressed as individuals.
Carers are often subject to a form of blackmail because they seem to believe that they are letting somebody down by wanting a break. People who are being cared for, due to fear of change or lack of control in their own society, are sometimes not the most convenient people with whom to work, certainly for short periods. We must realise that those people are human beings and are not all saints. Therefore, an assessment of the carer will need to be made. That needs to he said at least once or twice as we discuss these matters. We must look at the situation realistically and in a holistic way.
This Bill strikes me as a very useful addition to the way in which Parliament can provide help. It targets help more effectively. It will be the start of a great deal of argument about whether the right resources are available and where they should be focused. But that is the nature of the beast. Indeed, that is why we are here. I hope that the Bill will reach the statute book in the quickest possible time.
I make one last comment about the Commons sponsor of the Bill, Tom Pendry. I have often worked with him on sports-related issues. I believe that this is the first time that I have had any contact with him in
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connection with carers or those with disabilities. It is nice to know that one can move out of one's normal area with such success.
2.7 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, there is no one in your Lordships' House better qualified to introduce the Bill than the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley. She has explained it with admirable clarity and the depth of knowledge and understanding of its subject matter that we all know her to have. I should like to reassure her, without further ado, that from these Benches we welcome the Bill warmly. It contains provisions that should make a real and lasting difference to the lives of informal carers and those they look after.
I should at the outset declare an interest as President of the South Bucks Association for the Disabled, which, for a number of years, has provided residential, respite and day care services for people with severe learning disabilities in the area of the Chilterns where I live. As a result of this, I am only too well aware of the degree of commitment shown by devoted parent carers towards their very severely disabled children, often, as the noble Lord, Lord Rix, reminded us, over a period of decades. I found the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, particularly moving in that context. Yet, as she will be aware, carers and cared for people such as these form only a small part of the overall picture. I was staggered when I came to look at the statistics on the number of individuals in this country who in one way or another care for a relative or someone close to them. The official figure, as we have heard, is about 5.7 million people. But there is a strong likelihood that even this huge figure is an underestimate.
Many people who look after someone they love are unknown to the statutory services and would not label themselves as "carers", even though that is exactly what they are. It is commonly recognised that there are many children of school age looking after disabled parents whose caring role is not revealed to anyone outside the family. I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, on an excellent maiden speech and, in particular, on her remarks about young carers. I understand that the 2001 national census will contain questions which should bring us a lot closer to the real number of carers in this country. I welcome that.
As it is, the figures are humbling. For five years in the mid-1990s, I was a weekend and night-time carer to my mother, who had suffered a serious stroke at the age of only 66. She was unable to walk and required a great deal of attention, including an increasing amount of intimate care. Even though I looked after my mother for only a relatively few hours in the week—as I had a full-time job with which to contend—I can testify at first hand how emotionally and physically draining it was to fulfil that carer's role. I found myself having to call upon reserves of patience and inner strength which I had never dreamt of needing and which, once or twice, were simply not there to call upon. But, looking back now, and even at the time, I would not have had it any other way.

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That period of my life gave me a flavour of the kind of commitment needed by those who devote themselves for many hours each week to looking after a disabled spouse or relative. The vast majority of carers give of themselves without hesitation and, indeed, often without proper regard for their own wellbeing. Frequently, that entails a considerable personal sacrifice. There is published research which shows that a high proportion of carers suffer from a stress-related illness or physical injury. Many are never able to take a break. The extent to which, as a nation, we depend upon such individuals has already been mentioned. The equivalent economic value of the work they do has been put at some £34 billion. That, in other words, is the saving to the public purse that stems directly from people who give themselves to others for free. It can therefore be argued that the duty of society to support carers is not simply a moral obligation. It is an economic obligation as well.
That is why the Bill is so important. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, is well aware, the needs of carers have been recognised in earlier legislation, notably in the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995, which obliged local authorities, when arranging services for an individual being cared for, to take into account the carer's ability to look after that person. At the time, that provision represented a very visible step forward.
But the 1995 Act, landmark though it was, has not always been able to deliver the degree of support to carers that was originally envisaged. That is because the carer's right to an assessment was made dependent upon an assessment of the person cared for. That person may either refuse an assessment altogether or may already have been assessed by the time the carer comes to look after him or her. As a result, many carers who would otherwise have wished for at least the chance of some help from the local authority are not currently able to pursue that chance. The Bill, for the first time, gives carers a statutory right to an assessment independently of the person being cared for.
It also contains provisions which represent a welcome new empowerment for carers. The voucher scheme and the new power for local authorities to provide services directly to carers are features of the Bill that we fully support. We also particularly support the extension of the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996, which will enable local authorities to make direct payments to carers, including parent carers and young carers. If we really mean business in providing support to carers who need it, it is no use a local authority providing that support on a "take it or leave it" basis or offering it in a form that takes no account of the carer's own circumstances. Empowerment only counts for something if it means being able to choose when you are going to take a short break or what kind of service will best suit your own needs. From that, of course, comes dignity and self-respect.
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If I have any concerns about the Bill they relate more to its implementation than its drafting. I share the worry expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and others about the need to tell carers about their new rights. Printing leaflets is fine as far as it goes, but how in practice are the leaflets to get to those for whom they are intended, bearing in mind that many carers remain out of sight of local authorities? To what extent do the Government intend to work with the voluntary sector to disseminate that information?
I also believe that the role of the NHS will be important. Unfortunately, when the guidance on the implementation of the 1995 Act went out, the section that was addressed to the NHS was fairly limited in its scope, yet the contribution that the NHS can make to carers can be considerable. For example, at the point of hospital discharge, GPs and community nurses are in an ideal position to notice stress or rapidly deteriorating health in carers and to let them know, when a user is referred for an assessment, that they too may be eligible for one. There surely needs to be proper co-ordination between health and social services in preparing the assessments to ensure that carers get the right support from the right people.
I should like also to raise a question about the Bill's financial effects. It is estimated that that there are about 1.7 million carers who provide over 20 hours of care per week. In theory, then, that is the number of carers who might be in a position to benefit under the Bill. Carrying out assessments for that number of people—or even half that number of people—will be no mean task. What estimates have been made of the likely costs of implementation, and is the Minister confident that they can be absorbed within existing local authority allocations? As he will be aware, few carers currently ask for an assessment, and the demands placed on local authorities therefore look likely to be significant as a result of this measure. None of us wants to see waiting lists building up. What inquiries have the Department of Health carried out to ascertain whether there are enough staff for this work?
I worry, too, about the operation of the direct payments scheme. I recently heard that there are many local authorities which have not even begun to implement the scheme under the 1996 Act. In fact the National Centre for Independent Living tells me that throughout England and Wales there are only 2,000 people who are actually receiving direct payments at the present time, a tiny proportion of the number who could. In Wales one is very unlikely indeed to be in receipt of a direct payment. If this is the case now, what hope is there for an extended scheme? I wonder if the Minister can say why there is no systematic advertising of direct payment schemes by the Department of Health, say, in the form of a leaflet giving relevant information.
There are areas of detail which I shall wish to cover in Committee. I shall not take up valuable time now in listing them. I wish only to look forward to future stages and to congratulate the noble Baroness on having brought the Bill to the House today. We wish it a speedy passage.
2.17 p.m.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, perhaps I may also start by thanking my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for bringing forward this important Bill. As other noble Lords who have taken part in today's debate have said, few Members of your Lordships' House are better qualified to do so. I should also take this opportunity to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester. As the first Minister for disabled people, as the sponsor of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 and as a doughty champion of so many people in this country, we owe him a great debt of gratitude.
I pay tribute also to my noble friend Lady Andrews. I warmly congratulate her on the excellence of her maiden speech. Various Benches today have vied for her to come and sit with them. Fortunately, she is behind me; and there I hope she will stay.
I should also like to pay tribute to Mr Tom Pendry, whose efforts in the other place were absolutely tremendous. We owe him a great deal, and it is thanks to his efforts that we are discussing the Bill today. Rather like the Children (Leaving Care) Bill, which your Lordships' House considered only a few months ago, it is a Bill which I believe has the support of all noble Lords, and I consider it a privilege to he able to take part in our discussions on its passage through your Lordships' House.
This is an afternoon for tributes, and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, rightly pointed to his initiative with the short-term breaks Bill some years ago. His support for the cause of carers is acknowledged by all noble Lords.
The one thing about which we all agree is that carers play a vital role in the community and that society could not operate without them. That was, at heart, the reason for the establishment of a carers national strategy, which was aimed at empowering carers to make more choices for themselves and to have more control over their lives. It was the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who made it absolutely clear to us that we have to consider the needs of carers as individuals first and foremost. And there can be no doubt but that carers want and ought to have their positive contribution to society valued and acknowledged. This Bill achieves that by giving local authorities the power to provide services direct to carers to support them in their caring role, and by extending direct payment legislation to carers to meet their own assessed needs.
It is important that the Bill also empowers local councils to make direct payments to people with parental responsibility for a disabled child for services for the family. As a government we know that carers like to be as independent as possible in making arrangements for the care of their disabled children. This Bill will help them achieve a far greater level of independence than they have ever experienced before.
I also believe that the extension of direct payments to 16 and 17 year-old disabled children will offer them additional flexibility to meet their developmental needs. An extension of direct payments to that group
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of young people follows representations from voluntary organisations such as RADAR to the Government's recent review of direct payments.
There are also particular issues surrounding the power to make direct payments to 16 and 17 year-old carers. We do not want to burden any children with inappropriate caring responsibilities. Local authorities will only offer direct payments to 16 and 17 year-old carers after giving full consideration to the interests of the child and if those are best met by giving them a direct payment.
I should also like to stress the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, that advocacy and support will be important to young people who are thinking about or receiving direct payments. We have debated many times in the past few months the concept of independent advocacy. I am glad to say it is a familiar one to local authority social services departments. Advocacy and support schemes are relevant to direct payment and are already in existence in local authorities with good direct payment schemes.
There is no doubt that the short-term break voucher schemes are a useful way of giving users and carers more flexibility in the timing and choice of the way additional services are delivered to the person cared for to give carers a break. In a sense, vouchers are an intermediate step or arrangement between direct payments on the one hand and the provision of local authority arranged services on the other. Vouchers may be exchanged at a time of the voucher-holder's choosing for the services the person cared for or the disabled child has been assessed as needing while the carer takes a break.
A number of questions have been raised in relation to the implementation of the Bill. In many ways that reflects the consensus that we all feel in terms of the principle of the Bill. But there are understandable concerns about its implementation. No doubt as we progress this Bill—rapidly I hope—through this House, we will come back to some of the more specific issues. However, perhaps I may refer first to the issue of charges.
We have debated charges a number of times recently. The Audit Commission report informed that debate. Noble Lords will know that we are looking closely at the whole issue of charging by local authorities. We intend to make an amendment to the Care Standards Bill to allow us to amend the 1970 Local Authority Social Services Act, which will allow us to establish statutory guidance to local authorities. I believe that that will provide a more satisfactory solution and enable greater consistency throughout the charging regime of local authorities.
I also acknowledge the point that my noble friend Lord Morris made about the definition of the word "intimate". He specifically asked me about how we propose to develop our ideas. I can assure him that we shall consult in some detail with disabled people about what constitutes for them an intimate service. I want to take this opportunity to assure noble Lords that local authority support for carers must not and will not become a tool to erode the hard won independence of disabled people.

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I turn to a number of other issues that have been raised. My noble friend Lady Uddin asked about a number of statistics. I have to say that reliable statistics on young carers are not available. There is an indication that children, especially girls from some ethnic groups, are under more pressure to undertake caring responsibilities. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, suggested, we will have better information as a result of the next census, which will cover all age groups, in 2001.
I very much share and accept the point made by my noble friend Lady Uddin about considering the particular needs of black and minority ethnic carers. For instance, we greatly value the work of the London Black Carers' Group in helping us to develop our ideas concerning strategies. I can assure my noble friend that we shall be very happy to consider any further suggestions that she may have for ensuring that, within the implementation process, we shall be geared up to the needs of carers from all ethnic groups in our society.
I share the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, among others, that it is vitally important to ensure that appropriate information is available once the Bill has passed through the various stages and we have arrived at the point of its implementation. I shall be very happy to write to noble Lords with regard to how we intend to do that.
As a number of noble Lords have suggested, it is also important to ensure that the NHS plays its part. I believe that there are very positive overall signs in terms of relationships between the NHS and social service departments. Although there is still a long way to go in some areas, there has been a sea change in attitudes, upon which we clearly need to build. For example, I would like to encourage a greater development of community equipment stores. If we can do that, it would be a very great boon to people being cared for and their carers. We know that in some parts of the country where this has occurred a joint health and local authority service is being enabled to provide first-class services.
A number of questions have been asked about the cost of these measures to local authorities. Of course, the cost of these responsibilities has to be seen in the context of the overall allocation of resources which the Government are allocating to individual local authorities. I would also point out that the carers' grant of £140 million over three years is ring fenced. But, outside the specific grant for carers, it is for local authorities to allocate resources to meet local needs.
It is also worth pointing out that the Bill, while introducing a new power to local authorities, gives local authorities the ability to innovate with regard to how they support people who continue to live in the community by offering support to those who care for them. I am convinced that investment by local authorities in the provision of the support that carers want may well ensure that people being so supported may make fewer demands on local authority services in the future. Clearly, local government will have to
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consider most carefully how it will develop such services in the future. It must be seen in the context of the overall performance assessment framework, within which local authorities can be expected to operate.
I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and by my noble friend Lady Uddin regarding those performance issues. Noble Lords will know that we have spent a good deal of time and energy on assessing how the overall improvement and performance of local authorities can be developed. This must be seen in the context of the enhanced role that we have given to the Social Services Inspectorate in the development of performance indicators, and in a much stronger performance assessment framework. I give way.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am most grateful. The Minister mentioned the £140 million fund, which, as I understand it, has been allocated to respite care in particular. However, if one looks at the implementation of the 1995 Act, it is clear that progress around the country has, to say the least, been patchy. A survey found that implementation of that legislation was constrained for about three-quarters of all local authorities because of the lack of specific funding. The Association of Directors of Social Services has expressed its concern about the additional cost of this Bill, although it welcomes many of its provisions.
There is a worry in the country that, although the Government have allocated specific funding for aspects of the services, the assessments will eat up resources which, at present, are simply not there.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am not sure that I can go very much further today in relation to the issue of financing. I accept that local authorities will need to look most carefully at the likely financial impact of the responsibilities and powers that are placed upon them in this legislation. All I can say at this stage is that such matters must clearly be seen in the context of the overall settlement that has previously been made for local government. We are currently in the process of preparation for the spending review for the next period, the outcome of which should be known fairly shortly. One must set that in the context of the overall increase in resources that has been given to local authorities and, as I said earlier, a much stronger performance assessment framework.
One of the problems that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has raised is that of inconsistency in performance. Although I accept that part of such inconsistency can be put down to an issue of resources, I have to say—indeed, the evidence exists—that different local authorities with the same pound in their pocket seem to be able to produce great variations in the quality of service provided. The great challenge for us is to ensure that we have uniformly high standards of performance in relation to this Bill, and in relation to other Bills that we have put through Parliament this Session. Again, I have in mind the Children (Leaving Care) Bill. We shall be paying very close attention to

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the way in which that performance framework works to ensure that local authorities perform as effectively as possible.
I turn to deal briefly with a number of other matters raised by noble Lords during the course of the debate. I listened with great care to the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, as regards the difficulties experienced by people with learning disabilities. I very much accept the point raised about direct payments and the need to ensure that communications with those people are effective. We shall certainly do everything that we can to ensure that we do so.
In conclusion, I was indeed moved by the experience of Khalid at the Falinge Park School, Rochdale, that my noble friend Lady Andrews recounted. In many senses it brought home to us all the noble and sterling efforts of so many carers of all ages who help and support loved ones and enable them to live in the community. At heart, that is what this Bill is all about. I believe that it will contribute enormously to the care and support that need to be given to carers. My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley has done this House a considerable service in bringing this Bill forward.
2.35 p.m.
Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, I believe that two things will immediately he apparent from the debate: first, the amount of support and concern for carers which exists in this House; and, secondly, the totally cross-party nature of that support.
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Noble Lords have reminded us—especially those who have shared with us their personal experiences— that caring affects everyone. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, on her excellent maiden speech. I also thank the Minister for his thoughtful responses. I convey my deepest gratitude to the officials in the Department of Health who have done such sterling work on the Bill.
Many important issues have been raised to which we shall return at later stages of the Bill. They have in the main concerned implementation and getting the message across, rather than the Bill itself. That bodes well for its future progress. The implementation issues will be taken on board not just by the Government but also by the many voluntary sector organisations which are concerned with the matter.
This Bill will not solve all the problems of carers, but it is another important step along the line. As my noble friend Lord Morris said, it is another in the suite of measures. It will help to maintain the continuous momentum of helpful change which carers so much deserve. I look forward to future stages of the Bill. Again, I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before three o'clock.

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  Drift Net Fishing: Nylon Monofilament Gill Nets
  Standards Fund: Funding Streams
  Standards Fund: Funding Streams
  Community Sentence Breach: Loss of State Benefits
  Community Sentence Breach: Loss of State Benefits
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  Local Government Bill [H.L.], Section 28
  Local Government Bill [H.L.], Section 28