Sitting of 24 May 2000

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

  CITY OF LONDON (WARD ELECTIONS) BILL (By ORDER)
  Order for further consideration, as amended, read.
  To be further considered on Wednesday 7 June.

  RAILTRACK (WAVERLEY STATION) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read a Second time, and committed.
Oral Answers to Questions
  WALES
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  WALES

    Small Businesses
    Dr. Julian Lewis: What recent representations he has received with regard to small businesses in Wales. [122174]
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Paul Murphy): I receive a number of representations about issues relating to business in general and small businesses in particular. Recently I opened the business exhibition Wales in Cardiff and met many representatives of businesses. Last week I also met Welsh representatives of the British Retail Consortium. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), has also recently met the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
    Dr. Lewis: I thank the Secretary of State for that highly informative answer. Undoubtedly, a considerable proportion of the many representations that he has received will have highlighted the hostility of small businesses in Wales towards the Government's crazy policy of scrapping the pound and joining the single European currency. Does the level of opposition to that potentially disastrous policy among those representations stand at the national average of two thirds, or at the same level as for small businesses nationally of about 90 per cent. or more?
    Mr. Murphy: In all the meetings to which I referred earlier, not one mention was made of the points to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred. I heard the shadow Chancellor on the radio this morning ranting against
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    Europe. The Government and the National Assembly for Wales are working to ensure that small businesses flourish. The Budget helped 29,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Wales. Those are the important issues that people are talking about, not what the hon. Gentleman just said.
    Mr. Chris Ruane: What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the First Secretary to promote links with the 300 Welsh celtic societies around the world to bolster small businesses in Wales, particularly our craftspeople and the tourism industry?
    Mr. Murphy: As my hon. Friend knows, the First Secretary and I speak and meet almost daily. We have discussed how best we can help small businesses, including the points that my hon. Friend has raised today in the House and last week in the Welsh Grand Committee. The National Assembly for Wales discussed the matters to which he referred a few days ago.
    Mr. Richard Livsey: Will the Secretary of State take note of the situation among rural small businesses? There are 10 representatives here today of Wales Young Farmers, who would be happy to meet him and other hon. Members attending Welsh Office questions at 3.30 to explain their problems. Their small businesses are in a great crisis. The problem affects more than just agriculture in the rural areas. Tourism accounts for 100,000 jobs in Wales. Is the Secretary of State in discussion with Treasury Ministers to alleviate some of the problems by varying the rate of VAT on tourism businesses in Wales to create more work and more profit in tourism?
    Mr. Murphy: I understand the hon. Gentleman's points about the rural economy. It is important that agriculture in Wales should flourish, together with small businesses, small shops and small factories. In my discussions in the past fortnight I have been particularly interested in how new technology, such as shopping on the internet, can be used effectively in rural areas. I am also conscious that the Assembly has taken a special interest in how to encourage small businesses in rural areas through the rural development plan. We are all pleased to hear that young farmers from Wales are in London today.
    Mr. Dafydd Wigley: The Secretary of State will be aware of the importance of training to business in Wales. Has he studied the words of the First Secretary in the National Assembly yesterday? He spoke about the importance of transferring from the Department for Education and Employment to the National Assembly the responsibility and resources for training under the social funds. Given that there are some differences of opinion and discussions are still going on, will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will take the side of the National Assembly, not the Department for Education and Employment?
    Mr. Murphy: The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that issue. I am of course aware of it. I always take the words of the First Secretary seriously. Last night, I heard his words on the telephone at 10.30. Among other things, we discussed the transfer of the social fund that

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    the right hon. Gentleman has raised. It is clearly important that we get the transfer right. I am fully involved in those on-going discussions.
    Mr. Alan Williams: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the allegation that the Government are scrapping the pound and wrecking much of small businesses comes badly from a party which wrecked the pound and scrapped most of our heavy manufacturing business?
    Mr. Murphy: My right hon. Friend puts it very well. He will recall that between 1979 and 1997, approximately 140,000 manufacturing jobs per year were lost as a result of the policies of the previous Government.
    Mr. Nigel Evans: The Secretary of State will know that the amount of burdens, red tape and regulations on small businesses has grown dramatically over the past three years—by £10 billion nationally. With Europe, Westminster, county councils and now the Welsh Assembly all telling small businesses what to do, will he state that all those levels of government will start to listen a bit more to what small businesses are saying? Will he give an indication to small businesses that the demands for primary legislative powers to be given to the Welsh Assembly—which are now being made by his own party in the Assembly—will be resisted and that the people of Wales will have another referendum before any primary legislative powers are given to the Assembly?
    Mr. Murphy: Those two points are not necessarily connected. We are all aware of the concerns of small businesses about regulation, and the Government and the Assembly are taking those concerns seriously. These points were made to me last week by the British Retail Consortium. The Government have a new ministerial committee on regulation that is looking carefully at the matter, and a Bill on regulatory reform is being published for scrutiny. The Government and the Assembly are working together to ensure that burdens on business in Wales can be tackled, and procedures in the Assembly now take into account consultation with business with regard to the Assembly's own legislation.

    Energy Policy
    Mr. Jon Owen Jones: What discussions he has had with industry in Wales about energy policy. [122177]
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Paul Murphy): I regularly meet Welsh companies and industry representatives and have discussed Government energy policy. The recent announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on the future lifting of the stricter consents policy on gas-fired power stations and the pursuit of interim support to United Kingdom coal producers has been well received by Welsh industry.
    Mr. Jones: My right hon. Friend will agree that no form of power generation is completely benign, but that renewable energy is the least likely to affect human health or the environment and is the only form of power generation that can be described as sustainable. In spite
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    of that, only 3 per cent. of the energy produced in this country is renewable, while the Government have a target of 10 per cent. by 2010. How will we reach that target? What contribution is Wales expected to make? Will Wales make a contribution that is proportional to its population or land mass, or one that is greater or lesser than the proportion that the rest of the UK would bear?
    Mr. Murphy: My hon. Friend knows that the Assembly has responsibility in this matter as well as the Government. We have made protecting the environment a central feature of our economic policies. Wales has excellent opportunities for large-scale offshore wind farms, which could generate more than 100 MW. Such projects could bring jobs, and job retention, to rural areas, but we must be sensitive to the wishes of local people. The Assembly and the DTI will consult widely on that point, and those to which my hon. Friend referred.
    Mr. Nigel Evans: The Secretary of State will know that the percentage of people in Wales employed in manufacturing industry is higher than in the UK generally. They have been hit over the past three years, with more than 6,000 manufacturing jobs lost—and that is before the threat of the climate change levy coming in and hitting manufacturing jobs in Wales. Will he give an assurance to the House that he will make representations to the Chancellor to protect manufacturing jobs in Wales? The Secretary of State has said that the Welsh Assembly and this House have responsibility for energy policy. Can I therefore give him another opportunity to state clearly that primary legislative powers will remain here?
    Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the people of Wales decided what they wanted in a referendum some years ago. The points made in the referendum campaign, the White Paper and the Government's proposals led to people voting for the situation that now exists in Cardiff.
    On the climate change levy, the National Assembly has consulted the 20 major energy users in Wales, and the companies were generally supportive of our aims. Business was pleased that energy efficiencies made over recent years would count in the negotiated agreements. That has meant that several sectors are now close to signing an agreement that will give them an 80 per cent. discount. There are continuing discussions between the Assembly and businesses in Wales because of the very important change that is to take place.

    New Trains (North Wales Economy)
    Mrs. Betty Williams: What recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary on the economic impact on north Wales of the introduction of new trains. [122178]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hanson): Transport issues are covered in the weekly meeting between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and the First Secretary. I also discuss transport in my quarterly meetings with the Assembly Secretary responsible for

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    transport issues. I am convinced that the provision of new trains, coupled with line speed improvements, will have a positive effect on the local economy.
    Mrs. Williams: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are many rumours—not denied by First North Western Trains—that there are problems with platforms and tunnels along the north Wales coast that the new trains will use? Will he use his good offices with the First Secretary to seek to ensure that the new trains are introduced without delay, as they are due to start with the new summer timetable on 28 May? Does he agree that it is about time that we had some good news about railway services in north Wales, which have been appalling in the past?
    Mr. Hanson: There are works that need to be undertaken to improve the line services in north Wales and ensure that the targets are met. Those works will be undertaken shortly and will ensure, for example, that the number of trains from Holyhead to Euston will double in 2002, from three a day to six, and potentially seven. There will be additional stops in several constituencies along the north Wales coast, including one at Flint in my constituency.
    Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I was very disappointed in the Government's response to the recent paper produced by the Welsh Affairs Committee, in effect rejecting all its proposals.
    To return to the question put by the hon. Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams), there is a big problem with Penmaenmawr tunnel: incredibly, the new train will not go through it. Will the Minister look into that and ensure that we have a decent train service in north Wales?
    Mr. Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing that tunnel to the attention of the House. Steps are being taken to improve the service. Railtrack, Virgin Trains and First North Western are all committed to improving the service. There will be additional trains, making additional stops. The work needs to be done, and the companies have set themselves a target of 2002–03. I am convinced that there will be improvements, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Government and the Assembly in helping and supporting them.

    Economy
    Mr. Alun Michael: What discussions he has had with businesses in Wales about the prospects for the Welsh economy. [122180]
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Paul Murphy): Both my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I have held many meetings with businesses and representatives of business in Wales, ranging from the chief executive of Corus and people at the opening of Dow Corning's new factory in Barry, to representatives of small and medium enterprises. We are both acutely aware of the issues faced by business and continue to relay their concerns to Cabinet colleagues and to the First Secretary as appropriate.
    Mr. Michael: Clearly, the current weakness of the euro poses a problem for exporters in Wales, as elsewhere.
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    Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the need for investment in business in Wales? There are examples such as Dow Corning, to which he referred, and Matsui, which has taken its European manufacturing headquarters to Ammanford. Does he agree that the strength and stability of the economy leads to such long-term and important investments and that the policies of the Conservative party would pose a significant threat to their continuation?
    Mr. Murphy: I could not agree more. Today, in Middleton in Carmarthenshire, another example of a job creation scheme is the first botanical garden to be opened in this country for 200 years. It will bring more than 200 jobs and boost our tourist industry, as well as being a major centre for plant research. I visited it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport recently, and it was evident to both of us that this flagship project is another excellent example of our new Wales.
    Mr. Robert Walter: I do not think that the House will have been impressed by the mutual self-congratulations of the Secretary of State and his predecessor in answering this question. As they will both know, under the stewardship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and his predecessors, great advances were made in restructuring the Welsh economy. However, problems remain that this Government and the Assembly have not dealt with. The Welsh Development Agency, for example, in its recent analysis of the Welsh economy, identified a serious "enterprise deficit" in small and medium-sized businesses which, it said, were underperforming in
    new business formation, innovation, research and development and investment.
    What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the First Secretary to solve those weaknesses that are preventing small businesses in Wales from prospering in an ever more competitive world?
    Mr. Murphy: If the hon. Gentleman went to Carmarthenshire and visited the botanical garden to which I referred, he would see that it is not a matter of self-congratulation but the result of many years of hard work by the people who undertook the task. On his general point, the latest inward investment figures for Wales show a total investment of £547 million for 1998–99, which is even higher than the figure of £334 million in the previous year.
    If the hon. Gentleman talked to the more than 13,000 young people in Wales who have benefited from the new deal, he would find that that is not a matter of self-congratulation either. If he visited all those places in Wales that are now benefiting from this Government's strong economy, and learned about the thousands of jobs that are being created, in manufacturing and elsewhere, he would realise that it will be a long time before there are any Conservative MPs in Wales.
    Mr. Ted Rowlands: I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware of the importance to business and the Welsh economy of higher education standards. In that respect, is he aware that the National Assembly has not yet introduced a single pilot project to introduce education maintenance allowances to

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    support the poorest students in our communities to stay on at school and college? Will my right hon. Friend seek an explanation for that obvious and glaring omission?
    Mr. Murphy: I shall, of course, give that assurance to my hon. Friend. He has spent many years in the House championing the needs of those who need better training. I shall raise the issue he has just mentioned when I next meet the First Secretary.

    Waiting Lists
    Mr. David Amess: What discussions he has had with the First Secretary about the number of patients waiting over six months for an out-patient appointment. [122181]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hanson): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I regularly meet the First Secretary and the Assembly Health and Social Services Secretary to discuss health issues in Wales. The subject of waiting lists and waiting times has, of course, been included in our discussions.
    Mr. Amess: Is the Minister aware that many of my constituents in Southend, West complain about the problems that their Welsh relatives encounter in obtaining out-patient appointments? Will he explain to the House how it is that out-patient appointments have trebled since that dreadful day in May 1997? Will he take this opportunity to apologise to the Welsh people for the incompetence of this Government in mismanaging the health service?
    Mr. Hanson: I will happily tell the hon. Gentleman's relatives in Southend, West—and in Basildon, if he has any left there—about the situation in Wales. More than 1,000 more people are treated by the national health service in Wales than when his Government left office. If he had taken an interest—when he represented Basildon in the previous Parliament—in the performance of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), he would have known that Wales lost 1,200 beds, waiting lists went up and GP numbers went down in that time. This Government have committed £1.3 billion over the next four years to help the very health service that his party would destroy.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: In the discussions that my hon. Friend has held with the Secretary of State for Health, were the problems arising from the legacy in Wales of the Leader of the Opposition mentioned? When the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for Wales, 1,200 beds were cut, there were 300 fewer nurses and midwives, and in-patient waiting lists grew by 5,800. Will not the extra £51 million being made available to tackle waiting-list problems help us in Wales to overcome that legacy? Will my hon. Friend publish further information on activity rates, which show that the health service in Wales is on the mend and getting better?
    Mr. Hanson: I shall certainly consider publishing information on activity rates in the national health service in Wales. The record of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) is there for all to see.
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    When he ran the health service in Wales, he did what he will do if he ever runs the health service in the United Kingdom. He reduced the number of beds and nurses and cut investment in the health service.
    The £1.3 billion that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has given to the national health service in Wales will lead to real improvements in that service this year, next year and in forthcoming years.

    Agriculture
    Mr. James Clappison: What recent discussions he has had with the Agriculture Secretary of the National Assembly about agriculture in Wales. [122182]
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Paul Murphy): My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and I meet our colleagues in the Assembly on a regular basis to discuss a wide range of issues, including the agriculture sector. My hon. Friend also holds regular quarterly liaison meetings with the Agriculture Secretary of the Assembly.
    Mr. Clappison: Does the Secretary of State agree that Welsh agricultural produce enjoys a well-deserved reputation for being of excellent quality and wholesomeness? Many people in Wales want the country's produce to remain GM-free. Can the Secretary of State throw any light on how a GM maize test site that was supposed to be in England has turned out to be over the border in Wales? Can anything be done about that?
    Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the problem. The farm at which the trial was being carried out has a postal address in England, but the field to which the hon. Gentleman refers lies 100 yd on the other side of the Welsh border. Legally, neither the Government nor the Assembly can prevent the trials being held. When it was realised that there was a GM site in Wales, officials at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions spoke to the company involved to try to get it to grow the crop in one of the fields on the English side of the border, or to remove that farm from the project altogether. However, as a result of various pressures, the number of fields available has shrunk. That meant that pressure to use this particular field grew, and the farmer involved pressed ahead with the tests.
    Mr. Huw Edwards: Welsh farmers have shared in the £0.5 billion agrimonetary compensation that has been secured by the Government. Is not that £0.5 billion more such compensation than the previous Conservative Government ever drew down?
    Mr. Murphy: I am delighted to agree with my hon. Friend, and to tell the House that the package is worth £28 million to Wales. That works out to about £100 per farm holding in Wales—the equivalent of every citizen contributing just over £9 to that package. That is good news for Wales.
    Mr. Lembit Öpik: What can the Secretary of State do to help stop young farmers leaving the Welsh farming industry because of the lack of profitability in farming?
    Mr. Murphy: The package to which I just referred is a good example of how we can help farmers in Wales. In addition, the Assembly is taking a special look at our rural economy to ensure that farmers, and small businesses too, are helped.

    Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
    Mr. Martin Caton: What recent representations he has received about the protection of areas of outstanding natural beauty in Wales. [122183]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hanson): I have received no recent representations about the protection of areas of outstanding natural beauty in Wales.
    Mr. Caton: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. I am sure that he knows that Gower was the first designated AONB in the whole country. The message that I get from people concerned with defending Gower's high-quality landscape and habitat is that current legislation is inadequate when it comes to protection and management. The Countryside and Rights of Way Bill currently before Parliament provides an opportunity to rectify that. Will my hon. Friend press his colleagues in Government to take the opportunity that the Bill presents?
    Mr. Hanson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing to the House's attention the question of areas of outstanding natural beauty in Gower. Such areas are important, and Wales has many of them. I am pleased to be able to tell my hon. Friend that the Government have carefully considered issues that have been brought forward in the Committee considering the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill. The Government will consider tabling amendments to the Bill to achieve better conservation and management of areas of outstanding natural beauty. That will certainly help areas of outstanding natural beauty in Wales, such as those in Gower and in my constituency.
    Miss Anne McIntosh: I have served on the Committee considering the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill with the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), and I think that we have all learned something about areas of outstanding natural beauty in Wales.
    I am disappointed by the Minister's reply. Can he not give the House an assurance that areas of outstanding natural beauty in Wales, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, will be strengthened under the Bill?
    Mr. Hanson: As I said to my hon. Friend, and I will repeat it to the hon. Lady, the Government are giving careful consideration to the discussions that took place during the course of the Bill's proceedings. The Government are looking at the possibility of introducing amendments to help support and strengthen areas of outstanding natural beauty.

  The Prime Minister was asked—
  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Ben Bradshaw: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 24 May.
    The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. John Prescott): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been working throughout the night on exhausting domestic matters, and there are no official engagements today. I am sure that the country and the House will wish to join me in expressing warm congratulations to my right hon. Friend, his wife and family on the birth of baby Leo, 61b 12oz—now that is a killer fact.
    Mr. Bradshaw: I warn my right hon. Friend that thousands of pensioners in Exeter still expect the Government to do a great deal more for them. They welcome much of what has already been done and would be horrified at the prospect of the Tories taking it all away again. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House exactly how much more the Government have spent on pensioners compared with the previous Government, and why any pensioner should trust a party that condemned 3 million of them to live in poverty?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. He can be assured that we will do well by the pensioners—make no mistake about it.
    Let us get the facts right. We are spending £6.5 billion extra this Parliament over and above what the Tories planned to spend on pensioners. Now they say they will scrap the £150 tax free help with winter fuel bills and free television licences for the over-75s, which is worth £102 tax free. That much is clear from their proposals, but what they are offering is totally confused. On Sunday, the shadow Chancellor said that the Tories would raise pensions only in line with prices; today, there are different stories in different newspapers. This lunchtime, the shadow Chancellor said that the statement is a limited announcement and there will be no new money. I should say it is a limited announcement! If we listen to the Leader of the Opposition and we listen to the shadow Chancellor, it becomes clear that Hugh Grant and Liz Hurley are not the only ones going through a separation.
    Sir George Young: We warmly welcome the Deputy Prime Minister to the Dispatch Box. We understand that the Prime Minister wants to spend time with the newest member of his family, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending him and all members of his family our warmest wishes.
    Has the Deputy Prime Minister actually read the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, which will be warmly welcomed by

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    pensioners up and down the country? Does he agree with the view of his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field)? He welcomed our policy and said:
    Pensioners will be pleased with the news that one of our major parties is saying that we should give money in the form of pensions and not in one-off payments.
    Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's warm remarks about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—the House will certainly accept them.
    Although the right hon. Gentleman says that pensioners will welcome the Conservatives' proposals, it is clear that the shadow Chancellor does not. That is a start. As for the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), if he is happy with proposals that abolish the winter fuel allowance, free television licences and free eye tests—all considered to be gimmicks—I wholly disagree with him. That is the kind of unthinkable thought that I do not accept.
    Sir George Young: The Deputy Prime Minister should know what Downing street said when his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead was appointed:
    Tony has enormous regard for his abilities.
    All pensioners will be better-off under our proposals. If the Deputy Prime Minister cannot endorse the views of his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, does he agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle)? [Interruption.] He said:
    Pensioners believe the winter fuel payments and concessionary TV licences are a diversionary measure… What pensioners want is an increase, week on week, in the basic pension. That is not just a matter of economics; it is a question too of pensioners dignity.
    Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman may be promising to do things for pensioners, but it is fair for us to point to the record of the previous Government: 18 years—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must now come to order. I have heard enough from both sides. I want to hear the questions and answers.
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I want to deal with some of the killer facts, Madam Speaker.
    During 18 years of Tory Administration, 1.5 million pensioners were living in poverty. The Tories scrapped the earnings link with pensions, which is one of the major complaints. They scrapped free eye tests and check-ups. They also presided over the pensions mis-selling scandal, at a cost of £3 billion. The pensioners and the country will measure the record of performance of this Government against the Tories phoney promises built on phoney money.
    Sir George Young: I am sure the Deputy Prime Minister did not mean to commit his party to restoring the link with earnings.
    I am slightly surprised that the right hon. Gentleman does not agree either with his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead or with his hon. Friend the
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    Member for Walton. When the Deputy Prime Minister appeared on "On the Record" with John Humphrys on 7 May, he expressed some sympathy with the policies that are being put forward today.
    Instead of the paternalistic gimmicks of the Government, we will give all pensioners an increase in the basic pension of at least £5.50 a week. All pensioners will be better-off under our proposals. Is it not time that the Government learned the lesson of their local election defeat and started to give pensioners the dignity, choice, independence and respect that they deserve?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I do not know how the right hon. Gentleman can come to the Dispatch Box and still make those promises when they were rejected by the shadow Chancellor within two hours of their announcement.
    On the question of the minimum income guarantee, we were the party that guaranteed that for pensioners. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the earnings link. We are providing more than £6.5 billion, which is more than would be given under the earnings guarantee, and we have already linked the minimum income guarantee to earnings. We have produced for the pensioners. It is absolutely clear that a minimum guaranteed income for 1.5 million pensioners was produced by Labour; free television licences for those aged over-75 were produced by Labour; free eye tests for the over-60s were produced by Labour; and a winter fuel allowance of £150 was produced by Labour. The Tories believe in conning pensioners; we believe in helping them.
    Miss Geraldine Smith: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the fact that Lancashire county council has placed the completion of the M6 Heysham port link road as number one on its list of transport priorities? Will he join me in reaffirming the Government's commitment to allocating funding to strategically important roads such as the M6 link road to Heysham port, so that it can be completed at the earliest possible time?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: That issue is very much part of the integrated transport planning that is now going on in my hon. Friend's area. I am very sympathetic towards it. However, the matter is subject to a planning inquiry at the moment and the House will understand that I cannot comment on it.
    Mr. A. J. Beith: Will the right hon. Gentleman pass on the congratulations of the Liberal Democrats on the delightful arrival in the Blair family? It has the added benefit of bringing the right hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box on an occasion that is unlikely to be repeated this side of the general election. Will he take this opportunity to tell us why the Government support the giving of another £29 million to the company running the millennium dome, which has already received massive loans that it is unlikely to repay?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: Nine months is a long time in politics and the right hon. Gentleman should not assume that I will not be back at the Dispatch Box—not that I am bidding for that pleasurable duty, I am bound to say. I am sure that the House will understand that.

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    An awful lot of the gripes about the dome are not properly targeted in the right direction. The facility has been attractive to many people and something like 6 million to 7 million people will visit it, which is almost as many as voted for the Tory party at the general election.
    We produced a facility for a millennium celebration that will be seen to be successful. It was provided not for a one day party, but as a facility that all can enjoy for 12 months. On the financial requirements, it is true that the request for further money was granted, but it is hoped that that will be paid back over a period of time.
    Mr. Beith: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that many pensioners will be impressed by the way in which money is being lavished on the project? Has he not now recognised that pensioners were insulted by the 75p pension increase, and that they would be equally insulted by anybody offering money with one hand and taking it away with the other, which is what the Conservatives' proposals amount to? Does he realise that unless pensioners are given significant real rises this side of a general election, the whole Government will be spending more time with their families?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman reads the Liberal Democrats' manifesto, he will know that all his party promised was pensions related to prices. That is precisely to what he referred. We have done that and more in giving pensioners the winter fuel allowance and the other measures to which I referred. We have given up to £6.5 billion more in pensions, so it is a bit much for him to berate us for simply giving what he calls the 78p on the pension—[HON. MEMBERS: "75p."] We gave a lot more; all he promised was 75p.
    Mr. Martin Salter: Will my right hon. Friend join me in sending condolences to the family of Katie Kazmi, one of my constituents who was recently brutally murdered in a frenzied knife attack by a former Broadmoor psychiatric patient? Yesterday, it came to light that Mr. Williams, the assailant, was released into the community in 1995 and was supposed to be subject to regular supervision and random drug testing. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there should be an urgent inquiry to examine the failure of systems designed to protect the public from the violent behaviour of such individuals?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am sure that the House would want me to express on its behalf our condolences to those affected by the serious matter raised by my hon. Friend. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is to conduct an inquiry into the matter and is to have a meeting with my hon. Friend to discuss those facts.
    Mr. Tim Boswell: What is the Deputy Prime Minister's view on individual learning accounts?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I must say that I was somewhat sceptical of individual learning accounts when they were announced. However, I have met several people in industry who have developed those accounts, which are welcomed by the workers because they get the kind of education and training that they want. Birds Eye, a
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    company in my area, wants more resources for the accounts as they do the job that the Tories failed to do, which is to train our work force.
    Mr. David Chaytor: Will my right hon. Friend pass on warmest wishes from all my constituents to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his wife on the birth of their latest child? Will he tell them that our only regret is that, unlike his mother, Leo has not enjoyed the privilege of being born in Fairfield hospital in my constituency? Will he remind them of our long-standing invitation to the Prime Minister's wife to visit Fairfield hospital and open the new maternity unit that is being built as a result of the hospital's multi-million pound redevelopment, and for which we waited 18 years?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I shall certainly pass on the good wishes mentioned by my hon. Friend.
    There are an awful lot of hospital openings, and nearly 30 new hospitals are on the stocks, which is the highest recorded level of new hospital building in this country.
    Mr. Lembit Öpik: Given that the Government have effectively sponsored a genetically modified crop trial in Wales against the word of an Environment Minister, without consulting a Welsh Agriculture Minister and against the express wish of the Welsh Assembly, will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the Government chose a field in Flintshire only because they thought it was in England? If that is the case, which will he shift—the crops or the border?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: As I have spent a great deal of time in Flintshire—and was born in Prestatyn—I certainly would not make that mistake. We acted as quickly as possible on the GM seed mix-up. We had to take proper advice and then my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made a statement to the House. That should reassure the House and put the statement in its setting. The experts have said that these crops pose no risk to human health or the environment.
    Ms Bridget Prentice: Could I share with my right hon. Friend some satisfaction that waiting lists in the health service have dropped? Much has been done, but there is still much to do. I remind my right hon. Friend that in my constituency during the last winter period we experienced considerable problems in the health service. I wonder whether he will make a small wager with me—if I predict that there will be another winter this year, what will he predict for the health service?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: A continuing improvement, as there has been under Labour during its three years in office. We said that we would reduce waiting lists and we have done so by more than 100,000, and we are only three years into the life of this Government. We have increased the number of nurses, which was reduced under the previous Administration. The £150 million for critical care beds, which will provide more than 250 of them, will certainly help us with the difficult periods that are associated with winter. People can trust a Labour Government. We created the NHS and

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    we have put more resources into it than any other Government. It is our creation, we are proud of it and we will build on it.
    Sir George Young: Can I take the Deputy Prime Minister back to the dome? Is he aware that 50 of his hon. Friends have signed an early-day motion expressing "deep concern and alarm" that the decision to give an extra £29 million to the millennium dome
    will deprive the New Opportunities Fund of moneys that would otherwise go to education, health and the environment?
    Does he share those concerns?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am sure that the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) did not sign the motion. The dome idea was established by the previous Administration, endorsed by this Administration and, as I understand it, by the Cabinet of the Government of whom the right hon. Gentleman was a member. We have to be clear that money from the Millennium Commission does not compete with that for hospitals and schools. It is not able to give resources to hospitals and schools. So far, none of the resources provided has denied funds to either hospitals or schools. That is the challenge for us; we think that we have achieved it in the dome.
    Sir George Young: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the Labour Minister who said that the dome would be
    the first big test of competence
    for the Labour Government? He should recognise that because it was him. He also said:
    If we can't make this work, we're not much of a Government.
    As he is in charge for the next two weeks, will he overrule the decision of the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary to give £29 million more public money to the dome?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: No, I will not. On the right hon. Gentleman's point about my comments on whether the dome would be a success and that that should be a measure of the Government's competence, I happen to believe that it has been a success. It is the second most attractive facility to visitors. Almost 6 million people have visited the facility. That is a huge amount of people. More than 80 per cent. of those asked whether they had enjoyed the facility said that they had, and many of them intend to return to it. For a facility that celebrated the millennium, it has been successful in attracting visitors. I might say that it enjoys—apparently—the full support of the Leader of the Opposition who, on the first day of this year, made it clear that we should all get behind it and support it.
    Sir George Young: If the dome has been such a success, why are so many people being sacked? The contents of the dome stand as a monument to the vanity and emptiness of new Labour. First, the Government blamed the chief executive, and sacked her. Then, they blamed the chairman, and sacked him. Is it not time that someone in this Government had the courage to stand up, take responsibility and resign?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: We inherited a business plan that had been prepared by the previous Administration—we endorsed it. That plan estimated that
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    12 million people would visit the facility. The latest estimate is between 6 million and 7 million people, which shows that such a facility is highly successful in attracting people. In those circumstances, hon. Members on both sides of the House should recognise the large measure of agreement in setting up the project. Seven million people is nearly as many as the number who voted for the Tory party at the election, something which must be taken into account. If the right hon. Gentleman feels that the dome is a monument to what he calls new Labour, what sort of monument to the previous Administration is rail privatisation, which he introduced?
    Mr. Jim Cousins: In line with the wishes of Labour's national policy forum, do the Government have proposals to increase the say of people in the English regions over their regional affairs? May I remind my right hon. Friend that more than 20 years ago, the then Labour Government rightly assessed the spending needs of people of Scotland and Wales, which has been protected ever since, rightly, by the Barnett formula? When will the Government do the same for the English regions, particularly the less-well-off ones such as the north-east?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend says because we have both been advocates of decentralisation in central and regional government. There is a point of difference between the two sides of the House on the matter, but I firmly believe in regional government. It is our manifesto position and we are presently looking at what we will put in our next manifesto. [Interruption.] Let us be clear: I will argue for regional government. That is how parties make their decisions. There are different views, there are democratic debates and we come to decisions. With the Labour party and a Labour Government, they are delivered. We have delivered in the House not only by having a Committee to deal with regional affairs, but by bringing in regional development agencies, one of which played its part in the west midlands recently by creating 35,000 jobs and increasing investment—but the Opposition say they will abolish those agencies. I disagree with them and we shall put it to the electorate. I have no doubt that we will have development agencies, further steps towards decentralisation and a proper allocation of resources between the areas.
    Mrs. Ray Michie: Will the Deputy Prime Minister reconsider his decision to close the Oban coastguard station in the light of recent evidence to the Transport Sub-Committee that it will cost more to close down than to keep open? Will he look again at the overwhelming evidence and expert advice that he has received on the importance of the station to that area and also the dangerous maritime area that it covers, rather than listening to one man—Lord Donaldson? He should consider the fact that we are deeply disturbed that it will be closed.
    The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Lady will be aware of many of the decisions that have been taken in the past couple of years. I inherited a proposal for the closure of a certain number of coastguard stations. I had an independent assessment made by Lord Donaldson and it was looked at by the Select Committee as well. Lord

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    Donaldson reached a compromise on the matter and proposed that the station and another one or two should be closed. That will not affect the level of safety. It was an independent assessment by a judge who has considerable experience in maritime matters, and I accepted his conclusion.
    Mr. Eddie McGrady: Will the Deputy Prime Minister convey to the Prime Minister and Mrs. Blair the sincere congratulations of my party on the birth of their son? I hope that his labours in other directions in Northern Ireland bear equal fruit this weekend.
    Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware that the purpose of the Good Friday agreement and the Patten commission was to create a police force in Northern Ireland that would be acceptable to both communities? Is he aware that the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill, which is now before the House, fails miserably to achieve that by commission and omission and that all those endeavours, which are the kernel of peace in Northern Ireland, could be frustrated by the terms of the Bill? Will he use his best endeavours to rescue that Bill so that it will receive support right across the community, because nationalists cannot support it as it stands?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I really understand what my hon. Friend is saying on that matter. There is a great deal of concern in the House about those issues, and that was reflected in the debate on the police. There will be a Second Reading as soon as we come back after the recess and many of those matters will be discussed and thrashed out in the debate, as they were a few days ago. His point
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    about everyone having to come to an agreement to get understanding is absolutely important. I cannot prejudge the outcome of the Ulster Unionist council meeting on Saturday, but we call on its members to consider whether they can obtain a better offer than this. They have to give serious consideration to that. Everyone on both sides of the House would like to see agreement and continuing efforts towards peace in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Robert Syms: Given the debacle of the genetically modified oilseed crops, can the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that the Government know of no other cases of similar contamination of other crop varieties—for example, maize?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am sorry; I must apologise to the House. I missed the hon. Gentleman's question because there was some talking.
    Madam Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman repeat the question? If Members would be quiet, we would hear the questions. Raise your voice, Mr. Syms, too.
    Mr. Syms: Given the debacle involving genetically modified oilseed crops, can the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that the Government know of no cases of similar contamination of other crop varieties—for example, maize?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: We have no evidence and no information on that, but the hon. Gentleman can be assured that if we receive information we shall certainly tell the House about it.

Strategic Export Controls (Breach of Embargo)
3.30 pm
Mr. Harry Cohen: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the involvement of British subjects and companies and other persons under United Kingdom jurisdiction in the supply of armaments and associated items to countries to which arms embargoes apply.
The Bill's aim is simply to prevent British subjects anywhere in the world from supplying weapons and related equipment whose export would be prohibited if it took place directly from the United Kingdom.
I originally thought of tabling a ten-minute Bill on corporate responsibility in cases in which companies' actions had caused death, but because other Members—including my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay), who is sitting next to me—have raised that in Bills recently, and because the Government are taking notice, I decided to raise the subject of arms trading, which could be described as corporate killing at its most extreme.
The existing British law on arms exports contains three major loopholes, relating to brokering, licensing and direct sales from British people based overseas. Brokering is a difficult concept, but is basically the transfer of arms from one country to another that is organised from a third. For example, the company Sandline organised from Britain the transfer of weapons from Bulgaria to Sierra Leone, and before that Mil Tec organised from the Isle of Man the transfer of arms from Albania and Israel to Rwanda. As the arms never enter the United Kingdom, they are not under the control of our law. The law relating to brokering needs to be clarified and tightened, and, when such brokering is used to get around embargoes, it needs to be criminalised.
Licensing is the arrangement for production in another country, outside UK jurisdiction. Arms can then be used in that country, or exported, without any reference to British law. When it breaches embargoes, that too needs to be stopped. My Bill would prohibit brokering and licensing by both individuals and companies based in the United Kingdom and dependent territories. Direct sales take place when British citizens are involved in the supply of arms while operating outside the United Kingdom.
The proposal for such a widening of UK jurisdiction is not new. In the main, British law covers breaches of embargoes mandated by United Nations Security Council resolutions. My Bill would expand that cover to other embargoes, such as those called for by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the European Union, as well as those declared on a unilateral basis by Her Majesty's Government—for example, the current embargo on arms and arms-related sales to Zimbabwe.
The Government's White Paper on strategic export controls, published in July 1998, said that
it would be right in principle to control the involvement of persons in the UK or UK persons abroad in trafficking and brokering…to countries subject to other types of embargo.
Unfortunately, we have seen no progress on that.
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In February 1999, in its report on the Sandline affair and Sierra Leone, the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs recommended that legislation to control brokering be introduced no later than the next parliamentary Session—that is, the current Session. Obviously, that has not happened. There has been plenty of discussion, but more than four years after the publication of the Scott report, we still have no legislation.
The strategic export controls sub-committee has said:
We support a more stringent policy on brokering and trafficking, which could act as a spur to international action. We look to the 1999 Annual Report to make some specific reference to the Government's view of the way forward on this issue.
I accept that legislation to cover all aspects of brokering and licensing will be complicated and that that has contributed to the delay in introducing legislation. However, the simple proposals in my Bill are a minimum requirement to control brokering and licensing of arms, and could be implemented quickly and easily. That would not remove the requirement for more detailed legislation later, but it would close some of the worst loopholes that facilitate arms trafficking.
There is another reason for looking at that particular part of the arms trade. It resonates with one of the key themes of the Government: rights and responsibilities. One of the reasons why so many people are wandering the globe seeking asylum is that the arms trade makes some parts of the world extremely dangerous. In countries where dispute turns to violence, that violence is made significantly worse by the influx of arms from outside: Sierra Leone is an example. On CNN last night, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the United States envoy, put the troubles down to diamond smuggling, the drug trade and gun running. The same was the case in Rwanda with Mil Tec, which, as I have said, was based in the Isle of Man.
British subjects overseas rightly expect the protection that a British passport can offer. We can be rightly proud that British Governments of all political persuasions have come to the assistance of British passport holders overseas. However, carrying a British passport must carry obligations as well as benefits. It is wrong for a British passport holder to be involved in activities that displace and weaken the vulnerable—so that they are forced to become refugees and seek asylum in another country—without being subject to British law.
Some may say that the British Government should not have control of British citizens overseas, but precedents have already been set. Examples include legislation on sex tourism and the controls on land mines. Yesterday, The Guardian reported that, following our ratification of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development anti-bribery convention, the Government are considering extra-territorial laws to make it an offence for British citizens to offer bribes for business contracts anywhere in the world, so there is that precedent for extra-territorial law. It needs to apply to arms trafficking.
My Bill is just one small step in pushing forward the debate on how strategic export controls are to be implemented in this country following the Scott report and the activities of the Joint Select Committee on Strategic Export Controls, of which I am a member, but my Bill has a wider purpose. One of the major political issues of today is refugees, yet almost all the public debate is focused on what to do with refugees when they have fled from their home countries. Very little attention has been paid to why people become refugees and what could be done to reduce the numbers at source.

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Armed conflicts are fuelled by arms. It remains a scandal that there are such lax controls. For example, several hundred arms brokers in London are not required to register activity and are subject to no regulation whatever. We need to make them subject to United Kingdom laws—especially in the case of agreed embargoes—whether they are operating in this country or abroad. That is what the Bill seeks to do. If enacted, it would contribute to making the world a safer place.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Harry Cohen, Mr. Harry Barnes, Ann Clwyd, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, Mr. Jim Cousins, Mr. Jimmy Hood, Ms Jenny Jones, Laura Moffatt, Mr. Brian Sedgemore, Mr. Alan Simpson and Dr. Phyllis Starkey.

Strategic Export Controls (Breach of Embargo)
  STRATEGIC EXPORT CONTROLS (BREACH OF EMBARGO)
  Mr. Harry Cohen accordingly presented a Bill to prohibit the involvement of British subjects and companies and other persons under United Kingdom jurisdiction in the supply of armaments and associated items to countries to which arms embargoes apply: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 9 June, and to be printed [Bill 135].
Opposition Day
[11TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Crime
  Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  3.39 pm
  Miss Ann Widdecombe: I beg to move,
  That this House regrets that police strength in England and Wales has fallen by more than 2,300 since the Government came to power, that crime is now rising, and that the Government has released early from prison thousands of drug dealers, sex offenders, burglars and violent criminals; notes the criticism of the Government's crime reduction targets, and further that police officers are unable to devote much of their time to fighting crime because of unnecessary bureaucracy; notes with surprise that none of the Government's local child curfews have been issued and that anti-social behaviour orders have been issued at the rate of less than one per week since they became available; further notes that, in contrast to the Government's failure to tackle crime, the Opposition propose to reverse the decline in police numbers that has occurred since the Government came to power, to provide effective and appropriate punishment and rehabilitation for offenders and to put the interests of victims at the heart of the criminal justice system; calls on the Home Secretary to reconsider his proposed changes to Immigration Rule 320(18) that would remove the prohibition on foreign sex offenders and drug traffickers entering the United Kingdom; and calls on the Government to work to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system and the police, to restore police morale, and to implement effective policies to tackle rising crime.
  In short, the Government have betrayed the electorate. They have betrayed the general public and they have broken one of the major promises made by the Labour party, which said that it would be
  "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".
  Championed by the Prime Minister, that slogan was the rallying cry of new Labour long before the general election. However, in government, the Home Secretary has been all talk and no delivery. Far from being tough on crime, he has been tough on crime fighters. After six years of falling crime rates, beginning in 1993, crime is now rising once again.
  The first sustained fall in crime since the second world war has been turned round, and we are now faced with a rising crime rate. The latest figures are even more alarming than those for last year. In London, the crime rate increased by 12.6 per cent. in the year ending 31 March. The Metropolitan police have said that that gives "cause for concern". Nevertheless, last week the Prime Minister told the House that he did not believe that policing was in crisis. Yet on that very day the Home Secretary stood up at the Police Federation conference, and there, quite unmistakeably set out in 2 ft high letters behind him, was the conference's theme, "Policing in Crisis".
  The chairman of the Police Federation told the Home Secretary that there was
  a crisis of no confidence, a crisis of no cash and a crisis of no colleagues
  in the police service. This week, in THE HOUSE magazine, he wrote:
  The new century finds the service at its lowest ebb in recent memory.

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  If that is the opinion of the police, let not the Home Secretary try to take refuge in blaming the previous Government.
  A recent survey of more than 6,000 serving police officers found that three quarters believed that morale was low and that 71 per cent. would have taken another job with the same rate of pay if it had been offered to them.
  Hon. Members and the public can draw their own conclusions as to who is telling the truth about what is happening in the police service, or perhaps I should say, what is happening to the police service. Police numbers have fallen by more than 2,300 since Labour came to power. That includes a significant fall in the number of front-line constables. The thin blue line is getting ever thinner.
  The Home Secretary always likes to bleat that numbers fell under the Tories between 1993 and 1997. However, he knows as well as I do that the number of constables increased year on year over that period, and that the reductions in total numbers were due to cuts in middle management. Under the Labour Government, both the overall number of police officers and the number of constables have fallen. That is despite the Home Secretary's words to the Police Federation within days of coming to office, when he said:
  The police constable is central to the success of our police service. In difficult, demanding and often dangerous circumstances, the constable is the physical presence of the law on our streets."
  Yet under his Administration and under his stewardship of the Home Office, the number of constables—
  the physical presence of the law on our streets—
  has steadily fallen.
  We all know about the way the Home Secretary and his spin doctors fiddled Labour's conference pledge on police numbers. By contrast, we are pledged to restore the number of police officers to the levels inherited by the Government. We say that with no smoke and no mirrors. Is the right hon. Gentleman able to confirm that the figures on police numbers given in written answers hide the real picture? Is it not the case that the figures that he and his Ministers regularly provide relate not to actual strength but to budgeted strength, and that the amount of manpower available on our streets is substantially less than the Government have said? Will he tell the House how many police officers there actually are in England and Wales? Is it the estimated 124,800 provided in parliamentary answers, or is the figure substantially lower?
  Fewer police officers are having to cope with more and more bureaucracy, such as the new crime reduction targets. According to the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir John Evans, on the day those targets were announced they were already in some difficulties. The Police Federation has said that the targets will mean shifting resources away from serious crimes, including crimes of violence, and from street patrolling.
  We have seen that happen before, in the Government's approach to the health service. By setting politically inspired targets, they have distorted priorities. According to the police, there seems to be a real danger that the Home Secretary is now doing the same in the war against crime.
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  As if that were not enough, in the White Paper on licensing the Home Secretary wants to make police officers—not local councils, local magistrates or local bureaucrats, but police officers—responsible for approving requests to sell alcohol on a temporary basis. With just five days' notice, the local police officer would have to carry out the necessary checks, receive objections, issue a formal letter granting or refusing permission and, if there were objections, defend his decision before the licensing committee of the local authority.
  I do not know about the Home Secretary, but surely that proposal would be regarded by most sensible people as an unnecessary bureaucratic burden. It does not contribute to fighting or preventing crime, and it would be perfectly possible, under the Government's plans, for the local authority to shoulder much of that burden. The police would have to be consulted, but why do they have to do all the bureaucratic donkey work? Joined up Government? We do not even have joined up thinking in the Home Office.
  We need a comprehensive review of all police functions to ensure that they are allowed to get on with the job of fighting crime. The right hon. Gentleman told the 1997 Police Federation conference that
  the police have my wholehearted support and the wholehearted support of this new Government. We will do all that we can to ensure our police service is strong and effective. We will also support you by providing the protection and the resources you require.
  Surely the Home Secretary has not forgotten that speech of three years ago. What is the reality today? Yesterday, we found out that, far from giving front-line police officers the full support and protection that he pledged, under his early release scheme the Home Secretary has let more than 100 criminals convicted of assaulting police officers out of prison before the minimum point of their sentence. People who, having assaulted the police and been given, on average, four and a half months in jail, have served just six weeks. What message does that send out to the men and women of our police service?
  It is another kick in the teeth for the police when the criminals that they have caught and seen locked up for a range of other serious crimes are let out of jail early. [Interruption.] I hope that Labour Members are listening, because this is where the Home Secretary's policy has got them. Between January last year and the end of last month, the Home Secretary's early release scheme let out more than 20,000 convicted criminals before the minimum point of their sentences.
  What sort of convicted criminals? Trivial ones? Nope. There were 53 convicted of manslaughter; six convicted of attempted murder; 34 of making threats to kill; 2,562 of wounding, actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm; 128 of assaulting police, obstructing a constable or resisting arrest; 23 of cruelty to children; two of causing an explosion; 20 sex offenders with convictions for buggery, indecent assault or unlawful sex with an under-aged girl; 1,887 convicted burglars; 811 robbers; 125 arsonists; 60 blackmailers; 30 kidnappers and 772 convicted of affray and violent disorder. I am not surprised that the Government are getting embarrassed.
  Despite the Government's promise of a war on drugs, 2,767 people convicted of drug dealing and trafficking have been released. This week, the Minister of State admitted that he had not even given us the true picture in

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  his previous answers. His excuse was that there had been under-reporting of the further offences committed by the criminals when they should have been in prison. Now we know that almost 400, rather than fewer than 200, which was the Home Secretary's previous claim, have committed more than 700 further crimes when they would, but for the Home Secretary's kindly early release scheme, have still been in prison. Those crimes include two rapes, nine assaults on police officers, 18 other serious assaults, 21 burglaries, 14 offences of affray and violent disorder and 13 offences of drug dealing. Labour Members should take note of that because they are the Home Secretary's own statistics given in his own written answers, and they are beyond dispute.
  Mr. Nigel Beard: Will the right hon. Lady confirm that she has the agreement of the shadow Chancellor to spend the extra £1.5 billion that would be involved if such an early release programme were abandoned?
  Miss Widdecombe: While I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman's figure, I do indeed have the agreement of my right hon. Friends the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor and of the entire shadow Cabinet that we will scrap completely the early release on tagging scheme. Under Labour, the message is clear that, "If you get six months, you will get out in six weeks."
  Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: The right hon. Lady has just given an undertaking to the House. Can she put a price on it? How much?
  Miss Widdecombe: We have estimated that the total cost of all our provisions involving imprisonment is £260 million.
  Mr. Bob Blizzard: The right hon. Lady has just told the House that she will scrap the early release scheme. Does that mean that she would require Tony Martin to serve his full sentence and not allow him to be released early?
  Madam Speaker: Order. I think that the right hon. Lady is aware that that case is under appeal and is sub judice.
  Miss Widdecombe: I was, indeed, aware that the case was sub judice. I shall take the underlying question as opposed to the specific case. We have said that we will scrap early release on tagging. That is the scheme that was introduced by the Home Secretary, by which prisoners do not even serve up to the minimum point of their sentence at which they would get automatic release, but are released before that. We have also said that we would restore the proposals that we introduced and which the Government threw out when they came to power—for honesty in sentencing, so that the sentence handed down would be the sentence served and everything would be transparent.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): What the right hon. Lady has said is that a Conservative Government would abolish early release on licence, and make criminals serve the full term
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  ordered by the judge in open court. Is she saying that someone currently sentenced to four years would have to serve that four-year sentence?
  Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Gentleman heard me—
  Mr. Straw: Answer.
  Miss Widdecombe: I am going to answer, if the right hon. Gentleman will have some patience. I have just got back to the Dispatch Box and he yells "Answer." A bit of courtesy would be appreciated. He heard me say clearly just now that I would reintroduce the proposals that we almost put on the statute book for honesty in sentencing—proposals which Labour abandoned. He will know that we proposed that judges should take account of what people would actually serve and what they expected and wanted people to serve, and that that would be the sentence handed down. It would be transparent and everyone would know where they were.
  Mr. Straw rose—
  Miss Widdecombe: As the right hon. Gentleman spent a lot of time opposing those very sensible measures, he knows precisely how the calculations were done. He knows exactly what was involved, and he knows that we have said that that is what we will reintroduce.
  Mr. Straw rose—
  Miss Widdecombe: I know that the right hon. Gentleman is keen to prevent me from moving on to his immigration rules, but I shall give him one more chance.
  Mr. Straw: I shall come on to deal with why we opposed those rules, which would have had the effect—among many other adverse consequences—of prisoners serving less time than they do under the current regime.
  Miss Widdecombe: No.
  Mr. Straw: Oh yes. The right hon. Lady may also have forgotten that so chaotic were those provisions that they had to be withdrawn and subsequently reintroduced, and that they were still chaotic. Given what she has said, will she confirm that, in practice, her proposals—for all the badging that she gives them—would make not a scrap of difference? Currently, in principle, someone who is sentenced to four years serves two, whereas, under her proposals, if the judge intended that person to serve a minimum sentence of two years, that person would be given a minimum sentence of two years.
  Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Gentleman is releasing those people even before two years—that is the point of the tagging scheme. He should not be allowed to dodge that fact. We have said that we expect the judge to give the sentence that he expects the prisoner to serve.
  I shall now deal with the immigration rules.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
  Miss Widdecombe: In a moment.
  Mr. Hughes: On this point; before she moves on.
  Miss Widdecombe: All right; I am very generous.
  Mr. Hughes: Can the right hon. Lady confirm that the implication of the policy that she has just outlined is that there would be longer sentences and more people in prison? If so, how does she explain the fact that, when she and other Conservative Members were in government, we had rising prison numbers, falling conviction rates—[HON. MEMBERS: "Falling crime."] No, not falling crime—[Interruption.] No. How does she explain those facts, and the fact that, in 1992, after 13 years of the Tories, we had the highest crime rates in the history of this country? How does she explain that?
  Miss Widdecombe: The very fact that the hon. Gentleman finds it necessary to rewrite history proves just how completely he misunderstands it. Yes, we did have rising prison numbers and we had record prison numbers, but during that time we also had the first sustained fall in crime. The lesson was that, if we take repeat offenders off the street, we have an impact on crime and protect the public. If the hon. Gentlemen were interested in protecting the public, he would welcome putting people in prison who would otherwise be menaces on the streets.
  I shall now deal with the immigration rules, whether Labour Members want me to or not. The Home Secretary proposes to change the immigration rules for convicted criminals. Previously, the British public were—or so they thought—protected by those rules against all foreign criminals convicted of offences that would carry a maximum sentence of 12 months or more in the United Kingdom. Under the Home Secretary's proposals, that rule will apply only to the most serious offences—those with a maximum sentence of 10 years or more—such as murder, rape, armed robbery, offences of violence against the person, violent sex crimes and firearms offences. However, his plans throw up a couple of very interesting loopholes.
  First, the exclusion will not apply to paedophiles convicted of dealing in child pornography, for which the maximum sentence is a paltry three years. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will now, therefore, consider extending his proposal either to cover paedophiles or—if he will accept our amendment to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill—increasing the sentence for that offence to 10 years.
  Mr. Straw: As the right hon. Lady makes a serious point, I tell her that the consultative document that I published last week was just that—a consultative document. I welcome the comments that she has made on the matter, and understand entirely the case that she makes for special protection in respect of paedophiles. I shall take full account of her proposal and get back to her.
  Miss Widdecombe: I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for seeing good Conservative sense after we have drawn it to his attention. Now, let me try him again.
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  The right hon. Gentleman's proposed change in the rules will also not cover those who are convicted of dealing or trafficking in class C drugs, for which the maximum sentence is five years. Although we do not hear as much about class C drugs as we hear about heroin or cocaine, they are not harmless substances. They include the so-called date rape drug, rohypnol, and banned steroids used by athletes such as nandrolone, which got many headlines last year. Perhaps the Home Secretary will also consider extending the prohibition to people who deal in those drugs. I shall give way if he wants to jump up and agree.
  I hope that the loopholes were a mistake. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for his promise today to look at proposals and consider afresh the changes that he is seeking to make. It would send out a wrong and dangerous message if he did not do so.
  We saw on Monday the utter embarrassment of the Home Secretary and his colleagues when my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) highlighted the failure of child curfew orders, which appear to be a source of great hilarity to the Home Secretary. More than once, he has described them as
  new powers to protect children under 10 from being drawn into crime.
  However, they have not been used by a single local authority. In the 20 months that they have been available, there has not been a single application for one. He has been forced to admit that he will have to amend the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, because the great flagship measure that he trumpeted is not working.
  Then we have the anti-social behaviour orders. The Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), told the House on Monday that 40 had been issued—less than one a week. Just half of those have been against juveniles, despite the Home Secretary's view, expressed last year, that they should be routinely used against the middle and older age groups of juveniles and young people—the 12 to 17-year-olds. Another Minister of State, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), said in Westminster Hall on 1 March that the charge that the anti-social behaviour order was too complex and bureaucratic was well made.
  The orders are certainly complex and not even their creator, the Home Secretary, understands them properly. On 12 July last year, he twice told the House that using the orders was "a last resort". Just three months later in October, he wrote an open letter to all local authorities urging them to use the orders, saying that they were not a measure of last resort. No wonder local authorities and the police are confused. The Home Secretary is even more confused and has passed that on to them.
  The Government have consistently promoted those measures as a panacea for youth crime, but they have turned out to be nothing of the kind. Our proposals would take persistent young menaces out of an environment that is failing them and give them a real incentive to change.
  The Government promised the electorate that they would do a great deal on law and order, but after three years we have falling police numbers, rising crime, thousands of convicted criminals being let out of jail early and a crisis of no confidence in the police. It is a crisis of the Home Secretary's making. Victims have been let down. The police have been let down. The public have

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  been let down. Those who voted Labour have been comprehensively betrayed. The only person with anything to thank the Home Secretary for is the criminal.
  4.4 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "welcomes the fact that recorded crime has fallen by 7 per cent. since March 1997, with domestic burglary down by 20 per cent. and vehicle crime down by 14 per cent.; applauds the Government's investment to boost police recruitment; supports the Government's strategy for tackling crime and the causes of crime through better prevention, improving the performance of crime and disorder partnerships, the police and the criminal justice system, more effective punishment of offenders and securing greater support and protection for victims and witnesses; backs the radical reforms of the youth justice system, including swifter punishment for persistent offenders; and notes that all this is in sharp contrast to the record of the previous administration when crime doubled and the number of offenders convicted fell by a third."
  The best that one can say about the speech of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) is that at least it was brief. Her problem is that while the Leader of the Opposition has taken over her job, she has been spending too much time signing copies of her book.
  Miss Widdecombe rose—
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way to the right hon. Lady in a moment, but I have only just begun.
  I am always glad when right hon. and hon. Members do not become completely obsessed by politics but find other things to do with their spare time, so it is in the spirit of great affection in which I hold the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald that I congratulate her on the production of "The Clematis Tree", her first novel. [Interruption.] With her customary modesty, the right hon. Lady has described it as a very good book. I am still waiting for a signed copy. However, as any gift must be declared in the register these days, I should declare that I would be happy to pay for it.
  I have not yet read the book, but I have read the reviews, which were like an allegory for her speech today. Some reviews you agree with and some you don't, Madam Speaker. One with which I entirely agree—and one which showed that her writing skills have fed through to her speeches—said of the book that it was completely devoid of plausible contemporary reference. One with which I wholly disagree is that the right hon. Lady is lacking a knack for fiction. She has shown today that she can produce fiction not only in novels, but in speeches.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I am somewhat confused by what the Home Secretary has just said. Is it his practice only ever to read reviews before making his mind up, rather than reading the book itself?
  Mr. Straw: If the hon. Gentleman wants a serious answer, the best books page that I read is to be found in the Financial Times. Rather than wasting my money, I see what is recommended by its expert reviewers and then buy it.
  980
  I welcome this opportunity to debate the Government's record on crime, not least because it already compares well with the appalling record of the Conservative party when it was in government. In the first two and a half years following the 1997 general election, overall recorded crime fell by 7 per cent., with domestic burglaries down 20 per cent. and vehicle crime down 14 per cent. In the first two and a half years of Margaret Thatcher's Government, crime went up by 15 per cent. In the same period of the Government led by the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), crime rose by 31 per cent.
  The right hon. Lady can tinker with start dates and nit-pick over footnotes—we will no doubt hear more of that—but the incontrovertible truth is that over the 18 years of Conservative Government, crime doubled while the number of offenders punished fell by a third. Crime did come down towards the end of the Conservatives' period in office, but only back to the appallingly high levels of 1990.
  The Tory record was clear—much more crime and many more criminals getting away with it. It is little wonder that the former Tory Home Office Minister David Mellor was moved to admit at the last election that the Conservative Party had
  lost the plot on law and order.
  In contrast, we have already put in place policies fundamentally to reform the way in which the criminal justice system works to ensure that it is tough on crime and tough on its causes. The programme includes tougher sentences for repeat and serious offenders; radical reform of the way we deal with young offenders; greater support and protection for victims and witnesses; effective action on preventing crime in the first place, and better detection when it does occur in rural and urban areas; and an overhaul of our system of criminal justice to cut delays and put an end to revolving-door justice.
  Miss Widdecombe: The Home Secretary talks about being tough on the causes of crime. Presumably that is exactly what his child curfew orders and anti-social behaviour orders were meant to tackle. There has not been a single instance of the first and, for juveniles, there has been less than one every two weeks of the second. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that his efforts have been the most abject failure?
  Mr. Straw: Not for one second. I will refer to anti-social behaviour orders in a second, and we will want to know whether the right hon. Lady supports them or not. Residents, police and victims all support them.
  On the issue of child safety orders—
  Miss Widdecombe: Where are they?
  Mr. Straw: I would like them to be used, but it is for local authorities to use them.
  In the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), a number of offences were laid down that have not resulted in a single conviction. I do not complain about that. I thought it sensible to have such offences. The act has broadly worked well. The parenting orders in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which were derided, have been used

  981
  by the score in the pilot areas alone. People said that they would not work, but they are working extremely well. The reparation order, the action plan order and all the other orders that we have introduced to reform the youth justice system, left in such disarray by the Conservatives, are working and ensuring that fewer young offenders reoffend.
  We are taking action to tackle the social conditions in which crime and criminality breed. We developed our policies by listening to those at the sharp end of the fight against crime: victims of crime, the police, councils, and Members of Parliament whose surgeries were full of constituents angry at the levels of crime and disorder in their communities. We also drew on the experience of the previous 18 years and on the reasons for the previous Government's failure to tackle the problems.
  The fundamental reason for that failure on crime was the fact that the Conservatives did not have an overall strategy. Yes, during the 1980s they put money into the police, and numbers rose, but they coupled that with changes that disrupted the ability of the police to do an effective job, such as the flawed introduction in 1985 of the provisions in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the disastrous way in which they established the Crown Prosecution Service a year later.
  There was also the absence of any means or method of helping local communities to fight back against disorder and anti-social behaviour. There was even—I ask my hon. Friends to comprehend this—a sentencing regime that gave the green light to criminals to offend again and again, with the Criminal Justice Act 1991, under which the courts were to be prevented by law from taking previous convictions into account in determining whether and for how long an offender should go to jail. That incoherence and incompetence led the British people to lose faith in the Conservatives' ability to keep our communities safe.
  Mr. John Bercow: Was it not an alarming admission on 8 May that no fewer than 11 prisoners have been illegally let out of jail early, before serving the minimum tariff required, including people convicted of drug trafficking, assault, burglary and sex with a minor? Why did the Home Secretary not consider that serious enough to justify a full statement to the House?
  Mr. Straw: As the House knows, I am never slow in offering to make oral statements. Of course it is a serious matter, and no one denies it, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to start trading statistics about people who are let out of prison illegally and early, I might remind him, although I do not want to cause embarrassment to the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe or the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, that 500 prisoners, not 11—the figure mounted day by day—were let out early owing to the incompetence of the service over which they were presiding in the summer of 1996.
  The Conservative Government not only had no strategy: they did not understand that they needed one. As crime soared to its highest ever level, they did not have a clue what to do, so they cast around for scapegoats, for
  982
  Someone—anyone—to blame, provided that it was not themselves. Who did they choose? They did not choose the criminals, nor even the "liberal establishment". Instead, they alighted on the police.
  As former Home Secretary Kenneth Baker remarked in his autobiography:
  I found that while several of my ministerial colleagues and Tory MPs supported the police in public, they were highly critical of them in private.
  The then Government's revenge against the police was the Sheehy report, which the then chairman of the Police Federation, Alan Eastwood, described as a "monumental blunder" that had
  thrust this Service to the edge of a cliff.
  It is fair to say that it was the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who has now been adorned as a member of the liberal establishment and who is a former Home Secretary and Chancellor, who nearly brought the police service to the edge of that cliff. However, it was the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe who failed utterly to rescue the situation—indeed, he did the reverse. He implemented the biggest ever cut in the housing allowance, which has been a major factor in the recruitment problems now affecting the London police. He also forced a real-terms cut in spending on the police in 1995–96 and promised thousands more officers while securing many fewer.
  Mr. Michael Howard: The Home Secretary frequently refers to the fall in police numbers in the last four years of the previous Government and he has just referred to a fall in real-terms funding for the police in one of those years. What he never points out—and I would be grateful if he would confirm my figures, which come from the Library—is that during my time in office as Home Secretary, spending on the police increased in real terms by 4.2 per cent, whereas under his stewardship, spending on the police in real terms has fallen. In other words, while I was Home Secretary, chief constables had the money they needed to maintain police numbers had they chosen to do so, whereas the right hon. Gentleman simply has not given them the money. Is not that the difference?
  Mr. Straw: I have great respect for the staff of the Library, but my figures—which are on the record and I am happy to exchange them with my old friends the Library statisticians—show a real-terms increase in spending of 4 per cent. between 1997 and 2000. For this year, budgets will rise by 4 per cent. while the GDP deflator will increase by only 2 per cent. I notice that the right hon. and learned Gentleman turned to the Tories' usual alibi of blaming someone other than themselves for the fact that police numbers fell. Of course, they do not give this Administration that concession. In the small print of his question, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he had provided the money—which, by the way, he had not—to the police service to spend on increased police numbers, if chief constables chose to do so. It turns out that the fall in numbers was not the right hon. and learned Gentleman's fault for cutting real-terms spending on the police in 1995–96 by 0.4 per cent., but the fault of the chief constables for not spending the money properly.
  Mr. Howard: The Home Secretary has challenged my figures, but they show that in 1993–94 spending on the

  983
  police in real terms—at 1998–99 prices—was £7,001 million. In 1997–98, the last year for which I was responsible, it was £7,294 million. For 2000–01, it is only £7,369 million. If the Home Secretary compares the figures year by year, he will find a 4.2 per cent. increase in real terms in my period in office and a fall in his.
  Mr. Straw: I am sorry to disagree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Such matters of arithmetic are not easy to resolve.
  Mr. Howard rose—
  Mr. Straw: With great respect, I have already given way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman twice. My figures, which are produced by Government statisticians and based on Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy police statistics—on which his statistics will also be based, because they are the only source of those figures—tell a different story. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have an opportunity later to explain away how he promised 5,000 additional officers in 1997 on budgets that could not conceivably deliver them.
  How little has changed! In recent weeks, we have heard senior Tories sniping at our police service over the May day riots and over rural policing. They pay lip service to the police in one breath and constantly second-guess their professional competence in another. When the Tories are not making excuses and searching for scapegoats, they are holding up the war on crime. They waffle tough words—such as we heard today—but act to the contrary.
  The Conservatives' motion talks about putting victims at the heart of the system, but the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald and the Tory party have vehemently opposed our Bill to stop the misery caused to victims by persistent offenders stringing out less serious cases by choosing jury trial when there are no good reasons for doing so.
  Our Bill will help victims and speed up justice. I have long accepted that there are times when the so-called establishment mobilises against common-sense policies to tackle crime. This is one such occasion, but who do we find standing full square with the lawyers and the liberal establishment, and against the views of all the police associations, of the Lord Chief Justice, of the senior judiciary and all the magistrates? It is none other than the Leader of the Opposition, with the right hon. Lady in his wake.
  Miss Widdecombe: The Home Secretary says that his proposals to reduce the automatic right to trial by jury will benefit victims. Does he agree that he has said that two thirds of the savings under the measure will be achieved as a result of fewer people being given prison sentences? That will happen because magistrates give fewer and shorter custodial sentences. How will it comfort and reassure victims to know that under his proposals more people who should be in prison will instead be on the streets?
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. Lady knows very well that if magistrates believe that their sentencing powers are not adequate when someone is convicted in a magistrates court of an either-way offence, they can transfer that person to the Crown court for sentencing. She cannot
  984
  wriggle out of it and pretend that she does not know that. She also knows that our proposals will speed up justice and stop criminals spinning cases out to the point where victims are so fed up or intimidated that they will not go to the court—which, almost invariably, is further away from where they live than the magistrates court. She knows, too, that our proposal will save time wasted unnecessarily by prisoners on remand.
  I turn now to the issue of anti-social behaviour orders. In government, the Conservative party refused to implement those orders. In opposition, it sought to water them down, and it now describes them as a gimmick in need of repeal.
  As the House has heard, more than 40 ASBOs have been granted in the past year. I want many more such orders to be granted, in the same way as I want there to be many more convictions for theft, burglary, violence and other crimes. The Opposition, however, do not want there to be any anti-social behaviour orders at all. They want the protection that the orders offer removed altogether.
  The Opposition want the three young thugs in Preston who were making the lives of the residents on the Callon estate a misery to be free to carry on their criminality. They want the same licence for thugs and criminals in areas across the country—both rural and urban—where anti-social behaviour orders are in force.
  Anti-social behaviour orders are in force in 25 areas, which include Weston-super-Mare, Camden, Liverpool, Yeovil, Middlesbrough and parts of Sussex and Suffolk. They are helping in the prevention and detection of crime.
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: Recently, a shopkeeper in Lymington went out to defend his property against a mob of drunken youths. A police car passed by. The policeman in the car looked at what was going on, and the car passed on. The shopkeeper subsequently made representations to the police station, but he was told that the policy was that an officer would not get involved in an incident if he was on his own and had no back-up—but the citizen involved was on his own and had no back-up. If the police are not prepared to intervene to assist citizens, how can any justice be had, ever?
  Mr. Straw: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, and I congratulate the citizen to whom he refers. I can say, modestly, that I have been in that situation myself on four occasions over the past few years. However, the hon. Gentleman knows that there will always be some instances of unhappiness about the way in which an individual police officer has behaved in an individual circumstance. The answer is for the hon. Gentleman to take the matter up with the chief constable, or with the superintending officer in that area.
  I am not alone in saying that anti-social behaviour orders are having an effect. Robin Searle, assistant chief constable of Nottinghamshire police, has said:
  Through new legal powers the police and other agencies are also sending out a clear message to the most persistent young offenders, who previously thought that they were untouchable, that we will target them and take the strongest possible action.
  The contrast between the actions of this Government and those of the previous Conservative Government is not simply that we are delivering crime reduction where the

  985
  Conservatives could not. It is that we also have a strategy for the long term. That strategy includes the new deal to get young people back to work, the sure start programme to help parents of vulnerable young children, the anti-drugs strategy, and a raft of policies to tackle social exclusion. Some 376 local crime reduction partnerships between the police, councils and others are up and running, pooling resources and effort into fighting crime.
  The right hon. Lady complained that we had established targets for each police force area, in co-operation with those police force areas.—[Interruption.] She keeps waving her hands as an alternative to rational argument.
  Madam Speaker: Order. I ask the right hon. Lady to contain herself while in a sedentary position. She has made her speech and should let the Secretary of State make his.
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. Lady cannot help it, Madam Speaker—we should have sympathy for her plight. [Interruption.] I apologise, Madam Speaker, for any impertinence I may have shown to you.
  The right hon. Lady waves her hands like a semaphore flag, which I have to decipher. I gather from her semaphore that she is not too keen on targets. Last year's crime figures, as they relate to previous years, show, underneath the overall totals, a very variegated situation. The right hon. Lady laughs. Of course we want to get overall crime figures down. Figures for some crimes are coming down, such as domestic burglary and violent crime, which we have targeted as a matter of policy.
  Some police services do very much better than others even though they may have the same resources, powers and number of police officers. I am delighted to say that one of those is Lancashire which, with a less good budget settlement than many other forces, managed to reduce crime by 10 per cent. in the last full year.
  What is true for police forces overall is also true for individual basic command units. That is why we have asked forces to set targets at a basic command unit level. I am astonished that the Tories should oppose that, because it was their policy in relation to schools 15 years ago. Far from the police objecting to them, the targets have been welcomed by the Association of Police Authorities and by Superintendent Peter Williams, the national secretary of the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales.
  Miss Widdecombe: I could not contain myself just now because I simply could not believe what we were being told. The right hon. Gentleman talks about crime reduction. Is crime going up, or is it not? Is it the first time in six years that it has gone up, or is it not? Is it happening under his stewardship, or is it not? Is it happening against a background of falling police numbers, or is it not? No matter how much waffle we hear, those are the facts. Will the right hon. Gentleman please address them?
  Mr. Straw: I am addressing all those issues, and the waffle is coming from the Conservative party. The right hon. Lady knows very well that recorded crime overall rose by about 3 per cent. in the last year for which we
  986
  published full figures. Within that figure there are major variations. Therefore, there are lessons to be learned. Yes, there is the issue of overall resources; we are addressing it, something that the previous Government failed to do. There is also the issue of how those resources are best managed.
  I regret that police numbers have fallen. However, the last people in the world to lecture us about police numbers are the right hon. Lady and other Conservative Members. The Conservatives promised an increase of 1,000 in police numbers in their 1992 manifesto and then began cutting police numbers in 1993, so that they fell by 1,400 by 1998. The Conservatives' pre-election spending plans, published just before the election, would have led to an even greater loss of police numbers, with no strategy to reverse that decline.
  The right hon. Lady presented the police budget for 1997–98 in a debate in the House in January 1997. She is staring at the ceiling, praying that I will not remind her of what she said. She said:
  I have already reminded hon. Members of the commitment…to provide funding for an additional 5,000 police officers over three years.—[Official Report, 29 January 1997; Vol. 289, c. 457.]
  However, that commitment was like so many others made by the right hon. Lady and her party before 1997 and since: the commitments of the rattling can—empty and worthless.
  Mr. Tim Collins: I hope that the Home Secretary can give a calm answer to my question. When does he propose to act on the report commissioned and received by the Home Office on the sparsity element in its funding formula for police forces? As the right hon. Gentleman may be aware, that is worth £2 million to the Cumbria constabulary and would make the difference between the continuation of reductions or turning them around and reversing them.
  Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. In the current police grant, £35 million is for sparsity. We shall be acting on the matter in the context of the comprehensive spending review. The Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) recently visited Cumbria—a very rural area—and talked to officers about the matter.
  Mr. James Clappison: The Home Secretary has been in charge for three years, but he complains about police numbers under the Conservative Government. Will he confirm that police numbers have declined during the past three years? When does he expect police numbers to match those he inherited in 1997?
  Mr. Straw: I confirm that police numbers have gone down. The hon. Gentleman knows that—there is no dubiety about the matter. What I am trying to do is to explain that decline. We decided to stick to the spending plans of the previous Government for the first two years—even though we did not have to do so—because we were not willing to make promises to the electorate that could not be delivered. We learned a few lessons in opposition—the current Opposition have failed to learn them—so, although I am happy to hear complaints about the fact that police numbers have gone down from police officers, police services or the public, the people who cannot complain about that reduction are members of the previous Administration.

  987
  Moreover, the Conservatives tried to trick the electorate by saying that police numbers would rise by 5,000—as the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald said just before the general election—while allocating an amount that ensured that numbers were bound to go down. We are dealing with the matter. We are injecting funds so as to reverse the decline in police numbers. This year, £59 million is ring-fenced from the crime fighting fund; there will be more next year to accelerate—in two years, rather than three—the recruitment of 5,000 officers more than previously planned. After those two years—
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: No, I shall not give way.
  On the basis of the projections provided by police forces, we expect a return to the 1997 numbers. As for more police officers, that is a matter for the comprehensive spending review.
  Many hon. Members were rather perplexed at how subdued the right hon. Lady was on Monday during Home Office questions. I was, too, until I read what she had said on Sunday on the BBC programme "On The Record", where she, and her spending plans, were taken apart by the relentless questioning of Mr. John Humphrys.
  This matter is like the Tories' pensions pledges—they make a pledge in the morning and it falls apart in the afternoon. We saw that today. The right hon. Lady talks about honesty in sentencing; what she actually means is that she plans to cut sentences in half, with no licences for those people who come to the end of their period of imprisonment. Her plans will cost at least £1,900 million, but she gagged and fluffed—just as she did in the House—and tried to convince an incredulous Mr. Humphrys that the cost would be just a fraction of that amount—£200 million. This year, we have put an extra £300 million into the police service alone. The right hon. Lady's calculation is as worthless and hopeless as the ones she made before the election; it is doubly undeliverable, because under the Tories' so-called tax guarantee, there can be no extra spending anyway.
  Oppositions can always make headlines. I know that; I spent 18 years in opposition. However, I also know that if Oppositions are to become Governments they require more than headlines. They need credibility; and to be credible, they cannot in one breath promise the earth on education, health, police, prisons and pensions and, in the next, promise to cut taxes. It simply does not add up.
  The British people drove the Tories from office in 1997 not only because they had failed comprehensively on law and order, but because they broke the trust of the British people, cynically making one promise after another that they knew could not be delivered. By contrast, the promises that we made are being delivered—getting on top of the legacy of high levels of crime and of criminality with a strategy for the long term. We have put that strategy in place with the most fundamental reform of our criminal justice system in a generation to make our society safer and to allow people better to live their lives free from fear.
  I urge the House to support our amendment.
  4.35 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: We welcome this debate on crime and we welcome the opportunity to examine the Government's record and to hear what the Conservative party proposes to do.
  First, I shall consider the Government's record just over three years on from the general election. It was perfectly valid for the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) to remind the House that the Labour party went to the election with the theme of tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. That was its selling point and message and we must judge what it has done against that claim.
  Of course, there has been some good legislation, some good initiatives and some worthwhile and considered proposals. In my conversations around the country, I pick up that the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 is generally welcomed and that police and local authorities in England and Wales welcome the new crime partnerships. I also pick up from my conversations that the new structure for dealing with young offenders is a good initiative and that it is much more likely to deal with young people effectively. Certainly, there have been good initiatives on crime reduction, and it is not always the big national schemes, but the small local initiatives that count. In many areas, the Government's actions have been welcomed, as they have been by the Liberal Democrats over the years. The Government have been clear about certain forms of crime, such as racially motivated crime. They have deserved support and have made progress.
  We do not come to the debate with the attitude that, by definition, all we can do is criticise the work of another political party. That would be an unreasonable and unfair starting point. However, we have to consider what works, a phrase that was inherited from the previous Conservative Government and used again by this one. The test is what works to prevent, detect and deal with crime.
  Perhaps, because he was understandably concentrating on the Conservatives, the Home Secretary did not hear my attempts to intervene on him. I absolve him of responsibility for that, because he is normally willing and courteous in giving way. However, I understand that he may have had difficulty in picking up my requests to intervene.
  Let me paint the picture of the serious position that we are in and that is a challenge to us all. We need to go from where we are and not where we would like to be. On Monday, I quoted Home Office statistics to the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) and—along with those published by the House of Commons Library, which are often prayed in aid—those statistics are the most authentic that we can quote. The latest figures show that, of 100 offences committed, only 45 per cent. are reported, only 24 per cent. are recorded, only 5.5 per cent. are cleared up and only 3 per cent. result in a caution or conviction. The figures are worrying whatever the level of crime.
  The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald was wrong to deny that crime reached a peak under the Conservative Administration. In 1992, the number of recorded crimes was higher than it had ever been before or has been since. Although the figure goes up and down. we clearly want a system that, whatever the level of offences, prevents crime more effectively, detects it better and deals with it more effectively.

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  Let me share with the House the other statistic that I wish to quote. It shows that, of the men who are convicted and imprisoned, more than half reoffend within two years and, of those who are under 21, more than 70 per cent. reoffend within two years. In addition to the fact that people are not being deterred, something is badly wrong when, despite a rising prison population and a general trend for longer sentences, a significant number of people are coming back into the system. That is as important as other matters that should be addressed as policy areas.
  Mr. Howard: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the proportion of those reoffending within two years of leaving prison is almost identical to the proportion of those who reoffend within two years of being sentenced in the community or having a probation order imposed on them? Whatever that statistic demonstrates, it certainly has no relevance whatever to the effect of prison on people inside prisons.
  Mr. Hughes: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to argue that alternatives to prison do not suddenly prevent reoffending and that, in some areas, the figures are similar. However, if prison is to serve any purpose, it is meant to do two things. First, it should punish and deter and, secondly, like other sentences, it should have some benefit for offenders so that they are less likely to reoffend. However, we do badly in preventing people from reoffending.
  I take the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point. We do badly in all our responses and, unless we cut the huge percentage of crimes committed by those who, in theory, are dealt with but for whom, clearly, the punishment does not work, we are not providing an adequate remedy.
  The background to that includes the fact that, under the previous Government, convictions fell significantly, as objective figures show clearly. There were just under 2 million convictions in 1979 and just under 1.5 million convictions in 1997. There was one conviction for every eight crimes committed in 1985 and one conviction for every 14 in 1996. We must therefore ask ourselves how get to more convictions for those cases brought into system.
  In this area, I disagree profoundly with the Home Secretary, whose solutions include reducing the right to choose jury trial. I do not think that that will have a significant effect on such matters, and is marginal to them. Clearly, the Home Secretary and his colleagues did not think that the matter was sufficiently important to be anything other than marginal at the last election when, as he conceded, he did not believe that reducing the right to jury trial played any role in dealing with crime. It was not part of the Labour party's programme or its manifesto.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Hughes: I shall give way to the Home Secretary.
  Mr. Straw: I have followed the hon. Gentleman's speech carefully. He may like to know that the number of those convicted rose by 7 per cent. in 1998, although it fell a little last year. However, it remains significantly higher than it was. Part of our strategy for the criminal
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  justice system as a whole is to ensure that the police catch more people and that those people can be processed more effectively through the system.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the attrition rate and the big gap between the number of offences committed and the number of people who end up before the courts. However, whatever side one is on, if we are to close that gap, one must accept that the prison population must rise to cope with the fact that more offenders will be sent to prison, at least until we get on top of the problem.
  Mr. Hughes: That may be the case and I accept that such matters are not simple. However, in this country and elsewhere, the pattern of rising prison populations does not necessarily mean that crime goes down. It does not work like that, which is why the Home Secretary came up with a recent initiative that I shall deal with now, although it is a bit out of context. We welcome the initiative if it means that we can punish, deter and begin rehabilitation by having shorter prison sentences, such as at weekends, or during the evening or day, which allow people to go on working and paying into the system—having them in prison costs the state a fortune—and if it works better than the present system. Other countries do that.
  To take one simple example, people who are guilty of some type of football hooliganism offence are in some countries locked up at the very time that they would otherwise be going to a football match. That is a specific punishment, which relates to where they committed the crime and does not use up prison establishment resources, cost the state a huge amount or stop the person concerned earning and contributing to society.
  Mr. John Hayes: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point about recidivism. The point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), the former Home Secretary, which I think the hon. Gentleman missed, was that there is little evidence that less punitive means of dealing with offenders produces results in terms of recidivism. Indeed, what might be loosely described, for the sake of reference, as the liberal establishment's rehabilitative instincts have not borne fruit in dealing with repeat offenders.
  Mr. Hughes: I understood the former Home Secretary's point clearly. He was saying that both types of response produce similar results on reoffending; I accept that.
  Incidentally, in the great attack by the leader of the Conservative party on the liberal establishment he used a slightly ill-judged phrase. Would that the Liberals had been the establishment for the past 40 years. The two parties that have been the establishment have been the Conservative party and the Labour party. If people are to be blamed for this great failure of law and order and the increase in crime—I say with the greatest humility that many people can be blamed for many things and we can be blamed for some things—it cannot be us. The answer to the questions that we have consistently asked is not to be found in the liberal establishment. It lies in Conservative policy for most of the time and Labour policy for some of the time—neither of which has been in any way noticeably successful.
  Mr. Oliver Heald: May I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, in the text of the speech

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  of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, "liberal" has a small "1"? Does he agree that targeting people who are committing offences ensures that they are charged with offences, convicted, sent to prison and therefore unable to commit further offences? Was not that the insight of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), and did it not work?
  Mr. Hughes: It is not terribly insightful; one hopes at least that when people are locked up they are not committing offences. In case the hon. Gentleman does not realise, having come to his job quite recently, most people who are locked up are let out after a—varying—length of time. If most who are let out offend as often as most who were not punished in the first place, one must ask whether the system is particularly useful and effective. The reality is that both offending and reoffending rates are way too high, to which we have not yet produced a response.
  When I took over the job of Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, our senior researcher commended a few bits of reading to me. None of them keeps me wide awake for great periods. However, I commend a Home Office research study—I am sure that the Home Secretary and his colleagues read little else these days, apart from reviews in the Financial Times of books written by their opposite numbers—entitled, "Reducing Offending: An assessment of research evidence on ways of dealing with offending behaviour".
  Mr. Bercow: Is it a racy read?
  Mr. Hughes: No, not at all. The one message that I am trying to put to the House is that we must try to reach a conclusion on what works and implement those policies. We do not want simplistic, knee-jerk and ill-thought-out policies that respond more to a demand for political rescue than any desire for success in criminal justice and rehabilitation.
  Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hughes: No, I will not.
  One criticism that lies rightly at the door of the Conservative party, which initiated this debate, is that, in the past few months, there has been a more and more speedy procession of initiatives, most of which appear to ignore the evidence, or to be inconsistent, or to have not been thought out. When the Conservative party in one month appears to be arguing for mandatory sentencing but, as soon as somebody in Norfolk is convicted and receives a mandatory sentence, appears to be arguing against such sentencing, people in the country are entitled to ask whether it has thought through what it is saying—because it does not sound like it.
  Mr. Bercow: If a man who is sentenced to six months' imprisonment for sex with a minor is released from prison after only six weeks, how does that deter him from reoffending, how does it deter others from imitating his offence and how does it reassure the public?
  Mr. Hughes: Most people's initial reaction would be that it does not. I concede the proposition that the hon. Gentleman makes by inference and which was made from
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  the Front Bench. We on the Liberal Benches are carefully considering the policy of releasing people earlier than they might otherwise be released, although we have not yet reached a conclusion, because such policies send out messages and risks are involved. Of course it is appropriate to release people if they are assessed to be no risk, although risks have to be taken sometimes. However, the criminal justice system should not send out messages that suggest that serious offences—an adult having sex with a minor, which is clearly serious and unacceptable behaviour, for example—are fine and that those who commit them will be treated leniently.
  Before the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard) told me that she attended a recent seminar on the American experience. In some cases, if the court that passed the sentence is satisfied that a drugs habit has been adequately dealt with and that there is a prospect of the individual staying off drugs, it can reassess and perhaps reduce the sentence on the basis of that person's development in prison. I have learned not only in the House, but before being elected, that sentences must be tailored to a combination of factors, including not only the crime, but the individual. Therefore, the balance in the case to which the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) refers seems to be wrong, but I clearly cannot comment further on the specifics.
  We have rightly spent a lot of time talking about the police, so I shall not concentrate on that today. I have criticised the Government because police numbers at the end of the Parliament are projected to be lower than at the beginning. We believe that having fewer police is highly unlikely to prevent or detect and reassure the public. I have not visited a single county in England and Wales—the policing of which is the Home Secretary's responsibility—where people have told me that they are more comfortable because there are fewer police.
  We all agree that adequate police numbers are needed in every community, whether rural or suburban; there is no selective option. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) and others have the same interests for their village and rural communities as I have for my inner-city community. There is no difference between the demands. However, we have still not adequately recognised those who become the victims, despite the fact that the Government, the Conservative party and ourselves want to do so. I agree with the general proposition that the criminal justice system still does not look after victims adequately.
  I want the Government to consider three propositions in that context, the first of which is general. We must better inform those who become victims of the sequence of events involved in the crime. Often, people are not given the information that would satisfy them that the crime of which they or their relatives were the victim has been dealt with adequately. Secondly, there must be a serious review of the criminal injuries compensation scheme because it has lost touch with reality. I cite a painful example involving a couple who live about a mile from the House.
  Wendy and Chris Radford, my constituents, had a son and daughter. Last year, their 17-year-old son was attacked on his way to work early in the morning by a male, who was found guilty, convicted and sentenced for manslaughter. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board offered compensation for the loss of their only son. They received the maximum—£10,000—although they were

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  not after the money as they are both in work. They see other people in other life circumstances receiving compensation. For example, someone who had been under stress at work received £175,000. I do not mean to be vulgar, but they see someone who was caused mental stress after being plagued by someone who followed her around at school holding what is described in a newspaper as a "chocolate willy" receive £101,000. They produced examples of people who received tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation under the criminal injuries compensation scheme, although it is said that a value cannot be put on a life lost. We should consider how victims are dealt with under the civil damages and criminal justice systems.
  Let me make a third request, which I realise is controversial. I should be grateful if the Home Secretary and his colleagues, along with us and others who are interested, would consider ways in which victims and their relatives could be integrated appropriately in the criminal justice system before the passing of sentence.
  Let me give a simple example. Soon after I was elected, the son of near neighbours of mine was attacked, and subsequently died as a result. They went to the trial, which took place at the Old Bailey. There were convictions, although of relatively less serious charges. From the beginning to the end of that case, no one formally asked those people anything, and they were never able to, as it were, put a statement into the criminal justice process. They were never able to describe the effect of that death on them.
  I have seen families destroyed, mentally as well as emotionally, by the injuries and deaths of relatives, and I have seen those directly involved destroyed. I do not think we can pretend to victims that the criminal justice system works well if we have independent prosecutions on behalf of the state and society involving—I have done this, so I know about it—such long mitigations by the defence on behalf of persons who are convicted, but giving the victim no opportunity to say anything formally. I do not think it inconsistent with justice for the defendant to give victims or their representatives opportunity to speak, although that must clearly happen after conviction. I ask the Government, and the Home Secretary specifically, to think about the issue.
  Let me make two more brief points. The first is topical: it relates to an announcement made this week. We must move quickly on the involuntary manslaughter corporate liability agenda, to which the Government very properly responded in their paper. Throughout my time here, people have complained that practices on building sites that have led to deaths have attracted derisory fines for the construction companies which, directly or indirectly, have been responsible for those deaths. Corporate liability is required: someone must carry the can.
  It was in my constituency, or on one of its boundaries, that the Marchioness sank 10½ years ago. At the end of the day, none of the corporate entities that owned the vessel that collided with the Marchioness were liable: no one carried the can. Another example mentioned in the paper to which I referred earlier relates to those who are found guilty of driving under the influence of drink or drugs. I believe that the penalties imposed on those convicted of killing, maiming or injuring while driving, generally, a vehicle—although this could apply to vessels
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  or to aeroplanes, for instance—are often far too lenient. We must make people take responsibility for their actions, if the link between a sense of duty and personal responsibility and actions and reactions is not to be completely lost.
  My last point is this. I have become convinced—our amendment mentions this specifically—that we should devote as much urgency as the Government devoted to nursing recruitment after a couple of years and are, I hope, now devoting to police recruitment, to the recruitment of people who are qualified and able to deal with drug addicts and drug offenders, so that we can prevent them from reoffending and returning to their addiction.
  Of course, the dealers who make money from drugs at others' expense need to be dealt with as soon as possible, because they are real villains in society. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and I, and others, are regularly told by people including experts that even when it is believed that someone should be referred to drug treatment, that person will have to wait for weeks, or months, by which time it is often too late.
  There are good initiatives in terms of work in prison and after prison, but, in far too many cases, people go out of that door and their chance of having work, a decent home environment and the help that they need to stay off drugs—from which they have been released while in prison—is not there. I hope that Ministers will respond positively, and find the funds, the recruitment mechanisms and the commitment to ensure that we prioritise the drugs menace highly. Because of that menace, many people commit crime, but many can be released from it and kept free of it.
  Liberal Democrats have said from these Benches that the priorities are preventing and detecting crime and dealing with it effectively. If the Government concentrated even more on that agenda and somewhat less on taking away the liberties of the citizen—as they are doing in a Bill upstairs in Committee to reduce people's ability to choose a jury trial—they would better serve the public and, indeed, their supporters, who elected them to do the first, but not the second.
  5.1 pm
  Mr. Tony Lloyd: Fear of crime is almost certainly the biggest single political issue that my constituents face—it is above concerns about pensions and anything else on the political agenda. In the light of that, I must say that the attack on the Government by the Opposition is unwelcome. It is unwelcome not because there is not a debate to be had about crime and crime reduction, but because, when we trivialise the issue and make it a matter of party political knockabout, we do a major disservice to the real interests of millions and millions of people. I hope that we can have a much more intelligent debate that focuses on the real issues.
  Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Lloyd: No, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
  The Government have already done an awful lot. Many things have been welcomed by my constituents, but the message that they would expect me to give the Government is that there is still a long way to go and not much time for us to make those changes.

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  Recently, I conducted a survey on crime in one of my local areas. What was astounding was the enormous response to that survey and the overriding concern that people in that community had about the issue of crime and crime in their communities. People feel unsafe—they feel unsafe in their homes and unsafe on the streets. Some people feel very unsafe—so much so, it destroys the quality of their life.
  The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) mentioned drugs. It is right to say that, as long as we keep people in the queue for drugs treatment, we are simply recycling people: they are going back on to the streets and committing further crime, which is not good for those individuals and disastrous for society more generally. I know that drug treatment is an integral part of policy, but there is much more for us to do.
  My constituents recognise that the issue of crime is much more complicated than simple slogans about who is tougher on the criminal. It is about a whole societal approach. They still want a Government who, like the present one, are committed to cracking down on unemployment. That is why they do not accept the bogusness of the Conservative Government of the past, who doubled crime on the back of the destruction of the communities in which my constituents live.
  One of the things of which we should be aware is that trust in the police is much more fragile now than at any time that I can remember. When I go to public meetings about policing, I am struck by how strong the reaction of local people is and by how much the emphasis has changed—it is no longer on the local authority or the Government failing. The basic feeling is that the police are not performing the role that is expected of them. Although that is unfair in some ways, there are issues that must be addressed.
  I welcome the clear targets being given to the police. I welcome them for my own police force because it is sometimes difficult to know what the aims and ambitions of the police and senior police management are. It is important that the public understand the strategies, aims and ambitions, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will recognise, too, that sometimes the targets that have been set seem crude and narrow to people on the streets. The public's priorities are more wide ranging than those expressed so far by the Government or by the police. The public say to me that there is a lack of focus.
  One of the biggest issues facing communities throughout the country is nuisance. It may seem almost trivial in the grand scheme of things, and I shall be talking about much more serious crimes, but when groups of young people are about quite petty crime that creates fear and disharmony in local communities, which is devastating or destructive.
  I recently took up with the local police force the serving of drinks to those under the permitted age. I received a long letter in response, but I did not get what I wanted. I wanted a commitment that the police would take the offenders to court and that their licences would be taken away. That would give a clear message to all those who seek to abuse the law and participate in the process of giving alcohol to young people, which causes the sort of nuisance about which my constituents complain.
  My constituents complain legitimately about the slow police response when a crime is being committed and where there is chronic criminality. In West Gorton, one
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  of my constituents—Nora Peyton, a wonderful woman—persistently challenged local drug dealers. As a result, her home was attacked and she was shot at by young people. Nevertheless, she had to wait for about three months for the local police to crack down and make the necessary arrests. Once the police acted, the situation improved immeasurably. The quality of life in the West Gorton community is now massively better than it was. However, three months was too long to wait.
  There are issues about the culture of the police, which is sometimes thought to be too defensive. It sometimes leads to victims being blamed instead of being embraced in a partnership. A local police officer told one of my constituents, a victim of robbery, "What do you expect, sir, living where you do? If you want to avoid crime, move away from the area." That type of police officer is massively damaging to morale and the relationship between the public and the police. They have no place in modern policing. They constitute a minority, but they give the police a bad name.
  We do not have enough police. In my constituency, Greater Manchester does not have enough police to deploy. An inner-city area has massively more problems than other areas. We do not have enough police in Greater Manchester, and I hope that that message will be taken on board. I will not entertain the Opposition's argument about police numbers, as when they were in government they took many police officers away from my community. However, it is an issue that the Government must address in the context of the comprehensive spending review.
  Mr. Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that during the Conservative years the number of police constables continually increased? One of the National Audit Commission's criticisms of the present Government is that they have reversed that trend. Does he not agree that that has made a difference?
  Mr. Lloyd: I do not agree. My constituents saw a massive increase in crime and a police force that became beleaguered by the sheer scale of criminality. The numbers game is an interesting one to play, but when in government the Conservatives failed communities, and not only in inner-city areas. They failed the nation, and they should remember that to their shame.
  On a more positive note, there are many good things happening in policing, both nationally and locally. Some of the more general initiatives that the Government are taking, such as new deal and sure start, are making serious and important impacts in my community. There is a much better focus by the police and more intelligent policing. Some of the experiments in Salford, a neighbouring area to my constituency, are important in terms of how the police can crack down on local criminality by focusing on its sources. Local area partnerships are successful, although they are still new and not all are consistently good. We must raise the worst standards to the best. Nevertheless, the partnerships are making a big difference.
  The multi-agency approach to crime is having an enormous impact in ensuring that those who are responsible for the majority of crimes are targeted, and sometimes before criminality becomes an issue, by dealing with the underlying social issues. We have had success with the implementation of the anti-social

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  behaviour order process. Ten such orders have been made in the Manchester area, the first being in my constituency. That case involved a group of young thugs who terrorised the local community. However, the process is far too complicated and we need to refine it and make it easier.
  One of the most ridiculous aspects of that first case was that the stipendiary magistrate in Manchester refused to allow the names of those young thugs to be published. It was only after a campaign in the Manchester Evening News, for which it deserves credit, that that decision was reversed when the anti-social behaviour order went to appeal and the names could be made available.
  The police are good at ensuring that anti-social behaviour orders are made. The Government's youth offenders initiative is already having a remarkable effect. The police, along with other agencies, have targeted 77 young people who they believe are responsible for about a quarter of youth offences in the city of Manchester. That is a significant step. We are still waiting for the Greater Manchester police and the court process to narrow the time it takes for cases involving young offenders to get to court.
  Local schemes have been enormously important. Under the Home Office funded scheme, Manchester has had £0.5 million for closed circuit television and burglary prevention initiatives, and we hope to get help with projects on domestic violence. The local programme from the city council has matched that money with 65 schemes involving everything from gating back entries to make people feel more secure and to prevent intruders, to CCTV and home security for the elderly, who often fear violence more than most.
  I want to raise some further issues about which my hon. Friend the Minister may like to think. We have to change the police culture. We still have some way to go to ensure that they work in partnership with local people and other local agencies. We must address the problem of a lack of police.
  The biggest single issue that I would like to draw the House's attention to concerns my constituency's undeserved but nevertheless difficult reputation for murder, which is the most violent of crimes. It is often murder by young men of young men, sometimes involving drugs and sometimes not.
  One of the problems that has emerged in recent years is the extremely low success rate for bringing offenders to court. The police put time and effort into the most serious cases: there is no suggestion that they spare any effort to bring those offenders to book. However, they face two important problems, the first of which is witness intimidation. That issue ranges across all crimes, but it is a major problem in murder cases.
  The police tell me that when they have taken a witness to court—who may be reluctant at first—and they have asked the judge whether the witness can give evidence behind a screen, the judge has said that that is not possible because on appeal the case would eventually go to the European Court or to our own courts under the European convention on human rights, and giving evidence in that way would be deemed to be unacceptable. It is unacceptable to me that witnesses cannot be given protection in the court process for that reason.
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  I should like to raise with my hon. Friend the question of cost. Forensic science is enormously expensive. The police tell me that it costs £1,500 for each low-copy DNA test, which can detect a fingerprint on a spent cartridge. That is important for the detection of crime. If witnesses do not come forward, the police can use modern science to come to their aid. However, they have to consider the budget because the prices charged for such forensic science are excessive. That problem must be tackled, and I hope that the Minister understands that.
  I am convinced that the Government have already made an important start in rolling back public attitudes and giving more reassurance. We have a long way to go, but the changes that my hon. Friend and his colleagues are making are transforming the public's view in my area of the way in which society operates. It is a change that can only be for the better.
  5.14 pm
  Mr. Michael Howard: I did not intend to speak in the debate this afternoon. I had come to listen and to put a limited factual point to the Home Secretary in an intervention, but I have been provoked into making a speech by the hotch-potch of misdescription, exaggeration and sheer distortion that we heard from the Home Secretary. I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make this speech, which I hope will be relatively brief.
  The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) made an interesting speech. I thought it a bit rich when he accused my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) of making what he wrongly described as a knockabout attack on the Government's record. I do not know where the hon. Gentleman was during all those years when we were subjected to attacks from the Opposition Benches that were so crude that they did not merit the description "knockabout". I imagine that he was present on at least some of those occasions and has not totally forgotten them.
  The hon. Gentleman made one point on which I wish to join him. He paid tribute to one of his constituents who stood out against the drug dealers and, in time and with the help of the police—he said that it did not come quickly enough—had managed to combat effectively the activities of drug dealers in that part of his constituency. I came across a number of examples of that when I was Home Secretary. The people involved—often in the least privileged communities, acting with enormous courage in the face of real risk—deserve enormous credit, praise and tribute, which they rarely get. Not only their local community but the whole of our national community owes people who take that kind of stand in those difficult circumstances a great debt.
  The first of the two points that I wish to cover is the crime figures. In, I think, the first debate that took place after I became Home Secretary, the then shadow Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, issued a challenge to me. He asked whether I would be content for my tenure in office to be judged by what happened to the crime figures. I suppose that as they had doubled between 1979 and 1993—I shall come back to that point in a moment—he thought that he was on pretty safe ground.
  I confess that I was not sufficiently confident of my ability to turn things round in the relatively short time that I would have available to take up his challenge, so, to my

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  eternal regret, I declined to accept his challenge. I wish that I had done so because between 1993 and 1997 we saw a fall in crime of about 18 per cent. We never hear that figure from the Home Secretary when he talks about crime under the previous Government, or, indeed, from the Liberal Democrats. We hear only that for the period as a whole from 1979 to 1997 crime doubled under the Tories. It is an accurate figure—it did. It more than doubled between 1979 and 1993. What they never say is that crime had increased even faster under the previous Labour Government between 1974 and 1979 and had increased under the Conservative Government before that.
  The truth is that crime had increased for all those years. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was right to draw attention to that fact and to the relationship between it and the extent to which the liberal establishment held sway throughout that period.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I have always accepted and confirmed on the record that whereas 1992 was the peak in crime figures, after that they dropped. One of the reflections that I do not hear very often from the Leader of the Opposition is that the period when crime dropped—when the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Home Secretary—was when the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) was Prime Minister. Crime rose under Baroness Thatcher and dropped when the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Home Secretary. That is hardly an indictment, even for the Tory party, of the liberal establishment.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. There was a classic conspiracy—I do not want to spend the whole of my remarks on this—between the criminal justice establishment and the civil servants in the Home Office and the Treasury to keep down the number of people in prison because prison is expensive. One of the classic objectives of criminal justice policy during most of that time—the hon. Gentleman is one of the few people who still subscribe to it—was to keep as few people in prison as possible.
  The truth is that one of the key elements in the turnaround in crime during my period of office—it was not the only element; there were others as well—was the increase in the prison population. I believed, and I said, that prison works, in the sense that—as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said just a few moments ago—while persistent, prolific, professional criminals are in prison, they cannot commit crime.
  The other day, in a debate on these topics, I was very interested to see the junior Home Office Minister in the other place—I do not know whether the Minister of State would himself subscribe to this—come out with the phrase that the Government "believe that prison works". I was very pleased to hear him utter that phrase. When I was being criticised for uttering those words—the criticism was widespread and very considerable—I do not recall anyone from the Labour party coming to my support and saying that he agreed with that proposition. That policy, however, was a key factor in the fall in crime.
  My point is simply that if one accepts the proposition that prison works in that sense—as the Government do, according to the junior Minister in the other place—it makes no sense at all deliberately and as a matter of
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  policy to let people out of prison before the earliest date on which they would otherwise be released. It grieves me that crime has now started to rise again, and I hope that the increase is a temporary blip. I am not sure, however, that it will be.
  If one is looking for the causes of that rise in crime, it is difficult to escape the inference that the early release of prisoners—my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald, in opening the debate, gave all the details of the numbers and the extent to which those who had been released early had already begun to commit crimes again—in some way and to some extent is connected to the fact that crime has now started to rise again.
  Mr. Heald: Does my right hon. and learned Friend recall that a little earlier, when I said that he had had that insight, the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) commented "not much of an insight"? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it was really quite a deep insight, and that the danger is that it is being lost again—not only in the early release scheme, but in the worrying idea that we should imprison people from nine to five, rather than from 12 to 12 and at weekends? Does he fear that what is happening is that the Home Office empire is striking back?
  Mr. Howard: There is a good deal in what my hon. Friend says. It was striking that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), in one and the same breath—I am constantly amazed at his ability to speak without drawing breath—said, "Of course we all share that insight. But if people reoffend and are reconvicted as soon as they leave prison, what is the point?" The point is that they do not reoffend to any greater extent having been in prison than they do if they are dealt with in some other way, and that, while they are in prison, the public are safe from their attentions. That is the point.
  Jackie Ballard: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that the exceedingly high crime rates and the very high prison population in the United States are proof that prison works? Is he aware that although crime rates are still very high in the United States, they have been gradually decreasing for the past 20 years? In the United States, there is no correlation between a reduction in crime rates and whether a conservative or liberal sentencing policy is in effect. Reduced crime rates are correlated with access to employment and housing and the maintenance of close family ties—all of which are damaged or broken when someone is in prison.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Lady simply could not be more wrong. She needs to look at the evidence much more carefully. I commend her particularly to a study that has been done by Professor Charles Murray—who I think shared a platform with the Home Secretary at a very recent conference on these matters. His research shows very clearly that, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, as the risk of being sent to prison increases, crime falls. Graphs demonstrate that fact very clearly. One of the things that happened when I was Home Secretary was that the risk of being imprisoned increased

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  quite significantly and crime fell. One can see exactly the same pattern happening in the United States. There is a very direct correlation between the two developments.
  Those were my only comments on crime figures. I should like, however, to say a word about police numbers. Just as one never hears the Home Secretary talking about crime in the last four years of the previous Government, when crime fell, but only about crime doubling over the whole period of that Government, so one never hears him talking about police numbers over the whole of the period of that Government, when numbers increased by 16,000, but only about the last four years, when the numbers did indeed fall—although, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald was right to point out earlier, the number of constables on the front line continued to increase.
  I should like to set out very clearly the position on funding because I think—I am not certain—that, in my earlier intervention, I may inadvertently have read out an incorrect figure. If I did, I certainly want to put that right. The figures are absolutely indisputable. In 1993–94, Government provision for police expenditure in England and Wales—in real terms, at 1998–99 prices—was £7,001 million. In 1997–98, the year in which I left office, the figure was £7,294 million. That was a real-terms increase of 4.2 per cent. In the current year, 2000–01, the figure is £7,278 million: a real-terms reduction.
  It is true that we passed legislation that gave chief constables much more power to spend as they saw fit the money that was made available to them. I ensured that the United Kingdom police service had the money that it needed to maintain police numbers—if that is what they decided to spend their money on. We did provide the money that was necessary to make good the previous Prime Minister's pledge to give police enough money to recruit 5,000 extra officers. The difference between that period and the period since the general election is that, whereas there was a 4.2 per cent. real-terms increase in spending on police during my time, there has been a real-terms decrease under the current Home Secretary. In other words, in my time chief constables had the money they needed to maintain police numbers, had they chosen to do so; under the current Government, they simply have not had the money.
  Mr. Clive Efford: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman care to comment on the effect of the implementation of the Sheehy report on the number of Metropolitan police officers? One of my police officer constituents told me that one of his colleagues—who pounds the same central London beat as he does, but joined after the report was implemented in 1994—is paid more than £400 less for doing exactly the same job. My local police inspector told me that that factor is the biggest barrier to increasing the number of Metropolitan police officers.
  Mr. Howard: Most of the Sheehy report was not implemented. The report made a number of recommendations—earlier in the debate, we heard about the police service's reaction to those recommendations—but, for the most part, the report was not implemented. Some of the report was implemented, including the provision to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.
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  In looking at the provision for housing allowance, it was quite difficult to justify that type of provision. It is made in very few other jobs. It did not seem the best way of dealing with the problem of recruitment. However, to take housing allowance away from people who had joined the police service on the basis that they would receive it also was very difficult to justify. Therefore, we said that those who have the allowance will keep it, but that those who join the police service after the decision had been taken and announced—they knew exactly what the terms and conditions were going to be when they decided to join—will not get it.
  Of course, decisions that are taken against a particular labour market background cannot be expected to last for ever. Government decisions are not set in stone, never to be reviewed. The circumstances in the London labour market have changed and it is probably more difficult to recruit officers now. If circumstances have changed and certain policies are no longer appropriate, they should be reviewed. I have explained the reasons for my decision. It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but these things need to be looked at as circumstances change.
  Mr. Efford: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that, as a result of his decision, new police recruits were £400 worse off and that that has made it more difficult for the Metropolitan police to recruit officers, who come primarily from outside London and find it difficult to cope with the costs of that move?
  Mr. Howard: I do not know how many times the hon. Gentleman wants to put the same question and get the same answer. I do not know the exact numbers, but it is true that the terms and conditions were changed. Police officers who joined knew what the terms and conditions were. At that time, there was an abundance of applicants to join the Metropolitan police and there continued to be a healthy surplus of applicants for some time after the introduction of that change. That may well no longer be the case. It was several years ago and circumstances have changed, so it may be appropriate to look at the situation again.
  My final plea is simple. I hope that when the Home Secretary explains what is happening and tries to justify Government policy, he gives the whole picture, not just part of it. When he is talking about police numbers, perhaps he will be good enough to say that, although they may have fallen in the last few years of the Conservative Government, they increased by 16,000 between 1979 and 1997, that during the four years when they were falling, the number of constables continued to increase and that during those years the amount of money made available to the police was enough to maintain the numbers, in sharp contrast with the position under his stewardship. I cannot stop him from talking about crime doubling under the Tories, but perhaps, to complete the picture, he might point out that it rose even faster under the previous Labour Government, that it started to rise again under his Government and that the only occasion on which it has consistently fallen—the biggest fall since records were first kept in the middle of the 19th century—was between 1993 and 1997, when it fell by nearly 18 per cent.
  5.33 pm
  Mr. Bob Blizzard: Most of what I have to say is based on the experience of my constituency, but I hope to draw out some general points of wider relevance.

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  I moved to Lowestoft, where I now live, in 1986. Every week when I looked in the local paper, I saw reports that a garage had been broken into and garden furniture stolen, or that a house had been broken into and a purse or some jewellery stolen. I began to form the view from those press reports that I had moved into a community with massive amounts of crime. After a while I discovered that those crimes were reported because they were virtually the only ones and garden tool theft was newsworthy.
  I also had a pleasant surprise when I looked at my home contents insurance policy with Co-op insurance, because it had a special low rate for Suffolk—I believe that it was the only county to which the rate applied. Those relatively low levels of crime were my benchmark.
  Over the next 11 years, I saw crime rise and rise. Trends in my constituency were part of the overall picture, in which crime doubled under the previous Government. The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) says that that happened in the early years. In my part of the country we tend to lag behind and crime continued to rise in the later years. In the view of people where I live, the Conservative party ceased to be the party of law and order.
  With the election of the new Labour Government came very high expectations, particularly in view of the Prime Minister's slogan of being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. However, we had to stick to another manifesto commitment—to keep to the Tory spending limits for the first two years. That was an important commitment for many people who voted for us. It was necessary to bring the deficit in the public finances into balance and contribute to the economic stability of the country. We should remember that those were Tory spending limits. Had the Conservatives won the election, they would not have spent any more than we did in the first two years.
  Mr. Howard: We hear that trotted out time after time by Labour Members, but it is complete tosh. If the hon. Gentleman knew the first thing about how any Government worked, he would know that three-year expenditure plans are the best estimate that can be made at the time, but they are revisited at every subsequent expenditure round. The figures are always adjusted. If the hon. Gentleman looks back over the 18 years of our Government, he will see that such adjustments always took place. It is tosh to suggest that we would necessarily have stuck to those figures. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that it is ridiculous.
  Mr. Blizzard: We now know that the Conservatives promise to spend even less on fighting crime because of their tax guarantee. They launched a plethora of pre-manifesto guarantees last autumn, including the patients guarantee, the parents guarantee and the rest, but there was not one guarantee on law and order or crime fighting. That reflects the fact that they do not intend to spend any more money on fighting crime.
  Mr. Heald: Police numbers in Suffolk have fallen by 30 since the general election. We have pledged to provide the money to restore those numbers. What does the hon. Gentleman want to happen?
  Mr. Blizzard: I shall talk about police numbers in Suffolk later.
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  Crime is now high on people's list of concerns. In my constituency, it now rivals unemployment, which has been a long-standing concern. I shall focus on developments in my area in the past three years. However, it is not easy to make comparisons from the figures. This Government have been more honest than the previous Government in asking the police to compile statistics that more accurately reflect levels of crime. The performance summary from Suffolk police's annual report shows that total crime went down in 1997–98 from the level in the Tory years, but it went up again in the following year, reflecting a new method of calculation. House burglaries per thousand dwellings went down in 1997–98 and again the following year. The story on violent crime is not so good, because it has risen, but the police are now required to use a wider definition of violent crime when compiling their statistics.
  In the top corner of the performance report on crime management, Suffolk police write:
  Changes in the way the Home Office records offences make comparisons with previous years' figures difficult. However, the overall underlying trend is still downwards.
  I am encouraged by that.
  Another difficulty in making comparisons concerns the boundaries one uses. If we take Suffolk as a whole, the crime rate is one of the lowest in the country. The county is at the bottom of the league table—a league table one relishes being bottom of. That is a tribute to the police in Suffolk, and to the honest people of the county. Of course, crime is not uniform across the county and is higher in some parts than in others.
  All too often, as soon as one mentions Suffolk—a rural shire county—statistics are used to advance arguments about rural policy. However, Suffolk contains urban areas such as Lowestoft and Ipswich: areas where crime is highest in the county. Crime is still an issue in rural areas. Where previously there has been scarcely any crime at all, one notices even a slight rise in crime. The rate may remain relatively low, but people fear crime and do not want it to become as bad as it is in other places in the country. Often, those people have sought retreat in a shire county from somewhere where there has been higher crime.
  The thin blue line is thin in rural areas, and single police officers often have to cover a load of parishes. Where there is a crime, the response is sometimes not as good as the people or the police would like. I say that because the arguments advanced on sparsity are valid. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister appears to have accepted the arguments. We look forward to a positive outcome from the comprehensive spending review on these issues, as Suffolk—like other parts of the country—needs more police.
  Not all Suffolk is rural, and most of the crime in my constituency is in the town which, unfortunately, has one of the highest rates in the county. Even now, however, crime rates in Lowestoft are about average for the country. The conditions that breed crime, or are associated with it, have in parts of Lowestoft been deemed comparable to inner cities by the director of public health, in his annual report. Unemployment, deprivation and low pay statistics back that up.
  I am pleased that the area has single regeneration budget status, assisted area status and objective 2 status from the Government, and there is a new bid for other

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  parts of the SRB in the next round. It is important to tackle the causes of crime, but that takes time and people are rightly concerned about tackling crime now.
  The perception where I live is that crime is rising. On election day, I went to vote and found that my next-door neighbour had been burgled. I was told that a lot of homes in my area had been burgled also. People who have been burgled are not happy voters and some do not bother to vote at all.
  Looking at the figures for Lowestoft is difficult because of changes in the sector boundary and the methods of measuring crime. It appears that the trend in house-breaking in the past three years has been about level. The trend in violent crime has been up but, thankfully, the trend in the dealing and supply of drugs has gone down. I want to pay tribute to the previous chief inspector, Owen Lower, and the current chief inspector, John Everitt—and their teams—for the work they have done.
  The good news is that following the two years in which we kept to the Tory spending limits, there is now clear evidence of the Government's three-pronged attack on crime working in Lowestoft. I was delighted that, on 17 May, we heard the announcement that the 5,000 extra police would come in this year and next. That means that, this year in Suffolk, there will be 31 extra police, with 14 extra the year after.
  There will not just be 31 extra police, but 12 on top of that. Suffolk police carried out a brave and creditable exercise by consulting the people of Suffolk on what they wanted from the police. They went round the county, held public forums and even had electronic voting. The police asked people if they wanted to pay more to have more police, how much they were willing to pay and how many police they would like. As a result, Suffolk police are funding an additional 12 police this year from an increase in council tax. I commend the police on that, and I hope that my area gets a good share of them. It is certainly good news for Suffolk as a whole.
  On police numbers, I had a conversation with the chief constable a few months ago in which I asked him this—if money appeared on his table, what would he do with it? Chief constables, of course, are responsible for police numbers. He said that apart from one or two pieces of kit, he would use the money to employ civilians. By doing so, he could get more police out from behind their desks and on the beat. I say that to demonstrate how we can have more police on the beat, even though it may appear that police numbers have not increased or decreased. I hope that Conservative Members will take note of that.
  The other good news is the £193,000 awarded by the Government for more CCTV cameras. The cameras have made a difference. Sometimes the public are disappointed with the results from these cameras, and we must improve the way in which they are used. However, they are very welcome.
  As part of the Government's crime reduction programme, we received £33,000 under the reducing burglary initiative. That has been targeted on the parts of Lowestoft with the greatest need, and it is a partnership between the local authority and Suffolk police. It is part of a larger multi-agency programme aimed at tackling youth crime.
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  The engagement locally by the police in crime reduction partnerships has been good. My local authority has responded positively and has carried out audits. It was one of the first in the country to succeed with an anti-social behaviour order. It is difficult for the district council to play its part in the partnerships as well as it would like.
  What tends to happen is that the lead officer for the partnership is often busy already and sees it as just another thing to do. The same is true of the local drugs action team; the officer nominated is usually a busy person. Following the comprehensive spending review, I would like to see money passported through to authorities to employ specific additional people to drive the partnerships forward. They will succeed if we do that.
  There is so much in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, including the potential for community involvement in crime prevention and reduction. If we can harness that, we can do much more. I would like neighbourhood wardens to be employed—using SRB money, if possible—to support the police. Such wardens could do valuable work in gathering information and intelligence, visiting people and liaising with schools, for example, to deal with children who cause trouble on the way to and home from school.
  In this Session, we have seen a large amount of legislation to improve the criminal justice system, and I support that. However, my constituents want the existing laws to be enforced as well as they can be. Catching people is the most important thing. It is important to prevent crime, but we must make sure that we catch people who break the law. My constituents will welcome the extra police, but will hope that there are plans in the comprehensive spending review to employ still more.
  We have had a debate about whether it is size or what one does with the police that counts. Of course, it is vital to have efficient police, but a bigger efficient police force has to be better than a smaller efficient police force.
  One of the Government's core beliefs, which I share, is that we should combine fairness and enterprise. I believe that the Government have shown a commitment to both. Crime is particularly unfair. It is unfair on people who work hard to provide for themselves, their families and others. It is a tragedy when their hard-earned property or their money is stolen or when they suffer attack and personal injury.
  It is the Government's policy, which I support, to be the champion of ordinary, hard-working people. To do that, we must protect them and protect their families, homes and property. That is why our policies on crime are so important. I believe that, now that we have got through the difficult first two years, the Government are showing a good lead, and I hope that they continue in that way.
  5.51 pm
  Mr. James Clappison: I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate. It is an especial pleasure to follow the outstanding speech by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). I also agreed with the sentiments with which the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) concluded, as well as with many of the earlier parts of his speech, when he spoke about the growing public perception of crime. As well as crime itself, the fear of

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  crime is growing. It is also a question of police numbers. Elderly people feel the most vulnerable and fear that the help may not be available to them should they fall victim to crime.
  It was absolutely right to choose this as a subject for debate. In my constituency, it is a matter of growing importance. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe got the big picture absolutely right. We are getting used to the Government's great selectivity with statistics, but the striking thing about the history of crime in this country is its remorseless rise, decade after decade. It has certainly been on a steadily rising curve over my lifetime. The only point at which the trend was departed from was from 1992 onwards. That was the only sustained period in which crime fell. It rose during the rest of the Conservative period of office, but it fell significantly in the period from 1992, with many fewer victims.
  It is worrying that that trend seems to have been reversed and crime seems to be resuming its upward trend. We must do whatever we can to reverse the trend and prevent people from falling victim to crime. That is another reason why it was right to choose this subject.
  My constituency has been badly affected by crime over the past three years, for reasons that have a local character quite apart from the general matters that we have been discussing. When the big increase in crime in Hertsmere is discussed, it will not do for Ministers or Labour Members to tell my constituents that it has something to do with the previous Government. That excuse is wearing thin generally, and certainly in the case of Hertsmere.
  Up to 1997, Hertsmere had been policed for a long time by the Metropolitan police, generally without complaint about their performance. Shortly after that, the decision was taken to transfer Hertsmere to the Hertfordshire police, with effect from 1 April 2000, as a result of the new arrangements for the governance of London. Hertsmere was subject to a lengthy period of transitional policing by the Metropolitan police, and it is the widespread perception—which I suspect is backed up by the figures, although they are hard to obtain because policing districts were changed—that there was a substantial reduction in police numbers. That was certainly the complaint of all three political parties in Hertsmere.
  Especially in the past year, the result has been a disastrous policing performance, with total crime up 11 per cent., violent crime up 51 per cent.—from 557 to 840 incidents—and robbery up 58 per cent. Robbery was very rare in Hertsmere before. The clear-up rate collapsed, falling by 27 per cent. The local paper was right to run a banner headline calling that a huge rise in crime figures. It certainly was, and it has caused great distress and discontent among my constituents.
  Hertsmere has now been taken over by Hertfordshire police, who have certainly shown a commitment that has been warmly welcomed. Everybody is now backing them and giving them their strongest possible support, and their attitude has been praised. We look for better things in the future.
  My constituents are certainly entitled to feel some disquiet and despair when they set that against the big picture of what the Labour party promised about policing before the general election. We were promised a
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  crackdown on anti-social behaviour, but such behaviour has grown in Hertsmere. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary were very strong on the subject.
  The Home Secretary said that he would go to war against all anti-social elements, even down to the squeegee merchants. The Prime Minister said that he was in favour of zero tolerance policing. At a Labour party press conference, he said:
  I am absolutely passionate about this… You go out and ask old people who face these types of problem and they will say zero tolerance is a good idea. If you refuse to tolerate the small crimes then you can create a different climate within local communities.
  The first thing that was implemented in those places that have adopted zero tolerance policing—I am thinking in particular about New York, which had a real mayor in Mayor Giuliani, as opposed to the red mayor that we have been given in London—was the recruitment of thousands of extra police officers. In this country, the Government set up an apparatus under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, including, among the many buzzwords, the anti-social behaviour orders and local curfew orders.
  Those orders were at the core of the Act. It is no good Ministers playing them down and saying that there are examples of previous laws that have not been given much effect. They were the flagship measures in the Government's flagship Bill. The anti-social behaviour order was trailed countless times, with press releases, visits to inner-city estates and announcements by different Ministers and by the Prime Minister himself.
  The Government were warned by some that the orders were impractical and broke new ground legally. It has been interesting to hear some of the complaints from Labour Members in this debate. The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) said that the anti-social behaviour order process was complicated. He can say that again. We understand that others have made the same complaint.
  What is beyond peradventure, given that the anti-social behaviour orders have been in operation for more than a year, is that they have not lived up to the expectations built up for them by the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. About 40 or 45 orders have been issued, and I understand that at last we have had one in Hertfordshire.
  It is very interesting that Ministers' tone is beginning to change. It is going through a distinct evolutionary phase. When the failure of the courts to issue more of the orders was pointed out to Ministers, they said that it would take time for them to bed down. When it became clear that they were not bedding down at any perceptible rate, they said that the deterrent effect was the most important thing.
  In olden days, public executions had a deterrent effect, but there have to be some in an area for there to be any effect at all, and large parts of the country have not seen a single anti-social behaviour order. Until recently, the nearest one to Hertfordshire had been in Camden.
  We have moved on to a new phase, which right hon. and hon. Members will recognise, in the evolution of a struggling policy. The Government have stopped trying to pretend that the policy has been a success or that it has had some sort of remote effects that have been successful. Now the Government are looking for someone else to blame, but they cannot make up their mind who should be blamed. The Minister of State, Home Office said during Question Time on Monday that local authorities could be

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  criticised for their approach. The Home Secretary has aimed higher and chosen a different target. In an angry outburst at a recent conference, he made what was described by the Press Association as
  a scathing attack on "well heeled" civil liberties lawyers.
  In explaining why the number of anti-social behaviour orders was so low, he said:
  I had in mind some of the lawyers and so called legal experts who have been running a campaign against Anti Social Behaviour Orders suggesting ludicrously that they go against the European Convention of Human Rights. I think there is a huge issue of hypocrisy here. They represent the perpetrator of crime and then get into their BMWs and drive off into areas where they are immune from much of the crime.
  The Home Secretary should be more careful about attacking such people, because the ruffled feathers were probably to be found more among friends of Labour Members than anyone else. Ministers will have to decide who is to blame, but I expect that in the end—
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Charles Clarke): You are.
  Mr. Clappison: The Minister has beaten me to it. I knew that it would end up being our fault.
  I have a helpful suggestion about the anti-social behaviour orders. Some of the suggestions that I have made in the past have been adopted by other hon. Members. If the orders are to be used in targeting what the Government have described as sub-criminal behaviour, they will have to employ many more police officers. As the House will have gathered tonight, the police officers we have are already fully stretched dealing with criminal behaviour. It is not possible for the frontiers of crime fighting to be stretched to cover sub-criminal behaviour when the Government have such difficulty dealing with actual criminal behaviour.
  In the debate on police numbers, we have heard much from the Government about initiatives, strategies, partnerships and fighting funds. If we had an extra police officer for every time we have heard one of those buzzwords, we would all be happier. What is the real picture on police numbers? The Home Secretary told us on Monday at Question Time about the Government's plans for police numbers. It is an accepted fact that in every year under this Government so far the number of police officers has fallen and, according to Labour Members, after three years of this Government, that fall is all the Conservatives' fault. The Home Secretary said:
  The projections of police numbers based on forces' estimates for recruitment and wastage now rise as follows: it is projected that, in March 2001, the number will be 126,500 and that, in March 2002, it will be 127,000.—[Official Report, 22 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 655.]
  That will still leave police numbers lower than when the Government took office.
  For some strange reason, the Home Secretary finished his prediction at March 2002. Can the Minister confirm that the Home Office police resources unit has a projection for March 2003 that police numbers will start to fall again, to 125,900? That unit gives the same projection for other years as the Home Secretary gave the House on Monday. If the Minister can confirm that point, it is worrying and my right hon. and hon. Friends are right to highlight the subject.
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  While there cannot be said to be a clear link between police numbers and the incidence of crime, the public expect visible policing. They also expect a speedy response from the police for the victims of crime. Visible policing is vital for the elderly, because it does so much for the quality of their lives when they see a bobby on the beat when they are out and about. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) represents a constituency covered by the Metropolitan police force, so he had better be very careful.
  Mr. Efford: Would you care to comment on the £400 a month reduction in the salaries for police officers and its effect on recruitment to the Metropolitan police? Your Government did it.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman must use the correct terms. It is nothing to do with me.
  Mr. Clappison: The hon. Gentleman has had his answer. If that is the quality of the excuses from Labour Members, they should watch out. The local election results were only the beginning.
  Mr. Phil Hope: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why he and his party voted against the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill, which will tackle organised crime and drug trafficking? The hon. Gentleman claims to support the fight against crime, but he voted this month to stop powers to tackle crime.
  Mr. Clappison: I understand that my hon. Friends took the view that the powers in that Bill were not strong enough. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the history of the last Parliament, he will see that the previous Government introduced measure after measure to crack down on drug traffickers and drug trafficking, some of which broke new ground. I give Labour credit for not always opposing those measures, but they did oppose several measures that have proved helpful to the police, including the change in the law on the right to silence. The Home Secretary himself opposed that change, but it has assisted the police greatly in tackling crime.
  Mr. Heald: Does my hon. Friend think that the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) might find it helpful to read the reasoned amendment on Third Reading? It makes it clear that the powers in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill will be inadequate for the police's purposes.
  Mr. Clappison: My hon. Friend is right. The issue of honesty in sentencing is also connected to prison numbers. I invite the Minister to reflect on the view expressed on both sides of the House about the mess that sentencing in the criminal justice system is in. Whatever view one takes of the efficacy of prison, honesty in sentencing—what the courts give an offender and the sentence he actually serves—is important. It cannot be honest for courts to sentence an offender to prison for six months and then, six weeks later, for him to be released. We have talked about how victims feel, but I cannot think of anything more disillusioning for a victim of crime—perhaps an elderly person—than to see the offender sent to prison for six months only for that person to be released six weeks later, so that the victim might bump into him in the

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  supermarket or the pub. It cannot be right to tell the public one thing and then for something completely different to happen.
  The Home Secretary mentioned the economies to be made by ending the right to trial by jury. However, there is no trade-off to be made between good law and order and civil liberties. The Government demonstrate that because their law and order policies do not work, at the same time as our civil liberties are being reduced. As The Guardian said—and I happily quote it on this occasion—civil liberty is the poor relation of this Government. That applies especially to trial by jury. The Home Secretary, when he commended the abolition of the right to trial by jury this afternoon, forgot to remind the House of what he said when the same measure was proposed in 1997 by a review under the previous Government. The findings of the review were not adopted, but they were considered. He came out and said that that review's proposal for curtailing the right to trial by jury was wrong, short sighted and likely to prove ineffective. Nothing has changed since then, but the Home Secretary has now adopted that proposal.
  There is no trade-off between civil liberties and law and order. Both are going downhill under this Government, whose ineffective authoritarianism does not protect members of the public. People want an effective system of law and order more than anything else. They also want their traditional civil liberties to be preserved and the justice system to be administered fairly.
  Unless the Government get a grip on the problem and cease to be complacent, I predict that there will be more speeches from hon. Members about fear of crime in their constituencies, which was the burden of the contribution from the hon. Member for Waveney. Conservative Members are right to focus on a matter that is growing in public importance largely because the Government are guilty of dereliction of duty with regard to the police force.
  6.11 pm
  Helen Jones: Like many hon. Members, I come to the debate only too aware of those of my constituents who have suffered from the effects of criminal behaviour. Some are victims of crime while others suffer from the effect of crime on their neighbourhoods; and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) that the fear of crime is almost as pernicious as crime itself. That fear has grown in our communities over the past few years, and must also be tackled.
  All hon. Members will have seen examples of how the fear of crime stunts people's lives—the elderly ladies who are afraid to open their front doors; the people who are afraid to go out at night or to leave their homes empty for any length of time. That fear is not always related to the most common forms of crime, but it is real: it destroys and disfigures communities, and it stems from a feeling prevalent during the previous Government's period in office—that nothing could be done and that the thugs and criminals were getting the upper hand.
  Mr. Hope: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Conservative party is deliberately trying to promote the fear of crime for political reasons? My hon. Friend has
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  come to the House to contribute to the debate on this Opposition day motion. Is it not surprising that only three or four Conservative Members have done the same?
  Helen Jones: My hon. Friend is right to point that out.
  More important, however, was the way in which the previous Conservative Government failed to tackle crime and the fear of crime. I believe that that was an offence against a civil society that the Tory Government committed time and time again. There are recidivists on the Tory Benches, and their collective amnesia reminds me of the rewriting of history that is the subject of the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
  We should not allow the Conservative party to rewrite history. If the Opposition are to be taken seriously when they talk about crime, they must answer some important questions, the first and most important of which is the one to which we keep returning: how is it that the party that poses as the defender of law and order allowed crime to double during its time in government?
  Mr. Heald: Did not the hon. Lady hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) explain that crime fell during the previous Parliament for the first time since the second world war? The Labour Government have taken the country back to the bad old days of rising crime. Should not the hon. Lady think about that?
  Helen Jones: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's thesis. His Government have to be judged on their whole period in office, not just on the figures for a few years.
  The previous Government failed in other ways. They said that prison works, but for it to do so, criminals must first be caught and taken to court. Under the previous Conservative Government, the number of offenders brought to book fell by one third, whereas the period between the arrest and sentence of young offenders rose to four and a half months. In contrast, the conviction rate under this Government has risen to the highest level for 20 years.
  The Conservative party tells us that burglary is a destructive and damaging crime. It is, and its victims feel violated in their own homes. So how did it happen that, under the Conservative Government, the chances of being burgled rose from 32:1 to 13:1? Conservative Members have many questions to answer.
  My constituents know about the fear of crime. They learned a great deal about it during the 18 years of Conservative Government. That Government talked a good fight, whereas, in contrast, this Government have acted to reduce crime. The figures for domestic burglary have fallen by 20 per cent. under this Government, and crime has fallen by 7 per cent. overall. I know that the Opposition do not want to hear those figures, but they show the real picture.
  Jackie Ballard: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Helen Jones: I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me, but I have given way several times and want to make progress so that other hon. Members can speak in the debate.
  The figures that I have cited, and the Government's action to reduce crime, are not based on some remote theory but on the real experiences of our constituents.

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  Those decent men and women tell us what they want to happen in the criminal justice system. They want to live in safe, quiet communities. They do not want to be terrorised by young offenders who are out of control, or to have their lives rendered unbearable as a result of harassment by a few people.
  That is why the Government have introduced anti-social behaviour orders. If any Conservative Members think that those orders are merely a gimmick, they should come and talk to the people who come to my constituency surgery. They will be told how vital the orders are.
  We reformed the youth justice system because people had had enough of seeing young offenders walk away laughing at the system after repeated cautions. We have also introduced a final warning for young offenders—something that the previous Government failed to do in 18 years in power. We are well on course to halving the period between arrest and sentence for persistent young offenders—a pledge that I recall the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) said could not be delivered. This Government are delivering it.
  Labour Members know that our constituents were sick and tired of seeing criminals go to court for the same offences time after time without being properly punished. That is why minimum mandatory sentences have been adopted. It is hard to believe that some Opposition Members have called for the abolition of mandatory sentences for murder, the most severe crime of all. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will make it clear in his response to the debate that the Government value human life far more than that.
  Many hon. Members will agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) said earlier—that crime in many areas of the country is largely drug related. My hon. Friend was right to say that greater powers are needed to protect witnesses in those circumstances. Almost every week I meet people who know who the drug dealers on their estates are but who are afraid to come forward with that information. In their position, I, too, would be afraid. We must do much more to protect those people when they give evidence. The police need to be given much more in the way of resources for surveillance of people who deal in drugs so that they can use that evidence in court.
  We have taken steps to tackle the menace of drug-related crime. That is why we are introducing the power to test certain people for drugs on charge, and why we introduced drug-testing and treatment orders—measures which were opposed by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). That is why we are putting £20 million into arrest referral schemes.
  We have to act to get people off drugs if we are to tackle the menace of drug-related crime at one end of the spectrum while ensuring that those who profit from that evil trade are not allowed to keep the profits that they make from dealing in human misery. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will talk about how those powers might be strengthened.
  In the light of that, I hope that Conservative Members will reconsider their opposition to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill. They opposed a Bill that gives
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  police more power to tackle organised crime such as drug dealing and money laundering. That sits very ill with some of the statements that we have heard from the Conservative Benches.
  Mr. Heald: The hon. Lady should not perpetuate a myth. The reasoned amendment that the Opposition tabled on Second Reading of that Bill said that the powers in it were inadequate, and called for tougher measures.
  Helen Jones: It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman's remarks are at variance with the response of the police. The police said that they needed the powers in the Bill, yet the hon. Gentleman voted against it.
  Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Helen Jones: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I should like to make some progress. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman will be able to speak at the end of the debate, as our silent Whip says.
  Reducing crime is also about encouraging partnerships. The Opposition make light of that, but it is one of the most effective ways of tackling crime in our communities and keeping people safe. That is why we are investing £250 million in crime reduction programmes and why we have put £170 million worth of investment into closed circuit television cameras.
  The crime and disorder reduction partnerships around the country are beginning to tackle crime. More important, they are changing attitudes. I should like to give an example of how that has operated in my constituency. We had a problem in an area called Birchwood, caused by a small number of young people. Everyone knew who they were. We have brought together to tackle that not just the police and the youth offending teams but local councils and the housing association for the area. As well as tackling those particular offenders, we have been looking at how to make the whole area safer so that people are less likely to have the opportunity to commit crimes.
  Ms Rosie Winterton: Does my hon. Friend agree that the attitude of the Conservative party in dismissing local partnerships as useless and ineffective sends completely the wrong message to people and agencies working together to carry out the improvements that she eloquently describes.
  Helen Jones: I could not agree more. I would go further: the Conservative attitude sends the wrong message to people whom the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, the former Home Secretary, quite rightly praised earlier for standing up to criminals in their community. These people must be supported, and we are putting into place the measures and the partnerships to support them. The fact that the Opposition reject that says much about their real agenda. It is about whipping up fears in the community. It is more about headline-grabbing than about tackling crime.
  The Conservatives hope that we have forgotten their past record. Were she here, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald would tell them that when it comes to obtaining forgiveness for their past record, absolution requires a firm purpose of amendment. They

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  have no purpose of amendment at the moment. They remain recidivists on crime, and for that reason, I urge the House to reject the motion.
  6.24 pm
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: The hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) may be a pleasant person, but that was a pretty nasty speech. It was unnecessarily and inaccurately partisan, and I hope that if she re-reads it tomorrow—she may be the only person who does—she will spot the occasions when she should have followed the examples of the hon. Members for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) and for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) in reflecting the real concerns of constituents. Those hon. Members were able to say that; I am able to say that; and most right hon. and hon. Members will say that. We should have a partnership not just with local organisations but across the House to achieve what our constituents want, whether they are represented by a Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, or anyone else.
  Our constituents want to have a sense of security; they want to believe that three essential things are happening. They want to know that fewer people commit serious crimes; that those who do so commit them over a shorter period; and that a growing number of people find something worthwhile to do in the campaign on behalf of the victims of crime. Those are the three crucial elements.
  If anyone wants confirmation of that, I suggest that they watch "Crimewatch UK Update" this evening. My constituent Michael Abatan is related to a victim of crime who died; he was a victim in the same event, in which he was injured, and he is a witness. There are many people like him, like his partner Kathy, and like the partner of his brother Jay Abatan who died, who want people to help in solving crimes. They would be the first to say that we should try, with the police and everybody else, to cut down on the amount of crime committed.
  Let me give an indication of how serious the problem is. Every week, 2,400 people in this country are, for the first time, convicted of a serious criminal offence, for which they could be sent to jail for six months or more. Fortunately, they are not sent to jail in large numbers. I shall also give a comparison because I am often reminded by my doctor daughter that politicians talk, but do not always give evidence or figures on the basis of which their remarks can be judged. In the United States, whose population is five times this country's, there are 2 million people in jail. The equivalent for this country, on the basis of population, would be 400,000 people in jail. We actually have getting on for 70,000 people in jail. Our crime rate does not match that in the United States. So although prison has a purpose and may be necessary, it is false to say that it is the way to reduce the number of victims of crime, the number who become criminals for the first time or the amount of time for which people remain criminals.
  I shall claim to be the voice of the liberal establishment, as no one else has. I do not mean the soft liberal establishment—although one has some ideas which, if tested, may be shown to work. Let me give an illustration. Some 1,800 people a year used to die as a result of people drinking above the legal limit and driving. That is two and a half times more than the number of murder victims a year in this country. In terms of gaps in families, the
  1016
  criminal activity of drink-driving caused more misery and avoidable tragedy than all the murders that had been committed. That figure of 1,800 people a year killed by drink-driving is now down to about 500. Although the figure is still far too high, it is less than a third of what it was at its peak. There was no change in the criminal law during the period over which the figure diminished from 1,800, to 1,200, to 600, to what it is at present. There was no change in sentencing, enforcement or penalty. It happened because of a change of culture.
  One lesson to be learned from that example is that a change of culture can make a difference. I believe that the crime rate was low between the wars not because of different levels of unemployment, or because there are now more radio-cassette players for people to steal, or because of drugs, but partly because during that period many more younger people took part in worthwhile activities. The growth of organisations such as the Woodcraft Folk, the Boys Brigade, the scouts and brownies involved many younger people as youth leaders. Many more, whether they lived in rich or poor areas, in social housing, privately rented or owner-occupied accommodation, were involved in two or three worthwhile activities a week, such as sport and drama.
  I believe that if we did a study at juvenile courts and saw who was persistently in trouble with the law, it would tend to be people who did not know what they would be doing, on a regular basis, a week or even two weeks ahead. I am not arguing that many of us got through our teenage years without doing anything wrong, but the difference between most of those who are persistently in trouble and those who are not lies in the confidence and competence of parents to provide meaningful activities for their children.
  I pay tribute to the Peabody Trust; this afternoon, I attended, as an observer, one of its community development meetings. In the housing for which the trust takes on responsibility, sometimes from local authorities, it tries to find easy ways to combat people's fear of crime—for example, by ensuring that there is a lock on the rubbish chute lockers, so that people do not go in there to inject heroin; and that people can go in and out of their own front door without being worried.
  I congratulate the Government on their announcement that child prostitutes will be considered to be victims rather than criminals. When I was chairman of the Church of England Children's Society, we tried to work with partnerships in some of the most difficult areas. Children in care were often both victims of crime and those who subsequently became criminals. We failed those children of the state in so many ways. If we can offer some hope to the children for whom we have responsibility—either through local authorities or nationally—we shall also give the rest of our children a better chance.
  It is not possible to go into detail about some of the most important matters. However, if we took a liberal establishment view, we should take account of the figures to which I referred—the 2,400 a week or the 30 per cent. of men who have been convicted by the age of 30. We should learn more about people's experiences in jail—especially those of younger people. When I visit prisons and listen to people aged under 25, it occurs to me that I might meet such people on the streets of any of our towns and they might say, "I don't want to beg, but I came out of prison this morning. Can you tell me where to find a bed tonight and a job interview tomorrow?" Until we can

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  give an answer to that question in every part of the country, people leaving jail will not have the chance that they deserve.
  I do not believe in being soft. People who commit crimes should be caught—early. We could adopt further measures to reduce the consequences of what may have started as mild bad behaviour. I offer an example from Worthing. Recently, some people—I suspect they had been drinking in public—went to an alley behind some shops and lit a fire. The fire melted a gas pipe, causing a conflagration in which two shops were burnt out. In my view, there was also a failure to use proper materials for the gas supply in an exposed area—plastic pipe may be all right underground, but not in the open, where there may be rubbish. We need to learn lessons from that.
  We should also learn lessons about visible policing. The Home Secretary can make a decent speech. I suspect that he and I might agree on some elements of his responsibilities. However, when his ears go red, I think that he is talking to the gallery rather than to those who share his concerns. At present, they are not red. Sometimes, when the right hon. Gentleman raises his voice, we can be fairly sure that he is trying to mislead his Back Benchers and, possibly, the Opposition. It does not always work.
  Anything that the Home Office says about statistics on policing or about the last Government should be checked by the director of the Office for National Statistics—as, indeed, should any similar statements from the Department of Health and the Prime Minister. The Government should say whether they mean that the figures apply from 1979 or from 1992—the Home Secretary is rising to adopt my suggestion.
  Mr. Straw: We do check. I am absolutely committed to integrity in statistics. Before the implementation of the National Statistics Commission across government, I called in the Royal Statistical Society to ensure that our statistics—provided for Ministers—were of the highest integrity and independence. That is in stark contrast to the record of the previous Administration.
  Mr. Bottomley: The Home Secretary should check that with the Office for National Statistics. I held ministerial office for six years during the previous Administration. Although my experience was not at the right hon. Gentleman's exalted level, it was twice as long, so I have twice as much experience of dealing with Government statistical services. Furthermore, I can give him a statistic that he has probably not calculated. During the first five minutes of his speech, the number of Back Benchers who were not in the doughnut around him fell from 11 to nine—a reduction of 18 per cent. in the number of Back Benchers who were listening to him. I merely say that to illustrate the fact that he was not talking to a large audience.
  In relation to the serious points that the right hon. Gentleman made, when he talks about the last Government, will he make it plain whether he means the 1992–97 Administration or the years from 1979 to 1997. The last Government is an ambiguous expression, which will no longer suffice. I should be grateful if he could confirm what he means.
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  I pointed out that there were between 65,000 and 70,000 people in prison. Last year, 18,000 of them were found to have used illegal drugs. I shall not go into detail about the Cambridge Two and the slogan "Help the Homeless—Jail the Social Workers". However, if on only one of the 30 occasions when people in prison use illegal drugs—[Interruption]—I do not know why hon. Members are laughing. If 18,000 in 65,000 prisoners are using illegal drugs, and if the Prison Service—in closed institutions—can detect those drugs in only one in every 30 cases, we have a major problem. The figures are contained in Home Office statistics. No doubt, if I have got them wrong, the Home Secretary will point it out.
  The figures have been going down. The problem involved about 24 per cent. of prisoners; the number is now between 17 and 19 per cent. However, if people can obtain illegal drugs in prison, they will continue their drugs habit when they are released. If prison is to help, it should be part of the cure or therapy for some of the underlying problems.
  People who are on drugs commit crimes. Sometimes, people commit crimes to obtain drugs. We need to deal with both elements. I support the efforts of the Home Office and the Prison Service to reduce the amount of drugs in prisons.
  My final point relates to my constituency. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) that elderly people especially need a sense of security. That will come when they can see that crime in their area is falling. That point was also made by the hon. Members for Manchester, Central and for Waveney. People will gain a sense of security when they see police officers around and about.
  In Worthing, I should not mind if the police station was moved from the centre of town to Durrington. What is important is that the police are visible in villages such as Ferring, Rustington, Goring and East Preston and in central Worthing. People need to see the police and talk to them. People should not see the police only when a family member has been killed or injured in a car crash, or when someone is suspected, or is the victim, of a crime; the police should form an ordinary part of the community.
  Mr. Hayes: The non-adversarial policing that my hon. Friend describes will never be achieved if our national statistics are crime led and the police service is funded accordingly. The police will always have to fund such policing on a discretionary basis and they do not have resources to do so.
  Mr. Bottomley: I thank my hon. Friend for that point. If he does not have a chance to make a speech, I hope that the Home Office will respond to it.
  In trying to achieve that sense of security, the police should consult with local authorities about whether there should be a further reduction in drinking in public. If there are to be increased opportunities for young people to drink in licensed premises, the corollary should be that the amount of drinking in the streets—by the young or by older people—should be controlled. I do not want to get rid of street cafes in tourist areas. However, in residential areas, where there are problems owing to people drinking in the streets, the police and local authorities would be right to reflect popular views that the arrangements should be reviewed. If necessary, there should be a clampdown and a ban.
  6.39 pm
  Mr. Oliver Heald: We have held a good and well-informed debate, although there has been the occasional spiteful comment. However, certain themes have emerged from both sides of the House—even though their interpretation might not always have been the same.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Mr. Bottomley) made a thoughtful and serious speech. Although he described himself as a member of the liberal establishment, I am sure he meant liberal with a small "l". Many of us would agree with what he said about groups, such as the Peabody Trust, that examine thoughtfully the way in which problems of the architecture of the inner city can be dealt with. Obvious changes can be made and everyone in the House should pay those groups a tremendous tribute. My hon. Friend's comments about drink driving were relevant and both sides of the House can accept his point about the need for a change in the culture of society.
  One of the themes that my hon. Friend highlighted has been a feature of the debate. A visible police presence is an incredibly important part of elderly people feeling safe in their communities. That point was made by everyone who has spoken.
  The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) talked about the need to consider the victims and, in an excellent speech, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) said that the fear of crime was the top issue in his constituency. He spoke about a lady who stood out bravely against the drug dealers who were attacking her and he said, quite frankly, that there were not enough police in his area.
  The hon. Member for Manchester, Central echoed a point made by Fred Broughton of the Police Federation, who said that the police receive much of the criticism for the way in which things have gone recently. He said:
  Every policy station in the country is facing anger from its community.
  The hon. Gentleman echoed that comment and it is true that, in his area, crime is up by 6.7 per cent.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) also paid tribute to the bravery of all the individuals he had met as Home Secretary and who put up a fight and stand up for decent values in difficult circumstances. He also put the record straight. He pointed out that, under his stewardship, crime fell by 18 per cent. He is convinced, as I am, that the reason for that was a firmness of approach. To send criminals to prison is not the crime; the crime is not to do that. He spoke about the relationship between the liberal establishment and the failure of successive Governments to deal with crime. He also pointed out that, during his time in office, funding for the police increased in real terms by 4.2 per cent. when, under this Government, it has fallen by 0.2 per cent.
  The hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) said that crime is now rising in Suffolk and that it is the top issue in the county. He pointed out that, in rural areas, there was virtually no crime but that its incidence is now rising. He used the expression that the thin blue line is thin. The perception is that crime is rising.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) described the plight of the elderly and the vulnerable, with police numbers falling and crime rising in his constituency. He called for a crackdown on anti-social behaviour and pointed out the weakness of antisocial behaviour orders and of the unused and unloved child curfew order.
  It was a feature of the debate that everyone who has taken part is concerned about ASBOs. In a debate a few months ago, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) explained that only one child curfew order has been made in Nottingham and that was against someone who
  had been convicted 55 times in the past two years on charges including theft, taking vehicles, robbery, burglary, handling stolen goods and motoring offences.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 1 February 2000; Vol. 343, c. 139WH.]
  He explained the bureaucratic and complex regulations or requirements of an ASBO and all the case conferences and consultation that must be undertaken. He said that it should be a quick and efficient process, but that it was not. The Government will clearly have to think again about a flagship policy that has failed.
  In measuring the Government's performance against their promises, the starting point should be the Labour party's manifesto. It said:
  The police have our strong support
  and that the Labour party would
  get more officers back on the beat.
  The police believed that "strong support" meant more than just words and that "more officers" meant more officers. In fact, funding is lower in real terms and the number of constables, which increased under the previous Government by 2,500, is now sharply falling. The Audit Commission has criticised the reversal of that trend. Like some Members who have spoken in the debate, it has pointed out:
  Officers on patrol, especially on foot, provide a sense of security, of help being close at hand.
  I make the central charge that the Government, unlike the Labour Back Benchers who have spoken in the debate, are simply out of touch with the public's concerns on law and order. I come to the Dispatch Box from time to time to reply to statements that the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), makes and last week we heard about the plan for extensive new training for the police. However, where will the officers come from to be trained? Can they be spared? The Police Federation vice-chairman says:
  Our men on the ground are saying that it is getting to the stage that they feel vulnerable and overworked. They do not feel that they can give the public anything like the service they would like and it is in danger of leaving a vacuum on our streets.
  Ms Julia Drown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Heald: Unfortunately, I do not have time to give way.
  Last week, the Minister told us about a new complaints procedure. However, 90 police stations have closed in the past year, so where does one go to make a complaint? He has spoken of improving police equipment and technology but, in April, on average almost a quarter of the Metropolitan police's vehicles were off the road every day

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  for repairs. He has announced new communications for the police, but 999 calls are now being answered by a recorded message machine.
  The Minister talks about cutting bureaucracy for the police yet the White Paper on licensing will give them a new role as the licensing authority for church fetes and other temporary events. While he tells us that he is considering rural sparsity funding, the National Farmers Union estimates that the cost of rural crime to farmers has risen by £100 million per annum.
  What do the public think when they see a headline that says, "Yard operators are 'losing it' in a 999 crisis"? A recent article says that Scotland Yard, which used be the gold standard of policing in Britain,
  is in danger of being overwhelmed with emergency calls amid a staffing crisis and a surge in the number of people dialling 999.
  Senior officers are drawing up continency plans and they say that
  they are coping with a surge in calls.
  No wonder—crime is rising at 3 per cent. The surge in calls should be no surprise. If crime is rising, it is obvious that more people will ring in.
  When an operator was asked about the problem, he said:
  On one recent shift 20 to 30 calls were being held in a queue.
  He explained:
  The problem is caused partly by…a rise in the number of calls.
  How can a member of the public—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary says from a sedentary position, "How professional", but the public have a right to know whether their 999 calls will be answered. The public have a right to see police on the beat and to have their numbers restored, so that there is visible presence and the public need not be frightened. The public have a right to hear from the Home Secretary how he will tackle the rise in crime, and I hope that he is about to do just that.
  Mr. Straw: I did not say what the hon. Gentleman suggests.
  Mr. Heald: Goodness knows what the right hon. Gentleman said. Perhaps I did not hear him correctly. I thought that he said, "That was very professional". The operator was explaining the shortcomings of the Home Office and the difficulties that he faces in trying to answer people's calls at the most desperate moments when people are frightened and afraid. I thought that it was at those comments that the Home Secretary was sneering.
  People are entitled to feel safe in their communities. The Conservative party is committed to providing answers, particularly to the central question of police numbers. The public want to know when the Government will respond positively. The public want the answer that the Government will restore police numbers to the level that they inherited and that they will be tough on crime and the causes of crime. In other words, the public want the Government to live up to their promises; they do not want the current position, which is all talk, all sweet words and no delivery.
  6.49 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Charles Clarke): Our debate has been quite thoughtful—at least Back Benchers' contributions were. I welcome our discussions, as it is important to have a political debate about the issues, and I am glad that the Opposition decided to table the motion. However, I regret the fact that only three Conservative Back Benchers were present for most of the debate, and think that that is significant.
  I intend to try to set out the strategy that the Government are seeking to follow. We inherited problems after 18 years of Conservative Government. I shall not get into trite questions about whether crime doubled or, indeed, go through that whole debate. However, I shall indicate the problem that we are trying to address in each policy area and how we are doing that.
  I do not think that the problems that we inherited were those of a great liberal establishment. Indeed, Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister for a considerable part of that period, would not have been very pleased to be described as part of such an establishment. For much of her life, she represented Finchley—a Hampstead liberal if ever there was one. Authoritarian ineffectiveness, to reverse the words of the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), was characteristic of that whole period of government.
  Our strategy has been to build our way out of the crisis that we inherited. We believe that it is important to address anti-social behaviour, and we all know of such problems in our constituencies. As an aside, let me say that the young people causing such problems are the children of the no-such-thing-as-society generation. We did not have the necessary legal instruments, which had not been provided by the previous Government, so we set about establishing them. Of course, we have to do a great deal more, and do it better, so criticism on that is perfectly justified. However, we got the legal instruments in place as we needed to do, and we are addressing the problem.
  Partnership is another element of our strategy. There was no legal basis to the partnerships when we came to power. Everyone acknowledges that the most important legislation on changing the culture of policing and other issues has been introduced by us. We have set about achieving a legal basis for the partnerships and have changed Metropolitan police boundaries to get them going. We have also put resources into closed circuit television, neighbourhood wardens and so on to make those partnerships work. We have set about that process, although I accept that we have not done enough. However, we are going to do more.
  The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) made some rather jeering remarks about technology. We have inherited a situation in which 43 police authorities each use different technologies and so cannot communicate with one another. Police, prisons, the probation service, the crown courts, the magistrates courts and the Crown Prosecution Service all have entirely different systems and cannot relate to one another effectively. We are investing to solve that important problem, which should have been addressed a hell of a long time ago.
  We are putting money into DNA testing and are improving the police national computer. Those are significant matters, as it is important to use technology to benefit policing. Modernisation of the police is important,

  1023
  as is training, as most people would acknowledge. The Police Federation certainly did when the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire and I attended its conference. It is important to establish a best value regime that addresses significantly different levels of performance by different basic command units and different police authorities throughout the country.
  We have worked on establishing an independent complaints procedure and dealing with the relationship with the community and related issues following the Macpherson report. Major issues have to be addressed, but so do ridiculous issues. Different police forces have different height requirements for special constables. People with glasses can be recruited in some forces, but not others. That is a ludicrous state of affairs which we must modernise and get straight. We have had to deal with all the mess that was left behind.
  Serious and organised crime is another important matter which we tackled by getting real joint working between the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the security services, Customs and Excise, and the immigration and nationality directorate. That had not been done before, and we have got a strategy to get those key agencies working together. Of course, there is a great deal more to be achieved but, again, we are moving in the right direction.
  Mr. Heald rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I shall not give way, because of the time constraint that the hon. Gentleman himself mentioned.
  Drugs involved the same problems. We had to get the agencies working together properly and we introduced new legal instruments to try and address the issues involved. As everyone acknowledges, drugs are the core of a great deal of crime, and we have tried to make our strategy on them move forward.
  I agreed with much of what the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said about support for victims and witnesses, and I can assure him that we will consider those points. We need more such support. The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was right to pay tribute to the courage of witnesses, and he will acknowledge that it is the duty of the state to give them all possible support. That is why we are making available more money and resources and providing better support for Victim Support. We have a lot further to go, but we are building on the inadequate provision that we inherited.
  We are tackling reoffending by dealing with the situation of those who have been convicted, whether they require help with drug problems or education in literacy and numeracy. We are setting up a coherent programme to try to prevent people from reoffending. That is difficult and involves tackling cultural questions and significant problems.
  Several hon. Members mentioned bobbies on the beat. We have made clear our intention, by the end of the Parliament, to increase police numbers to the level that we inherited.
  Mr. Clappison: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Clarke: No.
  In many places, the issue of bobbies on the beat is not simply a question of police numbers; it is a question of using technology effectively, reducing obstructions in the
  1024
  criminal justice system and developing partnerships. Of course, as my hon. Friends have said, people want a high-profile local police force. We are committed to that, and I acknowledge that a great deal needs to be done, but we are setting about that task and aim to increase police numbers, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said.
  We have made progress in those strategic areas, and what we are doing is right. Of course there is more to be done, and I accept the fair criticism from my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey that we are not moving fast enough. However, I do not accept criticism about our strategies and methods or claims that what we are doing is nonsense and that we are going in the wrong direction. We aim to build a resilient law enforcement and criminal justice system. Without going into any of the arguments about money and police numbers, I can say that we did not inherit such a system and we needed to improve it.
  I turn now to what the Opposition have been saying. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) has not at any time acknowledged her errors or her responsibility for the situation that we inherited. The Opposition have no strategy of any kind, but have merely staged populist public relations stunts. Their programmes are uncosted, and would require more than the £260 million that the right hon. Lady suggested. The cost of the measures that she described would be getting on for £2 billion. That is on top of the £3.5 billion that the Conservatives are committed to spending on asylum, making almost £6 billion altogether.
  Let us consider what has happened in Parliament when measures have been considered. On illegal immigration, the Conservatives listened to the road hauliers rather than taking account of the interests of law enforcement. On the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill, they listened to lawyers rather than the police or anybody else. If the Opposition had won a vote on the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill, all agencies would have had to suspend their investigations into paedophilia, drug trafficking and money laundering on 2 October. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire failed to say that the reason for that vote was that he had listened too much to the businesses involved and had not taken enough account of the interests of law enforcement.
  Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Clarke: No.
  Last week, in proceedings on a private Bill promoted by Kent county council—there is an identical Bill promoted by Medway council—we even heard the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) saying that he was not interested in the measure suggested by the chief constable of Kent and my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Clark) because he was worried about antique dealers, despite the fact that they want to identify fences. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has prevented the progress of legislation on international banning orders for football supporters committing offences and on stopping under-age drinking.
  Throughout this Parliament, the Conservatives have shown that they aim not to help law enforcement, but to oppose it. That is why the Leader of the Opposition,

  1025
  realising that his party has no strategy, has decided to take over from the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald and has overruled various of her decisions. He is wearing the clothes of racist populism and turning himself into skinhead Hague. He believes that he is playing a populist card. I urge the House to reject the motion and to back the Government's strategy to build a country in which we can be proud and safe.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 138, Noes 358.

  Division No. 206]

  [6.59 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Heald, Oliver

  Amess, David

  Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Horam, John

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Baldry, Tony

  Hunter, Andrew

  Beggs, Roy

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Bercow, John

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Blunt, Crispin

  Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Boswell, Tim

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Key, Robert

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Brady, Graham

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Brazier, Julian

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Lansley, Andrew

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Leigh, Edward

  Burns, Simon

  Letwin, Oliver

  Butterfill, John

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Cash, William

  Lidington, David

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  LIoyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Clappison, James

  Loughton, Tim

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Collins, Tim

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Cran, James

  Madel, Sir David

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Maples, John

  Day, Stephen

  Mates, Michael

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Maude, Rt Hon Francis

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Evans, Nigel

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Faber, David

  Moss, Malcolm

  Fallon, Michael

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Norman, Archie

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Fox, Dr Liam

  Ottaway, Richard

  Fraser, Christopher

  Paice, James

  Gale, Roger

  Pickles, Eric

  Garnier, Edward

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Gibb, Nick

  Prior, David

  Gill, Christopher

  Randall, John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Gray, James

  Robathan, Andrew

  Green, Damian

  Robertson, Laurence

  Greenway, John

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Grieve, Dominic

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Ruffley, David

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Hammond, Philip

  Shepherd, Richard

  Hawkins, Nick

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Hayes, John

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  1026

  Soames, Nicholas

  Walter, Robert

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Waterson, Nigel

  Spring, Richard

  Wells, Bowen

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Steen, Anthony

  Whittingdale, John

  Streeter, Gary

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Swayne, Desmond

  Wilkinson, John

  Syms, Robert

  Willetts, David

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Wilshire, David

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Thompson, William

  Yeo, Tim

  Tredinnick, David

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Trend, Michael

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Viggers, Peter

  Mrs. Eleanor Laing and

  Mr. Peter Luff

  NOES

  Ainger, Nick

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Alexander, Douglas

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Allan, Richard

  Cann, Jamie

  Allen, Graham

  Caplin, Ivor

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Casale, Roger

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Caton, Martin

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Chaytor, David

  Ashton, Joe

  Clapham, Michael

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Austin, John

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Baker, Norman

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Ballard, Jackie

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Barnes, Harry

  Clelland, David

  Barron, Kevin

  Clwyd, Ann

  Bayley, Hugh

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Beard, Nigel

  Cohen, Harry

  Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Coleman, Iain

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Colman, Tony

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Connarty, Michael

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

  Cooper, Yvette

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Corston, Jean

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Cotter, Brian

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Cox, Tom

  Benton, Joe

  Cranston, Ross

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Crausby, David

  Berry, Roger

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Best, Harold

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Betts, Clive

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Blackman, Liz

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Blizzard, Bob

  Darvill, Keith

  Blunkett, Rt Hon David

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Davidson, Ian

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Brake, Tom

  Denham, John

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Dismore, Andrew

  Breed, Colin

  Dobbin, Jim

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Doran, Frank

  Browne, Desmond

  Dowd, Jim

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Drown, Ms Julia

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Burden, Richard

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Burgon, Colin

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Burnett, John

  Edwards, Huw

  Burstow, Paul

  Efford, Clive

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Ennis, Jeff

  Cable, Dr Vincent

  Etherington, Bill

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  1027

  Fisher, Mark

  Kidney, David

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Flint, Caroline

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Flynn, Paul

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  Laxton, Bob

  Fyfe, Maria

  Lepper, David

  Gapes, Mike

  Levitt, Tom

  Gardiner, Barry

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Gerrard, Neil

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Lock, David

  Gidley, Sandra

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  McCabe, Steve

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Godsiff, Roger

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Goggins, Paul

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Macdonald, Calum

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  McDonnell, John

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  McFall, John

  Grocott, Bruce

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Grogan, John

  McIsaac, Shona

  Gunnell, John

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Hain, Peter

  McNamara, Kevin

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  McNulty, Tony

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  MacShane, Denis

  Hancock, Mike

  McWalter, Tony

  Hanson, David

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

  Harvey, Nick

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Healey, John

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Martlew, Eric

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Maxton, John

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Heppell, John

  Meale, Alan

  Hesford, Stephen

  Merron, Gillian

  Hill, Keith

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Hinchliffe, David

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Hoey, Kate

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Mitchell, Austin

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hope, Phil

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

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

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Mountford, Kali

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Mullin, Chris

  Hutton, John

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Illsley, Eric

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Jenkins, Brian

  Norris, Dan

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Oaten, Mark

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

  Olner, Bill

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Öpik, Lembit

  Organ, Mrs Diana

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Osborne, Ms Sandra

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Pearson, Ian

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Pendry, Tom

  Keetch, Paul

  Perham, Ms Linda

  Kelly, Ms Ruth

  Pickthall, Colin

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

  Pike, Peter L

  Plaskitt, James

  Khabra, Piara S

  Pollard, Kerry

  1028

  Pond, Chris

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Pope, Greg

  Stevenson, George

  Pound, Stephen

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Straw, Rt Hon Jack

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Stringer, Graham

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

  Stunell, Andrew

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Rammell, Bill

  Rapson, Syd

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  Rendel, David

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Timms, Stephen

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  Tipping, Paddy

  Rooney, Terry

  Tonge, Dr Jenny

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Touhig, Don

  Rowlands, Ted

  Truswell, Paul

  Roy, Frank

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Ruane, Chris

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Tyler, Paul

  Salter, Martin

  Tynan, Bill

  Sanders, Adrian

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Sedgemore, Brain

  Wareing, Robert N

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Watts, David

  Sheerman, Barry

  Webb, Steve

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Willis, Phil

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Wills, Michael

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Winnick, David

  Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Wood, Mike

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Woolas, Phil

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Worthington, Tony

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

  Wray, James

  Snape, Peter

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Soley, Clive

  Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Wyatt, Derek

  Spellar, John

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Mr. Mike Hall and

  Mr. David Jamieson.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House welcomes the fact that recorded crime has fallen by 7 per cent. since March 1997, with domestic burglary down by 20 per cent. and vehicle crime down by 14 per cent.; applauds the Government's investment to boost police recruitment; supports the Government's strategy for tackling crime and the causes of crime through better prevention, improving the performance of crime and disorder partnerships, the police and the criminal justice system, more effective punishment of offenders and securing greater support and protection for victims and witnesses; backs the radical reforms of the youth justice system, including swifter punishment for persistent offenders; and notes that all this is in sharp contrast to the record of the previous administration when crime doubled and the number of offenders convicted fell by a third.

  Transport
  [Relevant documents: The Ninth Report from the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, Session 1998–99, Integrated Transport White Paper, HC 32-I, and the Government's response thereto, HC 708 of Session 1998–99.]
  7.13 pm
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin: I beg to move,
  That this House notes that, while government spending on transport has fallen in comparison with the period before the 1997 General Election, taxation on the motorist has been raised to record levels, so that £1 in every £7 now spent by the Government is raised from the motorist; condemns the Government for presiding over ever-worsening congestion without any policies to deal with continuing road traffic growth; welcomes the increasing investment in transport industries that were privatised during the previous administration; laments the failure of the Government to build on these achievements and that total public and private investment levels in transport are still well below what is required by people, business and industry; and condemns ministers for failing to secure increased funding for anything except for the growing costs of running the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions which is the Government's largest and least effective Department of State.
  I am afraid that the first question that I have to ask is where is the Secretary of State? [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is Archie?"] I am the man responsible for the transport policy of Her Majesty's official Opposition, but the Secretary of State is responsible for transport, the environment and the regions, and much he has made of them since being appointed to the job. We are debating his policy and his White Paper; standstill Britain is his achievement. He is responsible for three years of perpetual policy chaos. He assumed office with ludicrous anti-car policy objectives such as traffic reduction targets, centralisation and control, and the travelling public are paying the price in congestion—not only on the roads, but on all our transport networks—transport spending cuts, delayed investment and, of course, ever-higher taxation. He is more mouth and less delivery than any other member of the Government. With all due respect to the Minister for Housing and Planning, who will reply to the debate, the Secretary of State should do so.
  The Conservatives transformed many of the transport industries with privatisation and deregulation, starting with National Freight, British Airways, the British Airports Authority, British Rail's hotels, Sealink, Associated British Ports, the National Bus Company and the Scottish Bus Group, and finishing with British Rail. We stripped away the Treasury controls that stifled investment and we exposed those companies to proper competition. There has been an explosion of investment and innovation in those industries because they now put the customer first, and even the Government admit that there has been a transformation in the rail industry.
  Angela Smith: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his speech, but does he agree with the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), who said today, "At Asda, we give a refund in all circumstances. That is because we are customer-led."? Will he give the British public a refund for the privatisations?
  Mr. Jenkin: I shall treat the hon. Lady's intervention with the contempt that it deserves. I certainly support the
  1030
  comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), who speaks for the customer. It is about time that Ministers started speaking for the customers on the railways instead of for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
  The Conservatives invested huge sums in many Conservative projects, such as £26 billion in our trunk roads and motorway system. It is now a largely completed network, thanks to the Conservatives. We substantially reduced the maintenance backlog to a manageable level. What would transport be like today if we had not built the M25, the M40, the second Severn crossing or the second Dartford crossing? The long list of such transport projects includes the docklands light railway, the Manchester metro, the Sheffield metro, the £12.5 billion investment in the channel tunnel and the docklands light railway extension.
  During the past two or three years, there has been a succession of celebrated openings of great transport projects. The Prime Minister opened the Heathrow express in June 1998. That was a Conservative project and our achievement, as was the Jubilee line extension. The Croydon tramlink, which the Deputy Prime Minister opened in April, was a Conservative project funded with Conservative Government money backed by the Conservative commitment to transport. A fair description of Conservative transport policy would be, "A lot done, but a lot left to do." Labour's response could be summed as, "Not much done, and no plans to do much either."
  Ms Claire Ward: The hon. Gentleman is keen to take credit for the Jubilee line extension, but does he also take credit for the fact that it went massively over budget and over time?
  Mr. Jenkin: That project proves the virtues of the private sector rather than the public sector. The hon. Lady seems to suggest that we should have involved the private sector more, and I have no doubt that such projects would be handled much more efficiently by a privatised tube.
  The Labour party has produced not massive, great projects such as ours, but three years of dither, delay, broken promises and U-turns. After all, we waited more than a year for the integrated transport policy to be produced, even though the Labour party had 18 years in opposition to think about it. We waited for almost three years for the Transport Bill, but it will not take effect until almost four years after the Government were elected. Most of the achievements to which they lay claim are Conservative achievements. The improvement in the cleanliness of motor vehicles is the result of regulations that we introduced in government. That is why car pollution is decreasing.
  It was the privatised Railfreight service that set the target for the trebling of freight on the railway in 10 years. It was the Conservatives who launched, for instance, the national cycling strategy and the safer routes to schools initiative. From the way this lot carry on, one would think that the Government had invented it all—but they are Conservative policies that they have hijacked. The only Labour initiatives have been all mouth and no delivery.
  The Secretary of State said—this was quoted in the House—
  I will have failed if in five years time there are not…far fewer journeys by car.—[Official Report, 20 October 1998; Vol. 317, c. 1071.]

  1031
  However, three years into his Administration, congestion on our roads is increasing. It has increased by 6 per cent. since the election and is unaffected by any of the Government's policies.
  On traffic levels, the Government's White Paper said:
  We will therefore…consider how national targets can best help
  to reduce congestion. The Government, however, now agree that that was a silly idea, and that national traffic targets are destructive. That is why they voted against a private Member's Bill earlier in the Session.
  In paragraph 1.29 of the White Paper, the Government said that they wanted to
  tackle the pinch points in transport networks that lead to congestion.
  Barely a month later, however, following the roads review, 100 vital road improvements and bypasses were cancelled. As for the Birmingham northern relief road project, which the Government now say they support, not a sod has been turned. We were left with only 37 road schemes—and it came as no surprise that one of the first to be commenced was the A1033 Hedon road improvement scheme, which just happened to be in the Deputy Prime Minister's constituency. What we get from this Government is roads for the privileged few, but congestion and potholes for the many.
  The roads White Paper claimed:
  We are refocusing our approach to trunk road investment.
  "Refocusing" is new Labour speak for "massive cuts". The transport White Paper said:
  We commit ourselves to challenging targets and rigorous monitoring.
  What exactly does that mean? It means multi-modal studies, a substitute for real action, a cry for help from the Highways Agency. Meanwhile, improvements on the A66, the A14, the M1, the A1 and many other vital trunk roads and motorways that are crying out for improvement have been frozen.
  I should be interested to hear from the Minister whether he plans to go through with all the multi-modal studies, however long they take, before any action is taken on those roads. Will no improvement be made to the A14 while a multi-modal study takes place? Does the same apply to the Hindhead and Salisbury bypasses, to the A36 bypass and to the Stockport A6 bypass, which is jammed in the Government's "carry on consulting" policy? Even "carry on consulting" has failed, however, because the Government have so much consulting to do that they have run out of consultants. There are not enough consultants to conduct all the multi-modal studies that the Government have set in train: it will take years for them to clear those multi-modal studies.
  Perhaps the Minister will give us a date. When will the multi-modal studies that were announced nearly two years ago be completed—or will he go abroad to find even more consultants to complete the work?
  In the roads White Paper, the Government said:
  adequate maintenance of existing roads is our number one priority.
  They also said—twice—
  We will improve trunk road maintenance, making it our first priority.
  1032
  Two recent surveys have shown that roads are in a worse state than they have been since the early 1970s. That is because this Government are spending less on road maintenance than the Conservatives did.
  Ms Ward: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Jenkin: I give way to the enchanting lady.
  Ms Ward: The hon. Gentleman is most generous. He may have forgotten, however, that the Conservatives cut the road maintenance programme by 9 per cent. over a four-year period. Is the hon. Gentleman taking no responsibility for what happened under the last Government?
  Mr. Jenkin: I would have expected the hon. Lady to have something to say about all the traffic that is being driven off the motorways, which go through and near her constituency, on to local roads. This Government have cut the road improvement budget so that traffic is driven on to the roads where her constituents shop, play and drive to work.
  The Minister for Housing and Planning (Mr. Nick Raynsford): As the hon. Gentleman has raised the question of spending on road maintenance, will he confirm the following figures? In 1994–95—a year that he likes to cite because it was the best year of the Tory Administration—£2.8 billion was spent on road maintenance. Over the subsequent two years, the amount fell to £2.45 billion. Since we have been in government, it has increased to £2.899 billion. Will the hon. Gentleman concede that he was wrong to claim that the present Government had cut spending on maintenance? It was cut by the last Government; we have increased it.
  Mr. Jenkin: Unfortunately, the Minister has been given cash figures rather than figures relating to prices in real terms. In real terms, in 1994–95 we were spending £3.3 billion. [Interruption.] These figures are from the House of Commons Library: the Minister may want to argue with those in the Library. Not in any single year, either past or for which the Minister is planning, does expenditure match that amount.
  The present Government, not the last, are responsible for today's spending levels. I know that the strategy of the Minister's party is to try to fight the last general election rather than the next, but we will not let him do so.
  In its White Paper, Labour claimed:
  We are already…investing more in public transport.
  That is a typical Labour lie, like Labour's promises on tax. Increased taxation and spending cuts sum up the Government's transport policy. The Secretary of State, as a departmental Minister, has failed the real test. His record shows that the Deputy Prime Minister has consistently been the Government's biggest budget loser in every spending round.
  These are the killer facts—
  Sir Nicholas Lyell: When we start talking about killer facts, things become very serious. Is my hon. Friend aware that I was told I should say thank you when the Government rightly kept the Great Barford bypass in the programme? Is he further

  1033
  aware that, since then, absolutely nothing has been done to build it? There was yet another fatal accident earlier this month on the A428, leaving a family husbandless and fatherless.
  Mr. Jenkin: I would not want to make a party political point about any tragedy. The fact is, however, that the less spent on highways maintenance and improvements, the more dangerous those roads will be and, inevitably, the more deaths and injuries there will be.
  Mr. Bob Russell: The hon. Gentleman referred to killer facts. Until this moment he has not mentioned road deaths, and he has done so now only in response to an intervention. Will he at any stage mention the fact that 10 people a day are killed on our roads? Will he challenge the Government to do more about road deaths? That is a question to which people want answers.
  Mr. Jenkin: As it happens, I am not majoring on road safety today, but the hon. Gentleman has raised a vital issue. I would like a debate on road safety in Government time. They tried to sneak out their road safety policy without making a proper announcement to Parliament. In the end, they made a statement, but it should be pointed out that they did so at my request. These are important matters. I continue to reflect on them, and in due course we will produce a road safety policy to keep the Government up to the mark.
  I was talking about killer facts. Killer fact: Labour is spending less on local transport. The local transport grant has been cut from £329 million in 1994 to just £13 million in the current year. Killer fact: we were spending an average of £2.25 billion on the trunk road and motorway network. Labour is planning to spend a mere £300 million in the current year and in the next year. Killer fact: on road maintenance, the top priority, in our last three years, we spent £8.6 billion—[Interruption.] The Minister is touchy on the subject and we know why. We spent £8.6 billion and that was despite the recession. We maintained that spending despite the recession and the squeeze on public spending. In a boom, Labour has spent a mere £7.8 billion in the past three years and it has no plans to spend any more than the Conservatives.
  Mr. Raynsford: As the hon. Gentleman referred to the Conservative Government's record in their last three years in office, will he confirm that spending on road maintenance in those last three years fell year on year from £2.8 billion to £2.6 billion to £2.4 billion? Why does he try to mislead the House with bogus statistics?
  Mr. Jenkin: I am a generous chap, so I will overlook the Minister's jibe, but he cannot shuffle off responsibility for his lower spending levels using the record of the previous Government. We spent more over those three years than he spent over the successive three years.
  Killer fact: Labour is spending less on the railways. Killer fact: Labour is spending less on London Transport. We averaged £830 million per year; Labour is averaging just £640 million a year. In fact, the spending level is well under £500 million this year. It is about £245 million and it is scheduled to be nil next year. Let us hope that there
  1034
  will be an announcement about that. The public-private partnership is mired in delay and the cost of consultancy fees is going up and up and up.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am interested in the fact that the hon. Gentleman says that Labour is spending and has spent less on railways. Is he suggesting that, somehow or other, the deal that his Government did on privatisation—that the public subsidy should consistently fall—is one that he now regrets, and that he would like a lot more public money to be invested? If that is the case, it is an interesting change of tack.
  Mr. Jenkin: I am merely pointing out that the Government are responsible for spending levels today, just as we were responsible for spending levels before. It was the Secretary of State who said that he was going to change everything. If he is keeping everything the same, those are the facts that the hon. Lady has to accept.
  The biggest killer fact, the killer blow to the Secretary of State's credibility, is that the Conservatives spent twice as much per year on transport as the Labour Government. Between 1984 and 1997, we spent an average of £12.2 billion per year on transport. In the past three years, Labour has spent an average of just £6.4 billion—barely half the Conservative commitment.
  Against that background, there is Labour's killer tax lie. There is an extra £8 billion in taxes on the motorist compared with 1997 levels. The Government are raising £36 billion in motoring taxes and investing less than a fifth of that in transport. Half of that tax burden is paid by business, so it hits competitiveness and productivity. United Kingdom petrol is by far the most expensive in Europe. For every £20 spent at the petrol pump today, £16 is taken in fuel duty.
  I will give the Minister the facts about the price of petrol because it is not a familiar topic on the Government Benches. The Government inherited a price per litre of 59.2p and it is now well over 80p per litre. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would do well to remember that. The average motorist is spending £270 more per year for fuel under Labour. It confirms that Ministers do not drive their own cars or have to fill them up. Motoring taxes have reached such a level that they now fund £1 in every £7 that the Government spend. Those are all killer facts.
  Mr. Peter Snape: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the killer fact from a Tory Minister with responsibility for transport, who said in March 1994 that increases in fuel duty and motorway tolling would help people to make more informed choices about the cost of using their cars? Was it a killer fact then, or was he day dreaming?
  Mr. Jenkin: The point is that it depends on from what level duties are going up. It was the hon. Gentleman's Government who doubled the rate of the fuel escalator, who imposed three increases in the space of 18 months—calling them annual increases—and who have been found to be cheating on the rate of inflation, using a higher rate for uprating fuel duties than for uprating pensions, something the hon. Gentleman might have found out about during the local elections. The important point is that there are more taxes to come: congestion taxes and workplace parking taxes. Those are Labour taxes, not just London mayoral taxes.

  1035
  The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are responsible for the taxes that the London mayor can apply under the Greater London Authority Act 1999. The Prime Minister says that Greater London Authority members must "abide by their manifesto" commitments not to introduce congestion taxes during the first term of the mayoralty. He should be aware that he was contradicted within hours of making that statement by the Labour deputy mayor, who was elected on that Labour manifesto. She said that "in principle" she wanted to introduce congestion taxes in the first term.
  I read that the Secretary of State had a meeting with the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone). Perhaps we will learn what was discussed on the matter of congestion taxes. I tabled a parliamentary question, but the only answer that I got was:
  We had a wide-ranging discussion of issues of mutual interest including transport.—[Official Report, 22 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 324W.]
  I bet he did. Perhaps the Minister would tell the House exactly what was discussed between the Secretary of State and the London mayor about congestion taxes.
  Mr. Raynsford: I was not there.
  Mr. Jenkin: Well, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), was there because he answered the question. Perhaps the Minister will tell the House what he expects the London mayor to do. If he decides to introduce congestion taxes, will he take responsibility so that London voters know that, when the mayor introduces a new tax on driving into London, it is Labour policy, or are we expecting another U-turn from the Government?
  Meanwhile, business and industry are groaning under the burden of Labour taxes and crying out for more investment in transport. This year's Railtrack network management statement, which was delivered on time, said that £52 billion is needed. The British Road Federation Ltd. says that we need to spend £90 billion over the next 10 years to have a road system that is comparable with that of our European competitors. The Confederation of British Industry said that a total of £212 billion is needed to deliver the transport that business and industry need.
  The real question is, how will the Government deliver all that investment? That would be a real transport policy. That is the real killer question for the Government. How will they deliver investment in the roads? Will they reverse the ludicrous 1998 decision to scrap the roads programme? How else can they solve congestion and pollution? How will the Secretary of State reduce the ever-growing backlog of repairs? Are the Government really going to wait until all those multi-modal studies are completed before carrying out the vital improvements that are needed?
  On the railways, how will the Government help the industry to deliver their investment aspirations? When will the review of rail access charges be completed? It was meant to be completed this spring, then it was meant to be completed this summer. The rumour is that it will not be completed until the autumn. Will the Minister tell the House when the review will be completed?
  What has happened to the Strategic Rail Authority's 10-year plan for the railways? Again, that was meant to be delivered this summer. The rumour is that that will be
  1036
  delayed too. How will the Government revive the financial confidence of the railway after a three-year campaign of denigration of the management and staff of the railways, who have done so much to transform the railways?
  I take heart from recent statements from the Government. The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions said in his reply to the debate last week:
  I concede that it—
  the railway—
  has been successful in many respects under privatisation—
  that is a change of heart—
  and as a result of it. I think that we all acknowledge that there has been a great deal of innovation in the industry and a greater focus on customer care.—[Official Report, 10 May 2000; Vol. 349, c. 921.]
  I am glad that he has not got into trouble for making those remarks. They are the proof of the pudding that the much denigrated privatisation of the railways has been a force for good and something upon which the Government should be building.
  Will the Government therefore abandon the Transport Bill? On 9 May, the Deputy Prime Minister said:
  I have been a defender of the public sector…but it costs a great deal more than the private sector.
  I think that the right hon. Gentleman is beginning to learn. The experience of office might be doing some good. Does he now support privatisation? He said:
  I have never accepted "public good, private bad"—[Official Report, 9 May 2000; Vol. 349, c. 710–715.]
  That would be a welcome U-turn, but judging from Prime Minister's questions today, as soon as he has the opportunity the right hon. Gentleman is once again posturing to the gallery of political correctness instead of doing what is right for transport.
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: Before my hon. Friend deifies the Deputy Prime Minister, will he make it one of his tasks to persuade the right hon. Gentleman to admit that when he sat on the Opposition Benches and kept saying that privatisation would accelerate the loss of passengers on the railways he was wrong? Passenger use of the railways since privatisation has increased by 25 per cent. That fact has been acknowledged by the Under-Secretary.
  Mr. Jenkin: There we have it. Privatisation has achieved exactly what the Government say they want to achieve, which is to get people out of their cars and get bums on seats on the railway. That is what 40 years of nationalisation failed to achieve.
  Why is the Deputy Prime Minister pressing ahead with the ridiculous so-called public-private partnership on the tube? It is based on the religion of ultimate state control. Is it not the case that the right hon. Gentleman's Department has the worst record of all Departments? It was the Select Committee on Transport, chaired by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), which last July stated:
  The Department's achievements…have largely been confined to the publication of documents and policy statements and the establishment of task forces. As yet, there have been few tangible improvements.

  1037
  What has happened since then? The answer is, not much. We have heard only that the Deputy Prime Minister has been stripped of his responsibilities for transport. They have been handed over to Lord Macdonald, who will produce a 10-year transport plan. That seems to be more of the same.
  We are told that it will be an £80 billion transport plan. What real increases will there be to match the Conservative commitment? If we add up what Railtrack is investing and what the Government are spending, that easily amounts to £8 billion a year. If that is stretched over 10 years, there is no substantial change in policy.
  Will the Minister tell us when the great transport plan will be produced? I tabled a question, but I know that it is rather naive to expect any useful information. However—[Interruption.] It is not funny for the Under-Secretary to laugh about concealing information from Parliament. I asked clearly if he had decided to publish his 10-year transport plan before the end of July. After all, that is what all the spin has been about. He said, as with all such departmental reports,
  we will publish the plan when it is ready—[Official Report, 16 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 89W.]
  On past form, that probably means next Christmas. Will the Minister tell us when the plan will be published?
  Mr. Raynsford: When it is ready.
  Mr. Jenkin: There we are; the Government are a forthcoming lot.
  The purpose of the debate is to give an opportunity for the Government to explain what their transport policy is. After three years of gesture politics, denigration of the transport industries and massive cuts in government financial support across the board, is it not about time that the Government started to explain how they will deliver the public transport services—the roads, the railways and the infrastructure investment—that the country needs?
  When in office, the Conservatives spent more than Labour, raised more investment than Labour and kept Britain moving. When the Prime Minister says to the Deputy Prime Minister, "A lot done, a lot left to do", he is clearly referring to the achievements of the Conservatives and the failure of the Deputy Prime Minister to achieve anything.
  Labour came into office promising to wave a magic wand. That was its so-called integrated transport policy. Perhaps the Minister will explain exactly what that slogan means beside the massive increase in congestion, the logjam of investment, the millions of frustrated commuters, the businesses that are groaning under their taxes and road users who are fed up with paying ever-higher taxation.
  Why is it that only now the Government are contemplating a new transport plan? They had 18 years in opposition and three years in government to think about it. Is that not why it is fair to say that the Government are all mouth and no delivery? The Government tax more and deliver less. On the evidence of its record, Labour's new slogan should be, "Not much done, nothing doing, but taxes going up". Is that not the most savage indictment of the architect of the policy? The Deputy Prime Minister
  1038
  was appointed to deliver a better transport system. Instead, he has been scuppered by his so-called friends at the Treasury. In fact, he has become their plaything. How they must laugh at him behind his back as they tax and tax the travelling public and cut and cut his expenditure.
  In December 1999, the right hon. Gentleman was robbed of his transport portfolio. Today, he may be Secretary of State for the environment and the regions, but not for transport. He is in office, but not in power. He is discredited. He is a loser. We know that and so do his colleagues and the public. The only person who does not know it is the right hon. Gentleman.
  7.46 pm
  The Minister for Housing and Planning (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  welcomes the fact that the Government has substantially increased spending on transport from the levels planned by the previous Government; notes that this Government ended the automatic fuel duty escalator begun by the previous Government; deplores the previous Government's record of under-investment in transport, which left an investment backlog in important areas like road maintenance, rail and London Underground; notes that under the last Government the number of cars per mile of road went up from 70 to 100, that yearly carbon dioxide emissions from road transport increased by 26 per cent. and that by May 1997 Railtrack was £700 million behind on its rail investment and maintenance programme; and welcomes the Government's approach on an integrated transport strategy which will be delivered by an integrated Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and its plans to increase spending and modernise the transport system further through its Ten Year Plan for transport investment.
  The people of this country want a transport system that is quicker, safer, cleaner, smarter, more reliable and good value for money, which takes them conveniently from the start of their journey to their destination. [Interruption.] Opposition Members roar with laughter at that. Surely that is a self-evident statement of what the public expect. We intend to deliver such a system through modernisation, integration and partnership.
  The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) spoke at length about congestion, taxes and underinvestment. I agree with him on one point. There are significant problems with transport. It is not as good as it should be. I differ with the hon. Gentleman over his ludicrous attempts to re-write history and completely ignore the Conservative party's abysmal record and its responsibility for the problems that we face.
  It is naive in the extreme to suggest that the problems of today are the product of the past three years alone. The hon. Gentleman and every sensible Member of this place know that the problems that we inherited from the Conservative Government were considerable. There was serious congestion on the roads and a chronic backlog of maintenance, with emissions and pollution from traffic aggravating health problems, especially among children—[Interruption.] Those are serious problems, which hon. Members would do well not to make light of. We were faced with a deregulated bus industry that was failing to deliver quality services, and there were far too many cowboy operators. We had also a fragmented railway industry that was lacking strategic management and direction.
  We inherited a transport system that had suffered for 20 years from the irresponsible pursuit of ideology, defective privatisation—[Interruption]—and neglect of

  1039
  the public sector. Conservative Members clearly do not agree with my comment on defective privatisation. I am surprised. I am only echoing the words of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), who, sadly, has not stayed in the Chamber for the debate, despite making a brief appearance. Only yesterday he admitted that there were "serious shortcomings" in the privatised railways. Who is to blame for that?
  The hon. Member for North Essex may not agree with the judgment of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells. Indeed, he may not feel comfortable about the idea that his hon. Friend is defining Opposition transport policy. I feel a little sorry for the hon. Member for North Essex. I remember only too well when he proudly puffed out his chest a few months ago during consideration of the Transport Bill in Committee and said:
  I speak in this Committee on behalf of the shadow Cabinet—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 18 January 2000; c. 9.]
  Today the hon. Gentleman claimed that he represented the Opposition—but it was not him who was issuing the press statements and being quoted in the press yesterday; it was Archie.
  Mr. Jenkin: Lest the Minister should start enjoying himself too much, I should tell him that I sat next to my hon. Friend at the press conference. We discussed exactly what he was going to say. He would not have done that press conference without my permission, because we work as a team. The Minister has got into a muddle: it is his Department that is the unhappiest Department in the Government. As for the shortcomings in the rail privatisation, he and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), would agree with me that there was much to improve on in the railways when the Government came into office. It is sad that they have done absolutely nothing except denigrate and cast slurs on the management, undermine the financial viability of the industry and cause an investment bottleneck.
  Mr. Raynsford: That was rather a long intervention, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman, in the nicest possible way, that we are delighted to know that he sits next to Archie and is educating Archie.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The Minister knows the convention of the House as well as I do.
  Mr. Raynsford: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Ms Ward: Does my hon. Friend agree that that the comments of the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) seem to suggest that he is pulling the strings of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), who is a mere puppet? If it were not for the hon. Member for North Essex telling him what to say, the poor man would not know how to cope. How is that for a team working together?
  Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend makes a good point, but it is interesting to see who is quoted in today's press. The hon. Member for North Essex is quoted—I grant him that. He was allowed to put out a short piece in the
  1040
  Evening Standard about encouraging motor cycling in London. However, it was the managing director who took precedence and issued all the press statements about the Tory party's policies nationally. I am sorry for the hon. Member for North Essex, because he has clearly been relegated to the equivalent of the local Asda store manager in Manningtree.
  Mr. James Gray: The Minister sounds a little sensitive on the subject of who is spokesman for what. Could that be because when transport matters are discussed in the papers, it is not him who is quoted? It is not even the Secretary of State who is quoted, but his noble Friend in the other place. The hon. Gentleman is the Minister for Housing and Planning. What is he doing talking about transport?
  Mr. Raynsford: I am only too happy to confirm that the Deputy Prime Minister and my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Macdonald are quoted on transport policy, because they represent the Government on that issue. [Interruption.] As my right hon. and noble Friend is in the other place, I am speaking for the Government at this Dispatch Box. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members cannot shout across the Floor of the House.
  Mr. Raynsford: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I have to remind the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) in the nicest possible way that in the Committee considering the Transport Bill it was he who identified his hon. Friend the Member for North Essex as merely the subaltern. There was a different field marshal; it was, of course, a different shadow Minister, but there we are.
  Mr. Gray: I want to put the record straight. That was not the case. I was happy to identify myself as the humble lance-corporal, but there was no question about who the leader of our team was, and he is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench right now.
  Mr. Raynsford: I distinctly remember the hon. Member for North Wiltshire referring to the field marshal sitting with him on the Back Benches—the lowering presence of the aspiring leader of his party.
  We inherited a transport system that had suffered for 20 years from neglect and short-termism. Let me remind the House of that legacy. In the 10 years from 1986 to 1996, the proportion of public transport journeys fell by 11 per cent., while the number of car journeys increased by 21 per cent.—killer fact. Over the same period, bus journeys outside London where services were deregulated fell by 31 per cent.—killer fact. By May 1997, the funding backlog on the London Underground had reached £1.2 billion—killer fact.
  Meanwhile, at the change of Government in May 1997, Railtrack was £700 million behind on its rail investment and maintenance programme—killer fact. The road system was no better. In fact, in 1997 the nation's roads were in their worst condition for 20 years—killer fact. At the same time, yearly carbon dioxide emissions from road transport increased by more than 26 per cent.

  1041
  There is more of the same. The proportion of freight carried on our congested roads grew to 66 per cent. from a starting point in 1979 of 54 per cent., while rail freight fell from 11 per cent. to only 6 per cent. It is hardly surprising that in 1979 there were 70 cars for every mile of road, but when the Conservatives left office, after billions of pounds of road spending, there were 100 cars per mile—killer fact. That was their record.
  Mr. Lawrie Quinn: Does my hon. Friend agree with me that one of the problems was the fact that the previous Government split up the rail freight industry into three component parts? It was only as a result of a private entrepreneur sticking Humpty Dumpty back together again that the renaissance that the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) applauded came about.
  Mr. Raynsford: I am happy to confirm to my hon. Friend that in the past two years there have at long last been significant increases in rail freight. I shall deal with that matter later in my speech.
  Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Are we to take it from the Minister's remarks that the Labour party deplores the fact that more people can afford motor cars and like to use them on the road?
  Mr. Raynsford: No, quite the opposite. If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I shall come to that issue and explain in detail our policy on road traffic and motorists. We want to see an extension of car ownership, but we recognise, as any sensible person does, that there must be limits on car usership in congested areas.
  We are tackling the problems. The Opposition criticise us for it. They accuse us of being anti-motorist. That is opportunistic nonsense. The truly anti-motorist policy would be to do nothing, and to allow congestion and pollution to increase. Like the Conservatives when they were in power, before the burst of post-Government amnesia that now afflicts them, we recognise that taxation of things that damage the environment is better than taxation of things that are good for the economy. That is one of the reasons why fuel duty revenue has increased.
  Indeed, the then Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), said in 1994, when he increased the fuel duty escalator from 3 to 5 per cent.—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members would wait for it, they would be interested in this quote from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He said:
  Any critic of the Government's tax plans who claims also to support the international agreement to curb carbon dioxide emissions will be sailing dangerously near to hypocrisy.—[Official Report, 30 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 939.]
  The Conservative party appears determined to qualify for that designation by criticising the very policies that the Conservative Government introduced to meet international environmental targets. We remain committed to those targets.
  The Conservatives do not want to look at the whole picture. They did not do so when they were in government, and from what we have heard tonight they have not changed. It is still knee-jerk and quick fix.
  Mr. Jenkin: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the extra increases in taxation on fuel have
  1042
  made all the difference between achieving the Kyoto targets and not achieving them? Will he be honest with the House and admit that the regulations on engine emissions and fuel economy have made the difference? They have been applied across the European Community and were promoted by the previous Government. Engine technology, not Labour taxes, will cure the pollution problem.
  Mr. Raynsford: I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a different view from the former Chancellor on many matters, not least those related to Europe. I believe that his right hon. and learned Friend was talking a great deal more sense when he pointed out that it is not consistent to will the means to reduce emissions and then to reject policies that are designed to achieve that. I accept that the fuel duty escalator alone was not responsible for all the reductions that have been achieved. Of course it was not. Any sensible person knows that a range of policies across the economy are needed, but people do not deny the validity of measures that can make a contribution if they are serious about achieving environmental objectives. We are serious, and we shall not reject policies that contribute towards environmental gains.
  Conservative Members do not want to look at the whole picture. The Government want to achieve real cuts in transport emissions, which is why we are already implementing an important package of tax measures to reduce the environmental impact of road transport, and, incidentally, to cut motorists' tax bills—a point that Conservative Members would do well to bear in mind when they make facile allegations that we are anti-motorist. Our major reform of vehicle excise duty in March 2001 will send an important signal to motorists to select cleaner, more fuel-efficient new cars.
  Most purchasers of new cars will also see their tax bills fall. From this date, 4.1 million owners of smaller cars will benefit from a £55 cut in VED. Duty on ultra-low sulphur petrol is also being cut later this year, to encourage the take-up of the cleaner fuel. That follows on from the success that we had in switching the entire diesel market over to cleaner ultra-low sulphur diesel.
  Those measures show that the Government are helping to protect the environment without penalising the ordinary motorist—an agenda that is being directly copied by the Opposition, judging by their recent policy paper "Greener Cars for a Greener Environment".
  Mr. Gray: I thank the Minister for giving way a second time. He makes great play of the fact that we invented the escalator in 1994. Does he accept that in 1994 one third, or 28.4 per cent., of the tax raised from motorists was spent on roads, whereas today less than half of that—14.1 per cent. of the tax raised from motorists—is spent on roads? Surely that says it all.
  Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman, like the hon. Member for North Essex, has chosen some rather selective statistics. I put it to him that if one is increasing investment in public transport, the proportion spent on roads will inevitably fall. That is a simple matter of economics. Percentages cannot remain constant if one increases the proportion spent in a different area.
  We fully recognise that we cannot put right overnight, or even in a couple of years, the problems that have built up over two decades—but we will put those problems right.

  1043
  Before I move on, I must take the hon. Member for North Essex to task over the wildly misleading figures that he quoted on total expenditure. He made some incredible claims. I have to put it to him that Conservative spending on transport in England was not an average of £12 billion, as he said. It averaged £8 billion a year during the period of the Major Government—1992–93 to 1996–97. Labour's spending on transport in England from 1997–98 to 2001–02, bearing in mind the fact that in the first two years we took over the expenditure plans of the previous Government, will average £7.6 billion. The difference is mainly due to the falling rail subsidies to train operating companies—a system put in place by the Conservative Government. So we will have no more nonsense from Conservative Members with false statistics about spending patterns. If we want a fair comparison of spending on transport, let us compare like with like.
  In the 1997 annual report, the last produced by the Conservative Government, the figure given for total spend on transport in 1994–95 was £5.9 billion. That was the year that the hon. Member for North Essex selected, because it was the highest year for Conservative spending, so I will do him credit and use his figure. As the hon. Gentleman has said, total spend last year was just under £6 billion. Before anyone points out that that is a real decrease in spending, do not forget that rail subsidy has fallen over that period from £1.8 billion to £1.1 billion. Those are the facts.
  Unlike the previous Administration, this Government are willing to take the tough decisions and invest for the long term.
  Mr. Bob Russell: The Minister has quoted many figures. He has yet to mention road safety. Does he agree that the cost of every fatal accident is in excess of £1 million to the public purse? More than 3,000 people are killed on our roads every year, yet we spend only 10p per person per year on traffic calming.
  Mr. Raynsford: I fully accept the importance of road safety. I say that with some personal feeling because I was orphaned at the age of 11 when my mother was killed with my stepfather in a car crash. I believe that road safety is fundamental, and I will refer to it in a moment. It comes into my speech, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that the speech has to cover a number of other issues. I certainly did not intend to downgrade the issue of road safety. I intend to give it considerable prominence.
  In 1998 we published our integrated transport White Paper. At the time, we were criticised for the delay—and yes, it did take us just over a year from coming into office to publish the White Paper. The Conservative Government did not manage to produce one in 18 years. They did, however, publish a Green Paper; in 1996, they published "Transport, the way forward—the Government's response to the transport debate". I suspect that the Opposition are not too happy to be reminded of this document. It was, of course, the product of Mr. Steven Norris. The then Minister for Transport in London confessed that he much preferred to travel in the comfort of his own car rather than having to
  "put up with all those dreadful human beings"
  whom one meets on public transport.
  Mr. Norris had some intelligent things to say about transport, despite that remark, which would probably make even the Bourbons feel embarrassed. When he
  1044
  talked about congestion charging, he sent a clear message that the view of the Government of the time was that price signals were a highly efficient way of influencing transport demand. The Green Paper referred to
  The Government's presumption in favour of introducing legislation in due course, to enable congestion charging and area licensing to be implemented.
  So it is a bit rich for the Conservative party to make such a meal of criticising us for taking practical steps to pursue the very same agenda that his own party floated when in government.
  The biggest difference between this Government and the previous one is that we are delivering on commitments. The fact is that under this Government there has been a 15 per cent. increase in rail passenger journeys, with 1,300 more trains running daily to meet demand. The Conservative party can talk up its gimmicks about tackling the problems that it created, but in the real world investment in rail is doubling. Twenty per cent. of railway carriages are new and 80 per cent. of stations have been modernised. Bus capacity is increasing. We now have more than 1,800 new and enhanced rural bus services in England, not as a result of deregulation but as a result of the Government's initiative to increase rural bus services. More are to come.
  We have halted the decline in the number of bus passengers and we have seen investment in buses rising year on year. In London, for example, 40 per cent. of buses are new. We are also guaranteeing a free bus pass for all pensioners—something that the Conservative party will want to abolish, along with the winter fuel allowance and free television licences for pensioners.
  We are also setting up a national public transport information system with a single telephone number, which will be in place by the end of this year. Nothing like this has been done before. It will integrate timetabling and ticketing information for buses, trams and trains across the country. We have a targeted programme of 41 trunk road improvements, 20 of which will provide bypasses for local communities.
  Mrs. Eleanor Laing: I have been listening carefully to the Minister's argument and to his statistics. Will he admit in all honesty that the statistic that he has just given about improvement in the railways and buses would not have been possible without privatisation?
  Mr. Raynsford: I refer the hon. Lady to the views of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, who said that serious problems were created by the privatisation process.
  Mr. Jenkin: Really it does politics no good if we cannot have a mature discussion about matters of policy. He is pretending to the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) disagrees with my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing). Of course, precisely the opposite is the case. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest is making is that a great many benefits have come about as a result of rail privatisation. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells made was that whatever problems still existed, the Minister had not sought to deal with them.
  Mr. Raynsford: I was merely quoting from The Guardian—probably not a newspaper that the hon.

  1045
  Gentleman reads. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells is quoted, referring to rail privatisation, as saying that there were "serious shortcomings". I rest my case.
  We have introduced local transport plans so that local partnerships can improve public transport services, air quality and road safety, and tackle congestion and pollution. Provisional plans were produced last year, and the first full five-year plans will be produced later this year. Those plans are the cornerstone of our transport policy, providing, as they do, the key mechanism for delivering integrated transport at a local level. The plans provide for a longer-term, more strategic view, with greater certainty of funding for local authorities than under the previous annual system.
  We have also, of course, introduced the first Transport Bill for a generation. The Bill will provide a statutory basis for bus quality partnerships and contracts, establish the Strategic Rail Authority, and provide powers for local authorities to introduce road user charging and workplace parking charges—as proposed, of course, by the Conservative Government in their own Green Paper.
  Our Bill provides powers for local authorities to introduce charging, but it does not require them to do so. It will also be up to motorists to decide whether to use the roads where charges are imposed. It is an entirely voluntary charge. We have also—unlike Conservative Members—guaranteed that all income from those charges will be ring-fenced to improve local transport.
  Although I want to focus on outcomes, I must emphasise that the Government recognise the need for extra investment. We have already increased spending on transport. In the 1998 comprehensive spending review, we provided an extra £1.8 billion for public transport, traffic management and road maintenance over and above what the Conservatives were planning to spend. In November 1999, we gave a £50 million boost for London bus services.
  In this year's budget, the Chancellor gave an extra £280 million for transport, including £30 million for extension of the docklands light railway to City airport, £65 million for London Underground, £30 million for local authorities to spend on schemes for child safety and safe routes to school, and £20 million for 80 new schemes for safety and congestion stress points and other improvements on the trunk road network.
  In response to the question from the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell), I stress that road safety is a critically important issue, and that we have set ourselves an incredibly demanding target of a 40 per cent. reduction in deaths and serious injuries. We are determined to drive forward measures that will achieve far greater safety on our roads.
  We are also working on our 10-year plan for transport, which was announced last December by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. That plan will entail a step-change in investment in both the public and private sectors, and enable us to deliver a real transport system for the 21st century.
  The Opposition claim that we are spending less on transport than they did when they were in office and that we are taxing more. They are wrong on both counts. They also claim that we have a vendetta against the motorist.
  1046
  They are wrong about that, too. The truth is that we inherited a transport system that was suffering from a generation of underinvestment in terms of both money and long-term planning. We are putting that right.
  Ms Ward: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Raynsford: No, I shall not give way to my hon. Friend. If she will bear with me, I am finishing my speech; I have probably been on my feet too long.
  We are increasing spending and improving services. As I said, our 10-year transport plan will entail a step-change in investment. We are putting right the failures of the past and investing not just for tomorrow, but for a generation. We are making progress in modernising the transport system, and we are proud of our record. We have a commitment to put in place the policies, programmes and resources that are necessary to overcome long-standing and deep-seated problems. We intend to stick to that.
  The public can see through the shallow, opportunistic and ill informed ideas that come from Conservative Members. I urge the House to do the same, and to reject the Opposition motion.
  8.13 pm
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: Well, that is all right then—everything is for the best in this transport world; nothing could be better; and the Government are doing everything right. The Secretary of State is absent from this debate not because he is frit, but because he is out driving round in his Jag.
  I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his speech. I am going to go back to the people of North-West Cambridgeshire and tell them how wonderful the Government's transport policies are. I am now able to tell them that, when they are caught up in traffic jams, it has nothing to do with the Minister. I can tell them that, when they have to take their cars in to be repaired because potholes have damaged the suspension, it has nothing to do with the Minister. I can say that, when they cannot get on a train, it has nothing to do with the Minister. I can assure them that, when they want to go on British Airways or Virgin but find themselves on some other airline instead, because of a cosy alliance that is not in the customer's best interests, it has nothing to do with the Minister.
  I am grateful to the Minister for his speech, because he has produced a yardstick against which we shall continue to measure him. I have to tell him that it was a very foolish speech that reeked of complacency. [Interruption.] Yes, it did. I listened carefully to every word he said, and his speech reeked of complacency. He said that everyone out there is wrong, except for the Deputy Prime Minister and those who are brought in to speak on his behalf when he has something more important to do than to meet his own responsibilities by coming to the House and addressing transport issues.
  Today, I do not want to range across transport issues—
  Mr. Snape: I will bet the right hon. Gentleman does not.
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: Did the hon. Gentleman wish to make an intervention rather than a sedentary comment?
  Mr. Snape: Yes. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he think that he could

  1047
  perhaps dignify this debate by being serious? If he is going to tell his constituents in North-West Cambridgeshire the stories that he has just related to the House, will he make it clear to them that those problems started only on 1 May 1997? The House really deserves better from a former Secretary of State, albeit not a very good one.
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I shall say to them. I shall say that, unlike the Minister, I am not confused about who is in government. I know who is in government. I know that the Government have been in office for three years. I know that they made the most preposterous claims about what they would do if only they were elected. I know that many in the electorate believed them, and that many in the electorate now know that they were conned in 1997. I am very happy to have that debate with my constituents. With every passing month, my constituents recognise just a little more clearly that the Government conned them. Transport in the United Kingdom is getting worse, not better.
  As I said, I do not want to range across the full panoply of transport policy. I should like to talk about something that is dear to the Government' heart—congestion charging, and the "entirely voluntary charge" that the Minister just mentioned.
  It is interesting that congestion charging remains part of the Government's policy as, slowly but surely, the political light is dawning on them. There can be no other explanation for the fact that the Government are wriggling, ducking and weaving, trying to create the impression that they are cooler on transport charging than they were. It also explains the fact that we are not going to see any congestion charging this side of a general election.
  I should like, therefore, to ask Ministers a variety of questions. I shall do my utmost to be in the Chamber when the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill)—whom I hold in high regard on transport matters—answers them. I shall be interested to hear his answers.
  The Government talk about congestion charging as if it were a mantra. It is the stick that they have chosen with which to beat the motorist, whom they so hate. My constituents understand the disdain in which the Government hold the motorist. It is too late for the Minister to sit there on the Treasury Bench, holding his chin and shaking his head: car users have already formed a judgment of the Government, and that judgment will not change this side of a general election. He is stuck with that judgment. One of the joys of government is that change requires long lead times, and the Government are way past the point of being able to change the public's perception of Ministers' attitude to the motorist.
  The Government have never said whether they see congestion charging as a means of increasing the speed of traffic or as a means of getting more traffic through a congested area. At least the hon. Member for Streatham understands transport policy, not least because he was a distinguished member of the Select Committee for some time, and will understand the significance of the next question. I shall be interested to hear his answer. I do not have great hopes of an answer from the Minister for Housing and Planning. The second fundamental question
  1048
  that the Government have never addressed on congestion charging is what charge would have to be applied to reduce the amount of traffic on a road by, say, 10 per cent.
  That is not a new question. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has been the Chairman of the Select Committee for a considerable time and I had many a happy discussion with her when I was Transport Secretary—discussions that, I would like to think, were marked by a good deal of mutual respect. She will recall that the question has been around for at least five years. Let me repeat it: what charge would have to be levied to reduce traffic by 10 per cent?
  Let me tell the Minister a story. When I was Transport Secretary, I visited the United States. In Boston, I asked that question of one of the world authorities on urban congestion. He said, "I don't know the answer. Nobody in the world knows the answer. If you give me a large enough contract, I'll come up with some advice for you, but you should save your money, because the charge would be so great that no democratically elected politician would ever be able to enforce it."
  The Government do not have a clue what sort of charge would be needed to reduce traffic by 1 per cent., 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. We are talking about just another form of taxation. I shall tell my constituents that.
  The Government are frit. They do not have the guts to implement the policy that they have been going on about for years, because it might cost them votes at the election. Before local authorities decide to implement it, they ought to give some thought to the consequences of implementation.
  I have a few more questions for the Minister. What will the technology be? We know that the Labour party is in favour of congestion charging. The deputy mayor of London confirmed that recently, and in the first vote of the Greater London Authority, the Labour members voted in principle to support congestion charging. This is not an idle debate. It goes to the heart of what will happen in our towns and cities throughout the country.
  What technology does the Minister envisage? If he is thinking of technology rather than pieces of paper, how effective is it? A few years ago, it was not nearly effective enough. The German trials of the technology a few years ago proved it to be about 95 per cent. effective—I am speaking from memory, but that figure is more or less accurate. Can the Minister envisage the uproar that there would be in this country if 5 per cent. of all congestion charges levied were shown to be inadmissible and wrong? The Minister must think about how effective the technology is.
  How would the system be enforced? There is no point in having congestion charging unless it is enforced. Who would do it? How many extra people would have to be employed, and at what cost? Does the Minister have any idea whether enforcement would be immediate or subsequent to the event?
  That leads me to my next question. How can the Government square enforcement policy with their commitment to the privacy of the individual? The Government must have an enforcement policy. If they acted, at least in part, subsequent to the event, what would the privacy implications be? How intrusive in the life of individuals are the Government prepared to allow the state to be in support of congestion charging?

  1049
  What work have the Government done on the economic consequences of congestion charging for shops and businesses that suddenly found themselves inside an area? Does the Minister believe that congestion charging would have no effect, some effect or a large effect on their business? Does he know? Does he care? What would be the likely effect on property prices or private leasehold arrangements? Would those affected be eligible for compensation, and who would pay it? The Government do not have answers.
  Who would administer the scheme? What would it cost? The Government would want to take credit for supporting the old and the disabled, so presumably they would be given exemptions.
  Mr. Jenkin: We tabled amendments in Committee for such exemptions, but none of our amendments was accepted.
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: I should have known that and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling me. The Government mouth support for the old and the disabled, but they are not prepared to make legislative provision for them. Perhaps that is because they understand that the administrative costs of exemptions would be enormous. What about occasional visitors to a town or city? How would they be dealt with?
  If the Government are interested in electronic technology, they must tell us who would pay for the installation of all the electronic equipment in every car, van, bus, truck and, for all I know, motorcycle in the land. Would the Government pay? Would people be able to reclaim the money? Would they be able to offset it against tax? The Government have no idea.
  The Minister looks at me quizzically. He is beginning to understand that when he talks about congestion charging and tries to encourage some of his more gullible party members in other parts of the country to introduce it locally, he does not begin to realise the ramifications.
  Mr. Raynsford: I would not want the right hon. Gentleman to labour under any illusions. I remind him that the basis of the scheme is that the issues that he has raised are to be determined locally. He might remember the time when he was Secretary of State for Transport. The Government at that time appeared to be rather interested in the scheme. Why has he done an about-turn since he left office?
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: I am deeply grateful to the Minister; I was hoping that he would get up and say that. In preparation for his doing so, I went to the Library today to re-read my evidence to the Select Committee on congestion charging in London on 1 February 1995. The Minister did not even know that I gave evidence. He has no idea what that evidence was. The Under-Secretary knows, because he questioned me. The Minister could have saved himself a good deal of embarrassment if he had asked his hon. Friend before he got up to ask that question.
  His hon. Friend, or the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich, could have told him that the hon. Lady—with all the courtesy with which she is traditionally
  1050
  associated—managed to convey to the Committee that this Secretary of State was pretty unimpressed with charging. He did not say that it would not be Government policy, because he repeatedly said that the research was not in and that he would not make a judgment until he had all the information. I know that the hon. Lady remembers that, because we talked about this issue a few weeks ago and she went off and read the evidence. The Minister knows nothing about it. The Under-Secretary does, and he will not take me to task when he winds up.
  The Minister's second point was that all this is to be dealt with locally. Let every local authority leader in the country understand that before they get into congestion charging, these are the questions that must be asked and answered. There is no point in turning to the Government, because the Government are all mouth on this issue and do not begin to understand the ramifications of their policy.
  Mr. Raynsford: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the principle of collective responsibility? Will he remind the House whether he remained a member of the Government at a time—admittedly after he personally had ceased to be Secretary of State for Transport—when the Government issued a Green Paper suggesting that congestion charging was the right way forward? Did the right hon. Gentleman resign because of that?
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: No; he talked to his right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), the then Secretary of State, and he agreed a statement in the Green Paper that bears no resemblance to what the Minister has just asked. The difficulty that the Minister has is that I know what happened and what my view was. I know what my right hon. Friend's view was. I know what was in the Green Paper, and it was not the view that the Minister would have the House believe.
  I remind the Minister that it was a Green Paper; it was a judgment, taken collectively, that following the transport debate that I initiated there were still a number of outstanding issues to be resolved—certainly on this matter—before the Government could even make a decision. That is what a Green Paper is all about and the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich will recall that that is what I told her when I gave evidence on 1 February 1995.
  Mr. Clive Efford: I will avoid the temptation to remind the right hon. Gentleman of the cuts that he made in the road-building programme and the red route programme in London while he was Secretary of State. Would he care to comment on the actual wording of the Conservative Green Paper, published in 1996? It said:
  The Government will discuss with the Local Authority Associations what powers may be appropriate over and above those already available to them, for example to facilitate the introduction of congestion charging, area licensing, or taxing private non-residential parking.
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: A Green Paper said that there were more discussions to be had and more issues to be explored. That Green Paper came out of the evidence that I gave the Select Committee. The present Government have not produced any evidence, facts or understanding. They have had no dialogue with local authorities, except

  1051
  to say that they are frit and that they do not like the political consequences; in that they may be right. The Government will not do it—local authorities must do it, and take the opprobrium.
  What advice would the Minister give to those in the public and social services? Who will pay the congestion charges for school buses, district nurses or police vehicles? The list goes on and on. Does the Minister think that the charges should be levied by location, by distance travelled or by time spent? None of this is a matter of interest to the Government, because they do not care. They just want to find new ways to raise taxes.
  The Government are in favour of this ill-thought-through policy. It will be a damaging policy competitively, and it will reinforce in the minds of my constituents the fact that the Government hate the motorist. That is the ineluctable consequence drawn from the policy. I will also tell my constituents that the Deputy Prime Minister did not have the guts to be here to answer for himself.
  8.37 pm
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The first thing to remember when trying to plan a transport policy for the United Kingdom is that when people are in their cars, they want everything cleared away so that they can go past; that when they are fighting to get on a train, they want much better public transport; and that when they are walking by the road, they want to be safe and not at risk from any vehicle. I regard that as a perfectly normal and balanced view, even if it means that we occasionally have slightly unrealistic debates.
  I do remember the passages of arms that I had with the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) when he was Secretary of State for Transport. I also remember him giving hell to people who he felt had not supported him correctly after one of those sessions. I am also prepared to believe that he was exceedingly sceptical about congestion charging; however, his Government were not, and subsequent Conservative Ministers not only planned to bring forward congestion charging in some form but in the run-up to the general election had actually begun to prepare for it.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that it is difficult—almost impossible—to introduce congestion charging to deal with the amount of traffic on the road, but he knows that that is not true. Other countries have done it. Norway has a very effective congestion charging scheme. The Select Committee, to which he referred, which had a Conservative Chairman at the time, went to have a look at it. We saw that there were several different ways of implementing congestion charging.
  The right hon. Gentleman made an important point about the protection of privacy and ensuring that one does not impinge on the rights of people travelling in a vehicle whose number is recorded. The Norwegian authorities addressed that with great care. Their scheme was highly efficient and they recorded the number plates of vehicles going through congestion charging barriers, but they were also very careful to eliminate the faces of both driver and passengers, so that whoever was operating the system could not see them. The authorities had the number and could take action against the car that had breached the rules, but people's privacy was protected. The Norwegians had thought carefully about all the objections that the right hon. Gentleman raised.
  1052
  We know that congestion charging can be implemented efficiently and at very little cost. British firms were responsible for the electronic charging systems used in America. A British firm came up with the smartcard technology used in Virginia, and a British firm has been carefully selling systems throughout the world.
  There is no great technical problem to overcome. The real problem is political, which is why it is absolutely essential that local authorities should take the decisions. Authorities with mediaeval towns which are very attractive but have congested streets and are hard to get in and out of will want to consider seriously some form of charging as a way of at least slowing the rate of growth. Others that are perfectly capable of absorbing large numbers of vehicles, either by using park and ride or by providing alternative forms of transport, will be quite happy to let the natural evolution of the motor car develop in a different way. Congestion charging is achievable as one of the means of managing the growth of motor traffic. That is all it is: a management tool.
  What has been demonstrated today is that we have to think seriously about transport, and in terms other than, "Yah-boo, you rotten lot hate the motor car, and we love the bicycle", or, "We managed to get rid of the railway system, so it is not costing as much, but you want to run it down even further." Frankly, that is not a very high level of debate, and it does not do anybody much good.
  Rail privatisation was an unmitigated disaster. Only now, years after the destruction and the splitting of an old system into unmanageable fragments, are we beginning to pull it together into some kind of manageable, efficient system. It still suffers disastrously from the way in which it was privatised. The Conservative Chairman of a Conservative-dominated Select Committee thought that the method being used by the Conservative Government to privatise the railways was a disaster. He set out the way in which he thought that it should be done. He was not against privatisation, but was convinced that what was being suggested was unworkable. He proved to be absolutely right.
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: I agree that there is little value in revisiting what we did, but I am concerned by the hon. Lady's statement that rail privatisation was a disaster. Given the huge surge of investment, some of which has already been delivered and the rest of which will be delivered over the next few years, and given the huge increase in the number of passengers—bearing in mind the fact that for the previous 40 years, under nationalisation, it had gone down year after year—is not her judgment a little harsh?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: My judgment when it comes to men is frequently disastrous, but when it comes to transport I am rather better. I believe that rail privatisation was a disaster, and I use the word advisedly. Frankly, under privatisation, a very old system that was disastrously run down was not improved but made even worse. It is only the pressures brought to bear by—believe me—the customers that have begun to change the situation.
  Of course it is true that there are many more people riding on the railways, but it is also true that the interim years when we did not commission any new trains, buy any new rolling stock, plan any new lines or keep the existing lines up to standard proved truly disastrous.

  1053
  Those factors have resulted in trains providing unacceptable levels of service to passengers, and we are only now beginning to see the companies—after all this time—buying new rolling stock and improving the lot of the passenger.
  I hope that the Minister will forgive me if I do not address such delightful issues as congestion charges or what might happen in 2015, because what matters to me is the day-to-day running of the railways. Above all, safety is still high on the list of issues about which we should worry. We listen every day to the evidence being given by those who were in the appalling train crash in which so many people died. Many of the faults involved arose out of direct negligence by the company—investment had not been made, training standards had been allowed to fall and rolling stock had become run down. All those faults, which we have set out in detail, were contributory factors to that dreadful crash, including even the training of drivers and the lack of proper concern about the teaching of safety procedures to senior conductors.
  My simple plea to my hon. Friend the Minister tonight is that we are waiting for the safety company that Railtrack is supposed to have set up. I know that an announcement was made yesterday and I welcome that, because the chairman, Sir David Davies, is a remarkable man and will be a great asset. However, the company should have been set up some months ago. If Railtrack's licence requires modification, that should have been considered and changed. We do not need to hear from Railtrack about a wish list of billions of pounds to be spent on projects that it will frankly never achieve unless the taxpayer coughs up. It asks for many millions of pounds on spurious grounds, when it should have been bringing forward workable plans for the new railways safety company. By now, that company should have been staffed and given a budget. Railtrack should have come forward with criticisms of the existing facilities and with the ways in which the existing working practices were deficient. None of that has happened.
  I blame the management of Railtrack, of whom we have heard much in the past months. It is also part of the Government's responsibility to lean on Railtrack in a way that has not happened in the past. Railtrack's management knows that if it is to produce a high-quality railway, it must talk about the money that it intends to put in immediately. We do not need a 20-year plan that is entirely dependent on the taxpayer. Railtrack must admit unequivocally that it does not have the state-of-the-art safety measures that will save us from such a disaster in the future, and it should say how it intends to change that situation.
  Mr. Quinn: Does my hon. Friend share my real concern about the upgrade of the west coast main line, because Railtrack, its contractors and project managers are now having to recruit technical expertise from the Indian sub-continent? Is not that a symbol of what has happened to our railway industry's manufacturing base? Expertise has been lost and we have not replaced it with future investment.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: It is a marvellous irony that we, who built most of the Indian railways and supplied the
  1054
  engineers and expertise, are now—100 or 150 years later—having to go back and ask for assistance. I am glad that the Indian railway system is capable. When I look at some of our trains, I wonder whether we will end up riding on their roofs, as people in India do; I hope not.
  Some rail companies, worried about their franchise, come forward with the most wonderful plans and wish lists. Others, such as Railtrack, do not appear to deal with immediate or short-term problems but only say that they hope that things might be different in 20 years' time. That is not acceptable and it will not do.
  Recently, members of Railtrack staff were criticised in the tabloids for what was reported as some sort of drunken folly. Whether the story was true or not I do not know, but Railtrack managers made a clear statement that they expected people to be sacked over the incident. That is terrifying. Many people in Railtrack need to be shifted because of what happened to 31 people outside Paddington station. If that does not happen, we have got our priorities totally wrong.
  People who try to put the responsibility solely on the Government should remember that the private rail companies received their franchises in return for the promises that they made. Those promises were not simply general ideas; they were contractual responsibilities. If those companies do not fulfil those contractual obligations, no one will believe a word they say when they come forward for the new franchises. No matter how many glossy colour brochures are published by those companies, their plans will be examined in great detail.
  I hope that the Minister will answer some questions from me this evening. When will the rail safety company become operational? What will its responsibilities be? How many staff will it have, and how big will its budget be? Who will take the decisions?
  If railway safety is left in the hands of those who contributed to the Paddington disaster, the House will be guilty of complacency. In that case, it should consider where its true priorities lie.
  8.52 pm
  Mr. Tom Brake: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). I trust her judgment on transport, although hon. Members on the Government Front Bench may not always be so certain. We welcome this important debate. I am happy to speak to the Liberal Democrat motion and against the motion tabled by the Conservative motion.
  From what we have heard it is clear that the Government are failing in their transport policy. They came to office pledging to reduce the overall level of traffic on our roads. That pledge has been broken.
  The Government came to office planning to save the London underground. That pledge has been broken: London underground has not been saved, but a bill for at least £60 million in consultancy fees has been run up—with no guarantee that the public-private partnership will go ahead. The public sector comparator could still find the PPP financially unacceptable.
  The Government came to office promising that our air is not for sale—another transport pledge that has been broken.

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  However, even though the Government's record is one of delay, cancellation and the occasional U-turn, I can only admire the brazen opportunism and astounding collective amnesia exhibited by the Conservative party in tabling the motion before the House. Conservative Members seem to be suffering under a delusion that three years in opposition absolves them of responsibility for decisions before year zero of the new Labour regime. I am happy to remind them of their record on transport.
  It was the Conservatives who introduced the fuel duty escalator. It was the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who said, as we have heard already:
  Any critic of the Government's tax plans who claims also to support the international agreement to curb carbon dioxide emissions will be sailing dangerously near to hypocrisy.
  What we have heard tonight certainly qualifies as sailing dangerously near to hypocrisy, if not colliding with it.
  It was the Conservatives who first investigated the use of additional charges for road use in cities. In 1994, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), said:
  I do not expect to have people dancing in the streets in delight at the concept of road pricing but if you look at the environmental problems, you can see the impetus behind the policy and the necessity.
  It was the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), then Secretary of State for Transport, who said at his party conference in 1995:
  I believe the key is not to build lots more roads but to make more intelligent use of the ones we have.
  The Tory mayoral candidate, Steven Norris, said as recently as 1997:
  I take the view that you cannot pander to traffic growth.
  Steven Norris, unlike the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), does not rubbish plans to tackle traffic growth.
  After years of failed transport policies, during which the Conservatives were convinced that building more roads would solve congestion, they at last began to realise that that was not possible. They began to realise that the continued growth of road traffic was unsustainable. Even they noticed that motor vehicle traffic increased every year, according to the House of Commons Library, by a total of 75 per cent. They began to realise that despite the biggest road-building programme since the Romans, the condition of Britain's roads had deteriorated to the worst on record. They began to realise that with no alternative strategy, there would be no hope of keeping to internationally binding Kyoto agreements to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
  That insight, acquired during 18 years of government, was, regrettably, jettisoned within a matter of months of being in opposition in favour of a transport policy that is about soundbites and spin. It must have been dreamt up at a joyriders' convention. The Conservatives want to take us back 20 years in terms of transport policy, in a desperate attempt to shore up their support. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy), the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was right to attack the Conservatives recently for constantly proposing policies that they rejected in office. Their transport policy is just another example.
  The Conservatives say that they will publish a balance of account showing what the Government raise in transport taxes and how it is spent. That may be fine, but
  1056
  the Conservatives never did it in 18 years of government. The Conservatives say that they will improve road maintenance. That is all well and good but, again, after 18 years of Conservative government, the roads were in the worst condition on record.
  The Conservatives say that they will save the tube through privatisation, but forget that they never did so when in office. In fact, they created a maintenance backlog of £1.2 billion. Right hon. and hon. Members do not have to take my word for it. The hon. Member for North Essex said in the House:
  We did not do enough for the tube—I would be the first to acknowledge that—[Official Report, 27 January 1999; Vol. 324, c. 436.]
  The Conservatives say in their new rail policy that they will improve the railway service. We all support that. They will ensure that all passengers without a train seat travel for free, end the practice of running lesser services on Sundays and end long ticket queues. All that is missing from that list is a requirement for all railway staff to wear a baseball cap when they are available to be spoken to—or is it when they are not available to be spoken to?
  The Conservatives do not say how any of their proposals can be achieved; they certainly do not say how they will pay for them. They say that they will talk up the railway and encourage investment. That must be how they will pay for their promises. That is the size of their strategy for investment in the railway service that they privatised.
  As part of their fair deal for the motorist—or their joyriders' charter—the Conservatives propose allowing motorists to turn left on a red light, provided that it is safe to do so, to ease traffic flow. They will also be doing away with those irritating traffic-calming impediments. What is fair to the motorist will be fatal for the pedestrian.
  It is clear to Liberal Democrats that, regrettably, the Government have so far failed to honour their pledge to develop an integrated transport policy so as to fight congestion and pollution. They promised to reduce traffic overall—so far they have failed. They no longer even aim to reduce traffic; they accept that the number of vehicles on our roads will continue to rise and that the amount of traffic will continue to increase.
  In contrast, we are clear about the fact that traffic reduction is crucial to help us to meet our carbon dioxide emission targets. It is also crucial for business.
  The right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) referred to the costs of congestion charging schemes. That is a valid point, but he did not refer to the costs of congestion itself. The CBI estimates that it will cost industry about £20 billion a year—not an inconsequential sum.
  Traffic reduction is also crucial in the reduction of death on our roads and of death and ill health caused by air pollution. The right hon. Gentleman did not refer to the obvious costs associated with that problem.
  To sell off National Air Traffic Services in the face of opposition from pilots, air traffic controllers and more than 100 Labour Back Benchers is unnecessary.
  Sir Brian Mawhinney: The hon. Gentleman says that Liberal Democrats are in favour of reducing traffic. Will he offer us a small indication of how that might be done?
  Mr. Brake: I am happy to respond to that point. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, congestion charges

  1057
  may have a role to play—as would a substantial improvement in public transport, which would encourage people to switch to it from car use.
  I am happy to repeat the call for NATS to remain as a public company, allowed to raise funds for investment from the private sector.
  Liberal Democrats are clear—as are Londoners—that the state of the tube has worsened under the Labour Government. However, our answer is not the Conservative folly of privatisation, nor the Government's mish-mash of partial privatisation and fragmentation. Our response is to raise the finance needed to revitalise the tube system through the issue of bonds against guaranteed future revenue streams. I am sure that Susan Kramer—as London's transport supremo—will fight for that—[Interruption.] Does an hon. Member want to intervene? If not, I am happy to repeat that Susan Kramer is London's transport supremo.
  I hope that the Government will listen to the message that came across clearly at the recent elections for the Greater London Authority: Londoners do not want another rail privatisation fiasco on their hands—even only a partial one. I hope too that the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) will listen to Londoners and honour his pledges, and that he will not be tempted to compromise simply to secure his early return to the Labour party.
  I am a regular commuter on Connex South Central, whose representatives were willing to talk to my constituents about the future of rail services; it appears that the Go-Ahead group has decided to pull out of the arrangements. I confirm my party's support for the establishment of the Strategic Rail Authority. We believe that it will improve regulation on the railways, although its scope could have been widened to include other modes of transport. The existing remit of the SRA should be extended to cover the expansion of the rail network where appropriate. As a priority, the SRA should simplify ticketing throughout the network.
  In the wake of the Paddington crash, the public are still rightly concerned about safety. Immediately after the disaster, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that he was minded to remove the setting of safety standards from Railtrack. We supported him on that matter, but we were much less comfortable with his proposal, announced in February, that an independent subsidiary company of Railtrack should be responsible for transport safety. Railtrack should not be judge and jury on such an important matter.
  We remain concerned that there is still a considerable shortfall of funding for investment in the railways. Without the investment, there will be no improvement in the services promised by the Government. If they continue to reduce the amount that they spend on the railways, it is increasingly likely that it will be left up to the passenger to make up the difference. That is why we believe that the tapering of subsidies has to be called into question.
  Our tax plans reflect our transport priorities. We would invest in public transport first, securing a leap in the quality of public transport, and only then consider the introduction of congestion charges. We would abolish road tax on all cars of up to 1600 cc; this would be paid for by a small compensatory rise in the fuel duty. With
  1058
  two thirds of British drivers driving cars of 1600 cc or below, the majority of drivers would be better-off. The policy would also have the beneficial environmental effect of encouraging smaller engined cars. That is the right way to proceed.
  The debate about transport needs an infusion of honesty. The Tories' promises will come to nothing unless they are prepared to say where they will raise the finance to improve our transport infrastructure. In 18 years in government, they failed to invest in roads, rail and the London underground. Tonight, they have said nothing to make me believe that they will do any better next time. They are all mouth and no delivery.
  9.6 pm
  Mr. Peter Snape: I declare an interest: I am the chairman of Travel West Midlands, a subsidiary of the National Express Group, and I am a director of other National Express subsidiaries in the bus industry.
  Mrs. Gorman: Will the hon. Gentleman repeat that?
  Mr. Snape: The hon. Lady, who is not averse to dodging the rules of this place occasionally, asks me to repeat that; I am delighted to do so. I speak as the chairman of Travel West Midlands and I am the director of various National Express Group subsidiaries. I hope that satisfies her. My other interests—I am a member of the RMT—are in the Register of Members' Interests.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) will forgive me if I do not pursue most of the points that he made. However, I am inclined to agree with him about the future role of the Strategic Rail Authority. I shall return to that subject shortly.
  These are enormously depressing debates for those of us who have a long-standing interest in transport. The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) made a speech that I have heard umpteen times—so many times, particularly in Committee, that I would have thought he would have refined it by now, but he has not. He has done his usual disappearing act. He opened this debate by demanding the presence of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, and he opened the proceedings of the Committee stage of the Transport Bill by making exactly the same speech. He then did a disappearing act there. Of the 36 or 37 sittings of the Committee, he missed more than he attended. He has disappeared again tonight and it brings the House into disrepute when Opposition spokesmen behave in that way. The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) has been left to pick up the pieces and, no doubt, he will do that in his own adequate fashion. However, it is still a sad commentary on Conservative policy.
  Stale statistics have been trotted out. Usually they are the prerogative of the motoring organisations, the AA and the RAC. Although I have been a member of the AA for many years, it has never asked me for my views on the subject, but it still trots out the same old rubbish about £36 billion being raised in taxation and £6 billion being spent on the road network. There is some excuse for the AA; it is part of the motoring lobby. However, I do not think that there is any excuse for someone who purports to be a shadow Minister of Transport to trot out all those statistics.

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  As the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell) reminded us, there are more than 3,000 road deaths every year. Each one of them, as he again rightly reminded us, has a financial cost as well as a human cost—a point that was made by my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning. It costs about £1 million for each accident, so can we add that sum to the £6 billion that is spent? Can we add on to the £6 billion the £16 billion in congestion costs, which is the estimate of the Confederation of British Industry? Shall we add on all the police, court and legal time that is spent on the aftermath of the motoring offences committed? If we do so, the equation does not look too attractive, although it is beloved of motoring organisations and idle hacks on daily newspapers, who spend their lives driving cars and reporting that the ashtray is in the wrong place to guarantee that they will get another new car to test within three or four weeks.
  Surely transport receives better treatment than it is given in the House. I was disappointed by the speech of the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney), who did not come up with anything new. When a Conservative Government gave local authorities the power to impose residential charging schemes, some Tory backwoodsmen asked how that would affect shops and visitors to people's homes, as though an impossible barrier were being erected around residential areas. Those schemes have worked well, and some are in constituencies that have long been represented by Conservative Members.
  The right hon. Gentleman went through a list of road schemes that he said we are still considering. I am interested in one scheme in particular—the Hazel Grove bypass around Stockport. I do not represent that part of the world, but I come from that area. I remember, as a councillor on Bredbury and Romiley urban district council—that ages me somewhat—taking part in a debate in Stockport about that particular road. That was in 1971, so delays in building roads are nothing new and did not start on 1 May 1997.
  I come now to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). Parliamentary privilege is precious to all hon. Members and should not be abused. Blaming Railtrack for Ladbroke Grove when an inquiry into that accident is taking place is an abuse of parliamentary privilege. I have no brief for Railtrack, but I hope that my hon. Friend will reflect that Railtrack did not design the offending layout at Ladbroke Grove; it was designed in British Rail days. Railtrack inherited the design in 1994, when it was still a public sector company.
  That design is pretty complex, but, goodness me, in my youth as a railway signalman the entry to most railway terminuses was guarded by a multiplicity of semaphore signals, and that was a pretty complex business. To suggest, as some of my hon. Friends occasionally do, that drivers have passed signals at danger only since the railway was privatised is to ignore a long history of railway accidents. Ladbroke Grove was an enormous tragedy, but we should let Lord Cullen decide who was responsible and make recommendations accordingly.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: My hon. Friend has chosen to accuse me of abusing parliamentary procedure, and I have to say that that is the first time in 30 years that anyone has said anything of the sort. I certainly believe that Lord Cullen
  1060
  must make his recommendations, but I am deeply concerned about the fact that straight after the accident, Railtrack gave certain undertakings about the immediate creation of a railway safety authority. I made that point then and I make it now, and I resent the suggestion that I am doing anything that in any way abuses parliamentary procedure.
  Mr. Snape: I stand by what I said, and my hon. Friend can resent what she likes. The future of the railway industry is done no great service by attacks such as those that have just been made, particularly when the Government have set up an inquiry to look into all the causes of the Ladbroke Grove disaster and to make proposals that will, I hope, be debated and accepted as quickly as possible.
  Another allegation is that Railtrack is unfit to investigate rail accidents or to have any responsibility for rail safety. If Railtrack does not do that, who will? It is easy to demand independent inquiries, but the technicalities of rail safety are complicated and people investigating rail accidents must have prior knowledge of the industry, track layout and how signalling is designed and installed. Finding someone who is independent and who has the knowledge to take on that responsibility on a day-to-day basis is no easy task.
  We ought to get away from the concept that, to us, everything that the previous Government did is automatically bad, and, to the Tory party, everything that the Government are doing is automatically bad. Those who work at any level in the railway industry deserve better from this House.
  I cannot understand the present-day Conservative party from the terms of the motion: a Conservative Opposition are denouncing a Labour Government for not spending enough public money on transport. I was always brought up to believe that the wicked Tories were against public expenditure, but somehow they have decided that there is some political mileage to be gained from hammering such spending on transport.
  I do not want to bore the House too much with my experiences, but I have seen lots of public money spent on the railway industry since the late 1950s when I began working in it. I have seen lots of public money wasted on it by Conservative Governments. I well remember the aftermath of the 1955 modernisation plan, when millions of pounds of public money was spent on wiring up railway sidings that had not seen a wagon for years. Overhead wires were provided for sidings that had gone rusty before I was born.
  I saw the Government of the day—a Conservative Government, I must remind the House—insist as part of that modernisation plan that railway locomotive purchase was spread as far around the country as possible. The result—I speak from memory, but I think that I am right—was 32 different types of diesel locomotives, many of which were in the knacker's yard in a decade because they were not any good. Is the Conservative party these days saying that all public expenditure is necessarily a good thing and that a Labour Government who look carefully at their expenditure priorities are misbehaving? I would have thought that the reverse would be true.

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  Can we get away from the philosophy that everything was wonderful when the railways were publicly owned and when they were privatised everything was appalling? I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich that the previous Conservative Government's system of privatisation was disastrous because it was introduced in too much of a hurry to get it out of the way before the then impending election.
  However, the system has one advantage now that it is beginning to settle down, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich said. At last, and for the first time in my life, the railway industry is out from under the dead hand of the Treasury. Before people are allowed to renew franchises, they will have to pledge some long-term investment in the industry—not something that we could ever get out of the Treasury.
  Again I refer to some of the disastrous mistakes following the 1955 modernisation plan—but we were lucky. I remember Peter Parker, as the chairman of British Rail, fighting desperately for a three-year investment plan in the industry, yet under franchising we can demand 20-year investment plans. The train operating companies do not just lease trains and run them; we can demand that they make improvements to infrastructure along the route that they have chosen to acquire. We could never do that in BR days.
  Indeed, more often than not, the first piece of expenditure to be cut by successive Governments—Tory and Labour alike—was capital investment in our public sector industries in general and our railway industry in particular. I remind the House of the saga of the west coast main line electrification and modernisation. We did the first bit from Crewe to Liverpool and Manchester in 1959 and the second bit from Euston to Crewe in the mid-1960s, but it took another decade to complete the bit from Crewe to Glasgow—I nearly said Edinburgh—where it stopped in those days. That was largely because the Treasury, under successive Governments, could never resist interfering with investment plans.
  Mr. Quinn: May I advise my hon. Friend that about 65 per cent. of all the design work with which I was personally involved in 18 years of working in the railway industry remains in some dusty drawer? I do not think that that is a reflection on my abilities as a designer, but it supports his point.
  Mr. Snape: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that those of us with practical experience of these matters can occasionally put politics aside and say that we have to start from where we are today if we are determined to have a better railway industry. There is no point harking back to the glory days—either pre-grouping, since nationalisation or beyond.
  Of course the Tories got it wrong in the mid-1990s because they were in such a hurry, but other countries that are privatising have learned from our mistakes. Australia, which is a case in point, takes the same view that many of us are coming round to: if the railway industry is left in the public sector, it is always subjected to the vagaries of the economy. I am not saying that the private sector is immune from those vagaries, but at least long-term investment plans are part of the railway hinterland in a way that they never were in the past. We ought to recognise that.
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  I wish that the Conservative party would grow up and participate in a proper debate. In other parts of the world—particularly other parts of Europe—these matters are not considered worthy of political discussion, and whether Governments are of the left or of the right, a basic transport infrastructure is accepted as necessary and something that has to be paid for in any civilised society. However, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) yesterday issued a press statement entitled "The new railway—serving the customer". As far as I am aware, no statement was made in the House, but I shall put that to one side.
  The hon. Gentleman made some sensible proposals—for example, that franchise terms should be reviewed if the franchisee does not live up to them. Hon. Members on both sides of the House would not argue with that, but occasionally he moved into the realms of fantasy. One paragraph, entitled "Standing is Free", says:
  For too long passengers, particularly on London commuter lines paying full fares, have found themselves having to stand. Train companies now need to grasp the fact that their product includes a seat. Selling a fare without the capacity to provide a seat is like selling a hotel room without a bed.
  Well, it is not, but that is what the hon. Gentleman says. He also says:
  In passenger speak, it is a "rip off".
  There is a good modern Tory term; the Tories would know all about that. He goes on:
  Therefore we would ask the SRA to introduce a new policy whereby after three years of a new franchise all customers unable to get a seat would be entitled to a refund.
  Administering that proposal should be great fun for somebody. It would mop up a few unemployed bureaucrats, I dare say, and there would be fun and games when the 8.47 from London Bridge arrived at Victoria and the passengers lined up to complain.
  What about the people who choose to get into the front coach of a train arriving at a dead-end terminus? Many do so, all over the country, to get ready for the off. Should we compensate them as well? My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich referred to the Indian situation, but that would lead to an overcrowding problem as people in one half of the train would stand on the roof, and on each other's heads, to qualify for a refund, while everybody else would demand breakfast because there was lots of space in the carriages.
  Someone ought to take the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells aside and teach him the facts of life, particularly if one remembers when the time came—not much more than a decade ago, and under BR and public ownership—to replace the diesel multiple unit fleet. A Conservative Government insisted that that could be done only if three-car DMUs were replaced with two-car DMUs. Now the Conservative party complains about overcrowding. If ever a railway industry was designed to be overcrowded, it was that which the previous Government left us.
  I hope that we can bring a little common sense to these debates. I am glad that the hon. Member for North Essex has returned to his seat. I hope that he will give serious and mature consideration to these matters instead of behaving like a red-nosed comedian without the red nose, particularly as he should obtain a new script from time to time. It is impossible to deliver the same jokes to the same audience all the time. I realise that the audience for these debates is not a great one, but those who attend regularly

  1063
  would appreciate his getting a new scriptwriter so that we could at least hold a sensible and grown-up discussion on the railway industry. People in the industry deserve better than the debates that usually take place in the House and they certainly deserve a lot better than the cliched and hackneyed nonsense that they hear from the hon. Gentleman.
  9.24 pm
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Unlike the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape), I am no expert on transport matters, although I declare an interest in that I have a brother who is a railwayman and is as passionate about and obsessed with railways as the hon. Gentleman is—and, of course, I used to be married to a Transport Minister.
  I know, however, that my constituents care more about transport today than they have at any stage since I have been their Member of Parliament. Among their heroes is my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin). He visited my constituency—as did every Conservative Minister with responsibility for transport—to witness one of the most shameful problems, the A3 at Hindhead, which is the only single carriageway stretch between London and Portsmouth, and contains the only traffic lights that the four Scottish roads Ministers would encounter if they travelled from Scotland to Portsmouth.
  My hon. Friend has identified and articulated my constituents' outrage at the fact that £17 out of every £20 that they spend on petrol goes to the Chancellor. My constituents include nurses, pensioners and school-run mums—people who have no option but to drive. In return for paying that exorbitant tax, they are asked to wait in their cars for hour after hour. It is a disgraceful situation.
  The Government recently produced a Countryside and Rights of Way Bill. It has been met with a hollow laugh in my constituency. The land involved locally is a special protection area under the European Union birds directive—a site of special scientific interest. However, all my constituents are confronted with is what my hon. Friend described as the "Carry On Consulting" policy.
  Local people were initially hopeful about the review of trunk roads. They were enthusiastic, and I myself participated, expecting the process to be straightforward. We thought that if the proper answers were given on safety, access, economic development, and routes to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight—all of which had been held up by the situation at Hindhead—our position would be approved. During the 18 years of Conservative Government the rest of the A3 was improved, effectively to motorway standard, but the Hindhead problem is appalling. "Carry On Consulting", because what was announced in the review of trunk roads, means further reports and discussion of whether tolls should play a part in the A3 Hindhead problem.
  My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex suggested that there were too few consultants to undertake the work. I am delighted to say that an excellent team, MVA, has undertaken it. It is clear that MVA will produce a textbook illustration of a place where tolls could never be used. Tolls would lead to more rat-running, and toll plazas would use more of what is internationally precious land. However, the Government have been given what they wanted—the opportunity for further delaying tactics. I am informed that even when the report is completed, it will
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  be submitted to the south-east England regional assembly. There will be more talking shops and more delay—and, presumably, the final result will land on the Government's desk shortly before a general election. My constituents are heartily sick of all this, and totally cynical about the device.
  Progress has been achieved in one respect. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) and I asked, on a monthly basis, for one of the 10 environment Ministers to visit Hindhead. At long last, after three years, the roads Minister has visited it, but this is an example of the way in which the Government behave. They do not govern for the many; they govern for their friends. It is disgraceful that it took three years for one of 10 Ministers to visit the site of the most serious problem in the south-east. I believe that the Government have no credibility on this issue. People are being taxed more, and are getting less.
  Those for whom I feel most sorry are people in the Highways Agency such as Paul Arnold, who has been there for 14 years, and Graham Hodgson, from Surrey county council, who have had to meet irate residents groups who were asking for traffic-calming measures and other palliative steps because of the Government's failure to discharge their responsibilities.
  This is a crucial route. I ask the Minister not to offer more consultation reports or talking shops, or to refer the matter back. At a time when people are paying more than ever before, this is a Government responsibility, and the Government should discharge it.
  9.29 pm
  Mr. Robert Syms: I start by declaring an interest. In the Register of Members' Interests, it is stated that I am a director of a family business that has some interests in transport. We may stray into areas that may by affected, so I hope that hon. Members accept that.
  We have had an interesting debate on a subject that is important for most of our constituents. It is a pity that more Back Benchers could not speak in the debate. All of us as constituency Members appreciate that the issue is dear to the heart of many Members because of the number of times that it comes up in surgeries and in letters, with people saying what they want.
  The debate was ably started by my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who set out an indictment of the Government's policies. It was chapter and verse; it was game, set and match. The Government have learned a lot about their policies from the impact that they are having.
  The Minister for Housing and Planning did his best to defend the Government on a difficult wicket. I think that we all acknowledge that defending the Government's policies on transport is not easy. He did it in his normal way, and he did his best. He said in his peroration that the Government were spending more and taxing less than the previous Government—and he kept a relatively straight face, so he did a reasonable job.
  The fact is that the Government are taking £36 billion from motorists. That is a lot of money—£8 billion more than when they came into office. One pound in every £7 collected by the taxpayer comes from motorists. As we have heard, of every £10 spent on petrol, £8 is tax.

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  For most people, a car is a necessity. Most people need one to work, to get to school, to go to hospital, to go to the supermarket and to undertake the ordinary tasks that hard-working families in communities must undertake. One gets the feeling in many of these debates that Members think that people with cars are fat cats with unlimited amounts of money, but many people find it difficult to run a car.
  Being hit by higher taxes under the present Government is bound to have an effect on the family budget, and, indeed, on people who are not necessarily the richest; some of the poorest people, and many of those who live in rural areas, will be affected. Sixty-nine per cent. of households own cars, but 85 per cent. of households in rural areas own them. The Government have hit them hard. Under Labour, the average motorist is paying £270 more a year for petrol than under the previous Government.
  Roads are key to any integrated strategy, because most people travel by road. Most goods travel by road. The Minister said that when we came to office, there were 70 cars per mile of road, and when we left, there were 100. That is a sign of Conservative success, of a more prosperous economy, with people able to buy cars. In many instances, those who in earlier times would not have been able to afford a car could do so. Many people have two cars.
  Mr. Snape: If 100 cars per mile of road is a tribute to Conservative party success, and the allegation in the debate is that there are even more cars on the roads and even more congestion now, is that a hallmark of Labour success, too?
  Mr. Syms: As we become more prosperous, it is evident that there will be more cars on the road. The way to deal with it is to increase capacity—to increase the value of the road system. People aspire to have a car. They work hard. They expect to be able to buy a car, so that they can have a better standard of living.
  Mrs. Gorman: Is my hon. Friend aware that statistics on the use made by each family of their cars show not that every car is on the road all the time, but that one or other of the cars is on the road at any one time? It is not true to suggest that congestion is caused by more cars on the road. It is caused by the run-down condition of the roads, which have been getting worse under the present Government.
  Mr. Syms: My hon. Friend makes a persuasive point. I hope that those on the Government Front Bench were listening. The fact is that £36 billion comes from motorists, but only slightly over £5 billion—about 15 per cent.—is being spent on roads. That is having a dreadful effect on our roads system. We experience log-jams and breakdowns. People who travel round the country to do their jobs have greater difficulty.
  What is the Government's big idea? What have they decided to do to solve the problems? In their long awaited Transport Bill, they have proposed congestion taxes and workplace parking. Brilliant. What does that mean? It means that the answer to the problems of our nation is more tax—to raise more money from more people.
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  In the 1998 spending review, the Treasury assumed that £1 billion would be raised by that method by 2005–06. The Minister said that the charge would be voluntary. That is an interesting comment, bearing in mind the fact that the Government are underfunding local authorities' spending on transport. I suspect that if the Treasury is making the assumption that £1 billion will be raised by the charge, all the pressure in the world will be put on local authorities. The Government will say to them, "You have the right to introduce this charge, and if you do not, why should we give you the money?"
  We have an interesting situation in London. The Labour party ran on a manifesto of no charges for four years. The Conservatives ran on a manifesto of no charges. At the first vote in the London Assembly, the Labour party took a different view. The public in London, especially those who voted, have been sold a false prospectus on congestion charging.
  Those who read the Evening Standard, as most of us do, will have seen the article "Commuter Watch 2000" in Monday's edition. It clearly says:
  The new Mayor is considering a £5-a-day congestion charge… But the blunt truth from our 3-month CommuterWatch survey of train, Tube and bus services is that the majority are as poor or even worse than when we tested them in 1997 and 1998.
  Who was in office in 1997 and 1998? Ministers often forget the fact, but it was them. They must accept responsibility for the situation in London.
  The Government are taxing more and delivering less. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) asked some extremely pertinent questions about congestion charging. I hope that the Minister will answer those questions when he winds up the debate, so that hon. Members can be better informed. I believe that congestion charging is a bad thing—but it will probably be a good thing for the Conservative party. We oppose such charges, and that will make a tremendous difference in the forthcoming election campaign. [Interruption.] There was a Green Paper and a discussion paper, but we never introduced charges.
  Looking at the implications, and having served on the Transport Bill, I have no doubt that the proposal is bad news for motorists, and bad news for town centres and urban areas that will be blighted by the taxation.
  Mr. Brake: Would congestion charging be bad for people's health?
  Mr. Syms: I do not think that congestion charging would make any difference to people's health. According to the study of road congestion charging in London, to reduce traffic by discouraging people who travel in those areas, the charge would have to be so high as to be politically unacceptable—as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire said.
  Congestion charging is another way of taking money out of people's pockets. The Government's policies have more to do with the Dick Turpin approach to politics: stand and deliver. Most people are having to pay more in tax. They stand in traffic throughout the country, no doubt wondering why the Deputy Prime Minister has not delivered what he said he would do before the general election.

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  There is no such thing as a painless tax rise. There is a cost to families, a cost to businesses, a cost to companies, and a cost to British businesses competing abroad. The Government have substantially added to those costs.
  Last week, an article in The Times said that the Government were considering charging people £5 for motorway journeys of less than 10 miles. Will the Minister give some clue as to whether that story is true, and where the Government intend to implement such charges? In urban areas, where people need to commute on motorways even for short journeys, such a charge would have an appreciable effect on the way in which people travel. It could easily drive people off the motorway network into other areas where extra traffic would not be acceptable.
  The road network consists of 226,779 miles. It is a great national asset, and it needs to be properly maintained because in the long term our country will benefit greatly if that asset can deliver a world-class economy. We have a road maintenance backlog on local roads alone of £5 billion. The road maintenance bill is rising by £1 billion each year for want of stitch-in-time maintenance. All that is having an impact on British competitiveness. The United Kingdom has 500 bypasses outstanding, and many communities suffer heavy through traffic. Many have been waiting many years for a bypass, and their hopes were dashed by the Government's action when they came to office and badly attacked the roads programme.
  Let us consider the position of motorists in Britain versus that of motorists in Europe. The AA's great British motorists 2000 study showed that in Britain we spend more time commuting, suffer the worst road congestion in western Europe, pay the most for petrol and diesel and for cars, are more likely to have our cars broken into, are least likely to find workable alternatives such as public transport or cycling, have a lower level of car ownership than in Europe, are highly taxed and receive the lowest return on investment in roads and public transport.
  The AA concluded:
  At the root of this depressing picture lies the crisis of investment. The pitifully low levels of money spent on the UK's crumbling transport infrastructure have weakened every link in the chain, from poor maintenance to bad day to day management.
  My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex set out the record of the previous Government very well. We should leave a large pile of pink ribbon and some nice scissors so that when Labour Members open schemes started by the Conservative party they can go along and snip the tape, and say, "Thank goodness for John Major and Margaret Thatcher." They contributed greatly to this country. We invested more than £26 billion in motorways and trunk roads. That was an important investment, and a sign of the priorities of the Conservative party on this important issue.
  As my hon. Friend has said, we introduced many schemes, including the docklands light railway, Manchester metrolink, Sheffield metro, the channel tunnel, the Heathrow express, the Jubilee line and the Croydon tramlink, the M25—I could go on and on about Conservative successes. The Labour Government are not going to match that, because, having badly cut the roads programme when they came to office, they sent any difficult or knotty problems off to be studied.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) said, that has often kicked such items into touch. Many of the multi-modal studies will
  1068
  come back well after the next general election. The Government will have time to kick the issues into touch. Endless studies are not the solution. We need action, and action is what people will get from the Conservative party. We need not more consultants but more people building roads and making a contribution towards the future of our economy.
  We have had an interesting debate. We heard an excellent speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire, who posed some pretty tricky questions that the Minister will have to answer. We heard an interesting spat between the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape), who is usually wheeled out on these occasions to give the same speech that we have heard in times past. We enjoy his speeches, and he made a memorable contribution when he said that privatisation of the railways had got rid of the dead hand of the Treasury.
  We heard a great deal from the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake), mainly about Conservative party policies. His speech seemed to owe more to the fact that he is in a Conservative-Liberal Democrat marginal seat than to anything to do with the debate. I urge his constituents to read his comments, because they only have to do so to realise that the Conservative party's attitudes are consistent with helping people and their families, and allowing people to have the freedom to make their own decisions.
  9.45 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): This has been a short but interesting debate. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) brought his usual transport expertise and panache to our proceedings.
  The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) made some effective criticisms of the previous Government and ground a few of the usual Liberal Democrat axes about the current Administration.
  The right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) raised a specific issue, on the A3 through Hindhead. I appreciate that that has been a serious problem for many years—including the Conservative years, when she was a Secretary of State. It is tempting to ask her what she did about it then.
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Hill: No. The right hon. Lady has had her opportunity to speak, and I am responding to her speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] I am responding to her speech.
  The roads-based study into whether the environmental and economic benefits of the preferred scheme can be delivered by a contribution from charges on road users is on-programme to report by the end of 2000. It is inappropriate for Ministers to comment further on the way forward for the preferred scheme until the report of the study and the advice of the regional planning body is received by the Secretary of State.
  Miss Anne McIntosh: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Hill: I am afraid that I just do not have time. The hon. Lady has also not been in the Chamber for most of the proceedings, and I am responding to specific questions asked by those who took the trouble to stay in the Chamber and participate in the debate.
  Miss McIntosh: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I simply wish to set the record straight. I was here until 9.10 pm and sat through the whole debate, except for 20 minutes.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): That is not a matter for the occupant of the Chair.
  Mr. Hill: My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) asked when a separate rail safety company will be established. The answer is autumn 2000. The Health and Safety Executive and the rail regulator have to go to consultation. The Rail Regulator's consultation will begin next week, and the Health and Safety Executive's consultation started last week. I hope that that is helpful to my hon. Friend.
  Miss McIntosh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hill: I will.
  Miss McIntosh: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his incredible generosity. On the roads issue, is he not embarrassed that, today, the British Road Federation said that the Government would have to spend more than 80 per cent. more than their projected spending to keep up with the rest of the Europe?
  Mr. Hill: I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning the British Road Federation. If I have time, I intend to deal precisely with its proposals, and the effect of those proposals on the Opposition's transport policy.
  We had a long speech from the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney). Although I am grateful for his flattering remarks—who would not be?—I thought his speech smacked a little of self-exculpation. It was he who, as Secretary of State, broke the growing consensus in favour of congestion charging that had developed under his predecessors and was continued by his successor, the now shadow Leader of the House. Alas, that consensus has now been broken by Opposition spokesmen, for entirely opportunistic reasons.
  The right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire asked me many questions. I do not have time to answer them all, but I shall summarise the answers to his most important questions. First, the purpose of congestion charging is traffic reduction, in the interests of the economy, the environment and public health.
  Secondly, of course the Government—like the previous Government—have conducted studies on the level of congestion charges and their likely effects on traffic. The latest one was the road congestion charging in London study, focusing on central London, which the right hon. Gentleman can consult in the Library.
  1070
  Thirdly, of course congestion charging is not a form of taxation. The Government have made it clear that the proceeds of charges will be ring-fenced for local transport investment and that there will be no cuts in Government financial support for local transport authorities.
  Finally, I find it absurd of the right hon. Gentleman to accuse the Government of hating the motorist. That comes from a Tory former Secretary of State for Transport and a leading member of a Government who brought in the automatic fuel duty escalator and increased fuel tax from 7p to 42p a litre. What could be more anti-car than that? The Conservative Government invented road congestion. They started with 70 cars per mile, spent £70 billion on new roads and ended up with 100 cars per mile. That is not success; it is congestion. What could be more anti-car than that? The Conservatives cut road maintenance by 9 per cent. over four years and left Britain's motorway and trunk road network in its worst state of maintenance since records began. What could be more anti-car than that?
  In 1997, we inherited a crumbling transport system that failed to provide real choice, with poorly maintained and congested roads, cowboy bus services and a fragmented, stunted rail system that lacked strategic management and direction. We inherited an endangered environment and a contempt for the concept of transport integration. The Conservative legacy was no plans, no purpose and a lack of investment because of boom-bust economic incompetence. That boom-bust incompetence led in one year, between 1992 and 1993, to a massive 25 per cent. cut in core investment in London Underground—the largest single cut in any line of Government expenditure in the 1990s. That was typical of the Tories' irresponsible approach to investment in transport. It takes years to deliver major projects and real improvements to passengers, drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. We are still suffering from that legacy of neglect.
  We have heard many alleged statistics on transport spending. Let me remind the House of the real facts. There is no disputing the fact that, under the previous Government, expenditure on transport was set to fall. In their last published plans, set out clearly in the Conservative Government's transport report 1997, forecast total transport spending was scheduled to fall from £5.2 billion in 1997–98 to £4.3 billion in 1999–2000—a planned cut of £1 billion over three years. These are the real facts.
  Following the comprehensive spending review, we announced an extra £1.8 billion for local and public transport and road maintenance. That included £700 million more for local authorities' local transport plans and to restore cuts in the maintenance of their principal roads; more than £400 million extra for new spending on the trunk road and motorway network, with priority given to the maintenance of the existing trunk road network, and to making better use of it; more than £300 million extra for new investment in the railway industry, including extra support for the channel tunnel rail link, on top of the annual subsidy of more than £1 billion to rail operators for existing rail franchise contracts; and £300 million more for local bus services.
  That is not all. Since then, we have announced a further £517 million to modernise the London underground, a £755 million local transport plan settlement for 2000–01,

  1071
  with more than £1 billion extra to come next year, and an extra £280 million for transport in this year's Budget statement.
  As a result of that extra cash, in 1999–2000, more than an extra £1 billion was spent on transport than was planned by the previous Administration for the same year: £5.3 billion against a previously planned £4.3 billion. That is a fact. If I might say so, it is not a killer fact, but a living, breathing, joyous fact of which the Government are proud. It is an extra £1 billion more than was planned by the Conservatives.
  Of course, that is only part of the story of growth in investment in transport in the Labour years. Because we believe in partnership—and because the private sector believes in our commitment to stability and growth in transport investment—we have given encouragement to the private companies in public transport to invest massively in better services for the travelling public. There has been a 50 per cent. growth in private sector spending on transport between 1997 and 2000 from £2.6 billion to £4.2 billion and a further 50 per cent. increase to £6.2 billion is projected over the next two years. These are the facts—the real facts.
  Against this impressive record of commitment to the nation's transport system, what is the Tory alternative? What is on offer from the commonsense revolution? For enlightenment, I turn to that seminal document, "Bringing Common Sense to Your Local Council" with its "Five Key Pledges". I seem to have heard of that one before—highly original.
  What is the key pledge on transport? It is No. 3—"no new taxes". That is also highly original. What do we find among the Tory promises? First, "Much better public transport"—but no new taxes. Then there are
  New park and ride schemes,
  but no new taxes.
  More secure and cheaper parking places,
  but no new taxes.
  New roads where they are needed,
  but no new taxes. More bypasses, but no new taxes. More road-widening and improvements, but no new taxes. Last but not least, "Better road surfaces" but, of course, no new taxes.
  Is it just me, or is there a problem here? Isn't there just a small problem of where the money is coming from? Even if the shadow Transport Minister, the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), cannot see it, I rather suspect that his trusty sidekick, the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms), can. After all, on 13 April, he launched the Conservative roads consultation programme. The news release was headed:
  Conservatives show the road ahead
  —another original title.
  At that launch, the hon. Member for Poole declared:
  Today I am asking everyone who has to use the road to write to me and tell me what are the worst roads in the north-east.
  Why the north-east only, and how many actually wrote to the hon. Gentleman, are fascinating moot points. He continued:
  I want to hear about the roads that need widening, badly maintained roads and clogged towns and villages that need a bypass. This will allow the next Conservative Government to put together a roads programme that addresses the real needs of the travelling public.
  1072
  The hon. Gentleman goes on to quote with approval the British Roads Federation which, he says, has claimed
  that the Government will need to spend an additional £4 billion per year on maintaining and improving our road network to deliver a transport system that will rival the best in Europe.
  So now we know that the Opposition are committed to spending £4 billion a year extra on the roads—but no new taxes. Frankly, the sums just do not add up. They do not make sense—not even common sense. There is no way the Tories will succeed in foisting their ill-conceived and half-baked transport plans on the British public.
  Mr. James Arbuthnot rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 130, Noes 349.

  Division No. 207]

  [9.59 pm

  AYES

  Amess, David

  Greenway, John

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Grieve, Dominic

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Baldry, Tony

  Hammond, Philip

  Bercow, John

  Hawkins, Nick

  Blunt, Crispin

  Hayes, John

  Boswell, Tim

  Heald, Oliver

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

  Horam, John

  Brady, Graham

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Brazier, Julian

  Hunter, Andrew

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Burns, Simon

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Cash, William

  Key, Robert

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Clappison, James

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Letwin, Oliver

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Lidington, David

  Collins, Tim

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Loughton, Tim

  Cran, James

  Luff, Peter

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Day, Stephen

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Evans, Nigel

  Madel, Sir David

  Faber, David

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Fallon, Michael

  Maples, John

  Flight, Howard

  Mates, Michael

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Maude, Rt Hon Francis

  Fox, Dr Liam

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Fraser, Christopher

  Moss, Malcolm

  Gale, Roger

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Garnier, Edward

  Norman, Archie

  Gibb, Nick

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Gill, Christopher

  Ottaway, Richard

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Paice, James

  Gray, James

  Paterson, Owen

  Green, Damian

  Pickles, Eric

  1073

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Prior, David

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Tredinnick, David

  Robathan, Andrew

  Trend, Michael

  Robertson, Laurence

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Viggers, Peter

  Ruffley, David

  Walter, Robert

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Waterson, Nigel

  shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Wells, Bowen

  Shepherd, Richard

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Whittingdale, John

  Soames, Nicholas

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Wilkinson, John

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Wilshire, David

  Spring, Richard

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Steen, Anthony

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Streeter, Gary

  Swayne, Desmond

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Syms, Robert

  Mr. John Randall and

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Mrs. Eleanor Laing.

  NOES

  Ainger, Nick

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Alexander, Douglas

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Allan, Richard

  Cann, Jamie

  Allen, Graham

  Caplin, Ivor

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Casale, Roger

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Caton, Martin

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Ashton, Joe

  Chaytor, David

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Chidgey, David

  Austin, John

  Clapham, Michael

  Ballard, Jackie

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Barnes, Harry

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Barron, Kevin

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Beard, Nigel

  Clelland, David

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Clwyd, Ann

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Cohen, Harry

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Coleman, Iain

  Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

  Colman, Tony

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Connarty, Michael

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Cooper, Yvette

  Benton, Joe

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Corston, Jean

  Berry, Roger

  Cox, Tom

  Best, Harold

  Cranston, Ross

  Blackman, Liz

  Crausby, David

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Blizzard, Bob

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Blunkett, Rt Hon David

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Darvill, Keith

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Brake, Tom

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Davidson, Ian

  Breed, Colin

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

  Denham, John

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Browne, Desmond

  Dobbin, Jim

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Burden, Richard

  Doran, Frank

  Burgon, Colin

  Dowd, Jim

  Burnett, John

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Burstow, Paul

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Edwards, Huw

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Efford, Clive

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Ennis, Jeff

  Etherington, Bill

  1074

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Khabra, Piara S

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Kidney, David

  Fisher, Mark

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Flint, Caroline

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Flynn, Paul

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Laxton, Bob

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Lepper, David

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  Levitt, Tom

  Fyfe, Maria

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Gapes, Mike

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Gardiner, Barry

  Lock, David

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  McCabe, Steve

  Gerrard, Neil

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  Macdonald, Calum

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  McDonnell, John

  Godsiff, Roger

  McFall, John

  Goggins, Paul

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  McIsaac, Shona

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Grocott, Bruce

  McNulty, Tony

  Grogan, John

  MacShane, Denis

  Hain, Peter

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  McWalter, Tony

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Hancock, Mike

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Hanson, David

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Harvey, Nick

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Martlew, Eric

  Healey, John

  Maxton, John

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Meale, Alan

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Merron, Gillian

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Heppell, John

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Hesford, Stephen

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Hill, Keith

  Mitchell, Austin

  Hinchliffe, David

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hoey, Kate

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Hood, Jimmy

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Morley, Elliot

  Hope, Phil

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

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Mountford, Kali

  Hutton, John

  Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Mullin, Chris

  Illsley, Eric

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Jamieson, David

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Jenkins, Brian

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Norris, Dan

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Oaten, Mark

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Olner, Bill

  Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Öpik, Lembit

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Organ, Mrs Diana

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Pearson, Ian

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Pendry, Tom

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Perham, Ms Linda

  Keetch, Paul

  Pickthall, Colin

  1075

  Pike, Peter L

  Stevenson, George

  Plaskitt, James

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Pollard, Kerry

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Pond, Chris

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Pope, Greg

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Pound, Stephen

  Stunell, Andrew

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  Rammell, Bill

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Rapson, Syd

  Timms, Stephen

  Raynsford, Nick

  Tipping, Paddy

  Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

  Todd, Mark

  Rendel, David

  Tonge, Dr Jenny

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  Touhig, Don

  Rooney, Terry

  Truswell, Paul

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Roy, Frank

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  Ruane, Chris

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Tyler, Paul

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Tynan, Bill

  Salter, Martin

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  Sanders, Adrian

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Wareing, Robert N

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Watts, David

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Sheerman, Barry

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Willis, Phil

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wills, Michael

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Winnick, David

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  Wood, Mike

  Woolas, Phil

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Worthington, Tony

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Wray, James

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

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Snape, Peter

  Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

  Soley, Clive

  Wyatt, Derek

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Spellar, John

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Mr. Clive Betts and

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Mr. Robert Ainsworth.

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 308, Noes 163.

  Division No. 208]

  [10.16 pm

  AYES

  Ainger, Nick

  Bayley, Hugh

  Alexander, Douglas

  Beard, Nigel

  Allen, Graham

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Austin, John

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Barnes, Harry

  Benton, Joe

  Barron, Kevin

  Bermingham, Gerald

  1076

  Berry, Roger

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Best, Harold

  Blackman, Liz

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Fyfe, Maria

  Blizzard, Bob

  Gapes, Mike

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Gardiner, Barry

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Gerrard, Neil

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Godsiff, Roger

  Browne, Desmond

  Goggins, Paul

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  Burden, Richard

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Burgon, Cohn

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Grocott, Bruce

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Grogan, John

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Hain, Peter

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Cann, Jamie

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Caplin, Ivor

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Casale, Roger

  Hanson, David

  Caton, Martin

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Chaytor, David

  Healey, John

  Clapham, Michael

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Heppell, John

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Hesford, Stephen

  Clelland, David

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Clwyd, Ann

  Hill, Keith

  Cohen, Harry

  Hinchliffe, David

  Coleman, Iain

  Hoey, Kate

  Colman, Tony

  Hood, Jimmy

  Connarty, Michael

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Hope, Phil

  Cooper, Yvette

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Corston, Jean

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Cox, Tom

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Cranston, Ross

  Hutton, John

  Crausby, David

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Illsley, Eric

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Jamieson, David

  Jenkins, Brian

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Darvill, Keith

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Davidson, Ian

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Denham, John

  Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Dobbin, Jim

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Doran, Frank

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Dowd, Jim

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Khabra, Piara S

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Kidney, David

  Edwards, Huw

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Efford, Clive

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Ennis, Jeff

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Etherington, Bill

  Laxton, Bob

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Lepper, David

  Fisher, Mark

  Levitt, Tom

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Lock, David

  Flint, Caroline

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Flynn, Paul

  McCabe, Steve

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  1077

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Rooney, Terry

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Macdonald, Calum

  Rowlands, Ted

  McDonnell, John

  Roy, Frank

  McFall, John

  Ruane, Chris

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Ruddock, Joan

  McIsaac, Shona

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Salter, Martin

  McNamara, Kevin

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  McNulty, Tony

  Savidge, Malcolm

  MacShane, Denis

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Shaw, Jonathan

  McWalter, Tony

  Sheerman, Barry

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Mallaber, Judy

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  Martlew, Eric

  Maxton, John

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Meale, Alan

  Snape, Peter

  Merron, Gillian

  Soley, Clive

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Spellar, John

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Mitchell, Austin

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Moffatt, Laura

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Stevenson, George

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Morley, Elliot

  Stinchcombe, Paul

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

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Mountford, Kali

  Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Mullin, Chris

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Timms, Stephen

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Tipping, Paddy

  Norris, Dan

  Todd, Mark

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Touhig, Don

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Truswell, Paul

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Olner, Bill

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Organ, Mrs Diana

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Tynan, Bill

  Pearson, Ian

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  Pendry, Tom

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Perham, Ms Linda

  Wareing, Robert N

  Pickthall, Colin

  Watts, David

  Pike, Peter L

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Plaskitt, James

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Pollard, Kerry

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Pond, Chris

  Pope, Greg

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Pound, Stephen

  Wills, Michael

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Winnick, David

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Wood, Mike

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Woolas, Phil

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Worthington, Tony

  Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

  Wray, James

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

  Rammell, Bill

  Wyatt, Derek

  Rapson, Syd

  Raynsford, Nick

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

  Mr. Clive Betts and

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  Mr. Robert Ainsworth.

  1078

  NOES

  Allan, Richard

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Amess, David

  Hunter, Andrew

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Keetch, Paul

  Baldry, Tony

  Key, Robert

  Ballard, Jackie

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Bercow, John

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Blunt, Crispin

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Boswell, Tim

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

  Leigh, Edward

  Brady, Graham

  Letwin, Oliver

  Brake, Tom

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Lidington, David

  Brazier, Julian

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Breed, Colin

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Loughton, Tim

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Luff, Peter

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Burnett, John

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Burns, Simon

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Burstow, Paul

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Butterfill, John

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Cash, William

  Madel, Sir David

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Maples, John

  Chidgey, David

  Mates, Michael

  Clappison, James

  Maude, Rt Hon Francis

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Collins, Tim

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Norman, Archie

  Cran, James

  Oaten, Mark

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Öpik, Lembit

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Day, Stephen

  Paice, James

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Paterson, Owen

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Pickles, Eric

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Evans, Nigel

  Prior, David

  Faber, David

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Fallon, Michael

  Rendel, David

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Robathan, Andrew

  Flight, Howard

  Robertson, Laurence

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Fraser, Christopher

  Ruffley, David

  Garnier, Edward

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  Sanders, Adrian

  Gibb, Nick

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Gidley, Sandra

  Shepherd, Richard

  Gill, Christopher

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

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

  Gray, James

  Soames, Nicholas

  Green, Damian

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Greenway, John

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Grieve, Dominic

  Spring, Richard

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Steen, Anthony

  Hammond, Philip

  Streeter, Gary

  Hancock, Mike

  Stunell, Andrew

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Swayne, Desmond

  Harvey, Nick

  Syms, Robert

  Hawkins, Nick

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Hayes, John

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Heald, Oliver

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Tonge, Dr Jenny

  Horam, John

  Tredinnick, David

  1079

  Trend, Michael

  Wilkinson, John

  Tyler, Paul

  Willis Phil

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Wilshire, David

  Viggers, Peter

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Walter, Robert

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Waterson, Nigel

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Wells, Bowen

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Whittingdale, John

  Mr. John Randall and

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House welcomes the fact that the Government has substantially increased spending on transport from the levels planned by the previous Government; notes that this Government ended the automatic fuel duty escalator begun by the previous Government; deplores the previous Government's record of under-investment in transport, which left an investment backlog in important areas like road maintenance, rail and London Underground; notes that under the last Government the number of cars per mile of road went up from 70 to 100, that yearly carbon dioxide emissions from road transport increased by 26 per cent. and that by May 1997 Railtrack was £700 million behind on its rail investment and maintenance programme; and welcomes the Government's approach on an integrated transport strategy which will be delivered by an integrated Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and its plans to increase spending and modernise the transport system further through its Ten Year Plan for transport investment.
  Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The next item that we are due to consider is a consolidation Bill, under Standing Order No. 58. That, in turn, rests on Standing Order No. 140(3), which states that such Bills are considered by some mysterious Committee that apparently must have a quorum of two. Are you satisfied that such a Committee will provide the House with sufficient protection? It appears that we are confronted, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, with a Bill that could be significant or complicated, but which may be considered by a Committee that is quorate with only two Members. Are you satisfied that that is in order?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): It is not my responsibility to comment on such Standing Orders; it is my duty to ensure that they are correctly applied.

  POWERS OF CRIMINAL COURTS (SENTENCING) BILL [LORDS]
  Order for Second Reading read
  Motion made and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 58 (Consolidation Bills), That the Bill be now read a Second Time.—[Mr. Clelland.]
  The House divided: Ayes 325, Noes 6.

  Division No. 209]

  [10.32 pm

  AYES

  Ainger, Nick

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Alexander, Douglas

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Allan, Richard

  Austin, John

  Allen, Graham

  Ballard, Jackie

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Barnes, Harry

  1080

  Barron, Kevin

  Doran, Frank

  Bayley, Hugh

  Dowd, Jim

  Beard, Nigel

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Edwards, Huw

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Efford, Clive

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Benton, Joe

  Ennis, Jeff

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Etherington, Bill

  Berry, Roger

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Best, Harold

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Blackman, Liz

  Fisher, Mark

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Blizzard, Bob

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Flint, Caroline

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Flynn, Paul

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Brake, Tom

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Fyfe, Maria

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Gapes, Mike

  Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

  Gardiner, Barry

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  Browne, Desmond

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Gerrard, Neil

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Burden, Richard

  Gidley, Sandra

  Burgon, Colin

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  Burnett, John

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Burstow, Paul

  Godsiff, Roger

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Goggins, Paul

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Grogan, John

  Cann, Jamie

  Hain, Peter

  Caplin, Ivor

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Casale, Roger

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Caton, Martin

  Hancock, Mike

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Hanson, David

  Chaytor, David

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Clapham, Michael

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Healey, John

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Clelland, David

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Clwyd, Ann

  Heppell, John

  Cohen, Harry

  Hesford, Stephen

  Coleman, Iain

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Colman, Tony

  Hinchliffe, David

  Connarty, Michael

  Hoey, Kate

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Cooper, Yvette

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Hope, Phil

  Corston, Jean

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Cox, Tom

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Cranston, Ross

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Crausby, David

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Hutton, John

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Illsley, Eric

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Jamieson, David

  Darvill, Keith

  Jenkins, Brian

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Davidson, Ian

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

  Denham, John

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Dobbin, Jim

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  1081

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Pollard, Kerry

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Pond, Chris

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Pope, Greg

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Pound, Stephen

  Khabra, Piara S

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Kidney, David

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

  Laxton, Bob

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Lepper, David

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Levitt, Tom

  Rammell, Bill

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Rapson, Syd

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

  Lock, David

  Rendel, David

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  McCabe, Steve

  Rooney, Terry

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Roy, Frank

  Macdonald, Calum

  Ruane, Chris

  McDonnell, John

  Ruddock, Joan

  McFall, John

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  McIsaac, Shona

  Salter, Martin

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Sanders, Adrian

  McNamara, Kevin

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  McNulty, Tony

  Savidge, Malcolm

  MacShane, Denis

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Shaw, Jonathan

  McWalter, Tony

  Sheerman, Barry

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Mallaber, Judy

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Martlew, Eric

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Maxton, John

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

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

  Meale, Alan

  Snape, Peter

  Merron, Gillian

  Soley, Clive

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Spellar, John

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Mitchell, Austin

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Moffatt, Laura

  Stevenson, George

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Morley, Elliot

  Stoate, Dr Howard

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

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Stunell, Andrew

  Mountford, Kali

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Mullin, Chris

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Norris, Dan

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Oaten, Mark

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Timms, Stephen

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Tipping, Paddy

  Olner, Bill

  Todd, Mark

  O'Neill, Martin

  Touhig, Don

  Öpik, Lembit

  Truswell, Paul

  Organ, Mrs Diana

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  Pearson, Ian

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Perham, Ms Linda

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Tyler, Paul

  Pike, Peter L

  Tynan, Bill

  Plaskitt, James

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  1082

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Wood, Mike

  Wareing, Robert N

  Woolas, Phil

  Watts, David

  Worthington, Tony

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Wray, James

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Willis, Phil

  Wills, Michael

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Winnick, David

  Mr. Clive Betts and

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Mr. Mike Hall.

  NOES

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Paterson, Owen

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Robertson, Laurence

  Mr. Eric Forth and

  Soames, Nicholas

  Mr. Edward Leigh.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 58 (Consolidation of Bills),
  That the Bill be not committed.—[Mr. Clelland.]
  Question agreed to.
  Read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: In that case, I shall put the Questions separately.

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
  DELEGATED LEGISLATION

    TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
    That the draft Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, which were laid before this House on 3rd May, be approved.—[Mr. Clelland.]
    Question agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

    LONDON GOVERNMENT
    That the draft Greater London Authority (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 19th April, be approved.—[Mr. Clelland.]
    Question agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

    CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
    That the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Functions) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 8th May, be approved.—[Mr. Clelland.]
    Question agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

    CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
    That the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 8th May, be approved.—[Mr. Clelland.]
    Question agreed to.

  PETITIONS

    Post Offices (North-West Leicestershire)
    10.44 pm
    Mr. David Taylor: As a member of a family who ran the post office in my home village for most of the last century, I am well aware of major concerns about the future of sub-post offices in communities throughout North-West Leicestershire, including those from the Meadow Lane area of Coalville and from the village of Packington. There are 822 petitioners from North-West Leicestershire who believe that sub-post offices are under threat, and could be forced to close by Government changes in the way in which state benefits are paid. The petition states:
    The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons do take whatever action may be necessary to secure the future of the sub post office network in North West Leicestershire and the United Kingdom.
    And the petitioners remain etc.
    It is a pleasure and a privilege to present the petition to Parliament on behalf of North-West Leicestershire petitioners.
    To lie upon the Table.

    Public Swimming Pools
    10.45 pm
    Mrs. Louise Ellman: The petition, which has been signed by approximately 2,000 people, calls for better regulation and enforcement of safety in swimming pools that are used by the public. It arises from the tragic deaths of two of my constituents, Vanessa Gregson and Tsham Kamara aged 19 and seven, at Honeycomb manor park in Cornwall on 20 May 1999. I hope that the petition results in improved safety at our swimming pools. The petition of residents of Liverpool
    declares that the deaths of two Liverpool girls in a holiday swimming pool could have been prevented by a tighter regulatory framework on swimming pools and its proper enforcement.
    The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions to introduce new strict regulations on swimming pools to provide for the vigorous enforcement of these laws and to establish very serious penalties for any pool owner who breaches them.
    And the petitioners remain etc.
    To lie upon the Table.

    Gammahydroxybutyrate
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Clelland.]
    10.46 pm
    Mr. Ben Chapman: I am delighted to have secured the Adjournment debate on this important subject. For some time, I have had concerns about the drug gammahydroxybutyrate, which I shall call GHB. Its use and availability represents a serious danger. It should be reclassified as a class A drug for two reasons: first, because of its possible deadly effects when used as a recreational drug, particularly if mixed with alcohol or other drugs; and secondly, because of its use as a date-rape drug.
    The drug was first formulated in the 1960s by a French chemist, and was developed in the United States as a pre-surgery anaesthetic. For that reason, it was dealt with under the Medicines Act 1968, rather than the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. It has never been licensed in the UK for medicinal purposes. Only two companies, both in Germany, are licensed to manufacture the substance in the European Union. However, it is easy to make in kitchens, garages or wherever, once the precursor chemical gammabutyrolactone is obtained.
    The internet is packed with sites telling people how to mix the drug. It became more popular as a recreational drug in the 1980s. It was used by bodybuilders to promote muscle growth, and by athletes to provide a shorter recovery time between training sessions. It was also used as a sleep improver. It gained a reputation for offering a pleasant alcohol-like effect, but without a hangover. It also became known for its potent pro-sexual effects.
    By the 1990s, the drug was prevalent in the night club circuit in the United States and it became widely recognised as a dangerous drug there. It was recognised as such by the American police, who believed it to be cheap, easy to make, and affording vast profits to illegal drug suppliers. Indeed, its dangers came more and more to the fore when it was popularised in the United States television programme "ER", which featured an episode with two students mixing it with alcohol. Fortunately, although they fell into a coma, on that occasion they were saved by medics.
    The drug was banned in many states. It was, I am pleased to say, banned nationally by President Clinton on 18 February. He has now agreed to classify it as a schedule 1 drug, which is defined as having
    a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted use in medical treatment,
    yet we still regard it as a medicine. In the UK, GHB appears to be widely available on the pub and club circuit. As I have said, several internet sites detail how to make, buy and use it. Warnings are often given about the risks associated with mixing GHB with alcohol, but there are no warnings about the dangers of impurities that are often added to the illegally produced substance and can have serious side effects.
    Warnings are often wrong. One site states that too high a dose can result in a "harmless coma." How devastatingly wrong such a phrase is. The drug, commonly known as liquid gold or liquid ecstasy because of its ability to produce euphoria, albeit transiently, can cause cardiac arrest and stop people breathing, especially when taken in large doses.

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    Reports of the effects of GHB are at least consistent, in that they mention nausea, vomiting, convulsions, coma and respiratory collapse depending on the amounts taken. With alcohol its dangers increase. Taken with a few pints it can result in coma and death. There have been many reports of deaths in the United States. So far only four deaths have been reported in the United Kingdom, but that is four deaths too many.
    One of those deaths was that of a Wirral man, Ian Hignett, who was the son of constituents of mine. Ian was a 27-year-old working man with good prospects and a full life ahead of him. He was introduced to GHB by friends who believed that there was no danger in taking the substance. He was fit: he was a healthy sportsman. He worked hard during the week, and at weekends liked to unwind with friends with a few drinks and maybe visit a nightclub. He had had no connection with drugs before that night in December 1998 when he died. Like so many others, he just wanted a good innocent night out at the weekend with friends.
    As reported at the subsequent inquest, Mr. Hignett and his friends had taken a quantity of GHB on top of four cans of lager and a shared bottle of Aussie white. Ian felt unwell, lapsed into unconsciousness and died choking on his own vomit. The forensic report concluded from toxicology tests that the level of GHB in conjunction with alcohol was sufficient to be responsible for his death. The official cause of death is recorded as gammahydroxybutyrate and alcohol toxicity.
    Mr. Hignett's friends were luckier. Although affected by vomiting, they did not pass out. It is possible that Mr. Hignett took an impure dose, or that the quantity was greater than advertised on the canister. I am told that those are common occurrences.
    When recording a verdict of misadventure, the Wirral coroner was moved to say:
    This is a dreadful and unnecessary loss of life. I will invite the Home Office and Department of Health to give serious consideration to having the drug reclassified under the Misuse of Drugs Act. This is a matter of some concern.
    It is certainly a matter of concern to me.
    Mr. Hignett's mother, to whom I spoke yesterday, shares the view that I have just expressed. Recently, she made a similar plea in a local newspaper article.
    In addition to the deaths, there have been a number of near deaths across the country. The national poisons intelligence section of the Medicines Control Agency has seen calls from London to Lancashire, and from Hull to south Wales, relating to individuals who have suffered strong after effects from taking GHB, including coma. In 1998, seven people were taken to intensive care in Bolton on the same night following the usage of GHB. In my view, the evidence is clearly mounting up. The dangers of GHB as a recreational drug are becoming clearer all the time.
    I want to say something about the dangers of the drug in relation to date rape. The American experience shows that GHB is in the same bracket as the already proscribed Rohypnol. One of its effects is a marked increase in libido and a lowering of inhibition. Those facts are trumpeted across the internet.
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    The fact that GHB is available in a clear odourless form makes it lethal for the unsuspecting victim. In the USA, and I suspect in the UK, it has been used to sedate women before they are sexually assaulted. A few drops slipped into a drink can cause unconsciousness within 20 minutes, and victims often have no memory of what has happened. It is also difficult to detect, as it metabolises quickly in the body.
    A report in the January edition of Cosmopolitan magazine suggests that more than 1,000 women in the UK have reported being raped while drugged. Cosmopolitan claims that four out of five of those cases have GHB as their cause. The report highlights in disturbing interviews the horrific experiences of many victims.
    The view of Detective Chief Inspector Matthews of the Wirral division of Merseyside police, an officer who has researched GHB in some depth and to whom I am indebted, adds weight to the serious concerns when he says that GHB is more dangerous and more widely available than Rohypnol. I believe that a pattern is clearly emerging from the evidence of the past few years, both here and abroad.
    GHB has caused a number of deaths. There have been many near-death incidents and its use both recreational and as a date rape drug is increasing. It is slowly seeping into the consciousness of the public. Information and education to correct the misconceptions surrounding GHB must play a part. Many people who use the drug are not aware of its dangers. Ian Hignett certainly was not. Others read and believe what they see on the internet. Often, the information can be misleading or simply wrong. We must understand that the power of the medium can be marvellous when it disseminates good information, but that when it disseminates false information, it can be literally deadly. Many sites that promote GHB claim that it can improve memory, stimulate growth, reduce drug and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, reduce learning and hyperactive disability in children, relieve anxiety and even lower cholesterol. At the same time, they play down and do not mention the dangers—and dangers there are.
    Concern is rising, and I know from the answers to the many questions that I have asked in the House that those concerns are shared by the Government. I understand that there has perhaps been a lack of hard evidence. Much of the evidence has been circumstantial, and that is inevitably so. I understand, too, that the Government are proceeding on the basis of science, and I am not unhappy about that, of course. However, I await with great interest the results of the three studies currently being undertaken. I understand that the Home Office review of the law on sexual offences has been completed and that conclusions are close to publication. The Metropolitan police report sponsored by the Home Office on drug-assisted rape is also complete, I understand, and the launch is scheduled for 21 June.
    The recent referral, supported by the Government, of GHB to the European monitoring centre for drugs and drug addiction for a risk assessment is welcome news, and I know that its findings are expected to be concluded by mid-October. Such scientific studies are important, but there comes a time when studies need to stop and action needs to be taken, and October may be too long.
    With all that in mind, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that there is a speedy and positive response in terms of reclassification of GHB, should the results of the

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    studies or any other evidence suggest that such action is merited, as I am sure they will. I believe strongly that the evidence for proscribing the drug is becoming overwhelming, and that the sooner that it is banned, the better.
    10.58 pm
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Charles Clarke): I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) on securing this debate and on the powerful and effective way in which he has made his case this evening. I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to this debate. Drug misuse is an extremely important issue and my hon. Friend's interest in it has been substantial and long-lasting. We have corresponded on the matter for some time. He set out clearly the case that related to his own constituent.
    Let me begin by setting out the background. Gammahydroxybutyrate, or GHB, is a naturally occurring substance which is found in the brain of mammals. It is a white crystalline powder which dissolves in water to give a clear liquid. It is easily produced using the industrial solvent gammabutyrolactone and sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda. GBL is used in the synthesis of several other chemicals and is also used in the printing industry.
    GHB was originally developed in the United States of America as a pre-surgery anaesthetic. It has also been used for the treatment of narcolepsy, alcohol dependence and opiate dependence. It is in limited use in a number of European countries, for example France and Germany, as a surgical anaesthetic, and in Italy, to treat alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
    GHB first emerged as a drug of misuse in the United Kingdom in 1994. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South said, it is also known by other names, such as liquid ecstasy, and has been promoted in this country as a psychedelic substance, an aphrodisiac, an aid to weight loss and a sleep aid. It is also popular with body builders, as it is claimed that it stimulates the body's production of growth hormones.
    GHB has a stimulant effect if taken in small doses. Larger doses have a sedative effect and can cause nausea, vomiting, depressed respiration and heart rate, dizziness and unconsciousness. Combining GHB with alcohol or other drugs may, as my hon. Friend said, increase the incidence of adverse effects.
    The current controls on GHB are as follows. GHB is not manufactured as a licensed medicine in the United Kingdom, but the illicit manufacture, and advertisement for the sale of the substance fall within the scope of the Medicines Act 1968. It can be lawfully supplied only by a pharmacist in response to a doctor's prescription for a patient. The Medicines Control Agency investigates reports of the unlicensed manufacture, promotion and sale of GHB in the UK. In a moment, I shall say more about the agency's enforcement activities in relation to GHB.
    The Government keep drug misuse patterns in this country under review. By statute, the responsibility for providing the expert advice that informs that process rests with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. That advisory body was established by section 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The Act requires that the council must be composed of not fewer than twenty members; there are currently 33.
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    The disciplines represented within the council include medical practitioners, dentists, pharmacists, veterinary practitioners, chemists and experts with knowledge on the social effects of drug abuse. The council promotes research and monitors changing trends in drug abuse, but has a statutory duty to advise the Government on many issues affecting the misuse of drugs, including public education and preventative action. Any proposal to change the classification or scheduling of a substance requires prior consultation with the council.
    The advisory council has considered GHB on three occasions, most recently in 1998. The council found that GHB could cause acute health problems, particularly if taken with alcohol and drugs. However, the council concluded that GHB misuse was not widespread in the UK and did not present a sufficient social problem to warrant control under the 1971 Act. Nevertheless, as GHB could lead to acute health problems for some misusers, the council recommended that a number of other measures should be taken. It recommended that the Medicines Control Agency should be asked to increase enforcement action against illicit manufacturers and suppliers, and that more targeted health education material should be made available about the adverse effects of GHB. The council also recommended that GHB misuse should continue to be monitored.
    Action has been taken on all of those fronts. The Medicines Control Agency, in conjunction with the National Criminal Intelligence Service, has formulated a control strategy and agreed an action plan regarding criminal activity associated with GHB. The strategy includes initiatives to increase awareness, optimise intelligence and tackle the supply and demand for the product.
    I shall describe some of the actions that have been taken. First, a joint MCA and NCIS briefing document was issued to the Police Force Intelligence Bureau across the UK, to raise the profile and awareness of GHB.
    Secondly, a similar briefing document was issued to trading standards and environmental health officers.
    Thirdly, briefings have been given to the Inter-Agency Drugs Intelligence Group, Europol and police training courses.
    Fourthly, a number of visits have been made to chemical companies to brief them about GHB. The companies were advised about suspicious orders and the potential diversion of GBL—which is the second drug that I mentioned.
    Fifthly, the MCA has sought international co-operation and exchanged intelligence with the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate and the United States Food and Drug Administration.
    I shall also describe some of the actions that have been taken to reduce supply and demand. First, MCA officers have undertaken a proactive enforcement exercise involving a number of retail premises in Soho. Advice has been issued to retailers, and on-going compliance checks have subsequently been made. That has involved close co-operation with the Metropolitan Police clubs and vice unit.
    Secondly, the MCA has established a special inquiry unit to assess the advertising and supply of medicinal products on the internet. The unit is initially targeting several internet advertisers and suppliers of GHB, and, when appropriate, will be liaising with overseas drug regulatory authorities tackling its importation.

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    Thirdly, in an effort to curb the advertising of GHB in various publications across the UK, the Committee of Advertising Practice, in co-operation with the MCA, released an advertising alert to its members. The alert reminded the press that it was illegal to advertise GHB.
    Fourthly, since 1995, the MCA has mounted 10 successful prosecutions representing 23 charges of offences under the Medicines Act 1968.
    As my hon. Friend said, drug rape has featured prominently in public debate recently. GHB is not the first drug to be associated with drug rape and there has been some irresponsible reporting in the media of what purport to be facts. Before the link with GHB, drug rape was principally associated with the drug flunitrazepam, more commonly known as Rohypnol. The publicity surrounding the possible use of Rohypnol in cases of drug rape led to it being reformulated by the manufacturer. In fact, Rohypnol has not been detected in any suspected drug rape samples submitted by the police to the forensic science service.
    However, as my hon. Friend said, GHB has been identified in four samples featured in two cases in the past year. The scientific difficulty is that GHB is rapidly expelled from the body and may not be detectable beyond eight hours after ingestion, but the experience with Rohypnol warns us that it is important to be certain about the facts before seeking to react.
    Rape is an extremely serious offence and it is important that the Government have a clear understanding of the extent of the drug rape problem. That is why the Home Office sponsored a Metropolitan police research initiative into drug-assisted rape, which is due to be concluded shortly. Ministers will consider the findings and recommendations of the study and the information will also be made available to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
    There is an international dimension. I have already mentioned GBL—the precursor to GHB—which is a widely used industrial solvent. GHB and GBL exists in equilibrium, which means that taking GBL has the same effect as taking GHB. We would want any fresh controls that we introduced on GHB to be as effective as possible. That would include considering controls on GBL. The lessons of the United States, to which my hon. Friend referred, bear that out. The federal decision to ban GHB and GBL was taken only this year. Before that, GHB—but not GBL—was banned in a number of American states. Where it was banned, there was evidence that GBL was widely misused in its place. That is why it is important to tackle the two side by side.
    The control of precursor chemicals such as GBL is subject to European Union legislation. At present, the manufacture and supply of GBL is monitored throughout the EU on a voluntary basis, but the issue of whether effective controls can be introduced on GBL is clearly an important consideration for us in our on-going review of GHB.
    In accordance with article 3 of the European joint action of 16 June 1997 concerning the information exchange, risk assessment and control of new synthetic
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    drugs, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction—EMCDDA—was asked to prepare information on GHB for consideration by member states. Europol national units and national focal points were subsequently requested to provide information on GHB. The initial research showed little evidence that GHB was abused on a wide scale in any member state, but the United Kingdom, supported by several other member states, requested that GHB be referred to the scientific committee of the EMCDDA for a formal risk assessment. That decision was taken on 12 April this year and the results of the assessment are expected by the end of October. Member states will consider the findings and the information will also be made available to our Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
    My hon. Friend referred to our review of sex offences, which is due to be published in the coming weeks for wide consultation on the various issues. That is another important context for the debate.
    I entirely accept what my hon. Friend says about the need for speed in this matter. It cannot be delayed in the various processes. Perhaps I should not have used the word "speed". I did not realise the implications as I said it. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas), my Parliamentary Private Secretary, is more experienced in these matters. His laughter suggested that I had made a slight mis-statement that I ought to withdraw. Rapid action is very important. I assure my hon. Friend that we do not want to bog the process down in a bureaucratic morass that will take a long time to address. He rightly identified that the scientific evidence is the key. We want to be sure that we have got it right before deciding how to move forward. I know that my hon. Friend accepts that. He would not accept—and neither would I—that the need to get the scientific evidence right should be an excuse for delay in deciding how we proceed. The fact that he has brought the case to the House as he has this evening—powerfully and effectively—ensures that the momentum in addressing this is maintained.
    The Government have a reasonable record in trying to address these issues, but we need to make sure that that continues. That is why I hope that what I have said tonight will reassure my hon. Friend that the Government are actively addressing his concerns about GHB in considering a range of future options, including legislative changes.
    We are concerned to ensure that any decision to introduce future controls on the drug is properly based on the evidence, and that any new controls are as effective as possible. These are complex issues, and we are considering them. When the information is available, the Government will decide on how best to proceed. I hope that my hon. Friend will continue to press as he has this evening his case for expediting these matters rapidly, and I assure him that the Government take it as seriously as he does.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Eleven o'clock.

Preamble
[MR. MICHAEL LORD in the Chair]

Public Employees (London Weighting)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Betts.]
9.30 am
Mr. Tom Brake: I am pleased to have secured this important debate. I wish that more London Members were present; perhaps they will arrive shortly. The debate will interest anyone who is concerned about the continually falling number of police officers in the Metropolitan police, the recruitment crisis in the national health service and the recruitment and retention of teachers. Those are, of course, national issues, but the problems in London are much more acute, because of the cost of living there.
One difficulty affecting our consideration of the problem is that, although many of us are aware of the issues facing public sector workers in London, much of our evidence is anecdotal, being drawn from friends, family and constituents who contact us through our constituency offices or surgeries. Without a cost of living index for London, the scale of the problem is unknown.
In 1974, the Labour Government's pay board introduced a London weighting index, which was published regularly until the Conservatives abolished it in 1982. Since then, no official measure of the cost of living and working in London has been collected or published. An unofficial London weighting index has been published privately, but although the pay board recommended that the formula should be revised every five years, that revision has never taken place. There has been no adjustment to take into account greater travel-to-work distances and the changes to relative house prices. The retail prices index is adjusted every year to reflect changes in products and consumer tastes, but the weighting index presupposes that we live in the London of 30 years ago. As a result, according to Bargaining Report:
it seriously underestimates the extra costs it is supposed to measure.
The unofficial London weighting index, produced by the London research department, shows that, from an index of 100 in 1974, London's cost of living had risen by last year to 768.1 in inner London and 515.7 in outer London. The value of the index is more than £3,000 for inner London and more than £1,000 for an area such as Carshalton and Wallington, where I live. Despite that, the London allowance received by nurses, teachers and police officers is well below those levels.
Recruitment to public services has suffered all over the country and has been widely reported in the past few years. Nowhere has it suffered more than in London. In its recruitment report issued in October last year, the Metropolitan police reported that it faced
an increasingly difficult job market, in which the Service is not a first choice career for many and one in which the pay and conditions offered are not competitive with those of other employers.
206WH
That description could equally be applied to the teaching and nursing professions. Recruitment has deteriorated in London in recent years because of lower unemployment, faster growth, greater earnings growth and longer travel-to-work times than those in the rest of the United Kingdom. In particular, rising house prices in London have made a bad situation worse. According to Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, the result has been
both long distance commuting and London employees who are of a lower quality than they would be elsewhere, in both the public and private sector…No teacher in their right mind would stay in London when property costs 80 per cent. more than in Gloucester or Carlisle.
The most recent figures on house prices—the Halifax housing prices index—support that view. House prices in London are now 76 per cent. above the UK average. That is the biggest differential since the Halifax index began in 1983. London is now the only region in the United Kingdom where prices are currently above their 15-year average in relation to earnings. In Greater London, the Halifax housing prices index records a 54.5 per cent. increase in house prices since 1990, whereas the increase in South Yorkshire is 5.71 per cent. A recent glance at the Homes Online website revealed that the cheapest one-bedroomed flat in east London costs £55,000 and that the cheapest one-bedroomed flat in south London costs £80,000, whereas a small three-bedroomed, terraced house in South Yorkshire costs between £25,000 and £35,000.
Such factors are taking their toll. Recruitment to the teaching profession is worse in London than elsewhere in the country, although, unfortunately, the lack of reliable statistics means that it is difficult to judge precisely how bad the situation is. Staff shortages are often bridged by the use of agency staff. The only statistics on the use of supply staff that are collected and published regularly by the Government are the occasional teacher figures: an occasional teacher is one who teaches in the same post for up to one month. Figures show that occasional staff are heavily concentrated in schools in London and the south-east. A teacher working for more than one month in post counts as a regular teacher, whether or not he or she is, in fact, a temporary supply teacher. I am sure that the Financial Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but statistics are not published on the number and location of all supply staff, nor is there any independent means of assessing the whereabouts or the concentration of supply or overseas staff.
The school teacher review body has noted the lack of such data. It states:
The DfEE vacancy figures do not include some posts that schools may have been forced to fill on a temporary basis and provide no indication of the quality of those appointed to vacant posts. Schools may have had to accept a candidate of poorer quality than they would have liked because, in words we often hear, "We must have a teacher in front of the class."
As a result of those concerns, the review body conducted its own survey last year and found that, nationally, one in 20 advertised teacher vacancies was not filled, but that in inner London, the figure was one in eight. Other figures also tell a sorry tale. In 1999, 39.5 per cent. of all teaching vacancies in English primary schools and 33.9 per cent. of all teaching vacancies in English secondary schools were in London. All that must be seen against the backdrop of teaching in London, which is certainly

207WH
not easier than in other parts of the country and is often more challenging. Gareth Bevan, the head teacher at one school in my constituency, Carshalton high school for boys, was so worried about the situation that he considered buying a house locally to house the school's incoming young staff. However, the cost was too prohibitive for the school. Commenting on the current situation, Mr. Bevan said:
In thirty years at this school, I can only remember one person who has come into a position of responsibility at the school from outside London. The outer London weighting of £1,524 is a paltry sum; it's nonsensical. Ten years ago, the LEA offered relocation packages. Now, I know of no school or local authority that could even contemplate relocation packages.
In their recent housing paper, the Government identified assistance that could be given to key workers. I hope that the Financial Secretary will put a little more flesh on the bones of that proposal today.
In recent months, the needs of the health service have had a higher profile than those of education; none the less, there is a similar tale to tell in the national health service. There are no longer any official figures giving the number of agency and overseas staff in different health trusts. While national vacancy rates are published regularly, local vacancy rates are not. However, approximately, one third of the 15,000 nursing vacancies in England are in London: a survey taken for the Evening Standard at the end of last year showed that there were nearly 5,000 vacancies. My local trust has had to look abroad for nursing staff and has told me, informally, that the vacancy rate could be up to 20 per cent.—although, on the record, it estimated the figure to be closer to 6 per cent. Clearly, there are local problems. The three-month vacancy rates obtained from the Library show that the vacancy rate in England for nursing and midwifery is 2.6 per cent.; in London, the rate is twice as high, at 5.1 per cent., and in my local health authority it is 4.9 per cent., close to the London average of 5.1 per cent.
I shall illustrate the difficulties that the NHS is experiencing in recruiting and retaining staff with an example of a hospital just across the river—St. Thomas's. St. Thomas's hospital relies heavily on biomedical scientists to carry out a range of screening tests. After five years of training and an honours degree, a graduate in that profession can expect to earn about £9,500 to £10,000; after qualification, he might earn a couple of thousand pounds more. Given those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that staff are leaving the profession. Yesterday, I spoke to Judy Copestake, a biomedical scientist with 40 years' experience as of yesterday. Until just a few days ago, she was a biomedical scientist grade 2; she had management responsibilities, but continued to supervise other biomedical scientists working on the bench in the laboratory. Her leaving salary was the princely sum of £22,000. She feels that her profession has been abandoned by the Government. She has been told by the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), that biomedical scientists cannot constitute a special case—but it would appear that nurses can. She has also been told that there is no chance of a pay increase until after
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"Agenda for Change" has been implemented. That means that, in all likelihood, there will be no change until 2002.
The same Health Minister said that 6,000 biomedical scientists have received a 7 per cent. pay increase. I should be grateful for confirmation in writing, from either that Minister or the Financial Secretary, of exactly how many of the 21,000 biomedical scientists have received that increase. Judy Copestake and her colleagues do not know of a single biomedical scientist, including colleagues at St. Thomas's hospital and others, who has received that 7 per cent. settlement. Their view is that, if the increase had been available to 6,000 biomedical scientists, they would know at least one person who had received it. They know of many who have received a 3 per cent. increase and a small number of trainees who have received a more substantial increase, but none who have received a 7 per cent. increase.
Perhaps the Government calculate that the impact on public services—in this case, the testing of medical samples—will be minimal. However, unfortunately it is not. I have a press release that speaks of an accident and emergency service; it is not in London, but if Llandudno is experiencing problems, I am sure that the problems in London are just as acute. Apparently, Llandudno hospital has been forced to close its accident and emergency service at 4 pm each day, owing to insufficient biomedical scientists to carry out important laboratory tests on patients. That is obviously a source of concern, for if those circumstances were to be replicated in London, I am sure that my constituents would contact me in large numbers.
The problems are no different in relation to the Metropolitan police. We know that finding new recruits is hard work and that the Macpherson report, rightly, put further pressure on the Met to recruit more ethnic minority police officers. Higher academic and health standards now apply to entry to the force. Police numbers are continuing to fall due to a combination of recruitment and retention problems. I ask Conservative Members, who talk vociferously about the need to recruit more police officers, to consider the effect on recruitment and retention of the Conservative Government's decision to stop the police housing allowance. The Financial Times recently reported that pay talks between the Home Office and police representatives, which are regarded as a critical component of the Government's pledge to boost recruitment by the next general election, have broken down. There are clear signs of an impending crisis in the police service as well.
I have focused on the problems of three key groups of public sector worker—teachers, nurses and police officers—but they are not the only public sector workers in London who experience difficulties. If the Government cannot recruit and retain key public sector workers in our capital city, it is clear that they cannot hope to achieve the improvements in public services that, during the general election, they promised to Londoners and others.
I hope that the Minister will agree that the first thing that must be done is to assess accurately the scale of the problem. The London Research Centre, now under the control of the Greater London Authority, should be given the task of compiling a new index to measure the

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cost of working and living in London. Such an index should be published annually and presented to the teaching and nursing pay review bodies, the police negotiating board and other relevant Government Departments and public sector bodies. New research into all aspects of recruitment and retention of public sector staff in London is needed urgently: we need estimates of the number and net cost of supply and agency staff in schools and hospitals, and accurate figures on the cost of failing to retain trained staff and of recruitment to the Metropolitan police. That key research that is not available at the moment.
Does the Minister agree that it is time for an annual report to be produced on the state of public services in London, and that its contents should be debated by the House of Commons? If that were done, today's Adjournment debate could be the first of many.
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Mr. Simon Burns: I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) on securing this important debate. I am not a London Member of Parliament, but I want to contribute because events in London have a ripple effect on the home counties, and in my county, Essex, that effect is significant.
I shall concentrate on the subject of police officers. As the hon. Gentleman said, there is a significant problem regarding recruitment and retention of police officers in the Met. I do not think that he would disagree if I said that figures show that the Metropolitan police is 1,000 officers understaffed. That is a considerable problem. When talking to the Essex police last week, I discovered that, if a Member of Parliament tables a question to the Home Secretary asking, for example, how many officers the Metropolitan police had on 31 March 2000, the answer given is not the number of officers employed by the Met on that day, but the number for which it has been funded. Those are very different figures. The answer to the same question about the Essex force would be 60 officers more than the real number.
Police officers in the Met receive a London allowance of approximately £3,000, because London is clearly far more expensive to live in than Somerset, the west country or parts of the north of England, especially in terms of housing costs. I understand that the Home Secretary proposes to increase that allowance to £6,000, and that the Police Federation believes that even that figure is too low and should be slightly higher. As the Home Secretary told the hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward) at Home Office questions on Monday, the figure is currently at arbitration. We shall have to await the results of that process.
So that my comments cannot be misinterpreted, I should say that I do not question the need to acknowledge and make provision for problems specific to London, which is infinitely more expensive to live in than other parts of the country; nor do I question that those problems have had an impact on recruitment in public services. I am not saying that the London allowance should be cut out entirely. However, unless other measures are taken, a London allowance is itself a problem that has a significant impact on counties that adjoin London, such as Essex.
I shall use the example of the police to make my point. With a London allowance, a police officer working in London earns approximately £3,000 more than a police
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officer working across the boundary in Essex. The allowance does not significantly affect the employment of police officers in Essex, as, depending on where those officers live, the commuting costs of getting to London diminish the attractiveness of that £3,000. However, if the London allowance increases to £6,000 as the Home Secretary wants—or if it is increased further as a result of arbitration—the impact will become significant. Many people in Essex who want a career in the police service will find it more financially beneficial to get a job in the Metropolitan police, where their income will be £6,000 more, than in the Essex constabulary.
There is a double whammy. Many police officers who currently serve in the Essex constabulary—especially those living in Epping, Loughton or elsewhere in the south of the county, who would have to travel only a few miles into London—on suddenly discovering that their colleagues in the Met are being paid an additional £6,000 will resign from the Essex police and seek a job in the Metropolitan police, which is crying out for new recruits. Therefore, any distortion of pay structures in the Metropolitan police has serious implications for the recruitment and retention of police officers in Essex.
Mr. Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman is worried that a higher London weighting for police officers would have that effect, but how would he solve the problem of the severe shortage of police officers in London, if not through the index approach?
Mr. Burns: I specifically said at the beginning of my remarks that I was not going to suggest the removal of the London allowance. If the hon. Gentleman will wait, I shall answer his question.
The problem is not exclusive to Essex. It affects all of the home counties surrounding London, as the hon. Member for Watford said when she questioned the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary acknowledged that three chief constables in the home counties had already been in touch with the Home Office because of the significant and adverse impact that a large increase in the allowance would have on home counties police establishments.
The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) asks how the problem could be solved without increasing or exacerbating recruitment problems in London. The answer is that serious consideration should be given to creating a home counties indexation. Although the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington rightly drew attention to the significant increases in housing costs in the capital, those costs do not drop away at the borders of the Greater London area. Housing in the home counties is also expensive compared with other parts of the country. In my constituency, house prices are relatively high and they have increased significantly during the past two years or so, with the result that, even in an area such as Chelmsford, people have found it difficult to buy or even rent private housing on the sort of salaries that they command if they work in Essex, rather than commute down to the City of London or the west end to work. There is a haemorrhage of the work force from Essex to London, of which one example is that of people who want to work for the Metropolitan police force, not for the Essex constabulary.

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The problems caused by London's magnetism could be minimised by creating an outer-band allowance or a home counties allowance. We should not try to solve London's problems merely by enhancing the financial benefits for those who work there, because that simply shifts the problem away from the capital to the band of counties that surround it. Those counties have a diminishing standard of public services because they cannot recruit people—at least, not of the standard that they want—and they cannot retain those whom they have recruited.
I appreciate that the Financial Secretary is a London Member of Parliament, but his constituency is on the outer boundaries of the London area, so he will be familiar with what is happening in areas such as Essex, which adjoin his own local authority area. Will he consider the matter, draw it to the attention of his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and ensure that the Government give it urgent consideration? If we wait and argue for too long and set up committees or working parties to find solutions, damage will continue to be done as those committees drag on and politicians and others talk. The matter is one of urgency and grave concern, and it needs to be seriously and swiftly addressed.
9.57 am
Mr. Edward Davey: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) on obtaining this debate. Liberal Democrat Members have sought such a debate for some time, because we believe that the issue is one of the most important that affects public services in our London constituencies. We want to make it clear to the Financial Secretary that, like the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), we believe that this urgent problem requires instant Government attention.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington put well the argument that we need more information about the problem. One of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford was that we do not know about the effects of measures outside London, as well as inside the capital city. If we had better information about relative staff shortages in various public sector professions, not only in London, but outside it and in its environs, we could sensibly judge correct relative weightings. However, we do not have that information.
Mr. Burns: The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington are right to make the point about the lack of information. However, we have information about the scale of the problem for police forces: we know the funded numbers for each constabulary, and if individual constabularies keep records, as they often do, they can tell us how many officers are actually serving at a given time.
Mr. Davey: I am grateful for that intervention. We know some of the funded numbers, but it takes time to discover the actual numbers serving. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the figures can be obtained, but
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they are not easily got. When conducting research for today's debate, I found that information is not available about many professions in the public sector. Many statistics held by Departments are inaccurate, being based on funding and expectations rather than on what is happening. In addition, with such high staff turnover in hospitals, police stations and schools, figures change quickly.
I shall highlight the significant turnover problem affecting London schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington referred to vacancy rates, which provide an important indicator of the supply of employees not meeting the demand. High turnover is another such indicator—on that, in many ways, shows the damage done to the quality of service that our constituents receive. However, turnover figures are not readily available. My hon. Friend mentioned anecdotal figures and surveys such as those carried out by institutions such as the Royal College of Nursing.
When trying to build a picture from anecdotal evidence, I found that there are large potential costs for the taxpayer arising from the problems that we are discussing, because of the extra costs of more frequent recruitment and of management in integrating new employees into the work force, whether on a hospital ward, in a police division or in a classroom. Extra costs also result from having to pay premium rates for short-term placements, such as supply teachers, bank or agency nurses. Therefore costs are incurred not only as a result of recruitment, but by plugging the gaps and putting a finger in the dyke. If we estimate those costs just for the health service, we come up with a figure that easily exceeds £100 million. We could radically improve the situation by redirecting the money that is currently spent on short-term solutions; rather than spend excessive sums treating the symptoms, we should deal with the causes of the problem and put the money into decent salaries for public sector employees. That is the solution, but how quickly will the Government reach it?
The vacancy rate in Kingston hospital in my constituency is more than the average for England. but it probably slightly less than the London average; nevertheless, turnover is high. Management tried their best to deal with the problem, but ended up going to Manila in the Philippines, where they recruited nearly 100 nurses to work in the hospital on two-year contracts. We welcome those Philippine nurses; they are exceedingly talented and have undergone a rigorous recruitment programme. However, it is ludicrous that we went to a relatively poor country on the other side of the world to recruit huge numbers of staff to work in Kingston hospital—I cannot believe that that makes economic or social sense. Two-year contracts mean that the turnover problem will be dealt with for a short time, but the overall long-term sustainable capacity of the London health service is not enhanced by having to resort to such measures.
In my constituency, I meet former nurses who had worked in the health service for many years and for whose training the taxpayer paid. They left the NHS because in the private sector, in retail and in office jobs, they receive higher salaries and enjoy more flexible working conditions, which can help them to meet family commitments, for example. The NHS competes in that market, and I do not believe that recruiting on the other side of the world can provide a solution. We should

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encourage those whom the taxpayer trained to return to the health service and work in their local hospitals. In my example, it would not be a case of poaching nurses from West Chelmsford; we must encourage people to work in public services provided to the communities in which they live.
Dr. Vincent Cable: My hon. Friend eloquently describes a problem that many suburban hospitals have in common. West Middlesex university hospital faces an almost identical situation. Does he agree that the problem is, in part, caused by a chronic shortage of nurses' accommodation? Perhaps the Government could provide on-site facilities. A related problem is the difference between inner and outer London weighting, which does not reflect the current realities of the labour and housing markets.
Mr. Davey: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, partly because he has anticipated two of my points. Clearly, we think alike.
Reserved housing for nurses, police and teachers is a potential solution, but only a partial one; people in those professions do not want to receive their salary only or mainly in the form of housing because of the inflexibility of such an arrangement. However, such provision could be useful, especially for new entrants. Cuts in funding for public services have meant that much of the accommodation that was once used has been sold to supply a short-term solution to a funding gap elsewhere in public services in health and education. Many local education authorities used to have houses for teachers, and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned that a head teacher in his constituency considered bringing back such provision.
The Government should examine reserved housing as a solution and consider reforming outer London weighting. The chief executive of Kingston hospital told me about the problem that that has caused in his hospital. When Queen Mary's university hospital in Roehampton closed, many of its staff moved to Kingston hospital to allow it to take on those patients who had formerly gone to Queen Mary's. However, the London weighting received by staff at Queen Mary's was higher than that received by staff at Kingston hospital, just down the road. A difficult agreement had to be reached to enable staff to work side by side with different London weightings, and the situation will have to be sorted out later. As my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) implied, the differences between inner and outer London weighting do not reflect financial realities. It can be more expensive to live in Surbiton or in Kingston than it is to live in parts of Roehampton and Putney. The old system no longer works.
In many respects, I do not blame the current Government for the difficulties. They inherited a huge political problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, the Conservative Government's abolition in 1982 of the London weighting index that the Labour Government had introduced in 1974 was one of the longer-term causes of the problem. We have also heard about the
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Conservatives' abolition of the police housing scheme in 1994, which contributed to the increasing scale of the problem.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: To what extent does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that more money being given to public sector employees in London increases the problems of retaining people in the public service in the area outside London, to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) referred?
Mr. Davey: I thought that I had dealt with that matter earlier, when the hon. Member for West Chelmsford intervened. My point is that we need information, not only about London, but about other parts of the country: information on shortages, retention, recruitment and turnover in the public sector is limited, which is absurd given the avalanche of requests from the Government for huge amounts of information on services, outputs, waiting lists, absenteeism, qualification league tables and examination results from schools, local education authorities, police authorities and NHS trusts. The point is that the information that will help us to plan services more effectively is not requested. Public services depend on their employees: the health service, the police service and the education service are only as good as the people who work for them. If we really care about the quality of services in London and the surrounding counties, we must demand high-quality information on inflows, outflows and quality of staff.
If the Government sent questionnaires to the chief superintendent of Kingston police, Alan Given, to the chief executive of Kingston hospital, John Langan, and to the director of education in the royal borough of Kingston, John Braithwaite, they would provide the requested information because they know how important it is. They want the Government to acknowledge a major problem facing our public services. Armed with high-quality information, Government policy would be so much better informed. In addition, points made by Conservative Members about the difficulty of making fine judgments between London and areas outside London, and of reforming outer and inner London weightings, could be informed by data, not by anecdote and prejudice. That must be the way forward. If the Minister takes note of only one point from my speech, it should be that work force planning in public services must be better informed by gathering the relevant statistics.
My final point relates, of course, to my constituency. People who work in public services in London should be congratulated on the fantastic job that they do for our constituents. The quality of life in London is far higher because of their hard and dedicated work. We should take note of the work of temporary staff from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in our schools and hospitals and thank them for it.
Mr. Burns: They have not got a vote here.
Mr. Davey: The hon. Gentleman misses the point. The nurses from the Philippines who work in Kingston hospital do not have a vote, but I still want to put on record my thanks to them.
Mr. Burns: I was trying to help the hon. Gentleman. He already has the press release for his local papers

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congratulating those workers in his constituency who have a vote; I was warning him that, having congratulated them, he need not go on for too long about the Australians and others who do not have a vote.
Mr. Davey: The hon. Gentleman is clearly ground down by cynicism. Some of us are value the quality of public services, not only for those who work in them, but for those who require their services. The people being served by the Philippine nurses are grateful for the work that they do. At the end of day, the issue is as much about the people who need the services as it is about those who provide them: constituents who need hospital services and who need the police to answer their 999 calls quickly, and parents who want their children to have the best start in life and the best teachers are asking us to improve public services. They also want us to ensure that those who provide those services are properly recompensed and can afford to live and work in our communities.
I hope that the Minister will take note of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington and me, and that he will treat the issue with the seriousness and urgency that it demands.
10.15 am
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) on instigating the debate. It is an important subject and, as he will have learned from my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), it has ramifications well beyond London. As a Surrey Member of Parliament representing Guildford, which is similar to my hon. Friend's constituency, I have much sympathy with his argument.
London weighting for public sector workers is part of the wider issue of the range of formulae that the Government use to allocate funding. However, paying public sector workers is not just about funding, but about how much flexibility the system allows for decisions to be taken locally. For example, within the same central funding constraints, one police service might decide to employ fewer police officers, but to pay them more, than another. Those formulae include London weighting, the area cost adjustment—described by Sir John Banham, when he was a member of the Audit Commission, as 42 pages of regression equations—and the market forces factor in the health service, which drives much of the funding for the nurses and other health services workers mentioned this morning.
When I was a councillor in London, there was something called the equalisation fund; it was absorbed into the new way of funding local authorities after the introduction of the new local taxation system and the withdrawal of the local councils' ability directly to collect business rates. The longest-running star of the scene was the Barnett formula, which throws up discrepancies affecting everyone who lives south of the Scottish border. The Financial Secretary has had his ear bent on many occasions by representatives of those living in the north-east of England, who feel most strongly about the way in which the Barnett formula affects them.
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Whether we live in London, Surrey, Essex or north-east England, we can hold up our hands and say, "Excuse me, but such-and-such a formula is unfair to our region." Of course, there is a circularity about the application of these formulae, because the more people who are employed in the public sector, the more the weightings for living costs are increased for their area, and the more that feeds through into higher local demands and costs. If public service workers in London have a large pay rise, there is a knock-on effect on the cost of housing; it is unfair to treat one substantial group of workers more beneficially than another; they all compete for the same limited housing stock.
It is important to consider flexibility as well as funding. I heard with interest that there is a 6 per cent. vacancy rate for nurses at the hospital in Carshalton; it might interest the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington to learn that, in Guildford, there is a vacancy rate for nurses of up to 30 per cent. and staff turnover of nearly as much in a single year. That is because people living in towns such as Guildford face the same cost pressures as those in central and outer London, but have none of the allowances. Someone who has the opportunity of catching a train to Waterloo every 15 minutes can come into London and obtain the allowance by working in a hospital—perhaps even one on the way to central London, in Carshalton, Richmond or other outer London areas. That is a way of obtaining extra allowance while living in Surrey.
Mr. Edward Davey: How much of the allowance would be taken up in the travel costs?
Mr. St. Aubyn: There are indeed travel costs and many employees might be tempted to use a small car and share the transport with someone else working at the same place. That would add to the traffic burden on the roads into London, so the hon. Gentleman is right to raise that issue.
However, let us address the real world. Already, 15 per cent. or more—one in seven—of my constituents commute into London, and a similar number commute every day from other parts of the south-east into my constituency, so there is a massive crossover of commuters. The cost of commuting does not stop people moving to where the opportunities and the jobs are the greatest. If, because of a massive increase in the weighting allowance, opportunities and jobs are concentrated in London, there will be a detrimental effect on services in towns such as Guildford, which already face deep problems.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford for mentioning the police force. Surrey Members of Parliament met the county police authority only a week ago. At that meeting, the allowance given to police officers in London was raised as a potential problem. If it is increased to £6,000 a year, we could face increased pressure on retention of officers in the Surrey force, as in the Essex and other forces around London. If we reflect on the reason why the Home Secretary is considering additional funding for police officers in London, we see that it is not all about money: it is also about morale. One of the reasons why the Metropolitan

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police is pushing so hard for an additional financial incentive is that morale has taken a major blow since the publication of the Macpherson report.
Mr. Davey: Before the hon. Gentleman launches into an analysis based on morale, is he aware that newly recruited police men and women living in Kingston and Surbiton have to rely on housing benefit and family credit to supplement their salaries? That is why they need a housing allowance, which was abolished by the Conservative Government.
Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for demonstrating that, when the housing allowance was abolished, police officers had access to other forms of support. The rug was not completely pulled from under their feet.
Mr. Burns: I was slightly confused by the comments of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). A police constable's starting salary is £16,000, so even if family credit regime were still in existence, someone earning that amount would not qualify for it.
Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. A police officer in the London area faces the same housing cost pressures as an officer living in the area that I represent. The difference is that the London officer already has a £3,000 salary differential over officers based in the home counties.
To expand my argument, I draw hon. Members' attention to the way in which the private sector deals with these matters. I was interested to discover that Eagle Star, which has offices in London, Chelmsford and Guildford, not only pays a London allowance of £3,200 a year, but pays an allowance in Chelmsford, Guildford, Reading and Slough of £1,100 a year—not as much as a London allowance, but a significant sum none the less. That may reflect the fact that we have the same commuter factors and that living costs are high. Many police officers who work in Surrey live across the border in Sussex, because they find that they cannot afford to live in the area where they work.
The morale of the Surrey police force, which I know well, is high. It has the best success rate in the country on fighting crime—officers there are part of a winning team. That counts for something when someone is deciding where to develop a career. We have a young police force, but, as they get older and their financial responsibilities and commitments grow, there is a strong temptation for police officers in Surrey to say, "I now need extra money, so I will make the move to the Met, or to a part of the country where living costs are lower." Our young police force is dynamic, effective and successful, but there is a hidden cost in the lack of experience that we could suffer if the additional money being given to the Metropolitan police—as is now being contemplated—results in a further influx of police officers into the Met from areas such as Surrey. We could be left facing a serious shortage of officers and, more importantly, a shortage of officers who are experienced in tackling crime in our area.
The subject of nurses from the Philippines was raised and I was glad when Kingston hospital took that initiative. We learned from that experience: bringing in
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nurses from the Philippines helped us to solve the much greater crisis at the Royal Surrey hospital in my constituency. We can vouch for the quality of training that those nurses were given and the contribution that they have made to our local health service in tackling the enormous increase in waiting lists in the past two to three years.
London weighting is part of the wider issue of the way in which we measure costs from one area to another. The critical factor in the health service is the market forces index. When the Government came to power they inherited two key indices: the index of need and the index of market forces, both of which were applied to about three quarters of the cost of each health authority. It was recognised that the other quarter of health authorities' costs was either not subject to, or not measurable in terms of either social need or market forces. Without any research, the Health Secretary at the time, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), decided to increase the weighting of the health needs index to 100 per cent. of cost, while doing nothing about the market forces index. That meant that more prosperous areas of the country, such as the one that I represent were discriminated against and suffered a genuine cut in funding of 2 or 3 per cent.
In some areas, people are, on the whole, healthy and wealthy. However, the NHS is there to serve all the community. The old, the poor and the very sick, who do not have access to private health care or other means, are the ones now being made to suffer as we struggle with the longest waiting list in the country. Yesterday, I had to apologise for coming late to a Committee meeting attended by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. I had just received a telephone call from the chairman of my health authority outlining the latest cuts in health provision that are having to be forced through because of the budget cuts imposed after election of the Labour Government. I am sorry to say that the Secretary of State laughed when I told him that—he thought that it was a fantastic joke, because he believes that people living in Chelmsford and Guildford and parts of London are so well off that they have ready access to alternative health provision, so they need not worry. He forgot about those who cannot afford those alternatives, just as he forgot about the nurses whom we cannot afford to pay a proper going rate for doing their job so well.
I agree with the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington that we urgently need research on and a radical review of all the formulae. The London weighting, and also the area cost adjustment and the market forces index, need to be considered clearly and dispassionately. It is unfortunate that the Government have proposed a review of health service funding that is deliberately weighted towards areas of high social need at the expense of areas such as the one that I represent. I hold no grudge against places such as Gateshead, where there are health problems. However, without being justified by any research, there has been an increase in funding in Gateshead of 30 per cent. relative to Guildford over the past few years. That makes one question whether the formulae, including the London weighting formula, are being applied fairly and equitably.

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For a heart test that in our area used to be taken within three months of being needed, there is now a waiting period of up to a year. Not long ago, I heard about a young man of 29 dying of a heart attack because of that wait. One realises that the human cost of applying the formulae inequitably is incalculable. That heart test would have cost £80. The young man was an extremely successful employee in a major company: he had his future ahead of him and was much loved by everyone who worked with him. He was a loss to his community as well as to his family.
I have wandered a little way from the subject of debate, but I have tried to show that one cannot stop at saying, "£100 million here, £100 million there and we'll crack the problem of staff recruitment in London." We know from experiences in our constituencies that that will only open up problems in the areas surrounding London. We need services in which morale is high and people want to work. There must be flexibility so that decisions within funding packages can be made locally about whether money should go on more numbers, or on higher pay for fewer numbers with more experience and expertise.
Our debate is not only about money. In our education system, it is instructive that the unit cost per pupil in the past five years has gone down by 2 per cent. The output—the performance of our children achieving at least five passes at GCSE—has gone up by 3 per cent. The productive use of resources is as important as their allocation. I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington on securing the debate because it is unfortunate that, under the Government, the allocation and application have suffered in areas such as the one that I represent. He told us that he has problems in his constituency as well. There is a tremendous burden on the Financial Secretary to tell us how he will ensure fairer allocation of resources, and how he will give the greater flexibility on the ground that is desperately needed.
10.33 am
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Timms): I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) on securing this interesting debate, in which important issues have been raised. As the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) said, my experience in an east London constituency has made me familiar with some of those issues.
I begin by setting the debate in the wider economic context. After the election, our first economic aim was to achieve a new platform of stability after the decades of boom and bust that we had endured. In our commitment to stability and prudence over the past three years, we have had a single purpose: to build a Britain that is decent as well as modern. Our primary economic priority of building a sound platform of stability and steady growth has been achieved to a remarkable extent. For the third year running, inflation is in line with our target; it is at historically low levels, and is also low compared with rates in other European countries. The economy will grow steadily by between 2¾ and 3¼per cent. this year, and it will continue to follow
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that trend. Long-term interest rates, once 2 per cent. or more above rates in Germany, are now the same as those in Germany. That shows that people have confidence in a low-inflation future for Britain, thus providing a platform from which we can all plan for the long term with greater confidence.
Mr. St. Aubyn: I do not want to destroy the Financial Secretary's confidence in that glowing report on the economy, but what does he have to say about the skills gap, or about the fact that vacancies are at their highest for more than 10 years, while in the three years of his Government being in office, the number of people taking courses in FE colleges has dropped cumulatively by more than 500,000?
Mr. Timms: The hon. Gentleman draws attention to a remarkable feature of the economy: more than 920,000 more people have a job than at the time of the last election—the highest number in our historys—and the unemployment rate is at its lowest for 20 years. At the same time, there are 1 million vacancies on offer across the UK, many of them in London; we are in a remarkable situation in which many more opportunities are available for people. All of that contributes to the optimism that all of us can share about the future. The stability that we have achieved is the precondition for high employment, higher living standards and strong public services. By building on the platform of stability that we have achieved by meeting national economic ambitions, we can realise the security and opportunity for all that we want. That is also the context in which we can achieve our ambitions for the services provided by public employees, on whom the debate has focused.
I remind hon. Members of the ambitions for Britain in the coming decade that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out last November. There is the ambition of prosperity, so that in place of our historic under-performance against other countries, we have a faster rise in productivity than our competitors, closing the productivity gap that has opened up. There is our full employment ambition, in contrast to years of high unemployment. We want employment opportunity for all, with a higher percentage of people in work, on a durable basis, than ever before. There is our education ambition, so that instead of lagging behind other countries and suffering huge disparities in our educational attainments, we ensure educational opportunity for all with the aim that, for the first time, at least half of our school leavers go into higher education and achieve greater skills, to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn). There is our anti-poverty ambition, so that, in contrast to the rise in inequality and poverty in recent decades, we ensure that every child has the best start in life as we halve child poverty in the next 10 years.
Alongside those ambitions are our ambitions for the services provided by public employees. Instead of inadequate public services that fail to guarantee opportunity or security, we are now investing for the future in strong public services that are there when people need them. We need to secure long-term answers to the long-term challenges that we face—an approach that was set out clearly in the Budget, when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced the largest ever sustained increase in NHS funding, and in the intensive

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review of the NHS led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. That approach is at the heart of this year's spending review as we match new investment in public services with further modernisation.
As part of our commitment to public services, we believe in a firm and fair approach to public sector pay that takes account especially of the need to retain, recruit and motivate staff. Those are the issues on which most hon. Members have concentrated today. Overall pay, like all other costs, must be contained within the framework of spending plans in the comprehensive spending review, supporting the service delivery targets set out in the public service agreements. Across the public sector, the delivery of high-quality services is the key priority. Public sector pay must continue to be set in a prudent, disciplined manner that is clearly focused on recruitment and service delivery objectives. Specific considerations, including recruitment and retention in London, must be taken into account as necessary.
I emphasise that this is not merely a question of pay. The initiatives in the "Modernising Government" White Paper recognise the importance of having the right structures. Pay systems must be flexible and provide the right rewards and incentives for those working in the public service. The initiatives being taken in the national health service and in teaching are on the right path: such reforms provide more flexible pay systems, which help to deliver high-quality public services with appropriate rewards.
We welcome pay reform that addresses the circumstances and requirements of individual groups and helps to deliver output targets. That benefits those who provide public services, and, therefore, those who use them. Such a targeted approach is right. In comparison, the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington and for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) implieds—without making their view explicit—that the answer was simply to raise the pay of everybody who works in public service in London. However, it is better to recognise where there are difficulties and where change is needed, and to respond accordingly.
Mr. Burns: The Financial Secretary is, by implication, criticising the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, whose remarks he paraphrases as implying that the only solution is to pay more in London. However, will the Financial Secretary not accept that that is his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's sole solution to the problems of recruitment and retention in the Metropolitan police?
Mr. Timms: There are different issues facing different parts of the public service. My suggestion, with which the hon. Gentleman would probably agree, is that different solutions are appropriate to different circumstances in each of the public services. I shall speak in a moment about the issues facing the police.
Mr. Brake: I agree that different solutions are needed for different cases. However, the key issue that I raised in most of my remarks—I did not call for big increases in London allowances—is that no information is available on which the Financial Secretary can draw up different solutions for different scenarios.
Mr. Timms: It is not for me to draw up the solutions; it is a matter for those who are responsible for providing
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the health service, employing teachers and employing the police in London. It is important that such decisions are taken in the right place, by those who deal with problems of recruitment and retention where they arise. It would be wrong to impose a pan-London solution, irrespective of the particular circumstances in each case.
I was interested by the point that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington made about biomedical science, although it is not a matter for which I am responsible. He seemed to suggest that a problem in a particular part of the health service in Llandudno must apply in London as well. I thought that that illustrated well the need to focus where on those difficulties are being experienced in the health service, rather than say that a problem affects everyone in London when, in fact, it is much more tightly defined.
Mr. Edward Davey: The Financial Secretary says that he does not have responsibility for these matters because it is up to other people to make employment decisions. Will he confirm that he and the Treasury have responsibility for statistics? Will he confirm that it is within either his remit, or that of his ministerial colleagues, to ask for the collection of the statistics needed to analyse the problem that we face in London with recruitment, retention and high turnover in the public sector? He could ask for those statistics to be collected.
Mr. Timms: The hon. Gentleman is right: the Office for National Statistics is indeed responsible to the Treasury. However, those matters need to be and can be dealt with much more effectively locally, service by service. He should not pin his hopes on some huge central data collection exercise to tackle the issues involved; rather, the problems should be dealt with in a more devolved way. I am sure that, on reflection, he would agree.
Mr. Davey: Will the Financial Secretary give way?
Mr. Timms: Not again—I should like to make a little more progress first.
Within the overall public spending allocations, responsibility for pay, including the payment of London weighting, rightly rests with the wide range of different public-sector employers. They include not only Government Departments but local authorities, which are independently elected, autonomous, and largely independent of central Government; we do not intervene in their day-to-day affairs or in negotiations on their employees' pay and conditions. The detail of terms and conditions is, rightly, a matter for local authorities to determine. Local authorities are also responsible for funding the pay agreements of teachers, the fire service and the police, although the agreement for teachers is determined by the school teachers pay review body, and arrangements covering firefighters and police are determined by formulae over which the authorities have no control.
The Government expect local authorities to take a responsible line on the pay bills that they control. We want a firm and fair approach to public and private sector pay alike. In the public sector, that means pay settlements that take account of the need to retain,

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recruit and motivate staff within the framework provided by the spending plans of the comprehensive spending review.
Mr. St. Aubyn: Is it not true that many public services' statutory responsibilities are so specific and so clearly defined and so much of their revenue comes from Government grant that they have little flexibility about the number of employees, and, therefore, over how much they can pay?
Mr. Timms: The hon. Gentleman asks several questions. A good deal of flexibility is available to local authorities over how many staff they employ. It is for them to make the difficult choices that face local councils in deciding how to tackle local problems. It is important that such decisions should continue to be made by those responsible for front-line services.
The NHS employs more than 100,000 staff in Greater London, and the cost of London allowances is approaching £250 million a year. The pay review body for nurses and associated groups in the NHS has recommended large increases in London allowances in the past two years—13.5 per cent. in 1999, because no national increase had been made since 1995, and 3.4 per cent. from April. The Government have accepted those recommendations. A qualified nurse working in central London will receive an allowance of £3,030 a year. Unions representing most non-review-body groups have agreed to an imaginative three-year pay deal that includes increases in London weighting allowances of 13 ½per cent. for 1999 and 3¼per cent. for 2000. Other public sector employers are similarly responsible for their own pay determination agreements. For example, London weighting allowance was consolidated into the salaries of London Underground employees in 1992, and the cost of living in London is one of the factors taken into account in annual pay settlements.
Some key public sector groups, such as doctors, nurses and school teachers, have an independent pay review body that make recommendations on their pay. The Government consider the recommendations of those pay review bodies. We have, I am glad to say, succeeded in moving away from the sequence of staged pay settlements that characterised the behaviour of the previous Administration. We have accepted the main pay recommendations for the past two years exactly as proposed by the pay review bodies. Public sector employers need to work within the resources available to them under public spending plans. Both public and private sectors must continue to be responsible about pay for the sake of our economic stability, which we need to secure for the longer term, if we are to build on our success. Existing spending allocations were agreed in the 1998 spending review; the review for 2000 is under way and will allocate resources to deliver the Government's objectives for public services over the next three years.
The cost of living and working in London is greater than in other parts of the country and systems of London weighting have developed in response. In practice, some organisations have specific London weighting allowances that reflect the distinction between inner and outer London; some have allowances
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intended to meet particular recruitment and retention requirements; and some have consolidated their weighting into basic rates of pay or pitched their rates of pay so that basic salaries reflect the situation. All those arrangements are intended to reflect the additional costs to both public and private sectors and to help the recruitment and retention of the staff needed to deliver services in London.
In the civil service, for example, weighting allowances were largely translated into recruitment and retention allowances some years ago. Since then, responsibility for pay and grading has been delegated from the centre to Departments, and many Departments and agencies have consolidated them into base pay. That has allowed a more flexible arrangement, so that it is possible to concentrate extra help on problem areas rather than having a blanket provision, which was a feature of past arrangements. Within available resources, public sector employers need to tailor their pay arrangements, including those for London, to meet their own circumstances and their particular recruitment and retention needs.
Mr. Burns: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Timms: I need to make headway, so I shall not give way now.
In the health service, regional offices are being asked to set out regional action proposals to reduce vacancies and turnover in all trusts, to expand the nursing work force across the region, and to target the worst performing trusts and improve their performance. We have allocated £4 million to consortiums for return-to-practice initiatives to follow up the recent successful nurse recruitment campaign that aimed to bring back into the health service the qualified nurses referred to by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. By last September, there were more than 5,000 more qualified nurses working in the health service than there had been a year earlier, so the initiative has been successful. London and the south-east have particular problems that account for one half of the three-month vacancies across the country. A small team that focuses on recruitment and retention will work across those two regions and link with the central recruitment and retention unit at the Department of Health. That will assist hospitals in the constituencies of those hon. Members from London and the south-east who have spoken in the debate.
In recognition of the Prime Minister's saying that teachers are the change makers in modern society, the latest report from the school teachers review body accepted that there are particular problems in London, but noted that recruitment and retention difficulties vary considerably between London boroughs, schools—I can personally confirm that from what happens in my constituency—and subjects. The review body is committed to finding out more about the problems in London, to gather some of the data for which hon. Members have been asking, and to establish why funding for London does not more often find its way into discretionary recruitment and retention payments. It will give details on the outcome of its findings in its next report. On 30 March, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment announced a training salary for post graduate trainee

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teachers of £6,000 a year, which will take effect from 1 September. It is hoped that it will attract more people into teacher training and a teaching career.
In response to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, I must say that retention in the police is not a major problem. According to data from the Confederation of British Industry, in 1998–99, the rate of turnover in the Metropolitan police was about 7 per cent. compared with 19.3 per cent. for the whole economy, but less for the public sector. However, there have been recruitment difficulties, which are being dealt with through the police negotiating board whose negotiations are under way. As was mentioned, there has been a referral to the police arbitration panel to take forward those negotiations. One of the particular problems facing people in London is, as the hon. Gentleman said, the high cost of housing.
Mr. Burns: Will the Financial Secretary deal with the London weighting allowance and say what impact it will have on police in the home counties?
Mr. Timms: As I said, discussions are under way with the police negotiating board, which covers salaries in the Metropolitan police and those outside London. I have no doubt that such issues will be a factor in the discussions.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington asked me to say more about the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. The housing Green Paper entitled "Quality and Choice: A decent home for all" proposes a new starter home initiative designed to help key workers and others on low incomes to buy their own homes in areas of high house prices and high demand. It is a consultative document: we have not
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defined which key workers should be helped, or the income thresholds of those who should benefit from it. I suspect that they are likely to vary from one locality to another. We are consulting on all such matters at present and asking for views on the help that should be offered, such as whether we should offer interest-free loans, cash grants or help with shared ownership, and which key workers should be the target of the initiative.
We shall be looking for innovative proposals that build on the range of existing low-cost, home ownership schemes. It is our intention that detailed proposals for the initiative, including the amount of funding available for it, will be announced later this year, in the light of responses to the consultation and decisions under the Government's spending review for the next three years. Proposals will be invited from registered social landlords and others. Hon. Members might be interested to know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health recently announced the appointment of a national nurse housing co-ordinator, to act on our intention to have more affordable homes for nurses throughout the country.
The Government are offering in the public sector something for something. We value public services and the people who provide them. We want our public services to thrive and we need to demonstrate the value that we place on them, inside and outside London, through the pay and conditions that we provide. Equally, we need those in public services to work with us to bring about the changes that will modernise the services, restore public confidence in them and equipsthem for the challenges of the future. In that way, we can provide confidence for the future for the users of those services in London and elsewhere, and for those who work in them, too.

Special Educational Needs
11 am
Mr. Desmond Swayne: I have been assisted in my understanding of special educational needs and the issues surrounding them by the existence in my constituency of several centres for excellence. I should like to pick out for special attention Ashley junior school and its headmaster, Mr. Colin Williams, who is supported by his thoroughly professional staff. It is a very successful primary school, with a fully integrated special needs unit catering for pupils with simple learning difficulties through to those with autism.
The school's strength lies in the fully integrated nature of its special needs unit, which is managed by close contact with parents and with various professionals. The school's aim is to ensure that pupils with special needs are able to enter mainstream classes by the time that they enter secondary education. Although it is not always possible to achieve that aim, the school's success rate is high.
It is important that resourced, attached units such as the one at Ashley enable children with a variety of needs to enjoy their education within a mainstream setting, among other pupils who will act as good role models. Parents believe that their children's attendance at a mainstream school will help to meet their own aspirations of ensuring that their children are assimilated into society and can make a contribution to it.
I do not want to enter into the argument about the various merits of special schools against those of mainstream schools. My view is that there must be choice, because a mainstream school cannot always be the answer. However, I have neither expertise nor great knowledge in the sphere—unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson). I am sure that, if he is fortunate enough to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair, he will share some of that knowledge with us.
Ashley junior school's growing reputation has brought with it some penalties. Although a recent report on the school by the Office for Standards in Education was full of superlatives and recognised it as a centre for excellence, a consequence has been that Ashley has become a magnet for referrals from outside agencies, particularly local paediatric consultants. Therefore, a growing proportion of children at Ashley have special educational needs, and the school has had to work harder to maintain its position in local and national league tables. Ashley must still cope with the pressures of meeting what must be, at least in some cases, unrealistic or non-achievable targets. Nevertheless, Ashley continues to insist that, regardless of any short-term effects on statistics and league tables, increasing children's self-esteem will reap long-term benefits.
If the Minister is interested in seeing a school that has such an excellent reputation for special needs teaching, she could visit Ashley, where I am sure she would be most welcome and learn much.
My main purpose in initiating this debate, however, is to draw attention to problems in acquiring statements of special educational need. I know that there are always two sides to a story. For many parents, the granting of
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a statement brings comfort and makes them feel more at ease. They believe that such a label seems to make their child's condition more socially acceptable. There is also a belief that a statement will ensure that the school provides a level of support that was not previously provided.
My view is that a statement should make no difference. In an ideal world, a statement would make no difference. At many schools, such as Ashley junior school, a statement does not make a difference. If a school provides support on a needs basis, rather than a resources-driven basis, it should not matter whether a child is statemented. If more schools were provided with sufficient resources and the freedom to deploy those resources according to their priorities—as they were under the grant-maintained regime; I assure the Minister that this is the only party political point that I shall make in the debate—the need for statements would be much reduced.
We do not, however, live in an ideal world, and not all schools are like Ashley. Schools have resource constraints, and different schools may have different priorities. Nevertheless, there is increasing demand among parents for statements. I believe, however, that that demand is capped by an artificial restriction.
The 1979 Warnock report, which formed the basis of the Education Act 1981, took the view that 20 per cent. of pupils have some special educational need, whereas, at any one time, no more than 2 per cent. of pupils should be statemented. My perception is that, despite the passage of time and hugely changed circumstances, those guidelines remain effectively in place. In the past 20 years, however, we have discovered a whole series of new conditions, such as attention deficit and hyperactive disorder.
To digress from my theme for a moment, I am concerned about the number of pupils who are being diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin, which is being dispensed at school. The headmaster at Ashley junior school told me that he is concerned that he has 13 pupils to whom he dispenses daily doses of Ritalin, whereas he believes that, in 50 per cent. of those cases, Ritalin make little difference to the pupils' behaviour at school. He suggests that we should be looking for other explanations for children's behaviour, which is often well under control while at school.
As I said, a series of other conditions has recently been diagnosed, although such conditions were not prevalent in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Other than ADHD, they include organisational dyspraxia, motor dyspraxia, the autistic continuum and a variety of other disorders. I do not know the reason for the increased diagnoses, but suspect that we are only now noticing conditions that were always present, and not that something else has suddenly changed to cause them. Nevertheless, we should review the guidelines and criteria established by the Warnock committee.
I sought to initiate this debate because I perceive that there will be huge frustration if we maintain the resistance to statementing when there is an increased demand for it among parents. I am sure that I am not the only hon. Member who, at constituency advice sessions, faces parents at the end of their tether, filled with absolute frustration, because they feel that they are entirely on their own. They seem almost to be trying to

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wage war against the local education authority in an attempt to obtain a statement for their child. I have also had parents who were in tears, after succeeding in achieving a statement for their child, as they recalled the frustration of months and years in which they seemed to be banging their heads against a brick wall.
Parents who are resourceful and articulate, of course, win through. I am concerned about those who are less resourceful or articulate—many of them lone parents—because they often do not stay the course and do not achieve a statement. That is a serious problem.
I am fortunate in having in my constituency Mrs. Irene Sharman, an adviser who runs a telephone support line for the Independent Panel for Special Education Advice. IPSEA is the largest parent advice and advocacy organisation in the voluntary sector. Mrs. Sharman recently put me in touch with its director, Mr. John Wright. IPSEA does a tremendous job in supporting those parents who are able to access its services and gain support from them, but the statement achieved at the end of the frustrating process is often not worth the paper that it is written on.
In the Education Act 1981, a statement was envisaged as an enforceable contract under which a local education authority was bound to make provision to meet the child's needs. That aim has been frustrated over two decades by local authorities refusing to specify how much special help a child should receive. I have seen a number of examples, including the following shocking extract from a statement:
This child requires provision suitable for a child with general learning difficulties.
What does that mean? How is it enforceable? How can parents be sure that their child is getting the support that he or she needs at school? I am told that such vagueness is not uncommon.
I am not the only one who says that. In 1992, the Audit Commission published a report entitled "Getting in on the Act: Provision for Pupils with Special Educational Needs. The National Picture". It said:
Since most statements for pupils in ordinary schools are vague, they cannot protect a specific level of provision. The notion that statements protect resources is therefore a fallacy. The 1981 Education Act envisaged that a statement would be a guarantee that extra help would be provided consistently and for as long as required. In fact, there are numerous examples of LEAs changing provision. One LEA, facing a budget crisis, reduced the extra teaching hours by 50 per cent. for all pupils with statements issued because of learning difficulties. LEAs which ran their own teams of peripatetic teachers frequently changed the levels of support offered to pupils. Rarely was there any discussion of this with parents—but even if there had been, the parents could hardly have claimed that the provision specified was not being made since it was not usually made clear in the first place.…
There is an incentive for LEAs not to specify what is to be provided because they thereby avoid a long-term financial commitment.
In response to that damning report, the Government issued a code of practice in 1993. It required that the statement should normally be quantified, specifying the number of lessons or hours of assistance per week that the child was to have. That was subsequently confirmed by a decision in the High Court. Notwithstanding that, I continue to receive a host of complaints about the vagueness of statements.
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IPSEA has drawn to my attention the excuses that local education authorities give for failing to be specific in their statements, as they are required to be by the code of practice. For your amusement, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall regale you with a few. One says:
The school timetable won't let us be precise on the Statement.
Another says:
In our county there is a policy not to quantify provision on a Statement—this is done instead in the school's Statement Implementation Plan.
A further excuse runs:
We like to keep it vague so that if we are able to give a little extra we are not prevented from doing so by the Statement.
How extraordinary!
The intention of the 1981 Act was to guarantee provision so that special needs would be given the resources that the statement called for. The 1992 Audit Commission report showed that the law had failed to deliver that. The 1993 code of practice has similarly failed to deliver. Parliament is still failing to deliver the guarantee promised two decades ago to some of our most vulnerable children. It would be out of order for me to call for legislation in an Adjournment debate, but I should like the Minister to answer two specific questions. First, does she still support the principle enunciated in the 1981 Act that there should be a legal guarantee that a child will receive the special education that his or her needs call for? Secondly, if she is still committed to that principle, what will she do to ensure that we start to deliver it in practice?
11.17 am
Mr. David Drew: I am pleased to be able to take part in this important debate. I have to disappear for a few minutes at 12 o'clock. I apologise to the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) and to my hon. Friend the Minister for that, but I shall be back to hear the concluding speeches.
I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) here. I am sure that he will dwell on the issues as they affect Gloucestershire, and I make no apology for doing likewise. A long-overdue review of special educational needs provision is going on in Gloucestershire. It has concentrated on the moderate learning difficulty schools, but it will have an impact on severe learning difficulty provision and schools that cater for educational and behavioural difficulties.
The debate in Gloucestershire has become quite heated, to put it mildly. It has not always been handled as well as it might have been, but it is easy to speak from a distance and cast aspersions. I may disagree with some of what the hon. Member for Tewkesbury says. I agree that the review is needed and with the general direction in which it is going. I have always believed that to argue in extremis in favour of exclusion is as wrong as to argue that inclusion is neither possible nor reasonable.
Bownham Park special school is in my constituency. I have worked with the Special Schools Protection League, under the chairmanship of Mr. Graham Barton. It does not argue against inclusion in principle, but it is unhappy about some aspects, which I shall concentrate on.
The hon. Member for New Forest, West identified the essence of the problem. The fact that parents often have great difficulty with the statementing process and there

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is often a battle to get children statemented—or at least to have their special needs identified—flavours the way in which they regard their children's education. That often means that it is difficult to include the children later. In an ideal world, all children would be in mainstream education, but that will never be feasible or realistic. We must understand the background and try to overcome some of the difficulties.
Gloucestershire's review is ongoing and some proposals have been made. I am a great believer in the need for incremental change, but to carry out that change we must provide facilities to allow children to integrate for some of the time, but have support when necessary. The difficulty is that in carrying that through, some mainstream schools will have to provide some special provision—I do not like the idea of special unitsߞwhere children can go when it is not appropriate for them to be in the mainstream.
There is a supposed problem of stigma for the schools that provide those facilities. More particularly, the parents of children in moderate learning difficulty schools essentially distrust the system because of the battles that they have had in the process of getting their children identified as needing either statementing or additional help. They believe that if their children go into the mainstream, support will be diluted—notwithstanding the fact that many children in the mainstream who are already identified as needing special help are not getting it, for all sorts of reasons. It is a question of resources—we cannot hide from that—but it is also a question of early identification and support.
I understand and support what the county is doing—even if I do not necessarily go along with all the findings and conclusions—because we have to take people along with us. Choice is something of a myth, but people need assurance that what is being provided for their children is right and as good as it can be.
We must understand that the debate on inclusion is approachable from the other side in the sense that, in our changing society, it is right to try to include people in whatever way we can. That must mean that we look at the balance of provision and whether it is right. That is why Gloucestershire has had difficulties. I know many other counties have been through this in the past, but Gloucestershire is something of a special case as we have had a high percentage of children in special schools. That may have been right historically—and it may be right now—but we must consider how best to move the picture forward.
The hon. Member for New Forest, West looked at some of the dilemmas that we face. In Gloucestershire, this has become a political issue, although not a party-political issue. Understandably, people will fight for their school and for their provision, and I have had some moving letters about this matter. However, we must argue the case, if it is right, and take people with us. I believe that that is possible. People at Bownham Park school understand and support the logic of integration, but not on all occasions and not at the cost of the educational provision for their children.
What we do must be right for the individual child. That is a wonderfully idealistic concept, but if my understanding of the 1981 Act is right, that should be
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happening now. For too long the battle lines have been drawn in terms of authorities seemingly trying not to provide the necessary education and, if they do, providing too little, too late. We must overcome that.
This is not a finance-led exercise, and too often we are taken along that road. We must also recognise that many children in the mainstream need additional support. Special schools will remain, although they may not stay on their existing sites. If integration is possible, we must identify how it can be achieved in practice.
I wholeheartedly believe that we need to engage in the debate. It is not easy, and I shall always argue for the provision of special needs education for all children who require it. I would be interested to hear what the hon. Member for Tewkesbury has to say in terms of taking the matter forward. Special educational needs is rightly a subject for debate, and I am grateful for this opportunity to debate it here this morning.
11.25 am
Mr. Laurence Robertson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) on securing this debate. It is not easy to get these one-and-a-half hour debates, and I am sure that he has been persistent. There is a good reason for his persistence, and he eloquently went through the problems.
I do not know whether I ought to declare an interest, but I declare that my wife is a county councillor in Gloucestershire. She sits on the education committee and, for a year, she was the Conservative group's spokesman on that committee. One of the biggest items that she dealt with was the changes to the provision of special educational needs.
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). He said that I was not his hon. Friend but, away from the Chamber—and, quite often, in it—we work closely together for Gloucestershire. This may not help the hon. Gentleman's career, but he comes from an independent-minded position on many issues; I mean that as a compliment. I may not agree entirely with his comments, but I recognise that our opinions come from different, but genuine, standpoints.
On the question of money, I will make some accusations regarding the process in Gloucestershire, one of which relates to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West. He talked about statementing, of which there is a great shortage in Gloucestershire. We could query why that is; I suggest that it suits some people in the county to have a lack of statementing facilities. When there are a great many statemented children, that means that one must question whether special needs provision should be retained or expanded. If there are no statements, it is easy to pretend that there is no need for special educational needs provision.
The hon. Member for Stroud, who has been at the meetings with me, knows that Gloucestershire has had a funding problem in education generally, and we have done what we can to try to improve matters. However, I must refer to a comment, which was probably not intended, by the county's director of education when we were discussing the general problem of education funding. When it was pointed out that the county had quite a good provision for special educational needs and

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that money could be saved there, the director of education said that he was "doing his damnedest" to save money in that respect. That is a disgrace; it is supposed to be not a question of saving money, but of providing the right kind of education for children.
I recognise that many children with special needs are already integrated in schools across the country—certainly across Gloucestershire. If we can include children in mainstream schools, we should. That is an obvious statement with which most people would agree.
My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West and the hon. Member for Stroud recognised that there are many children who simply cannot be included in mainstream schools and who need the special care, education, treatment and facilities that only special schools can provide.
If we are agreed on that, what is the problem? Some authorities, including Gloucestershire, have taken the Green Paper as a green light for the wholesale closure of special schools. That is beginning to happen. The Minister will no doubt say that that was not the intention, and I would accept that, but that has certainly been the effect.
I have taken the matter as high as I can, to the Secretary of State and to the Prime Minister, who recently wrote to me to say that his concern was that parents should have a choice. That is a good, Conservative principle, but there will be no choice for any parent if the schools are closed.
I support the principle of inclusion, but I recognise that it is not always possible. A nephew and godson of mine has special needs, and he has been tried in both kinds of school. He is extremely bright, but he has one or two problems that caused disruption in the mainstream school. That was not fair on him or, equally importantly, on the other children. Because of his difficulties, the special needs school tended to provide a far better education for him.
It is important to recognise people's feelings on the issue. I have spoken to many parents in Gloucestershire and to heads and teachers at mainstream schools, as well as a great many pupils, and they are all in favour of retaining the special schools.
Alderman Knight school in my constituency provides education, care, treatment and facilities of the highest quality. If the Minister came to that school and saw the work that was being done there and the feeling that the pupils have, or if she saw the letters that I and my wife, as a then education spokesman, received from the pupils, or the petitions calling for us to do our utmost to save the school, I am sure that she would be persuaded that it is important to keep it open. Nobody who has seen that school's work would allow it to close.
It is not entirely down to the Minister whether such schools close, because responsibility has been handed down to regional or county level. One could argue that that is the right thing to do, in that people in the area should know what provision is needed and which schools are doing a good job, but it concerns me that the Department for Education and Employment seems to be washing its hands of the issue. If the special school is under threat, will I still be allowed to hold an Adjournment debate on the issue, or will I be told that it is not the Minister's responsibility?
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Given that so many people who are involved in education do not want the wholesale closure of special schools to go ahead, who are we to engineer that closure? Who are we to say that inclusion has to be the right way? It may be the right way for many children, but for many others it is not.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West again on what he said about statementing, although I have confined my remarks to another issue, which concerns me and a great many other people in Gloucestershire. Somebody who came to see me yesterday, who is heavily involved in Alderman Knight school, asked why we should work to help the school if it is to be closed. It is not under immediate threat of closure, but, given Gloucestershire education authority's policy, neither I nor the parents have any doubt that it is under threat.
I end by making a plea for the very special pupils who attend special schools.
11.35 am
Dr. Evan Harris: I, too, pay tribute to the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), who so eloquently introduced this subject—when we saw it on the Order Paper, we realised that it was a big subject—and who made an effective point about the vagueness of statements. We all recognise that problem. What he said about how authorities seem to want to keep their statements vague to give them more flexibility has many resonances in my local authority, although I question whether that is a matter of intentions or of the resources available.
I think that we all appreciated the contributions of the hon. Members for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson), who identified some issues in Gloucestershire that have received national attention in the media. They brought out well the difficulties that local authorities face in dealing with integration.
It is helpful to analyse the pressures on local authorities by considering both the demand and the supply side and recognising that many factors create pressures that, sadly, are transmitted to parents and children and lead to inadequacy of provision, delay in identifying the need for provision, vagueness over what is to be provided and, sometimes, cuts. When cuts are needed, it is sometimes seen as a soft option to cut special needs provision.
Much of what the hon. Member for New Forest, West said about the demand side is true. He listed some of the reasons why there may be an increasing—and legitimate—demand for special educational needs provision and, as a subset of that, for statements. One is that more difficulty and disability in communication, behaviour and learning are recognised these days by educational psychologists, paediatricians and other experts. We would expect that to be the case in this, as in any, field of medicine and education.
It may be the case that, at the margins, advances in neo-natal care have led to a greater number of severely disabled children—of course, I make no judgment on that—and to a wider range of disabilities that, quite rightly, have to be catered for. That has certainly been observed in terms of health care provision and there will of course be a spillover to education. Physically or

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mentally disabled children have a right to education, and that can add an enormous amount to their and their families' quality of life.
There is probably more information available now—in the information age—to parents of children with needs, alerting them to the fact that there are services out there. Many patient organisations and organisations of the recipients of education do invaluable work in identifying best practice and alerting parents and teachers to what can be done. The National Autistic Society is but one. In the age of the internet, we would expect more parents to have a great deal of information about the best practice that is out there. There is also information about new practice, which will be portrayed as good by those who are promoting it, although there may be no evidence to back up the claims.
More can be done in schools, as the professionals become more expert and experienced. Both the legislative and the good practice approaches that have been taken over the past few decades to try to ensure that children with special needs get the attention that they need can be built on. Potentially, in certain areas, there may have been a shift from health service provision for some children with severe difficulties to the education service, and that raises the issue of whether that shift has been matched by a transfer of funds. Both sectors, of course, try to retain as much funding as possible, as demands increase.
Demands may increase for other reasons and the hon. Member for New Forest, West mentioned the increased diagnosis of conditions. It is unclear whether that is caused by new conditions emerging, new recognition of conditions or the labelling of conditions that were previously recognised but did not have a diagnostic label that enabled people to campaign more clearly on the issues. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is one example, and many of us will have had representations from people concerned about the recognition of that spectrum of problems and whether the drug treatment is appropriate.
On the supply side, it is inevitable that funding questions will arise. Even in the best-resourced education service, and even with a Government with the best will towards education, one would expect resource pressures, whether in terms of grants to local education authority or of the level of standard spending assessment. The two are not necessarily linked. Simply calling a school grant maintained does not suddenly magic up extra resources—they are taken from somewhere else in the system. The hon. Gentleman said that that was a party political point, but my response would be that it misses the point on funding issues.
Clear underfunding still exists in education, and the Government have recognised that in giving a big increase in funding this year. Many of us would note that the 8 per cent. real-terms increase in funding has come three years into this Parliament, and we should therefore ask what people receiving the service went through in that time, as well as under previous Governments.
There is a question—no more than that—about the danger of distorting priorities through target setting. I have not investigated the issue in detail, but I ask the
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Minister to recognise that the problem may exist and to investigate it. If more targets are set in an area other than special needs, or the Government or Ofsted decide that targets set in special needs must be more stringently adhered to, there is a danger that local politicians will put resources into ensuring that they meet the targets that they must meet. By default, resources would then be taken from areas with fewer targets or with targets that appear to have lesser political importance. That may be an issue for the media, because it seems that, if something is not capable of being measured by a league table, they are not interested in it. In asking the Minister that general question, I do not defend the use of targets as the answer. There may be merit in having fewer targets and allowing priorities to be set locally and letting teachers get on with their jobs within a Government-set framework.
A question arises from the Gloucestershire debate on integration and whether that creates pressures on funding. We want parents and children to have a choice, but it must be a funded choice. We must recognise that if a certain number of special schools have a certain number of pupils and slowly but surely those pupils are integrated into the mainstream without the closure of any special schools, the per capita cost of providing that special schooling increases. Overheads cannot be reduced as quickly as the number of pupils in the system. While the Government may have provided additional help for special needs, the question is whether that has been sufficient to cope with the additional cost in the special schools sector of providing the same service for a smaller number of pupils. It is also questionable whether full funding has been provided for the sort of support that statemented and non-statemented children and their parents wish for in the mainstream sector. Such support is not a cheap option.
Another area in which resource pressures may have been created by policy is the continued delegation of funding to schools. I do not oppose such delegation and, indeed, the early pilots of delegated budgets took place in Liberal Democrat-controlled authorities, for example—at the time—Cambridgeshire. It has been pointed out by schools receiving delegated budgets and by local education authorities that one loses economies of scale when some services are not provided centrally because of the following of the mantra of delegation. That has certainly happened in the case of school meals in my authority, and the Government have also recognised the problem in the provision of music education. We must also question the continuing drive to measure the efficiency and competence of local education authorities by the amount that they keep centrally, even if that is for effective and efficient provision for special educational needs.
Mr. Drew: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a problem that, if we integrate more children, special schools will become smaller, which means that they will face a deteriorating budgetary situation? That is the double whammy facing Gloucestershire's special schools.
Dr. Harris: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for agreeing with my point. Without some closures, the cost per capita of educating children in special schools will increase because overheads cannot be reduced as

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quickly as school numbers are falling. If the number of children educated in special schools falls by 10 per cent., the logical answer is to close 10 per cent. of the schools to achieve the overhead savings, but that can be difficult for political reasons. It can also be difficult for practical reasons, if a school specialises in specific provision, whether for a disability group or a mode of delivery of education. That may make it counter-productive to seek to rationalise the buildings.
That issue must be recognised by those responsible for resource allocation, or the responsibility for taking difficult decisions that are unpopular should be taken by those who have control of the budget. As we know, 80 per cent. of control of LEA budgets rests with the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and only around 20 per cent. rests with the democratically elected members of local authorities and their discretion to raise the council tax, where that is permitted under capping rules. Blame—if that is the right word—and responsibility should rest with those who set the budgets.
I have several specific suggestions on the issue of special needs, based on my experience of what Oxfordshire has done in the short time that I have been a Member of Parliament for the area. Parents feel genuine concern that targets in the form of league tables for attainment may make schools, perhaps irrationally, resist the inclusion of children with special educational needs, especially in large numbers, because of the effect that that may have—even marginally—on attainment levels. It is important for the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), to put on the record her position on that issue, if she has the opportunity to do so. My LEA is on record as saying that such discrimination in admission is unacceptable, especially for that reason, and I hope that the Minister can assure us that it is also unnecessary. The market that is being created by the publication of league tables in their current form—I recognise the changes the Government have made to reflect added value better—can be a disincentive to integration.
A second suggestion is that the Government should develop specialist mainstream schools dealing with certain disabilities. They may be doing that in certain areas, but in Abingdon in my constituency I recently visited the Larkmead school, the county specialist for the integration of deaf children and of children with hearing difficulties. It has an excellent reputation, and provides a supportive yet challenging culture for its children. It does not rely merely on sign language, but does a lot of other work with pupils.
The Minister must also accept that the additional cost of transport for special needs children has implications for funding. Large distances may be involved when children have to travel to specialist mainstream or special schools. In Oxfordshire, I am told that transport for SEN children costs £3.6 million year, compared to a total of £5.8 million for transport for mainstream children. The Minister will not want to get into a discussion about standard spending assessments, but there is a feeling that the cost of transport, especially in rural areas, is not covered adequately in SSA calculations. That problem may worsen as specialist mainstream schools become more common.
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There is an argument for regional planning of special needs provision. That would ensure that each county or local education authority did not regard its area boundary as the limit of its responsibilities and of the requirement to share good practice. Provision must be shared between LEAs in a region, and they must work closely together. Clearly, it is easy for the Liberal Democrat party to call for that, given our attachment to a democratically elected tier of local government at regional level, but existing regional structures should also consider that suggestion.
Mr. Tim Boswell: I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman's thoroughly constructive speech. Although I do not necessarily accept his regional agenda, will he join me in asking the Minister to say a little more about the regional co-ordinating committees for special educational needs provision? They have been established, but we have heard very little about them to date.
Dr. Harris: I look forward to the Minister's response to a joint quasi-delegation on that point.
The use of new technology provides an opportunity to integrate the delivery of education to some children with special educational needs. It allows them to integrate even better than they do in mainstream schools, as children with physical disabilities are at least as adept as others at using joysticks and computers. Do the Government have any plans to fund or encourage new initiatives in that area?
I end by thanking the hon. Member for New Forest, West for introducing the debate, which has given us an opportunity to hear his concerns about statementing, and to discuss the wider issues. The hon. Gentleman noted that statements are seen to be an end in themselves, rather than a means to provision. Parents tend to focus on statements because of the way in which the legislation and codes of practice are put together. The situation will improve when we concentrate more on the provision and less on the statement.
11.54 am
Mr. Tim Boswell: I echo the congratulations extended to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) on his good fortune in securing the debate, and on the way in which he introduced it. He tackled an important subject with the appropriate blend of passion and sensitivity.
As we consider these issues, we should all adopt the phrase "sensitivity matters" as our motto. I have no quarrel at all with what was said in the distinctive contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) and from the hon. Members for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). The first two speakers explained and made more widely known some of the difficulties in their local education authorities, and the third contributor added to the mix some constructive points arising out of his experience of what is happening in his area.
I have no intention of spoiling the tone of the debate, and I am sure that the Minister has no such intention either. All hon. Members have different points to add to what I hope will remain a broad consensus on this

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matter. We are all aware, from our work as constituency Members of Parliament, of the immense effort expended and concern expressed by parents of children with special educational needs. Equally, we are aware of the frustration and hassle that they experience when they try to get from their local education authority the appropriate provision for the distinctive—and often unique—needs of individual children.
The debate has revealed a phenomenon that is evident in the wider spectrum of social policy. Better scientific knowledge, improved information among citizens and rising expectations blend together to make it difficult to provide appropriate resources for special needs education, and to resolve conflicts with respect to that provision. Parents have huge concerns about SEN provision, which Members of Parliament must loyally try to represent to the providing authorities. However, at the same time, we must accept the difficulties that LEAs face in balancing the allocation of resources between mainstream education and SEN provision. In that connection, the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon made some highly revealing comments about transport costs.
Moreover, overall SEN provision will vary between LEAs. Some authorities may make better provision for blind children than for children with hearing difficulties, for example, while others may do more for children with specialist conditions than for those with more familiar categories of disability. It is extremely difficult to treat all cases fairly and in the best possible way. We must also bear in mind the fact that special school provision will not always fit a changing pattern of presenting disabilities or needs, or the various transport and geographical requirements of a well scattered county authority.
As I have said in previous debates on disability issues in this Chamber, the right approach is not to play party political football with what has or has not been done in the past. Instead, we must accept that all parties want to achieve continuous improvement when it comes to disability matters, and a gradual raising of standards, expectation and provision.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury said, the Conservative Government made some contribution in the early 1990s, when they established the code on SEN, and the tribunal. I was a Minister at the time, and played a small legislative role in that process. However, I am happy to accept that the Government now want to move on to other matters, and I hope that we will spend some time today on those.
The new phase was ushered in by the Green Paper and the Government's welcome commitment to involving education in the disability rights agenda, which extends to all education in maintained schools, and to further and higher education. The Government have also promised that they will introduce a Bill on disability in education, and I hope that the Minister will say when that is expected to appear. It is an open secret—Ministers have admitted as much—that the Bill was agreed to at the very last minute and that it is being drafted.
That Bill is complex to draft, and it is another open secret that the Government are having some difficulty with their legislative timetable. Will the Bill appear this
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Session? If not, should not the Government make a clean breast of the matter and concentrate on getting a largely agreed Bill ready in good time for the next Session? Given the sensitivity of these issues, it is better to legislate properly than to legislate in haste. That should not, however, be seen as a blank cheque for sitting on such a measure indefinitely. There is a balance to be struck, and I should be grateful for the Minister's comments.
From the general tenor of the debate so far, I wish to identify two areas of particular sensitivity. The first, to which nearly everyone has referred, is the inclusion agenda. The Government's programme of action tells us quite eloquently:
Inclusion is a process, not a fixed state. The term can be used to mean many things, including the placement of pupils with SEN in mainstream schools, the participation of all pupils in the curriculum and social life of mainstream schools, the participation of all pupils in learning which leads to the highest possible level of achievement and the participation of young people in the full range of social experiences and opportunities once they have left school.
Try as I might, I find it impossible to disagree with the spirit behind any of those sentiments. However, difficulties may arise in their delivery.
Philippa Russell, known to some of us as the director for the Council for Disabled Children, has said that increasing inclusion will be challenging—a word which the Minister will know is occasionally used by officials to indicate a task that will require a great deal of work in Whitehall, rows with the Treasury and difficulties with the lawyers; however, that does not mean that we should not attempt to increase inclusion.
Another point, which was made well in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury and implicit in the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West, is that inclusion policies cannot be implemented on the cheap. If inclusion is to be appropriate, it may cost more in resources than continuing special schools. The test ought to be whether it is appropriate.
That brings us back to some important concerns. There is concern at the suggestion by some local educational authorities that they see little future need for special schools. They would like to impose an element of compulsion on inclusion. Some parents—not many—are over-protective of their children and expect too little from them. They do not realise the opportunities that may be available in mainstream education. The Government have, on the whole, been encouraging about the principle, and local education authorities that are worried about resources need to be imbued with an element of pragmatism and to recognise that special provision is needed for children who might be lost or vulnerable in mainstream schools, and/or have a clear need for specialist support.
In certain cases, with a bit of ingenuity and lateral thinking, we may be able to break out from the simple concept of one or the other. We may be able to provide an element of inclusion alongside extra support or special provision, as is often done in mainstream schools, or by including children from special schools in some activities. I hope that local authorities and schools will be flexible, and that the Government will disseminate good practice.

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I should value the Minister's comments on the interaction between the special educational needs regime with which we are broadly familiar, and which is based, at least in concept, on the educational appraisal of the individual child, and the new agenda that will take a civil rights-based approach to disability rights. We all acknowledge that disabled pupils have a right to appropriate education. The converse is that their schools have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate them. Some adjustments, which require capital investment, are quite do-able, and others require special arrangements in the classroom. The difficulty with joining the two concepts arises where a statement, particularly one on which it is difficult to put a specific value, does not fit in with the legal concept of a right or a disability right. The Government have made it easier for themselves by indicating that they intend to deliver the disability right in education for pupils through the tribunal. That is with the difficult exception of further and higher education where, as I understand it, the courts will be involved in adjudication, as they might be where other issues of disability rights are involved.
There are also interesting and important resource implications where local education authorities may look to the Government to meet contingent commitments. I need hardly mention the huge cost to the national health service of liability claims—it exceeds £600 million a year. We have only just started on the disability rights agenda and it could be very expensive if matters are not handled well. I tabled a parliamentary question to register my concern that the original approach would not even evaluate the impact costs of these moves on further and higher education.
As with inclusion, we cannot offer disability rights on the cheap. There will be further resource implications, of a capital and current nature. The Government must face those and work out, with the local authorities, how to deal with them.
My final points concern the awkward interface between SEN provision and the wider social issues that are relevant to any inclusion agenda. We really need to improve the transitional provision from school to further education and past that, wherever possible, into work experience and work. It is generally conceded that the current practice is not ideal because local authorities do not always do what they are obliged to do under previous legislation. The Government need to ensure that the existing law is properly implemented as well as taking forward into law any improvements, such as those in the Learning and Skills Bill. In no sense is that a cop-out. We need to ensure that local authorities are doing what they are obliged to do and that any new duties are properly carried out. A lot of value is added if people can be properly assessed and passed from one stage of their provision to another as part of a proper plan.
We need to consider families and family units as a proper framework, as part of our wider approach to inclusion. There needs to be proper consultation with all relevant agencies and with the family as a whole, given the interaction and relationships between family members. For example, one child may be in mainstream education and have a sibling who is in specialist education. We need to be more sensitive to such issues.
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A Member of Parliament is often the holistic bit of the jigsaw. Constituents who come to our surgeries may have three or four needs. The Member of Parliament sometimes functions as the sole agency, drawing those needs together and referring to the various pieces of the jigsaw. Families, pupils and parents need an approach that is centred on meeting their needs.
In conclusion, local authorities may sometimes view local children with special needs in terms of problems, resource centres and costs, but there are also huge opportunities. These are very special children and they deserve, as I think they will receive, our firm, warm-hearted and generous support.
12.9 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Jacqui Smith): I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) on securing a debate on a topic which all hon. Members agree is most important. I join him in paying tribute to the good work that is obviously going on at Ashley junior school in his constituency. Since taking up my post, I have been fortunate enough to visit many schools where excellent work is being done on such matters, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will pass on my congratulations to schools in his constituency.
Education of children with special educational needs was one of the first issues that the Government tackled after the general election in 1997. Within months, we published the Green Paper "Excellence for all Children: Meeting Special Educational Needs". We followed that up with an action programme, through which we have continued to work hard to establish a system to enable children with special educational needs to receive the education they need and deserve. That forms part of our overall drive to improve standards for all children. I hope that I shall be able both to respond to the points made by hon. Members and to highlight how, in practice, we are delivering what we said we would.
The hon. Member for New Forest, West asked about the specificity of statements. There is no absolute requirement that the educational provision to be made for a child should be specified in hours per week. However, in most cases, it will be necessary to set out the hours of help needed in order to comply with the requirements of section 324 of the Education Act 1996 and with the Education (Special Educational Needs) Regulations 1994.
The code of practice to which hon. Members referred indicates that provision should normally be specific, detailed and quantified; for example, for the hours of ancillary or specialist teaching support. Although some flexibility should be retained in order to meet the child's changing needs, it will be necessary, in many cases, to specify the hours of ancillary or specialist teaching support required for a child with a statement.
If an authority does not specify the hours when making a statement, the child's parents have the right of appeal to the SEN tribunal. The Secretary of State is able to consider taking action against an authority which maintains a blanket policy of not specifying such provision in a child's statement.
Concerns were expressed about statementing and the code of practice. The Department is currently engaged in revising the SEN code of practice, in close

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consultation with a specially convened sub-group of our national advisory group on special educational needs. As we explained in the action plan, the revised code focuses on guidance for SEN school-based provision in each phase of education, with an emphasis on the roles and responsibilities of all teachers in relation to children and young people with special educational needs.
Alongside the new code, we plan to publish a good practice guide that will help schools, LEAs and other agencies to improve the ways in which they meet the needs of children and young people. We shall also publish guidance on thresholds for the identification of pupils with special educational needs and on the range of provision that would be appropriate to meet those needs.
I share the concerns expressed by hon. Members that the code should not be seen as a rush to statement, if parents and schools are worried about what support will be offered to their children. I shall refer later to other measures that we are taking to support those children and their schools and families.
The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) rightly raised their concern about the review of special educational needs provision currently under way in Gloucestershire. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury and I have been in communication on the issue, and I understand his anxiety about a particular school in his constituency. However, changes will continue to be made to school provision, both special and mainstream, in accordance with local needs and circumstances. That has always been true and was reflected in the remarks of both hon. Members. All hon. Members who have experienced changes in school provision in their constituencies are aware that such changes will always be difficult; they always raise considerable local concern which needs to be addressed.
LEAs cannot, of course, summarily close a special school; they must publish statutory proposals and, before doing so, must ensure that they have consulted all interested parties. Under the new arrangements, they have to refer those plans to the school's organisation committee, whose members are drawn from local groups with an understanding about the decisions to be taken. They can include members of the LEA, governors of local schools—at least one of whom should be a special school governor—the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Further Education Funding Council and other groups deemed relevant in the LEA area. If that committee is unable to reach a unanimous decision, it will pass the case to an independent adjudicator for determination. Notwithstanding the difficult decisions that will be made in Gloucestershire, I hope that hon. Members feel that the process at least allows their concerns to be reflected.
The Government's position was spelt out in our Green Paper. We are firmly committed to promoting inclusion by choice. That is a cornerstone of our strategy for raising standards of achievement and for meeting the educational needs of all children. We are determined to maintain progress on that matter, so that more parents feel confident that their child's needs can and will be met in a mainstream school.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud made the important point that the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools would be beneficial not only for them, but—socially and educationally—for the other children in the school. That was proved by the hon. Member for New Forest, West when he highlighted the good work in a school in his constituency.
Our approach has been practical. The objective must be to safeguard the interests of all children. When parents want a mainstream setting for their children, our policy is to try to provide one. However, it is equally important to respect the right of parents to specialist provision, if that is what they want. We have underlined the point that specialist provision continues to play a vital role.
Inclusion is not an agenda for the closure of all special schools; it creates a challenge for the education system—often to find new roles for special schools and for specialist provision. In particular, we want such schools to become outward-looking centres of excellence and to work with their mainstream colleagues to help to support pupils who would benefit from a mainstream place. We are acting to support such collaboration between schools.
The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) is right to point out that we must not only outline our objectives but ensure that we can deliver improvements for children with special educational needs. The importance that we attach to promoting inclusion is emphasised by a range of initiatives designed to help schools to develop their practice so as to become more inclusive. The initiatives offer practical solutions to enable schools to meet the challenge of providing for the needs of a more diverse range of pupils. They will also ensure that we maintain high-quality provision for all children with special educational needs and the other children who are learning alongside them.
The first of the practical approaches relates, as hon. Members have suggested, to funding. I strongly agree with the sentiment that the move to inclusion and to improving provision for special educational needs is not about saving money. That is why the extra £219 million in funding to schools that was announced in the March Budget will give schools the flexibility to use it to support all children and children with special educational needs. In particular, the money provides an extra £15,000 to each of the 62 non-maintained special schools.
We also are allocating £15 million this year from the SEN standards fund to support 100 innovative local inclusion and emotional and behavioural difficulty projects. That is nearly double the money that was available last year. Overall, the SEN standards fund has been raised from £35 million last year to £55 million this year, and the money is being used to support training, parent partnerships, pilot speech and language therapy projects and to help schools to prepare to become more inclusive.
Since 1997, 3,300 schools have benefited from the schools access initiative and the capital support available to make schools and the curriculum accessible to all pupils. That money has been increased to £30 million this year as part of a £100 million package over three years. The Department is funding the distribution of the index for inclusion to all schools and local

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authorities. That is a practical review tool to enable schools to examine what they need to do to become more inclusive, to increase participation and to raise standards not just for pupils with special educational needs but, as I stressed, for all pupils in school.
A special mainstream links working group is producing an interactive CD-ROM package aimed at teachers, showing how we can, as I suggested earlier, develop in a practical way the links between the specialist provision that remains and the mainstream sector. The package will be launched later this year at a series of seminars.
There is nearly £1 million to support the network of 11 SEN regional co-ordination projects that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Daventry. Since this April, they have covered the whole of England and they bring together all the local partners—health, social services, education, employment and the voluntary and private sectors—and they help to promote inclusion.
The projects aim to redress through collaborative planning and working the variations in access to, and the quality of, provision for pupils with special needs. They go some way to dealing with the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) about the need to ensure that we do not allow different authorities and sources of funding to isolate themselves so that they do not work together in the way that they should to provide the best of the whole package to children with such needs. I am more than happy to send the hon. Member for Daventry details about the work that the regional co-ordination projects currently undertake.
Rightly, we heard about the importance of involving and helping parents and about the frustrations that they sometimes feel. The importance of an effective partnership with parents was one of the key themes in the SEN programme for action. All local education authorities have been expected to provide parent partnership services from 1999. LEAs do not necessarily have to provide the services themselves: they can, and in many cases do, arrange for the services to be delivered by the voluntary sector and by organisations such as those highlighted by the hon. Member for New Forest, West. I strongly believe that it is important that LEAs look for good supportive provision in the voluntary sector that will work with them to support parents.
The aim of parent partnership services is to ensure that parents of children with special educational needs have access to information, advice and guidance on their children's needs so that they can make appropriate and informed decisions, in what, as has been pointed out, can be a stressful, difficult and emotional time. In 1999–2000, the Department supported expenditure of £6 million through the SEN standards fund to develop and expand such services. This year, we have doubled that to £12 million.
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In relation to the concerns expressed about statements and the code of practice, the parent partnership services will be expected to ensure that parents of any children identified as having special educational needs—not just those with statements—should have access to an independent parental supporter. That goes some way to meeting the concern expressed that parents think that their child must have a statement before they receive the advice and support that they want.
Mr. Boswell: I sense that the Minister is beginning to draw her remarks to a conclusion. Before she does, will she tell us what has befallen the promised legislation?
Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to learn that I was coming to that point.
The Department also funds the national parent partnership network that is operated by the Council for Disabled Children. It plays an important part in encouraging positive partnerships by providing information on existing services, distributing newsletters, arranging meetings, sharing good practice and exchanging information. The draft revised SEN code of practice to which I referred will include a new chapter on effective partnership working with parents. We intend to legislate on that subject as part of the planned SEN disability Bill that is designed to ensure that LEAs provide parent partnerships services and to replace the current arrangements for named persons that operate only in relation to children with statements.
In reply to the hon. Gentleman's question about the Bill, regrettably, it is not for me to decide the timetable for legislation. However, he will be aware that we have carried out consultation on our proposals in the Bill, and he raised important questions about how we intend to take forward the disability measures in it. Following the results of the consultation, we are committed not only to implementing the Bill but to implementing it in a way that delivers the changes that we all want. I think that hon. Members will agree that we should reflect the views expressed in trying to ensure that the Bill works. We are committed to the changes, but, as I said, I am not responsible for the parliamentary timetable.
I hope that hon. Members will accept from what I have said that we recognise that parents, teachers and children need support and reassurance on these issues. We are providing the funding, the renewed structure to the system, the support for teachers, the support for schools and the examples of good practice that will be necessary to ensure—as all hon. Members have emphasised—that we provide the best possible opportunities for all our children, and particularly for the special children whom we have considered today.
12.29 pm
Sitting suspended.

Consumer Protection (Uno plc and World of Leather)
12.30 pm
On resuming—
Mr. Bill Tynan: I am grateful to have secured time for this important debate and to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of many colleagues who, like me, have been inundated with pleas for help and requests for assistance from many angry and confused constituents. Numbers affected in my constituency are relatively small, but the overall effect on individuals is considerable. The administrators have confirmed that approximately 21,000 people have been affected throughout the United Kingdom. With so many people involved, justification for this debate is self-evident.
As I go through events, I hope that the Minister for Trade, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), will agree that there is a case for a thorough investigation of the relevant issues which, if mismanagement is established, may lead to the introduction of legislation to protect consumers who find themselves in similar circumstances. Two of the furniture stores traded in Lanarkshire, and, like me, my colleagues in neighbouring constituencies, my hon. Friends the Members for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy), have constituents who ordered and paid for furniture in part or in full. Those people now find themselves with little chance of receiving either their furniture or a refund of their hard-earned cash, leaving them with substantially reduced bank balances. The vast majority have been told that they will not receive a penny of compensation as they have little or no protection under current consumer laws.
However, the problem is not confined to Lanarkshire. As hon. Members can confirm, approximately 21,000 consumers throughout Scotland, England and Wales are affected by the closures of Uno plc and World of Leather plc. World of Leather was acquired by Uno in April 1997, and, between them, the two companies traded in 58 stores throughout the UK, 19 under the name of Uno and 39 under the name of World of Leather. In November, both companies issued a profit warning and announced a £6.06 million loss for the previous 26 weeks in, I understand, the London Gazette, a well-read journal in my constituency.
It is safe to say that the customers who continued to shop at both stores were totally unaware of the companies' perilous financial position. Had they known, I believe that they would never have parted with their money. Unsuspecting customers continued to order furniture between November and 14 March, the date on which the decision was made to close all Uno and World of Leather stores. In fact, they were encouraged to pay in full to qualify for substantial discounts or early deliveries. On the advice of a colleague, I visited a Uno store, but, fortunately, did not place an order. I was totally unaware of the company's financial difficulties, and I sincerely hope that my colleague was, too.
It has come to light that both companies sold off all their freehold properties prior to the appointment of the administrator in an attempt to address their liquidity
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problems. It is possible that about £11 million was raised, but I have no idea what it was used for, where it went or, indeed, how long it was between the sell-off and the appointment of the administrator. I am sure that the Minister could use his good offices to inquire into that.
During that period, I believe that purchasers for the companies were being actively sought. It is thought that detailed negotiations began with interested parties in December 1999: one set of negotiations involved the companies' main supplier and the other a proposed management buy-out. Unfortunately, negotiations broke down in early March and subsequent efforts to find another buyer were unsuccessful.
I do not know why the negotiations failed. It appears that the directors considered their options carefully and discussed the way forward with their professional advisers. On 8 March 2000, a separate bank account, known as the trust account, was established for consumers' cash and cheque deposits. However, cash and cheque deposits paid prior to that date were paid into the companies' overdrawn bank account and were not held in trust for the benefit of customers. If, at the time of the announced profit warning, the companies had set up a trust account, consumers would have been protected. Unfortunately, however, for the 21,000 customers, that is not the case.
Following the closure of all the stores on 14 March 2000, on 15 March, the High Court appointed Simon Allport, Alan Lewis and Richard Dixon Fleming of Arthur Andersen as joint administrators to the companies, and they became responsible for the management of the companies' affairs. I should like to place on record my thanks to Simon Allport, who has been extremely helpful. At my request, yesterday, with his colleagues, he attended a meeting in the House of Commons to brief Members. Those who attended agreed that the meeting was informative and worth while.
The administrators concluded that formal trading of the business was not viable for several reasons. The two companies owed a total of £3.2 million in rental payments on 24 March 2000, and salary payments of approximately £600,000 were due on 31 March 2000. Many customer deposits had been taken and there were related outstanding orders. Finally, substantial losses were being incurred by Uno.
Despite those and other difficulties, the sale of World of Leather as a going concern took place on 24 March. Thirty-two of its stores were transferred to the purchaser, a consortium of private individuals who, for whatever reason, decided to trade as New World of Leather. I think that that choice of name was unfortunate, as customers who were left high and dry by the closure of Uno and World of Leather could not understand why stock once owned and displayed by those companies was now being sold in the same stores under the name of New World of Leather. That was confusing for the many customers who ordered and paid for purchases from stock that is now back on sale. They cannot come to terms with losing their money and furniture while the stores are back in business and even employ the same employees as before. That is quite unacceptable.
As I said, the two companies had approximately 21,000 customer orders outstanding on the date of administration. Following representation on behalf of

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my constituents, the administrator told me that he was attempting to establish the position of individual customers' orders by reviewing the companies' records and identifying individual orders. He said that considerable work was involved, as the particulars of every outstanding order had to be analysed and the furniture held at the companies' storage locations had to be sorted, counted and allocated. It was necessary to ensure that all furniture stored in all sites could be identified and relocated to central storage units.
There was also a need to sort, count and trace from source documents all furniture that appeared to have been appropriated by individual customers, thus identifying all customer stock. All competing title claims to furniture, including customer stock, had to be resolved, which involved negotiation and resolution of legal issues with suppliers who had not been paid for furniture manufactured by them. I understand that that may end up in test court cases. Finally, negotiations with customer finance providers and credit card companies had to take place to permit the release of furniture.
After that exercise, approximately 2,400 items of customer stock were identified—compared with a possible total of 21,000 outstanding customer orders—and stored in distribution depots throughout the country, one of which was in Baillieston in Glasgow. My hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale and I gained access to that depot, checked our constituents' order numbers and identified their furniture. To his credit, the administrator had authorised the release of any furniture with a customer's name, address and order number, and three of my constituents were fortunate enough to obtain orders held in that depot.
The current position is that customers are likely to fall into three broad categories. Some are likely to receive their furniture because their order has been identified as customer stock. Others are likely to receive their order as the result of the administrator reaching an agreement with a third party on completing their order. Finally, some customers are unlikely to receive their order or have their money refunded, resulting in a claim against the companies for the amount paid. Unfortunately, however, those customers would be classed as unsecured creditors and are unlikely to receive any substantial return. Alternatively, depending on circumstances, they may have a claim against the credit card or finance company under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
Is it any wonder that customers are extremely angry and are asking how companies can get away with what they believe is tantamount to fraud? They do not accept that there is nothing to be done in such circumstances and have asked that the Government take whatever action is necessary to prevent innocent people being ripped off in such a way in future. My constituents find it totally unacceptable and immoral that, on the same site where World of Leather and Uno previously traded, a new company trading under the name of New World of Leather is selling stock previously owned by World of Leather and Uno as bankrupt stock.
To return to the profit warning, it is clear that the announcement was known to those who knew where to look for such information. Was it just a coincidence that a private company of investors set up an organisation in November? I am sure that the Minister could explore that and confirm whether it is true. I am not suggesting
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any impropriety, but the Department of Trade and Industry must undertake a thorough investigation into the events surrounding the closure. There are many questions to be asked and answered.
According to a customer notice issued by the consumer and trading standards advice service in Hamilton to my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw and myself, the new company, MM&S, confirmed that the organisation acquired the display stock of Uno plc from the administrators on 24 March. The administrators have confirmed that part of the assets of World of Leather were sold to an independent consortium of private investors trading under such a title. The administrators further confirmed that no customer stock was sold as part of the sale agreement.
MM&S said in the customer notice that it had taken on some of the staff previously employed by the two companies, and went on to reassure customers who had lost their hard-earned savings that it had no connection with the previous owners. MM&S, now trading as New World of Leather, said that it would like further to reassure all customers that the staff were totally unaware of the financial state of Uno plc and World of Leather, whose collapse came as a complete and very nasty surprise, and resulted in significant loss of earnings for each and every one of them.
On that basis, the profit warning in November was unknown not only to consumers but to staff. Indeed, one of the employees—a manager—confirmed that. It is therefore essential that we revise how profit warnings are given, where they are published and how we maximise consumer awareness of the financial difficulties that companies may face.
This Government have a proud record of introducing legislation to ensure that consumers are protected—for example, the recent Utilities Bill. I do not accept that we should or can continue to allow consumers who buy goods in good faith to use their hard-earned savings only to find themselves in a similar situation to my constituents: simply being informed "It's just your bad luck" and given sympathy. They need and desire protection against sharp practices. That must be delivered by creating a fund or bond to compensate consumers in such circumstances. It is unacceptable simply to advise consumers that the Office of Fair Trading suggests avoiding paying in full for goods before receipt of them or, if paying a deposit in excess of £100, to consider using a credit card. Many of the consumers in my constituency do not have credit cards.
Since I was elected, I have constantly heard complaints from the Opposition about the amount of regulation that the Government are introducing. I make no apology in this instance for seeking more protection for my constituents and the 21,000 customers who feel that they have been ripped off. I seek a commitment from the Minister to investigate thoroughly all the issues and to introduce additional regulation if required in order to ensure proper consumer protection. On that basis, I ask the Minister to consider three changes to legislation.
First, a scheme similar to the bond scheme that operates for travel agents, which compensates consumers when a travel agent goes out of business, should be introduced. Secondly, a profit-warning notice

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should be given maximum coverage, especially in local publications. Thirdly, the DTI should agree to an extensive investigation of the facts and act on its findings. If the Minister examines events leading up to the closure of those companies, I believe that he will reach the same conclusion as my constituents and I and many hon. Members.
12.44 pm
Mr. Keith Darvill: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) on securing this debate. I should like to emphasise concerns across the country. Although he represents a Scottish constituency, while I represent an east London constituency, many of my constituents have raised similar problems. Some of them have lost—or are looking like they will lose—more than £3,000 in deposits. Others may have to rely on chance to receive their suites of furniture on the retention of titled clauses.
I emphasise the need for stronger consumer protection in this area, similar to that in the travel industry, where consumers pay such large deposits. We need a thorough investigation into the matter because the companies to which my hon. Friend referred clearly encountered financial difficulties some time ago, and because consumers were clearly unaware of that and unable to protect themselves.
12.45 pm
The Minister for Trade (Mr. Richard Caborn): First, I apologise to you, Mr. Jones, and to the House for being half a minute late. I was trying to get some information from the stock exchange, which I was not able to get but will pass on when I eventually do so. If I do not complete my speech, I will write to my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan), probably depositing that letter in the Library. Some 21,000 people have been affected by the matter and it is therefore important that we provide as much information as possible, although some of it will be an interim response.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South on securing this debate. I am very sorry to learn of the difficulties faced by customers who may lose money that they have paid for furniture ordered from the 58 furniture stores throughout the country. I assure him that some of my constituents have been hit, too; there are complaints in my postbag just as there have been in his. Many of those affected can ill afford to lose the sums that they paid, which in some cases was in excess of £2,000.
Before addressing the issues, let me confirm the facts as we know them. Administration orders were made against Uno plc and its wholly owned subsidiary, World of Leather plc, on 15 March 2000 on the petition of their directors. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South said, three partners in Arthur Andersen were appointed as administrators. The objective of the administration was to secure the survival of the companies as an on-going concern or, if that was not possible, to sell the assets at an enhanced value.
As my hon. Friend knows, achieving the former objective was not possible, so the assets, comprising premises, showroom stock and the order book for
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potentially profitable contracts, were sold to New World of Leather. The administrators have a duty to sell assets at the best value. I understand that the assets were sold to the New World of Leather Ltd. partnership, which was formed after the date of the administration's appointment. A separate company, New World of Leather Ltd., which is part of the group, was formed in November 1999 under the name MM&S (2599) Ltd. It is quite possible that that company was acquired off the shelf from company formation agents.
The potentially profitable orders to which I referred represented a small proportion of the total. Generally, they are orders on which only a small deposit was paid, and most were placed with World of Leather, not Uno. None of the directors of Uno or World of Leather is a director of the new company.
I understand that the administrators will be calling a meeting of creditors in mid-June to vote on the administrators' proposals on the companies' affairs. Generally speaking, an administrator is not permitted to distribute funds among creditors. That will occur by placing the companies in liquidation in due course.
Officials have obtained information from the administrators about the prospects of customers obtaining goods that they have ordered and paid for in whole or in part. As I said, about 21,000 customers are in that position. Broadly speaking, customers fall into one of three categories. First, there are customers whose furniture has been manufactured and delivered to Uno or World of Leather. Secondly, there are customers, mainly of World of Leather, who have paid a small deposit and consequently whose orders may still be fulfilled profitably. New World of Leather has acquired such orders. Thirdly, there are customers who fall into neither of those categories. They are unsecured creditors.
The position is complicated by the fact that most suppliers to Uno and World of Leather sold goods to them under terms whereby they retain the title of the goods until they are paid for in full and by the fact that some of the furniture appropriated to customer orders is in commercial warehouses, which may exercise liens on goods stored with them for unpaid costs. That means that it is unsafe to make definitive statements about any customer order until all the relevant circumstances have been investigated.
When companies are placed in liquidation, the order of distribution of assets will be determined by insolvency law. The Crown has certain preferential rights, but only for taxes that the company will have collected and should have paid, such as PAYE and VAT, and then only to certain limits. Employees also enjoy preferential rights for sums due to them, but, again, they are limited. I shall return to preferential rights later.
A question that I am sure is running through the minds of customers and hon. Members is what action might be taken if misconduct by Uno's directors is discovered. Although the Insolvency Service has no power under the Insolvency Act 1986 to investigate the affairs of a company in administration or any regulatory role in relation to one, the administrators have a duty under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 to report to the Secretary of State if they form the view that the conduct of any of Uno's directors makes them unfit to be involved in the management of a company. I

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am sure that, in preparing their report, the administrators will be at pains to establish the causes of the failure of both companies.
Mr. Jimmy HoodI am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend's response and, if he does not mind my saying so, the legal rhetoric. Let us be clear that, from our constituents' point of view, and ours, we are talking about corporate robbery, and I want him to tell us what will be done about it. There may be an inquiry further down the line, but we and the 21,000 creditors who have been robbed by the company want some answers. Where are the directors now and what are they doing? What influence did they have? If they are not still directors of the company, are members of their family or their friends involved in it? We would like him to tell us that there will be an inquiry.
Mr. Barry Jones (in the Chair): Order. Interventions must be brief.
Mr. Caborn: Thank you, Mr. Jones. I hope to cover some of those matters. If I had had notice of those questions, I might have been able to answer them, but I cannot at the moment.
I cannot anticipate whether the administrators will make such a report, but, if they do, the Secretary of State has the power to apply to the court for a disqualification order against the director concerned if he believes that it would be in the public interest to do so. That partly answers my hon. Friend's questions. The court may take into account the extent of a director's responsibility for any failure by the company to supply goods or services that have been paid for in whole or in part—in other words, deposits and pre-payments.
On 4 November 1999, more than four months before the administrators were appointed, Uno made a trading statement warning that results for the year to April 2000 were
likely to fall materially short
of market expectations. I understand that publicity given to such a statement is covered by chapter 9.2 of the listing rules: a listed company is required to notify the company announcements officer of the London stock exchange, which makes the information publicly available. In addition, it must notify shareholders, either by sending them a copy of the statement or by placing a copy in the national newspapers.
My Department also has investigatory powers under the Companies Act 1985. They are exercised if there is good reason to do so, but they are not used to duplicate investigation efforts elsewhere. We considered Uno plc for investigation, but took the view that administrators were already in place and were alert to their duty to report misconduct, so we do not plan to investigate at present. That stance will be reviewed if circumstances change.
An administrator has powers under insolvency law to apply to the court to reverse any payments made by the company that amount to preferences to certain creditors or transactions that are undervalued. The wrongful trading provision in the Insolvency Act 1986—which enables a court, on application, to make a director personally liable if he permits a company to continue trading while insolvent—applies only to a company in
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liquidation, as does the provision whereby a director may be made liable to contribute to a company's assets if fraudulent trading is proved to the court's satisfaction.
Hon. Members will want me to address the question of whether, if nothing can be done to help the customers of World of Leather, the law could be changed to avoid a repetition of the position in which customers of World of Leather find themselves. The Government's view is that any attempt to protect consumers by removing existing preferential rights or, indeed, extending preferential rights to consumers in an insolvency case would not achieve adequate protection of customer deposits and pre-payments because it would not overcome the fundamental problem that, in many insolvencies, there are simply insufficient assets to go round, even for preferential creditors.
Mr. Desmond Browne: On possible changes to the law, what is my right hon. Friend's response to the not unreasonable suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) that, in the particular circumstances of the credit retail business, information about the insolvency or the trading circumstances of a business should be advertised in publications that circulate in the area where that business trades so that potential customers might know what the stock exchange and the limited number of readers of the London Gazette know?
Mr. Caborn: That is a very valid point. I was late arriving at the House today because I was trying to find out exactly what had gone on with the stock exchange. It could be argued that rights are given to shareholders, but not to customers, which needs to be investigated. I was trying to find out for hon. Members whether the public had been informed and, if so, exactly how. I cannot answer that question now, but, as soon as I receive that information from the stock exchange, I will write to my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne) and put it on the public record. We might have to look at such matters when we discuss the consumer affairs White Paper.
Changing such rights would constitute an attempt to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. If protection were to be afforded to advance payments by consumers, it would have to operate when the payment was made. There are good policy reasons for not extending the ranks of preferential creditors. To do so would lead to demands from other categories of creditor who could advance an equally strong claim. For example, subcontractors could argue that moneys due to them by main contractors should be granted preferential status. To accede to any such requests would open the floodgates and lead to a general extension of preferential rights. That would be contrary to policy under the Insolvency Act 1986, which is to reduce preferential claims as far as possible. Time is running out, but I assure hon. Members that I will put in writing the information that I would have given them had I been able to do so.
It has been suggested that the Government should provide some means of compensation for consumers when firms fail. For example, there could be a statutory requirement on retailers to protect consumers' deposits and pre-payments generally by placing them in a

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bond—which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South—or a trust account until the contract is fulfilled, or we could make retailers take out insurance. However, while that might well be effective, it would all have to be enforced, and that would be costly. Inevitably, the additional costs on business would be passed on to consumers generally in the form of higher prices. All consumers would pay, but relatively few would benefit. A small business might find it increasingly difficult to trade, especially because of the loss to its cash flow. On balance, therefore, that approach would not be a viable solution to the problem.

Illegal Immigrants
12.59 pm
Mr. Charles Wardle:I am grateful for the opportunity to draw attention to what appear to be serious irregularities on the part of the immigration service in the way in which the renewal of the contract for the escort of persons to be removed from the United Kingdom under the Immigration Act 1971 was conducted. I shall also refer to allegations of unacceptably late payments by the IS of money requested in invoices, involving delays of up to four years. I shall cite evidence of administrative chaos, and the failure of the IS to keep records of removals.
These matters were drawn to my attention by Mr. Barry Southon, who lives at Broadoak, Brede, in my constituency. He is the proprietor of Airline Security Consultants Ltd. ASC has worked for the IS for some 18 years. In this debate, I shall rely on what Mr. Southon has told me and shown me, which I take to be entirely sound.
At the outset, I should declare a past interest. I served as an Immigration Minister in the Home Office during the previous Parliament. I did not meet Mr. Southon in that capacity, however; I first encountered him when he came to one of my constituency advice surgeries in February this year.
I have the highest regard for the hard work and dedication shown by men and women in the IS, who must frequently operate in trying conditions. If, on some occasions in the past, I have expressed reservations about the management calibre of some senior officials in the immigration and nationality directorate, as it now is, that does not detract from my esteem for the achievements of rank-and-file members of the IS. However, none of that prevents me from putting the spotlight on what appears to show carelessness and malpractice on the part of a very few officials during the tender for the new escort contract.
I hope that, following this debate, the points that I raise will be investigated more closely, not only by the Minister—to whom I have already written—but by the National Audit Office. I asked the Comptroller and Auditor General for a copy of the Public Services Contract Regulations 1993 in connection with the debate, and I intend in due course to draw to his attention what I have said today.
Mr. Southon tells me that, since he began working under contract to the IS in 1982, he has been personally involved in the escorted removal of more than 4,000 people from the UK. I am not aware of any significant criticism by the IS of the way in which ASC has operated during that period; indeed, I have been told that, in 18 years, only nine complaints have been made about ASC, all of which proved on further investigation to be without foundation. In contrast, I have seen copies of many commendations of ASC, from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), directors, an inspector, training teams, chief immigration officers and immigration officers. All have praised the company. Some of the most recent letters of commendation have expressed downright surprise that such an experienced team should be dropped at the very time when the British public looks to the IS to increase its effectiveness in removing immigration offenders.

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Over the years since 1982, ASC has developed a highly efficient service in which security and medical escorts have been made available at just two hours' notice, together with a secure vehicle with airside access when required. Until 1994, it was the sole provider of escorted removals to the IS, but, following a written question tabled in 1994 by the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who will reply to the debate—she was then an Opposition Member, and I was the Minister—a second escort company, Loss Prevention International, was taken on at the instigation of a procurement official, Mr. Paul Quibell. From then on, ASC handled about 80 per cent. of the work and LPI about 20 per cent.
In 1996, ASC—presumably along with LPIߞparticipated in a tender for renewal of the escort service contract, but, for some unexplained reason, that tender competition was never completed. It was eventually abandoned three years later, in July 1999. At that juncture, ASC was asked to re-tender, which it did, by submitting an 83-page document by the due date of 9 November last year. The result of the new tender was to be announced on 20 December, although, in fact, no such announcement was made on that date.
Only one of the companies that tendered in November was called in for a clarification meeting with the IS. That was the eventual winner, LPI, whose representatives met Mr. Hassett and other officials in Croydon on 13 December when, it is alleged, they were told that they had been successful. That was a week before the designated date for the announcement of the winner.
On 20 January, a month after the date on which the result of the tender process should have been announced, Mr. Hassett spoke to Mr. Southon on the telephone and confirmed that the contract had indeed been awarded to LPI. Mr. Hassett said that another bidder, Reliance, had been placed second, ahead of ASC. A meeting was arranged for 26 January, at which Mr. Quibell gave his reasons why ASC's tender offer had not succeeded. He said that ASC had, in particular, fallen short on standards of quality and training.
At the meeting, Mr. Quibell denied that LPI had been told on 13 December that it had won the contract, but, in his letter of 21 February to Mr. Southon's solicitor, he appears to have changed his position. In that letter, Mr. Quibell admitted that
we had already…selected LPI as the contractor we proposed to appoint prior to calling the company in for…further discussion…LPI attended a meeting with us on 13 December to clarify a number of points…in order to allow us to proceed
to award the contract.
In that letter, Mr. Quibell said that the successful tender offer by LPI and the second-placed tenderer, Reliance, had set out a much more extensive package of training and a more comprehensive management structure. He said that the quality of systems and procedures offered by both those companies were supported by current accreditation to ISO 9002. What he did not say was that LPI's and Reliance's ISO 9002 accreditation was for activities other than deportations. The only company working for full accreditation for deportation is ASC, and the only reason for a delay in ASC's accreditation for that task is that the Home Office has refused to give the accreditation body permission to
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observe a removal by ASC. That was confirmed when I saw a fax from National Quality Assurance Ltd.'s regional office in London saying precisely that.
Mr. Quibell's allegation that ASC fell short of its competitors' training standards is, to say the least, strange. On 26 January, Messrs Quibell and Hassett claimed that ASC had afforded only a six-day training course, with no monitoring of staff or acceptance testing. They could not have read ASC's tender document very carefully. That document makes it clear on page 9 that the initial six days of induction training will be followed by operational training, to be conducted by experienced staff and recognised outside instructors. Pages 12 and 13 outline no fewer than 28 aspects of the on-going training sessions, and make it clear that great emphasis will be placed on training on the job. ASC should know how to train better than anyone else, as it is the only company with a sustained track record in the business.
Pages 41 and 43 of ASC's tender document show what training is to follow the induction course. Pages 23 and 45 describe performance monitoring, and the on-going assessment of escorts; pages 32, 49 and 50 explain how staffing levels will be adjusted to cope with the expected increase in the volume of work. Mr. Quibell and his colleagues were entirely wrong to suggest that the ASC tender document had nothing to say on that point.
Equally wrong was the assertion by the IS that ASC had failed to ensure that escorts would identify themselves properly. Pages 36 and 50 make clear precisely how escorts are to do that. Equally inaccurate was the IS's suggestion that ASC had ignored questions of quality and the issue of Investors in People. ASC's quality policy and the commitment to Investors in People is set out on page 5 of the tender document; similarly, page 11 sets out in detail ASC's security plan, and page 61, together with the letter at appendix 5, confirms that ASC has the ability to increase its insurance cover.
For all those reasons, the objections to ASC wheeled out by the IS simply do not stack up. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that LPI and Reliance had demonstrated a greater thoroughness than ASC in their plans, it is not good enough for the IS to claim that ASC did not have a detailed plan in its tender document when it certainly had precisely that.
As I have said, I wrote to the Minister earlier this month. I imagine that she has by now been able to compare the three tender documents from LPI, Reliance and ASC in the unamended form in which they were presented on or before 9 November last year. I hope that she will agree that it would be appropriate now for the NAO to examine those three documents, too. As I have said, it is something that I shall ask the CAG to do.
If the discrepancy between IS officials' criticism of ASC's tender document and the reality of what that document contains is not serious enough, there are other warning signals from the tender, about which the Chamber should be aware. The first concerns Reliance, which was placed second in the tender process. In 1995, the IS raided the offices of Reliance and found that no fewer than 15 of its employees were illegal immigrants. The Minister will, I hope, be able to explain why, under those circumstances, Reliance was placed second.

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As for LPI, IS officials will no doubt have alerted the Minister to the controversy in which that company became embroiled over stowaways on a Nigerian-flagged vessel in Lagos harbour some years ago. Equally, I feel confident that she will have been informed of the occasion a few years ago when LPI used four escorts for a removal to Sierra Leone. The immigration offender being removed was put under sedation by LPI and was delivered unconscious at Freetown. None of LPI's four escorts on that case was medically qualified. All four were detained in Freetown for a week for questioning.
I have no doubt that the Home Office will have on its files the latest accounts for LPI and will be aware that, as recently as the 1997 financial year, it appeared to be insolvent. When the Minister replies, I hope that she will be able to assure the Chamber that she has examined its latest accounts and can confirm a substantial increase in capital since the end of that financial year.
ASC is not insolvent. I am assured that it has never traded while insolvent, although no thanks for that are due to the Home Office, which has an appalling record of delays in payments and non-payments of invoices due to ASC.
In the past, ASC regularly had monthly meetings in Croydon. Almost every time, the issue at the top of the agenda was slow payment. Some of the invoices have been outstanding for four years before payment has been made. The delays have had nothing to do with queries on the content of those invoices. At one time, the debt owed by the Home Office to ASC was about £250,000.
In 1997, ASC was not paid anything for four months because of a Paymaster General dispute in Liverpool, yet, at the same time, it paid more than £90,000 in VAT on invoices for which it had not received a penny from the Home Office. Repeated requests to the IS did not result in payment.
ASC claims, for example, that, if it had been able to charge interest on late payment from the Home Office prior to November 1988 in the manner subsequently required by legislation, it would have been able to claim an extra £400,000. That is the extent of the inefficiency and muddle over finances into which the Home Office appears to have got itself over a period of years. I hope that that has been remedied.
There has been an equally unsatisfactory muddle over records that the IS is supposed to have maintained concerning the removal of immigration offenders. Mr. Southon has assured me that, whenever Members tabled questions about the number of people removed, the IS had to seek urgent answers from ASC because there were no in-house records of its own on which it could rely.
I turn to a particularly disturbing facet of the run-up to the tender offer. I am told that an LPI director, whose name I can provide to both the Minister and, if I am asked to do so, the NAO, regularly entertained IS staff at Harmondsworth. I have been given the names of the IS staff who were entertained and offered other inducements. I am assured that ASC is willing to provide an affidavit to support that allegation.
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The IS officials who were entertained told ASC that they were looked after by LPI and asked whether ASC was willing to do the same. Specifically, they asked whether ASC would "weigh in too." Mr. Southon tells me that he refused point blank, but after he did so the work placed with ASC from Harmondsworth declined noticeably. I am unwilling—I am sure that the Minister will agree with this—to name in the Chamber officials who are the subject of those allegations, but I shall provide their names to the Minister and to the NAO if required to do so.
I have been alerted to reports that a former senior enforcement official at the IS has joined the board of LPI, since when that company appears to have gained favour, despite its modest track record and past inadequate capitalisation. I worked with that individual when I was at the Home Office and had no complaints about him. Nevertheless, it is said on the Home Office grapevine and among reputable home affairs press correspondents that, following that person's retirement, he secured for himself an unusual assignment in Russia, where, it is said, he produced a highly original guidance manual for clients about ways in which they might obtain entry into the UK with the minimum difficulty.
Two experienced journalists have related that story to me over the past year, but I did not feel that there was sufficient hard evidence from what I was told to raise the matter with Ministers then. In view of that official's involvement with LPI now, and LPI's success in the tender offer in the face of an apparent shut-out of so much of the ASC tender document, all those things now must surely merit closer investigation.
I have been informed that, on 2 March, at a meeting in Dover, the director of the immigration and nationality directorate, Ms Collins, was asked why the contract had been awarded to LPI instead of ASC. I understand that she seemed unaware that LPI had obtained the contract. That was more than two and a half months after LPI had been told of its success and a month and a half after ASC had been informed that it had lost out. I remind the Chamber of my past criticism of management performance among senior officials at the Home Office. That seems to be yet another clear example of an abysmal lack of communications.
I point out a frustrating catch-22 situation in which ASC has been placed following its failure to secure the contract. Mr. Quibell has told Mr. Southon that, where a carrier—for example, an airline or ferry company—brings an illegal immigrant into the UK, that carrier is now responsible for the removal of that immigration offender. Historically, the IS has arranged for the deportation and then invoiced the carrier for the costs. Mr. Quibell has said to Mr. Southon that, as from April this year, under new legislation, carriers have had to contract directly with escort companies for the removal of those offenders.
Mr. Quibell went on to say that, although the main IS contract had been awarded to LPI, he hoped that ASC would still carry out carriers liability removals under the new arrangements. To be able to provide that service to the carriers, ASC needs sponsorship from the IS to obtain airside passes, but Mr. Quibell has said that IS sponsorship of such airside clearance can no longer be made available. Thus, with that catch-22 situation, ASC finds that insult has been added to injury.

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Under all those circumstances, I hope that the Minister will review as a matter of urgency the conduct of the tender procedure. I am sure that she will appreciate how important it is that ASC and the wider public receive an explanation of why there appear to be so many anomalies between what IS officials said on 26 January, what Mr. Quibell wrote in his letter of 21 February and the reality of the content of the ASC tender document.
1.18 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mrs. Barbara Roche): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) for providing me with an opportunity to set the record straight about the award of the overseas escorting contract. I remember when I was in opposition asking a number of questions and taking an interest in that area of work. We now find ourselves in different roles on the subject.
It may be helpful if I say why it is necessary for us to escort some people overseas and why it was necessary to retender the contract. The immigration service and the immigration and nationality directorate remove about 39,000 people per year from the United Kingdom. Most people who are directed to leave accept that they must do so, but a small minority—around 600—must be escorted to ensure that they reach their destination. The majority of those escorts are for security reasons.
For more than six years, the overseas escort service has been provided by two suppliers: Airline Security Consultants and Loss Prevention International. ASC has provided the service for considerably longer than LPI, as the hon. Gentleman said. Owing to the new regulations specified in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, it will be necessary for escorting staff to be certified as fit and proper persons to conduct escorts under the arrangements set out in the Act. Existing contracts did not provide a satisfactory platform to achieve that; nor was it possible to demonstrate that the Home Office was getting best value for money or proper continuity of service by using those arrangements.
Consequently, and following an investigation and recommendation by the National Audit Office, it was decided to hold a competition last year for the provision of an overseas escorting service by one contractor. That was done on the basis of what the NAO had to say. Both ASC and LPI, which had previously been providing escort services, were aware that that would happen, and they participated in the competition.
The hon. Gentleman has made some allegations about LPI. I understand from the brief advice that I have taken that, at this stage, we have no knowledge of these accusations. However, I shall investigate his allegations and write to him.
The competition was run in accordance with the Public Services Contract Regulations 1993, using the restricted procedure. The contract was initially advertised in the Official Journal of the European Communities and also in Government Opportunities. As a result of the advertisement, eight companies were invited to submit tenders, although two of these subsequently withdrew from the competition. Of the six remaining tenders, LPI's was judged to be the best, in that it offered the most economically advantage
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proposal with both the best technical solution and best overall value for money to the taxpayer.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the sequence of events. Although it was hoped to announce the results of the tender on 20 December 1999, there were a number of practical issues to be resolved before the contract could be signed. These included confirmation that the insurance meeting our full requirements was in place. All matters were resolved and a decision was finally taken and notified to tenderers in writing on 17 January 2000. The contract was finally signed on 8 March. As the hon. Gentleman knows from his past experience and from his present position in the House, such decisions are taken by officials and Ministers are informed. I wish to make it clear that I had no part in the decision-making process.
The hon. Gentleman has suggested that the competition for the contract was not handled properly. I shall carefully examine his remarks when they appear in Hansard tomorrow. I can say only that, from the information that is before me, the procedures were fully complied with under the Public Services Contract Regulations 1993. The competition also had independent oversight from the Home Office procurement unit and the Treasury Solicitor, and both are completely satisfied with the process. That is important because those bodies are in place to make checks and balances. The hon. Gentleman will know that all our procurement procedures are subject to audit.
The hon. Gentleman has mentioned, as has ASC, that the company does not believe that the tender documents were properly scrutinised. There was the example of staff training. I am advised that the training proposals submitted by ASC with the tender were inadequate. It was only at a subsequent meeting on 26 January 2000 that ASC suggested that the training proposals were only indicative and represented one week of a programme of several weeks. It was alleged by ASC that the tender had not been read properly, but it was unable to show in its documentation any details about the further expansion of the one-week example into a full programme.
Mr. Wardle: I am acutely aware that I have taken more than my share of time, but may I say that I fully understand that the Minister was not involved in the procedure? I hope that she will find time to study the contracts, because that is what I shall be asking the Comptroller and Auditor General to do as well. I have no idea whether he will do that, but it would be a great help if the hon. Lady were to examine them.
Mrs. Roche:I shall examine what the hon. Gentleman has said when his remarks appear in the record.
The evaluation process cannot be expected to take account of things which might or might not be intended. It can take account only of the contents of the documentation.
The hon. Gentleman has raised extremely serious matters, and I want to deal with them in the time that is available to me. He implies that there has been some misconduct in the relationship between IND officials and ASC and LPI. Similar implications were contained in a letter from ASC's solicitors dated 7 March, in which

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it is alleged that two members of staff had been socialising with LPI directors. I take such allegations extremely seriously. The two members of staff concerned deny the implications absolutely.
We asked the solicitors to provide specific details so that the matter could be investigated. To date, more than two months later, they have not done so, and I take great exception to that. If the hon. Gentleman is able to provide specific examples, I will ensure that there is an investigation. As I have said, these are serious allegations.
Mention has been made of a retired director of the immigration service. Again, serious allegations were made by the hon. Gentleman. I am informed that the retired director's appointment had no direct bearing on the decision to award LPI the contract. He did not attend any of the meetings with LPI and made no contact with officials responsible for the procurement process. As I have said, it was run under the 1993 regulations.
The hon. Gentleman made other allegations, which I heard for the first time. He repeated gossip. These are serious matters to raise on what is effectively the Floor of the House. As he is entitled to do, he raised them with the protection of privilege. I will consider the allegations. If he has any evidence to show, I will ensure that a proper investigation is conducted.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned late payment and the relevant legislation. I am responsible for it because I campaigned for its introduction when in opposition. It was one of the measures that I took through the House when I had the privilege to be a Department of Trade and Industry Minister. The hon. Gentleman will recall that I was critical of late payment by government, and made it a feature of what I was doing in opposition. I have in mind particularly the record of the previous Government, of whom the hon. Gentleman was a member. I am assured that payment practices, which were not good in the past, have improved dramatically. That is important.
It is important also for us to place arrangements for escorting people away from the United Kingdom on a better contractual basis. That is what we have sought to do. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the knowledge of senior management in terms of the contract. It was known at senior levels of management that the contract had been placed. The hon. Gentleman suggested that, in regard to accreditation, ASC was placed in not as good a position as the other companies. That is certainly not the case. On the basis of the information that I have seen, I can reassure the hon. Gentleman and the House on that point.
Given what I have seen so far and what has been presented to me—it was seen by the relevant bodies, including the Treasury—everything was done to meet the bona fides of the process. I shall carefully examine the record to ascertain what was said. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman as soon as possible. However, it is incumbent on him and on those who have provided him with information to provide that information, rather than merely making allegations—
Mr. Barry Jones (in the Chair): Order. Time is up

Shipbuilding
1.30 pm
Mr. Mohammad Sarwar:I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the future of British shipbuilding. Events in recent weeks have given the debate great relevance, particularly for workers at the Govan shipyard in my constituency.
United Kingdom shipbuilding has a proud past and a rich heritage. Britain's empire and wealth were based on our shipyards employing huge work forces. The Clyde yards in particular were pioneers of innovation and shipbuilders of quality. The first iron ships for the British Navy were built in Govan. At one stage, one sixth of the world's shipping was launched from Clydeside berths.
However, the present day has seen an industry in decline for a number of years. It is now readying itself to meet the challenges of the new millennium. Up to 30,000 people are directly employed in shipbuilding, repair and conversion, and an estimated 50,000 are employed by subcontractors, suppliers and support industries. United Kingdom yards now compete strongly for orders, with up to 30 vessels being built annually. Our capacity allows us to build almost as much again.
Shipbuilding and ship repair work generates £2.6 billion per annum in Britain. In facing new challenges head on, our industry is gaining a reputation for repair and conversion work. Conversion is increasingly seen as a genuine alternative to new building. Europe has about 40 per cent. of the world market, with the UK among the top three converters in Europe.
Our industry knows that it can shape its own future. Market conditions can be influenced, and Britain's shipbuilders are seeking new opportunities for work in an intense marketplace. They are changing practices and influencing policies that help the industry to improve its competitiveness in the world market.
I praise the work of the Minister's predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), in instigating the shipbuilding forum. Only a Labour Government would have established the shipbuilding forum and the Scottish shipbuilding forum within months of taking office, bringing the Government, the unions and the industry together to make real progress in British shipbuilding. It has provided real support to the industry, and encouraged practical recommendations that benefit shipbuilding in the United Kingdom. It has also facilitated broad co-operation between shipbuilders, the Shipbuilders and Shiprepairers Association, the British Marine Equipment Association and the Chamber of Shipping.
The Minister will recognise the value of continued co-operation in the forum in allowing the industry to flourish in the future. The nature of competition faced by British shipbuilders will shape the future for our shipyards. I urge the Minister to remain responsive to the concerns of Britain's shipbuilders about our direct competition in Europe. While I recognise that significant work has been done by the European Commission to remove barriers to fair competition across the European Union, it is important for our own industry to remain vigilant and to work closely with the Government when there is perceived unfairness through hidden subsidies on the continent.

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I welcome the increased co-operation at British level, through the SSA, to promote the industry as being at the cutting edge of technology and innovation. Shipbuilding is a high-tech industry that combines the most advanced technologies in production and operation. Our shipyards have a key role in a knowledge-driven economy. They have a proud heritage of achievement, but they will have a future only if they work together across the board to increase productivity and to remain the most advanced shipbuilders in the world.
Operating aid granted under the shipbuilding regulations will be essential for the industry across Europe in the current global market. The second report of the European Commission to the Council of Ministers on the situation in world shipbuilding has proved that Korean yards continue selling new ships at prices that do not cover their cost. Those predatory practices undermine the market.
Last year, South Korea succeeded in replacing Japan as the world leader for incoming orders. The agreed minutes in April of discussions between the European Commission and South Korea offer a real opportunity for fair competition, and address problems in tariff practices and financial transparency. That followed hard negotiations and an ultimatum requiring South Korea to bring its shipbuilding prices into line or face action before the World Trade Organisation. The agreed minutes are clearly a step towards solving the problem, but the solution requires a level playing field in the market. Market conditions will not change dramatically overnight, but it will soon become apparent whether the South Korean Government intend to introduce fair competition or are simply trying to win time for their yards.
I hope that the Minister will outline the Government's position on British shipbuilders co-operating with European competitors in the preparation of a case to bring before the WTO, so as to safeguard against the eventuality of no change in Korea. A watchful eye must be kept on Korean ship prices and the pervasive influence of Government-controlled banks on Korean shipbuilding. We must all hope for fair competition to prevail. There may be the prospect of a multilateral agreement through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development being initiated—an agreement that even the United States may no longer be restrained from ratifying.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and my hon. Friend the Minister for Competitiveness have made it clear that they will work with the shipbuilding industry to help it to improve its competitiveness and to win orders. The Government have demonstrated a strong belief that the shipbuilding industry has a future as a modern and dynamic part of the manufacturing sector. There has been improved financial support for shipbuilding, with changes made to the home shipbuilding credit guarantees scheme. I appreciate the successful efforts of the Minister in that regard.
The shipbuilding intervention fund has been extended to previously excluded yards such as Ailsa Troon on the Ayrshire coast. Conversion contracts previously excluded from support have also seen support extended, as the British industry develops a reputation in Europe for conversions. The Government positively encourage
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increased productivity. Companies are no longer punished by reduced financial support if they reduce their costs. That is a great benefit to well-run shipbuilders across the UK.
New investment has been encouraged, particularly in research and development, which is the clearest way of investing in the industry's future. The shipbuilding intervention fund now allows a 9 per cent. profit element. By no longer basing the grant on break-even basis, we have been able successfully to secure new orders for our shipyards.
Cammell Laird recently won the largest cruise liner conversion ever, worth £57 million. The north-east yard will also build the first vessel on the Tyne in six years. Harland and Wolff worked closely with Government Departments and agencies under great pressure to secure for the work force a conditional contract for four sophisticated RoPax ferries worth £300 million.
In addition to the threat over Harland and Wolff being lifted, Appledore in Devon earlier this month lifted notices on 300 workers following an order. That is good news for British shipbuilding.
The Minister has been attentive to the concerns of the industry over the ending of intervention fund money this year. While the fund did not always help to make our yards competitive, it continues to offer useful short-term assistance for our shipbuilders. Shipyards across the UK now have the common goal of improving productivity to increase competitiveness.
Defence orders are vital to UK shipbuilding, as can be seen at places such as Scotstoun, which is the biggest shipbuilder in Scotland, working solely on naval vessels. It must be stressed that maintaining shipbuilding capacity is also vital to our modern defence strategy, as was shown most recently in the Government's response to the crisis in Sierra Leone. The Amphibious Ready Group was dispatched, including the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, which was constructed in Govan. HMS Ocean is an excellent example of Clyde-built quality and Govan's commercial build methods.
The yard operates as Britain's biggest merchant shipbuilder and has great flexibility—flexibility which is needed for the modern operations of the Ministry of Defence and which will be of paramount importance in determining future orders for British yards. Last month, the MOD issued invitations to tender for two landing ships logistics. Swan Hunter, Harland and Wolff, Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, Appledore and BAE Systems in Govan are all in the running, with orders expected later this year. Govan's sister yard Scotstoun is involved in designing the new type 45 destroyer. The first class will be assembled and launched on the Clyde at Yarrow. Thousands of jobs will be safeguarded by that decision, which is part of a multi-billion pound shipbuilding programme.
The type 45 destroyer future services combatant and the future aircraft carrier programmes will together create orders with British yards for more than 30 major warships. That is more than was ordered in the whole period since 1979. The MOD's procurement programme signifies a huge investment in the future of British shipbuilding. It gives the industry a long-term stable platform for the next two decades, to invest, modernise and become more competitive in the world market.

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Orders should be made not only on the best commercial grounds but in the best interests of our shipbuilding industry. Defence contracts must be rolled out in a manner that ensures a viable, competitive future for UK yards. The Government must fulfil their commitment to work with the industry and the unions to build a world-class industry. I welcome plans by Ministers to hold discussions with Britain's main shipyards and the unions, and consider how we can best meet the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the MOD programme. It offers us an historic opportunity. Britain's shipbuilders cannot afford to miss this chance.
The Minister has always stressed that competitiveness in shipbuilding needs and demands a strong supplier base. A wider look at the industry is essential for decisions that protect and enhance our shipbuilding capability. That is a lesson that has been taken on board in my constituency. The west of Scotland defence and aerospace network has looked at the wider economy based around the Govan shipyard. At present about 1,200 people are employed directly by BAE Systems at Govan, with more than 2,000 employed at Scotstoun. Almost 5,000 are employed in and around Glasgow by suppliers and subcontractors to the Govan yard. That is a huge number of jobs reliant on shipbuilding in Govan, and it is not exclusive to Glasgow or even Scotland.
Up to 200 jobs in the north-east of England could go if the MOD order for roll on/roll off ferries is not awarded to Govan as part of the Sealion bid. The northeast defence diversification project, a networking organisation for the defence industry, predicts that 76 small firms in the region which would supply specialist parts and skills to the Govan yard could lose valuable orders. Although my focus is understandably on the Glasgow, Govan constituency, the placing of the contract elsewhere would have a major long-term impact on Scotland and the north-east for many years to come, as more than two thirds of the work would be carried out by sub-contractors. The order could provide employment to hundreds of workers in the north-east, not only during the building of the ferries but over the entire 25 years service of the ships.
Let there be no doubt: the Prime Minister and many other Ministers have assured me on numerous occasions that no decision has been made on this order. I anticipate my hon. Friend the Minister for Competitiveness doing so again this afternoon. There is everything to play for as the Government scrutinise the bids. My own position is also clear. The necessary skills and experience are in my constituency. Govan is ready to build the ships immediately. As the local Member of Parliament, I am grateful to the many colleagues who have constituents employed at Govan for the total support that they have shown in lobbying for this order and for future work. The message is clear in Scotland—we are fighting for Govan.
Our argument has moved on from attempting to secure this order to working effectively as a team to secure the long-term future of shipbuilding on the Clyde. Workers at the yard, through shop stewards led by yard convener Jamie Webster, the trade unions, Members of this House and of the Scottish Parliament are all united in support of Govan shipyard. When my
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right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, brokered the deal that saved Govan last year and saw Kvaerner sell the yard to BAE Systems, it was cause for real celebration in my constituency and across Scotland. The shipyard is the major employer at the heart of Govan, but it is a great symbol of pride across Scotland.
People appreciate that Govan has a justifiable reputation for Clyde-built quality—building ships to last, on budget and on time. Scottish MPs have mounted a positive campaign and made a persuasive argument on the strong merits of the Govan yard. Across Scotland, we have taken our campaign to the streets and asked our constituents to sign a petition in support of Govan. Thousands of people continue to express their full support for Govan. They believe that Clyde shipbuilding has not only a proud history but great potential for the future and they know how vital this order is for Govan. Work would be guaranteed for at least three years. Up to 200 additional workers would be needed. Apprentices could be taken on for the first time in three years. That is vital in an industry that desperately needs young recruits able to learn skills for the future.
Our argument has to be persuasive, as work ends at the Govan yard in a matter of months. Closure would rip the heart out of a community and be an economic and political disaster for Scotland and Britain. Earlier this year, BAE Systems announced plans for substantial future investment in Govan and Scotstoun as a centre of excellence. The two yards worked closely as one in partnership with the sister yard at Barrow. Govan needs the work offered by the ro-ro order to bridge the gap until key projects such as the type 45 destroyers come to fruition.
The future can be bright if political will and industrial competitiveness continue to work for the common goal. The dedicated and skilled work force at Govan and their families have suffered greatly through the uncertainty of the past year and a half. I have shared their rollercoaster ride and realise how unbearable the stress can be. They know that the future of shipbuilding depends on flexibility and technology. They deserve the chance to continue proving themselves. This is a vital time for shipbuilding in the UK. Nowhere is that more true than at the Govan shipyard. The Labour Government have worked hard for an end to boom and bust in British shipbuilding. I know that the Minister will continue his good work with colleagues in active and creative support of the industry. I also urge the Government to meet the challenges of securing the future for Govan.
1.47 pm
The Minister for Competitiveness (Mr. Alan Johnson):I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sarwar) on securing this debate. He has been a persistent and effective advocate for the British shipbuilding industry and has articulated the concerns of his constituents on many occasions in the House. It is indicative of the importance of the subject to the area and the nation of Scotland that we have my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Davidson), for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan), for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood), for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne)—I apologise for my pronunciation—and for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) present at the debate this afternoon.

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The Government are well aware of the importance of the shipbuilding industry, both to the British economy and to the economy of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Govan, where the largest merchant yard in Great Britain—BAE Systems, Govan—is located. Govan accounts for more than one fifth of all employees in British merchant shipyards.
I am also acutely aware that all British shipyards face difficult challenges. There is fierce international competition. It has been assessed that global overcapacity of about 30 per cent. exists, which, despite increased demand, has led to a significant fall in real prices in the last 10 years. The Government know that British yards are finding it very difficult to win new orders against international competitors. We have been discussing the matter with industry and unions and we share their concerns about the current problems.
Before I deal with those problems, however, I stress that it should be recognised that the industry has not been without its successes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Govan mentioned, last year, Cammell Laird won the £60 million contract for conversion of the Costa Classica cruise vessel, which is the biggest ever cruise conversion. Conversion is more labour-intensive, and therefore creates more jobs, than new build.
I assure hon. Members—as my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scotland Office did in the recent debate on the future of shipbuilding on the River Clyde—that the Government remain committed to working closely with the industry to help it to face the challenges and to achieve the improvements necessary to win the contracts that are needed.
Despite the current difficulties, I firmly believe that the British shipbuilding and ship repair industry has a future as a modern and dynamic manufacturing sector in today's knowledge-driven economy. There is nothing old-fashioned about shipbuilding. Today's industry is high-tech and requires a strong skills base. In today's industry, modern computer skills are as important as some of the more traditional shipbuilding skills. Modern shipbuilding also calls for a high level of project management and marketing skills.
The key challenges facing the industry—my hon. Friend the Member for Govan articulated them in his speech—are to improve competitive performance and to tackle Korean unfair pricing: and Korean pricing most definitely is unfair.
We are working closely with the industry in both those spheres. We are helping the industry to achieve improved competitiveness through both the national shipbuilding forum and the Scottish shipbuilding forum, which—as my hon. Friend said—were formed in 1998 to facilitate that process. It is worth remembering that, in the whole history of this maritime nation, never before had the industry, the unions and Government sat round the same table, as they have in the forum, created a couple of years ago by my predecessor, now the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle). The forum is currently implementing all 40 recommendations made by the industry, including enhanced Government financial support for the industry.
Much progress has been made. We have enhanced the shipbuilding intervention fund and the home shipbuilding credit guarantee scheme. In fact, if I had
270WH
not been called to today's debate—I make no complaint about that; this debate is obviously the priority and where I need to be today—I would have visited Appledore, to announce more than £1 million of SIF funding to build a fisheries protection vessel for the Irish navy, plus a further half a million pounds regional selective assistance towards a three-year, £6.5 million dry dock expansion project—which will increase throughput, create at least 230 new jobs and safeguard 82 existing jobs.
Mr. John Burnett:I am truly delighted to hear that news, for which I am very grateful to the Minister. It is greatly important to my constituency. However, may I draw his attention to one of the central thrusts of the comments of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sarwar)? Will the Minister assure the Chamber that all Departments will examine very carefully overseas tenders—particularly overseas tenders—for illegal subsidies?
Mr. Johnson:I am pleased to see the hon. Gentleman in the Chamber, and I thank him for those comments. Much of my speech, which I have limited time to deliver, will deal with the very issue of unfair subsidies.
The Government have supported a number of competitiveness projects that the industry has developed in the forum. We are currently considering proposals by the Shipbuilders and Shiprepairers Association for a programme that will deliver increased competitiveness within the shipbuilding and ship repair industry through productivity improvements and site-specific master classes, which are based on our earlier, highly successful master class programme for the automotive sector. We are also considering the industry's proposals for improving marketing, the main elements of which are the production of an industrywide marketing strategy by a marketing specialist and the creation of a database of shipowners, to help identify potential customers.
We continue to offer the industry significant financial support. As my hon. Friend the Member for Govan said, we pay the shipbuilding intervention fund maximum rate for new ships. We have also brought our financial support schemes into line with our European competitors' practice, in direct response to recommendations made by the shipbuilding forum.
We remain vigilant in seeking to ensure that our European Union competitors do not receive unfair subsidies. When there is hard evidence of such practices, we will take the matter up with the European Commission. However, as we have often said to the industry, there must be firm, not merely anecdotal evidence of such abuse. It is fair to say that no evidence has been produced to suggest that other member states are bending the rules.
We share entirely the industry's concern about unfair trade practices by Korean and other low-cost Asian shipbuilders, as we believe that that is where the major problem lies. We are continuing to make vigorous efforts to address those concerns. At the November 1999 Industry Council, the Council agreed bilateral trade actions to combat Korean unfair trade practices.
Much progress has been made. The Commission has engaged Korea in bilateral talks, which have resulted in an agreement that addresses the EU industry's concerns.

271WH
That is a significant advance in our approach to tackling Korean unfair trading practices. The priority now is to pursue Korea under the agreed minutes, as the agreement is called, as vigorously as possible.
The agreed minutes have extracted Korean commitments on financing yards on a commercial basis only, transparency in accounting rules for shipyards, and pursuit of commercially viable ship prices. The agreement has also secured a key consultation mechanism to take up specific cases of unfair competition. At the 18 May Industry Council—just last Thursday—we achieved a very strong outcome on Korea. The Council directed the Commission to press Korea to implement fully the agreed minutes and called for rapid bilateral consultations with Korea on specific cases of unfair competition. The UK took the lead in advocating that tough approach.
If Korea does not respond effectively, the European Union still holds the possible World Trade Organisation anti-subsidy case in reserve. The Government and the Commission are continuing to work closely with the industry in the preparation of a WTO action, should that be necessary. However, we all hope that the problems caused by Korean unfair competition can be resolved through the agreed minutes. That is the desirable way forward, and we are working hard to make the deal that we have struck with Korea work.
In the longer term, we continue to press for the only viable solution to the anti-competitive practices that my hon. Friend the Member for Govan described: to establish effective international trade disciplines, as embodied in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shipbuilding agreement. We have taken a leading role in advocating that approach both in the European Union and in the OECD. The problem is that we have been frustrated in
272WH
our efforts by the failure of the United States—which has a special relationship with South Korea—to ratify the 1994 OECD shipbuilding agreement. Nevertheless, we shall continue to pursue our objectives.
My hon. Friend urged us to remain vigilant to unfair subsidies in Europe. As I said, if we receive any hard evidence of such subsidies, the matter will be pursued vehemently. Although it is true that the shipbuilding intervention fund will be abolished at the end of this year, the United Kingdom industry last year gave its complete support to abolition; moreover, the fund will be abolished across Europe. In all the years for which the SIF has been available, it has done very little to help us in world competition. Therefore, although there has been a change of heart in some quarters about SIF abolition, the UK industry agreed to it unanimously. Nevertheless, as my hon. Friend said, we must remain vigilant on the issue of unfair subsidy.
The fundamental need is for the industry to improve its competitiveness. Operating aid has not delivered the improvements in competitiveness that the industry needs. We do not believe that continuation of operating aid is the right approach to dealing with Korean unfair competition.
I am convinced that the British shipbuilding industry does have a future. We shall continue to work closely with the industry to help it meet the tough challenges of the market, boost its competitiveness, improve its success and win new orders. In the summer, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will convene a high-level meeting of shipyards and unions for that purpose. The Secretaries of State for other Departments with an interest in shipbuilding, including the Scottish Executive, will be invited to attend.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Two o'clock.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Computer Viruses
  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department at what precise time his Department became aware of the computer virus known as the Love Bug. [122588]

  Mr. Straw
  Staff supporting the Home Office's main computer networks were first made aware of this computer virus between 09:00 and 09:30 on 4 May 2000.

  Force

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  Avon and Somerset

  503

  536

  568

  712

  770

  651

  688

  759

  621

  547

  Bedfordshire

  137

  122

  167

  199

  192

  189

  189

  182

  186

  154

  Cambridgeshire

  169

  173

  198

  182

  245

  279

  275

  303

  320

  310

  Cheshire

  219

  244

  299

  274

  387

  321

  274

  475

  459

  407

  City of London

  60

  56

  68

  85

  89

  83

  77

  86

  76

  64

  Cleveland

  139

  143

  177

  195

  232

  212

  195

  160

  164

  126

  Cumbria

  210

  193

  246

  230

  248

  241

  201

  189

  198

  204

  Derbyshire

  251

  275

  347

  335

  423

  434

  413

  428

  380

  317

  Devon and Cornwall

  862

  913

  984

  946

  1,067

  1,142

  1,102

  1,148

  1,024

  918

  Dorset

  218

  214

  254

  563

  239

  221

  254

  289

  315

  305

  Durham

  149

  152

  165

  203

  258

  200

  187

  184

  144

  159

  Dyfed-Powys

  189

  210

  315

  260

  271

  302

  314

  283

  254

  237

  Essex

  445

  482

  642

  759

  751

  674

  608

  634

  638

  544

  Gloucestershire

  209

  206

  224

  274

  315

  320

  330

  297

  276

  233

  Greater Manchester

  473

  517

  530

  570

  617

  768

  746

  685

  598

  523

  Gwent

  95

  76

  80

  101

  109

  126

  136

  157

  119

  113

  Hampshire

  362

  369

  529

  587

  611

  598

  564

  611

  698

  760

  Hertfordshire

  203

  206

  202

  247

  294

  320

  315

  297

  306

  238

  Humberside

  249

  273

  316

  422

  446

  427

  391

  340

  324

  269

  Kent

  500

  501

  484

  554

  587

  569

  555

  589

  592

  526

  Lancashire

  432

  377

  474

  539

  565

  608

  531

  483

  489

  449

  Leicestershire

  327

  357

  371

  379

  392

  356

  360

  415

  406

  316

  Lincolnshire

  365

  356

  397

  416

  383

  322

  299

  271

  260

  216

  Merseyside

  296

  295

  340

  367

  389

  384

  333

  401

  419

  458

  Metropolitan Police

  1,353

  1,365

  1,435

  1,489

  1,615

  1,550

  1,850

  1,714

  1,282

  1,138

  Norfolk

  269

  268

  312

  346

  366

  345

  319

  402

  337

  336

  Northamptonshire

  240

  218

  271

  302

  330

  303

  289

  316

  288

  230

  Northumbria

  538

  534

  571

  512

  517

  506

  471

  533

  400

  342

  North Wales

  175

  199

  256

  295

  298

  288

  332

  341

  358

  400

  North Yorkshire

  334

  383

  387

  388

  497

  381

  360

  362

  358

  276

  Nottinghamshire

  486

  470

  556

  593

  551

  552

  537

  620

  558

  461

  South Wales

  261

  257

  352

  432

  541

  477

  461

  361

  366

  338

  South Yorkshire

  316

  317

  371

  412

  473

  452

  381

  308

  281

  246

  Staffordshire

  566

  592

  702

  733

  770

  725

  702

  685

  595

  468

  Suffolk

  329

  354

  373

  386

  414

  409

  407

  379

  397

  420

  Surrey

  174

  215

  214

  251

  232

  238

  260

  297

  235

  224

  Sussex

  530

  495

  571

  548

  512

  527

  511

  472

  442

  393

  Thames Valley

  568

  532

  564

  606

  623

  679

  744

  656

  609

  569

  Warwickshire

  347

  361

  384

  350

  350

  352

  340

  381

  345

  261

  West Mercia

  542

  509

  526

  611

  629

  582

  613

  582

  512

  515

  West Midlands

  673

  743

  843

  955

  918

  818

  897

  945

  889

  731

  West Yorkshire

  568

  562

  735

  613

  708

  777

  709

  690

  589

  559

  Wiltshire

  269

  261

  273

  322

  349

  318

  233

  154

  149

  189

  Total

  15,589

  15,881

  18,073

  19,243

  20,573

  20,026

  19,753

  19,864

  18,256

  16,484

  Joe Wilkins
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his Department has brought extradition proceedings against Joe Wilkins. [123047]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  It is a long-standing policy in matters of this kind not to comment on whether an extradition request for a particular individual has been made.

  Special Constables
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list, for each of the last 10 years for which figures are available, the number of special constables in each police force in England and Wales. [122029]

  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 12 May 2000]: The figures for the number of special constables in post in each police force area in England and Wales since 1989 were:
  491W
  The figures for the years 1989–1993 were recorded at 31 December of each year. Since 1995, the figures were recorded at 31 March.

  The figures for the years 1989–1995 have been supplied by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. Those for 1996–99 have been supplied by the Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate.

  Higher recruitment standards have been applied by police forces in the last few years to reflect the fact that special constables are being trained and deployed on a wider variety of duties than heretofore. Therefore, while there are currently fewer special constables than in previous years, they are now better qualified, trained and equipped, and offer a better service to both the police and the public.

  Kosovan Refugees
  Mr. Hilary Benn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for(a) an extension of stay and (b) asylum, have been received from Kosovan refugees in the United Kingdom in each of the last 12 months; and what proportion of each have been granted. [122732]

  Mrs. Roche
  [holding answer 18 May 2000]: The information currently available relates to the 4,346 Kosovans who were evacuated to the United Kingdom under the Humanitarian Evacuation Programme. Since March 2000, 190 principal applicants have sought an extension of exceptional leave to enter, 45 have applied for asylum and 70 have applied for both exceptional leave and asylum. These applications are currently under consideration.

  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will make decisions on applications for(a) extensions of leave to remain and (b) asylum, made by Kosovans who went to Scotland on the Humanitarian Evacuation programme and whose exceptional leave to remain expired on 9 May; and if he will make a statement. [123330]

  Mrs. Roche
  We have set in place special arrangements to identify and deal as quickly as possible with applications from Kosovans who came to the United Kingdom under the Humanitarian Evacuation programme, but we do not identify cases on the basis of where applicants have been living in the United Kingdom.

  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what financial and other assistance is to be given to those Kosovan families returning to Kosovo from Scotland; and if he will make a statement. [123332]

  Mrs. Roche
  The current voluntary return programme from the United Kingdom began on 26 July 1999 and will end on 25 June 2000. The Programme is open both to Kosovans who arrived under the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Humanitarian Evacuation Programme and those who arrived independently. It is open to Kosovans in all parts of the United Kingdom.

  For humanitarian and economic reasons, it was decided to give a relocation grant of 720 Deutchmark (DM) per person (approximately £250), payable on arrival in Kosovo, to all those who chose to go back under the return programme. That grant was increased to 1,300 DM
  492W
  per person (approximately £400) with effect from the flight on 5 May. Arrangements have also been made to transport larger possessions overland to Kosovo. This will enable Kosovans to take back, for example, household goods and building materials, which they have bought or been given, and which they cannot take on an aeroplane.

  In order to benefit from the grant and the overland transport of goods, Kosovans must register for return by 10 June and leave the United Kingdom on one of the organised voluntary return flights by 25 June.

  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether, during the period prior to an appeal being assessed Kosovans residing in East Lothian and Renfrewshire will be allowed to remain in their current local authority rented accommodation; and if he will make a statement; [123331]

  (2) what financial assistance will be made available to Kosovans who wish to appeal against a refusal of extension to exceptional leave to remain; and if he will make a statement. [123329]

  Mrs. Roche
  We have no plans to set up any special arrangements for support of such cases. Depending on the circumstances of each case, those who appeal against a refusal of further leave will be eligible for support and accommodation in accordance with existing arrangements.

  Tobacco Smuggling
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the(a) longest prison sentence and (b) largest fine imposed on a person convicted of tobacco smuggling into the UK in the last 12 months. [123046]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I refer to the reply I gave my hon. Friend on 23 May 2000,Official Report, column 403W.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) public and (b) private sector accommodation providers have been contracted to provide accommodation for asylum seekers in (i) the North West region, (ii) Pendle, (iii) Burnley, (iv) Rossendale, (v) Blackburn with Darwen and (vi) Hyndburn; and how many units are to be provided in each location. [123032]

  Mrs. Roche
  The accommodation contracts which have been awarded do not require that property be provided in a specific geographical location. To date, a total of 1,189 bedspaces have been provided in the North West Region by four private sector providers. The bedspaces include 80 in Nelson (Pendle) and a further 88 in Burnley. There are no bedspaces in Blackburn and Darwin. Nor are there any recorded in Rossendale or Hyndburn.

  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in each of the last five years, how many people were recorded as being detained who had sought asylum at some stage, broken down by stage of application and immigration status; at which institutions these individuals were detained; what was the age range
  493W
  and nationality of those detained; and if he will make a statement. [123163]

  Mrs. Roche
  The information requested, on numbers of asylum applicants detained in each of the last five years, is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Number of people recorded as being detained1,2 on 30 December 19983 and 4 January 19993 who had sought asylum at some stage, by stage of application and immigration status

  Stage of application

  Port

  Illegal entrants

  Subject to deportation action

  Total

  Awaiting initial decision

  125

  295

  4

  424

  Awaiting result of appeal

  127

  42

  11

  180

  Awaiting result of further challenge or documentation for removal4

  45

  77

  15

  137

  Total

  297

  414

  30

  741

  1Persons detained solely under the powers contained in Schedule 2 or 3 of the Immigration Act 1971.

  2These figures are approximate because of the delay in recording receptions into, and releases from, detention and the large number of persons detained for a short period.

  3After entry figures obtained at 4 January 1999. Port figures obtained at 30 December 1998.

  4Includes those persons awaiting the result of a further appeal/other challenge or awaiting removal pending documentation.

  Number of people recorded as being detained1,2 on 30 December 19983 and 4 January 19993 who had sought asylum at some stage, by nationality

  Nationality

  Total

  Nigeria

  82

  India

  79

  Albania

  54

  Pakistan

  50

  Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

  38

  Sri Lanka

  38

  Romania

  35

  Algeria

  32

  China

  29

  Poland

  29

  Lithuania

  26

  Turkey

  20

  Ghana

  18

  Ukraine

  12

  Bangladesh

  11

  Sierra Leone

  10

  Kenya

  9

  Iraq

  8

  Bulgaria

  7

  Gambia

  7

  Somalia

  7

  Egypt

  6

  Iran

  6

  Uganda

  6

  Afghanistan

  5

  Ivory Coast

  5

  Jamaica

  4

  Palestine

  4

  Russia

  4

  Columbia

  3

  Congo

  3

  Croatia

  3

  Czech Republic

  3

  Latvia

  3

  Liberia

  3

  Morocco

  3

  Angola

  2

  Cyprus

  2

  Democratic Republic of Congo

  2

  Libya

  2

  South Africa

  2

  Tanzania

  2

  Thailand

  2

  Togo

  2

  Nationality doubtful

  41

  Others

  22

  Total

  741

  494W
  The available information, relating to a snapshot of asylum applicants detained solely under Immigration Act powers as at 30 December 1998 for port applicants and 4 January 1999 for in-country applicants, by stage of application and immigration status, and by nationality, is given in the tables.

  1Persons detained solely under the powers contained in Schedule 2 or 3 of the Immigration Act 1971.

  2These figures are approximate because of the delay in recording receptions into, and releases from, detention and the large number of persons detained for a short period.

  3Port figures obtained at 30 December 1998. After entry figures obtained at 4 January 1999.

  British Board of Film Classification
  Mrs. Gilroy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the British Board of Film Classification's Annual report for 1999 will be published; and if he will make a statement. [124077]

  Mr. Straw
  I have today placed in the Library copies of the Annual Report of the British Board of Film Classification for 1999, which gives details of the Board's financial accounts and activities for the year ended 31 December 1999.

  On 16 May, the High Court dismissed the Board's application for Judicial Review in respect of appeals against their decision not to classify seven sexually explicit videos in the restricted (R) 18 category—which are available only in licensed sex shops to those aged 18 and above. The Board had focused their application for Judicial Review on the consideration which they should give, when classifying videos in the R18 category, to the potential harm to children which may result from their exposure to this material. I am very disappointed with the outcome of this case and have instructed my officials to consider whether any additional steps can be taken to protect children from exposure to these sexually explicit videos. I intend to issue a consultation paper on the matter shortly.

  Immigration Legislation
  Mrs. Gilroy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to strengthen immigration legislation to tackle abuse of the United Kingdom's immigration control. [124078]

  Mrs. Roche
  The Government are firmly committed to ensuring that those who seek to migrate to the United Kingdom but have no grounds for doing so under the Immigration Rules, are prevented from coming here.
  495W
  From 00:01 hours on Thursday 25 May, we will require nationals of Colombia and Ecuador to obtain a Direct Airside Transit Visa even when they intend to remain airside while in transit through the United Kingdom. We have taken this action following evidence of abuse of the Transit Without Visa concession by such nationals.

  Criminal Proceedings (Prosecution Appeals)
  Mrs. Gilroy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the terms of reference are for the Law Commission's review of the law governing prosecution appeals in criminal proceedings. [124079]

  Mr. Straw
  The Law Commission published a consultation document on the law of double jeopardy on 12 October 1999 following my request to them of 2 July 1999 as part of the Government's response to the Stephen Lawrence report. The consultation period ended on 31 January 2000 and the Commission is considering the responses received before making its final recommendations to the Government. As the terms of reference intended, the consultation document did refer to prosecution rights of appeal but not in any detail as to how these might be achieved.

  I have, therefore, today formally asked the Law Commission to undertake a review of the law governing prosecution appeals against judge directed acquittals in criminal proceedings and other adverse rulings by a judge which may lead to the premature ending of the trial. The terms of reference for this review are:
  "To consider

  (a) whether any, and if so, what additional rights of appeal or other remedies should be available to the prosecution from adverse rulings of a judge in a trial on indictment which the prosecution may wish to overturn and which may have resulted, whether directly or indirectly, in premature termination of the trial;

  (b) to what, if any, procedural restrictions such appeals would be subject and to make recommendations".

  Number

  Rank

  Company

  Duration

  May 1997 to April 1998

  1

  Senior Civil Service

  IBM

  8 September 1997 to 7 August 1998

  1

  Grade 7

  Price Waterhouse

  3 September 1996 to 30 June 1998

  May 1998 to April 1999

  1

  Senior Civil Service

  Woolwich Building Society

  1 July 1998 to 1 January 1999

  1

  Senior Civil Service

  Systems Union Ltd.

  1 April 1998 to 31 January 2000

  May 1999 to April 2000

  1

  Senior Civil Service

  National Westminster Bank Plc

  18 January 1999 to 3 December 1999

  1

  Senior Civil Service

  Capita RAS

  1 October 1999 to 30 September 2001

  1

  Grade 6

  British Telecom Plc

  18 October 1999 to present

  Other outward secondments of three months or more recorded centrally in the above periods were predominantly to local government, voluntary and charitable organisations and the European Union.

  Mike Tyson
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assurances he sought from Mike Tyson that while in the United Kingdom he would refrain
  496W
  I should emphasise that the issue here is the question of a prosecution right of appeal against adverse rulings made by the judge, which leads to the ending of the trial before the jury has considered the evidence. The question whether, and in what circumstances, a jury's decision on the evidence to acquit can be challenged is the subject of the double jeopardy consideration by the Commission. Both these issues are entirely separate from the prosecution's right of appeal against an unduly lenient sentence after a jury has convicted a defendant.

  Criminal Cases Review Commission
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the current backlog is of cases being dealt with by the Criminal Cases Review Commission; and what the expected timescale is for considering the application in respect of Mr. Nasir Abbas Choudhary made on 5 April. [123504]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I understand that, at the end of April, the Criminal Cases Review Commission had 462 cases under review, and 921 awaiting review. The Commission screens all eligible new applications, in order to identify and review those cases where this will apparently require a total of five working days or fewer. Subject to any special factors that would justify giving them priority, cases that require a more extensive review then await allocation to a caseworker, on the basis of date order of receipt. The Commission hopes to screen Mr. Choudhary's application as soon as possible.

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff from his Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if he will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123423]

  Mr. Straw
  The information is as follows:

  from public appearances other than his boxing match; what assurances he has received; and if he will make a statement. [123571]

  Mr. Straw
  No assurances were either sought from or given by Mr. Tyson, but it was made clear to him that the entry clearance was granted for a three-week visit strictly for the purposes of the boxing match.
  497W
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what date his Department first learned of Mike Tyson's proposed visit to Scotland. [123567]

  Mr. Straw
  My Department became aware in March from newspaper reports that Mr. Tyson was intending to make a visit. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Baillieston (Mr. Wray) wrote to me on 25 April requesting a meeting to discuss the proposed bout in Scotland. I met with my hon. Friend and his delegation, which included my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding), Lord Brooks of Tremorfa and Stephen Davies, on 3 May.

  Mr. Tyson's application for entry clearance was submitted to the British Consulate General in New York on Friday 12 May 2000. It was then passed to the Home Office who received it on the morning of Monday 15 May.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what account he took of the possibility of subsequent judicial review when making his decision on whether to admit Mike Tyson to the UK. [123566]

  Mr. Straw
  As with all such matters, in making my decision I was concerned to ensure that it was in accordance with the general law and the relevant Immigration Rule. It would be for the courts to decide what grounds existed for judicial review of that decision.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what consultations he has had on the impact on police resources of Mike Tyson's proposed visit to the United Kingdom; [123572]

  (2) between which dates his Department carried out its assessment of the financial and commercial impact of a decision to refuse permission for Mike Tyson to enter the United Kingdom; [123569]

  (3) which persons and organisations he consulted about the financial consequences of a decision to refuse permission for Mike Tyson to enter the United Kingdom; [123570]

  (4) what estimate he made of (a) the financial cost to British business and (b) the number of companies which would have suffered financially, if he had refused Mike Tyson permission to enter the UK for his proposed boxing match. [123565]

  Mr. Straw
  In reaching my decision, I considered all relevant factors and weighed them against the statutory criteria in the Immigration Rules. In doing so, I recognised the potential economic benefits to the United Kingdom, as well as the policing implications. I also took account of the fact that there would be strength of feeling both for and against this entry into the United Kingdom. There is no statutory requirement for further consultation or assessment, and I was able to reach a decision on the basis of the information before us.

  I would also refer the hon. Member to the observations of the Minister of State, Home Office, on 23 May 2000, Official Report, columns 191–98WH. As she told the House, both she and I sought information from the Deputy
  498W
  First Minister, Scottish Executive, as to the possible impact of any visit on the police in Strathclyde before the final decision was made.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many representations he has received about the proposed visit of Mike Tyson to Scotland; how many(a) supported and (b) opposed the visit; and if he will make a statement. [123568]

  Mr. Straw
  In support of Mr. Tyson's proposed visit to the United Kingdom, I received representations from Frank Warren on behalf of Sports Network Europe. On 18 May, I was sent a formal notification from the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament of two parliamentary motions opposing the entry of Mike Tyson, but I was in any event well aware of the strong views felt on both sides on this matter, particularly in Scotland.

  House of Commons (Metropolitan Police Officers)
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will review the variation of the contract of employment of Metropolitan Police Security Officers stationed at the House in relation to their compulsory retirement age; what consultations took place prior to the change; and if he will make a statement. [123274]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that the contractual age of retirement for all civilian staff remains 60, with any extension of service beyond that age being granted at his discretion. The criteria for extension are set out in the Civil Staff Personnel Manual.

  In recent years, some extensions have been made, to help with recruitment difficulties. These have now been overcome and, in order to give staff the maximum opportunity to look for fresh employment after they reach 60, they have been given some six months' notice that no extensions will be expected to be granted from this October. The Security Officers' manager discussed this with their Trade Union representatives before they were notified.

  Police Precept
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is(a) the average national police precept and (b) the Humberside police precept; and how many additional police officers could be employed if the difference between the Humberside and the national average police precept were employed for that purpose. [122798]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The average council tax precept (band D) for police authorities in England for 2000–01 is calculated at £69.29. The average for police authorities in Wales for 2000–01 is £79.84.

  The council tax precept (band D) for Humberside police authority is £60.30.

  The effect of increasing Humberside's precept to the average for English forces would be subject to the impact of Council Tax Benefit Subsidy Limitation and cannot, therefore, readily be translated into additional officers.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  European Union
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the European Union Centres for Study and Research which are funded by the European Commission; and if he will make a statement on their(a) purpose, (b) publications and (c) political neutrality, with special reference to contributions from the United Kingdom Government. [120849]

  Mr. Vaz
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the office of the Commission in London.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many copies of "A New Idea for Europe: The Schuman Declaration 1950–2000" have been published by the European Union; for what purpose; and how many will be distributed in the UK. [121496]

  Mr. Vaz
  "A New Idea for Europe: The Schuman Declaration 1950–2000" was published by the Commission. I therefore refer the hon. Gentleman to the office of the Commission in London.

  European Security
  Mr. Maude
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs where responsibility lies for ensuring democratic oversight of the European Security and Defence Identity and ESDP. [121756]

  Mr. Vaz
  We are committed to parliamentary scrutiny of defence matters. In addition to the work of this House and that of the House of Lords on defence and security matters, Members of this Parliament sit in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the WEU Assembly. Any new defence arrangements within the EU will constitute part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. The European Parliament is consulted about the main aspects and basic choices of the CFSP, all of whose decisions are submitted to the Scrutiny Committees of Parliament.

  Chechnya
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what contribution he made to the 106th Session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 12 and 13 May on war crimes and human rights violation in Chechnya; what response he has made to Recommendation 1456 (2000) of the Parliamentary Assembly; and if he will make a statement. [123295]

  Mr. Vaz
  Due to pressing parliamentary business, no UK Minister was able to attend the 106' session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 10 and 11 May; the UK was represented by our Ambassador, Mr. Andrew Carter. Mr. Carter was closely involved, on the basis of instructions, in the preparation of the influential statement to the meeting delivered by Portugal on behalf of the European Union and in the drafting of the final communique. The Chairman of the meeting, Mr. Brian Cowen, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ireland, has made clear that the formal response to Recommendation 1456 (2000) of the Parliamentary 500W
  Assembly is to be formulated by the Committee of Ministers before the Parliamentary Assembly next meets, from 26–30 June.

  UN Earth Summit
  Mr. Colman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if it is his policy to support the bid by South Africa to host the UN Earth Summit 2002. [123432]

  Mr. Hain
  UK Ministers have warmly welcomed South Africa's bid to host the UN Earth Summit 2002. The main UK objective at this stage is to ensure that a venue is agreed as soon as possible, so that the real work of preparing the Summit can begin.

  British Firms (Government Support)
  Mr. Roy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on measures to clarify the Government's support for British firms trading internationally. [123866]

  Mr. Battle
  I am pleased to announce, also on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade, that the Government's support for international trade will in future be delivered under a single brand name.

  Trade Partners UK will be the new name for the Government's network of support for British companies trading in world markets. Trade partners UK will replace the various promotional brands that have been used in the past and will make services clearer, more effective and easier to access. The aim is to encourage more firms—particularly Small and Medium Enterprisesߞto develop an international dimension to their business. We shall continue to provide support for those that are already successful outside the UK and we shall seek out and help UK firms with the potential to develop new opportunities in overseas markets.

  The new brand will make the full range and reach of services much clearer to customers through the launch on 31 May 2000 of a new internet based "gateway"—www.tradepartners.gov.uk. The gateway will provide access to services for people on the move, anywhere in the world. By the end of this year, all the basic information available on international markets and business sectors will be available electronically. These new interactive services will play a crucial part in the Government's plan to make the United Kingdom a world leader in the knowledge economy by 2002.

  Trade Partners UK will also act as a quality standard to show that the services, activities and organisations with which it is associated are endorsed by the Government's international trade development and promotion effort.

  British Trade International will continue to provide the co-ordination for the services which now fall under the Trade Partners UK brand, working in partnership with Government departments, Devolved Administrations and regional bodies. British Trade International will continue to act as a voice within government for exporters and companies investing overseas.

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many staff from
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  his Department were seconded to private sector companies in (a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if he will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123425]

  Mr. Battle
  There were(a) 19 staff seconded to the private sector between May 1997 and April 1998, (b) 26 between May 1998 and April 1999 and (c) 27 between May 1999 and April 2000. The organisations involved were China Britain Business Council, Rolls-Royce, British Aerospace, International Committee of the Red Cross, Unilever, Shell, Standard Chartered Bank, Glencree Centre, New Millennium Experience Company, London Chamber of Commerce, BOC, PrincewaterhouseCoopers, BP Amoco, British Invisibles, Institute of Exports, Prince's Trust, Halcrow, AMEC, CBI, Smithkline Beecham International, Open Broadcast Network, Andersen Consulting, Oldham Chamber of Commerce, ICL, London First Centre, Fidelity, Reading University and Lehman Brothers.

  The terms of each secondment differ. The rank of the officers varied between junior and senior management. The duration of secondments varied from three to thirty eight months. Please see the table.

  It is not normal practice to name civil servants.

  Staff undertaking a private sector secondment

  Rank

  Total number of officers

  Length of secondments varied between (months)

  May 1997–April 1998

  Junior management

  4

  11–24

  Middle management

  10

  5–36

  Senior management

  5

  5–38

  1997–98

  1998–99

  Secondments of more than three months

  Secondments of less than three months

  Secondments of more than three months

  Secondments of less than three months

  SCS1

  0

  32

  0

  41

  SCS2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Grades 6, 7 and SEO1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Grades 6, 7 and SEO2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  HEO and EO1

  14

  0

  12

  0

  HEO and EO2

  1

  0

  4

  0

  Below EO1

  2

  0

  1

  0

  Below EO2

  5

  0

  5

  0

  Total

  523

  2

  522

  1

  1Male

  2Female

  3One to Shanks and McEwan Southern Waste Services Ltd. and one to the Halifax

  4To Aon Risk Services Ltd.

  5All to CSL Managed Services Ltd.

SCOTLAND

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many staff from his Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999
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  Staff undertaking a private sector secondment

  Rank

  Total number of officers

  Length of secondments varied between (months)

  May 1998–April 1999

  Junior management

  7

  10–36

  Middle management

  11

  4–36

  Senior management

  8

  3–38

  May 1999–April 2000

  Junior management

  88

  3–36

  Middle management

  11

  5–26

  Senior management

  8

  3–38

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary Lord Chancellor's Department how many staff from his Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 197 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if he will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123420]

  Mr. Lock
  Figures are available only for the period 1 April to 31 March each year and, for 1997–98 and 1998–99, are given in the table. The only secondments for more than three months were those arising under the terms of a Public Private Partnership with CSL Managed Services for accounting, IT and payroll services. Returns for 1999–2000 have not yet been commissioned but are likely to reflect a significant reduction in numbers now that the seconded staff have either returned to work for the Department or opted to transfer permanently to CSL.

  to April 2000; and if he will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secomdment. [123418]

  Dr. Reid
  Staff of the Socttish Office were seconded to private sector organisations for the periods indicated, as follows.
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  Grade

  Company

  Duration

  May 1997–April 1998

  SCS

  Standard Life

  October 1997–June 1998

  B3

  Scottish Financial Enterprise

  February 1997–May 2000

  B3

  Scottish Business in the Community

  February 1997–February 1999

  B3

  Scottish Chambers of Commerce

  February 1997–February 1999

  B2

  Scottish Business in the Community

  June 1997–June 2000

  Trainee Solicitor

  Shepherd and Wedderburn

  April 1998–June 1998

  May 1998–April 1999

  Trainee Solicitor

  Shepherd and Wedderburn

  September 1998–March 1999

  Band A

  Royal Bank of Scotland

  June 1998–December 1998

  For the year May 1999–April 2000, no staff of the Scottish Office were seconded before 1 July 1999, when most staff transferred to the Scottish Executive; and no staff of the Scotland Office were seconded between 1 July 1999 and 30 April 2000.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Open Government
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many applications for information she received under the Open Government: Code of Practice on Access to Government Information in the last parliamentary session; and how many were granted. [121861]

  Clare Short
  I refer my right hon. Friend to the reply given by the Home Secretary on 18 May 2000,Official Report, columns 216–17W.

  Forests Action Programme
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development who is writing the report on the measures needed to implement the Action Programme on Forests to be considered by G8 Foreign Ministers at their meeting prior to the next summit in Okinawa; when the report will be ready; and if she will place a copy in the Library. [123164]

  Clare Short
  A report on the implementation of the G8 Action Programme on Forests agreed by Foreign Ministers at Birmingham in May 1998 has been produced by forest experts from each G8 country. The report will be considered in the run-up to the Okinawa Summit. I expect it to be released either at the Summit or at the prior meeting of Foreign Ministers. I will place a copy in the Library as soon as it is published.

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many staff from her Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if she will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123422]

  Clare Short
  During all of the periods referred to, there has been one such arrangement in place, i.e. the secondment of Ms Joan Laurance (sub-band A2—504W
  equivalent to the former Home Civil Service Grade 7) who has been seconded to the consultancy firm Development In Practice. The secondment began in January 1997 and is expected to terminate in September 2000.

  Development Council
  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what was the outcome of the Development Council held in Brussels on 18 May; and if she will make a statement. [123440]

  Clare Short
  In his opening statement at the Council, Development Commissioner Nielson made clear that the past record of EC development efforts was poor and that major improvement was needed if the strategic goal of EC development policy should in future be to combat poverty. He was committed to increasing the proportion of EC aid going to the poorest countries and to the poor in Middle Income Countries, although he said that this was constrained by political priorities and the budget process. Mr. Nielson thought that EC aid should focus on a limited number of areas where it could add most value, and that compatibility with internationally agreed strategies was vital. He said that a focal point would be set up in DG Development to analyse coherence between EC development policy and other EC policies affecting developing countries. Mr. Nielson thought that the planned reform of EC aid management would increase the sense of responsibility within the Commission and improve the quality of programming.

  I welcomed the focus on poverty, impact and effectiveness in EC aid. I said that ensuring coherent support for development across EC policy was vital and that it had improved since Seattle. I added that closer integration between development policy and the Common Foreign and Security Policy was needed, and that in a globalising world the EU could no longer be concerned only with the near abroad. I emphasised that reform needed to address issues such as the pressure which drove proposals for unjustified levels of EC funding for the Western Balkans. I said that a strategic and regularly updated Action Plan was now needed to implement the reform process.

  Subsequent annual reports, if they showed significant improvements in line with this plan, would give member states the confidence to reduce their control of individual EC projects. The Presidency concluded that discussion would continue, leading to the adoption by the next Development Council of a joint statement on EC development policy from the Council and the Commission, with the European Parliament involved in the process.
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  At dinner, I led the discussion on Sierra Leone. I said that the international community needed to be more willing to take risks to provide security, which was a prerequisite for development. I added that the UN had the moral authority to promote conflict resolution, but lacked the necessary tools to do so effectively. France and Italy praised the UK's action in bolstering the UNAMSIL operation. There was general agreement that the UN's credibility was at stake in Sierra Leone, that more support should be given to UN peace-keeping forces, that the whole approach to peace-keeping needed reviewing urgently and that Commission funds for the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programme should be released more quickly in future. Discussion turned to Guinea Bissau, which the Presidency (Portugal) said now merited EU financial support. Finally, France described recent events and the constitutional reform debate in Cote d'Ivoire. It was agreed that the decision on whether or not to suspend EC aid would depend on the forthcoming Heads of Mission report.

  The Council adopted conclusions which recommended further improvements to Operational Co-ordination between the Commission and member states in developing countries. I stressed the importance of wider co-ordination around Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers led by the partner countries. The Council then adopted three items without discussion. The UK supported the resolution on Structural Adjustment (budget and sector support for developing countries), which makes poverty reduction its ultimate objective and incorporates many examples of best practice. The UK also supported the procedural conclusions on integrating the environment and sustainable development into EC development policy, and in particular the link with poverty reduction and reinforcement of the importance of policy coherence. We are now keen to help devise a comprehensive strategy to implement these conclusions. The UK also supported the conclusions on HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, which call on the Commission to examine what else the EC could do to confront major poverty diseases.

  The Council followed up last year's evaluation of humanitarian aid by adopting a resolution which seeks to guide the Commission without micromanaging them. The proposal that the EC Humanitarian Office should add to its funding role by developing an emergency response capacity was not adopted; the UK view is that the case for this is not proven. This was followed by a discussion of conflict and crisis situations introduced by the Presidency, during which I reinforced my message on Sierra Leone. It was concluded that discussions on more rapid and effective instruments for conflict management should continue under the French Presidency.

  At lunch, Italy opened the discussion on Ethiopia and Eritrea. I, supported by most member states, observed that the moral low ground was alternating between the two countries and that we needed to act firmly now to help resolve the conflict. Belgium then argued for more assistance for Burundi. I said that we should back Nelson Mandela's efforts to facilitate the implementation of the Arusha Accords, including by holding a pledging conference, but added that it would be premature to consider budgetary assistance for Burundi at present. This line met with broad agreement. Denmark then underlined the importance of election monitoring in Zimbabwe. I noted that the land question was currently being used as a
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  smokescreen for terror tactics against the opposition. The Council agreed that the UNDP exercise on land reform should not offer money which was additional to the offers of finance which had been on the table since 1998. I supported the call from Germany and the Netherlands for the Commission to speed up implementation of the European Development Fund contribution to the HIPC trust fund. Ireland introduced the issue of HIV/AIDS, which France said would be a priority for its Presidency. I noted that the cost of anti-retroviral drugs would remain prohibitive, even after the announcement by a major pharmaceutical company of a price reduction for developing countries. The Commission said that this issue would be addressed at the EU-US Summit in Lisbon.

  Under other business, the Presidency said that the outstanding differences between the Council and the European Parliament on the proposed environmental integration and tropical forest regulations would go to conciliation within the next few weeks. The Commission presented an information note on the Third UN Conference on Least Developed Countries in May 2001. Denmark presented a note on development aspects of the Sixth Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention on Climate Change in November.

HEALTH

  Folic Acid
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will issue the consultation document on the conclusions and recommendations of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy in relation to folic acid and the prevention of disease. [120985]

  Yvette Cooper
  A joint consultation document will be issued shortly by the UK Health Departments and the Food Standards Agency.

  Skin Cancer
  Ms Kingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what discussions she has had with manufacturers of sun protection products, as part of the campaign to prevent skin cancer, on the prices charged for these products. [121520]

  Yvette Cooper
  The pricing of sunscreens is a matter for manufacturers to decide and the Government have no direct influence in the price setting process for these items, which are a commercial product. We would encourage manufacturers and retailers to ensure that sunscreens are affordable for all. In May 1998, my hon. Friend the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Griffiths) wrote to the Perfumery and Toiletries Association pointing out that sunscreens should not be regarded as a fashion product. We recommend the use of sunscreens as a back-up measure to other sun protection measures such as wearing protective clothing and staying in the shade in the midday sun.

  Breast Cancer
  Ms Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate (1) how many additional patients per month could benefit from taxanes for the treatment of breast cancer in the NHS; [122470]
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  (2) how many additional lives would be saved per month through use of taxanes to treat all breast cancer patients in the NHS who could benefit from it. [122471]

  Yvette Cooper
  About 35,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and of these between 6,000 and 9,000 will progress to advanced cancer. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence has been asked to review the evidence for the clinical and cost effectiveness of the two taxane drugs (Taxol and Taxotere) in advanced breast cancer, and it would be wrong to pre-empt its advice.

  Vaccination
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to monitor safety of childhood vaccinations; and if he will make a statement. [122158]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 15 May 2000]: The Post-Licensing Division of the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) is responsible for monitoring the safety of all marketed medicines, including vaccines, licensed in the United Kingdom. Prior to licensing, all vaccines are thoroughly tested for safety, efficacy and quality. A manufacturer must demonstrate that the vaccine is safe and effective in preventing disease and that it is manufactured to appropriate standards before a Product Licence is given.

  Suspected adverse reactions to vaccines, and other medicines, can be reported through the yellow card (YC) scheme by doctors, dentists, coroners, and pharmacists. In addition, vaccine manufacturers must submit details of all reports of suspected adverse drug reactions that are of a serious nature to the MCA. Reports received through the YC scheme and from companies are entered onto a specialised computer system called ADROIT (Adverse Drug Reactions On-line Information Tracking). This system allows rapid processing and detailed analysis of reports. Information collected through this system provides additional information on recognised reactions and can act as an early warning system for the identification of previously unrecognised reactions.

  The YC scheme is well established and has been shown to be effective in identifying previously unrecognised adverse reactions. It is the key system for nation-wide surveillance in all age groups and can provide signals for very rare adverse events. The number and pattern of reports are regularly reviewed, and appropriate action initiated if there is indication of a problem.

  Information from the YC scheme, together with information from other sources including published papers, large controlled trials, epidemiological studies, record linkage studies and screening of general practitioners and hospital databases provides comprehensive monitoring of the safety of childhood vaccines.

  The question of vaccine safety is one that we take very seriously and is of the utmost importance. The benefits and risks of vaccination are always carefully considered and kept under constant review. Serious adverse reactions to vaccines are very rare. Reported suspected adverse reactions are carefully monitored both by the Committee on Safety of Medicines and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, independent expert groups which advise the UK health departments. Information on
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  safety issues is considered in detail by the MCA and the Department and by its independent expert advisers on a regular basis.

  The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control tests each batch of vaccine for potency, safety and purity before it is issued for use. Only batches that reach the required standard are released for use. No vaccine is issued in the UK unless it passes the highest standards for quality. As a result, the childhood immunisation programme remains the safest way for parents to protect their children against disease.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what advice parents are given about the side-effects of the Meningitis C vaccine; whether the vaccine carries a risk of brain-damage or death; and whether all risks are made clear before parental consent is requested. [122913]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 19 May 2000]: A leaflet for parents—"Meningitis C. Reduce the risk. Your guide to the new meningitis C vaccine"—provides information on the possible side effects of the meningococcal Group C conjugate vaccine. The consent form for the meningococcal Group C immunisation tells parents to "Make sure you have read and understood the leaflet". It goes on to advise "Before you fill in the rest of the form, please make sure you have read this leaflet carefully" and then explicitly draws attention to "the possible side effects of the immunisation (read page 6)". Brain damage and death are not recognised risks.

  About 26 million copies of the parents' leaflet have been printed and it has been mailed to general practitioners' surgeries, pharmacies and schools for every parent to receive and also made widely available though high street pharmacies and post offices. Copies of the leaflet and the consent form are available in the Library.

  Breast Implants
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress the Government have made in the introduction of compulsory registration of the details of each breast implant and removal operation on a National Breast Implant Registry. [122553]

  Yvette Cooper
  Registration of each implant and explant operation on the National Breast Implant Registry cannot be compulsory as the entry of information on the registry requires consent of the patient.

  However a number of actions are being taken to increase compliance with registration. These include promoting awareness of the National Breast Implant Registry; guidance to be issued by the Royal College of Surgeons on clinical practice for breast surgery, and the Care Standards Bill.

  Human Papilloma Virus
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the members of the expert advisory group which will oversee the commissioning and running of the pilot sites for human papilloma virus testing. [122786]

  Yvette Cooper
  The membership of the expert advisory group on the pilot for human papilloma virus testing has not yet been agreed. Prospective members will be approached shortly and will include representatives from colposcopy, cyto-pathology, virology, primary care, epidemiology and
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  consumer groups. When the membership is finalised, details will be posted on the United Kingdom National Screening Committee's website at http://www.nsc.nhs.uk/

  Beta Interferon
  Mr. Sawford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to publish its report on the use of beta interferon. [122930]

  Mr. Denham
  The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been asked to provide authoritative guidance on a range of health topics, of which the appraisal of the drug beta interferon was one. The timetabling of this work is a matter for NICE, although I understand that NICE is intending to disseminate its guidance to the National Health Service during August.

  Race Equality
  Mr. Woodward
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to establish NHS race equality units outside London. [123087]

  Ms Stuart
  We have no plans to establish National Health Service race equality units outside London.

  Accommodation (South-East)
  Mr. Woodward
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what schemes he plans to introduce to increase accommodation provision for public health care staff in the south-east of England. [123062]

  Ms Stuart
  A national housing co-ordinator for the National Health Service has been appointed from 1 April 2000 with responsibilities for addressing the provision of adequate and affordable residential accommodation for nursing and other key National Health Service personnel.

  Any shortfalls are currently being identified in the south-east region of the National Health Service as well as other areas of the country to target improvement strategies.

  Residential and Nursing Homes
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the number of employees providing nursing care in residential and nursing homes who have recognised nursing qualifications. [123079]

  Mr. Hutton
  The table provides details of the number of nursing staff employed in private nursing homes, hospitals and clinics.

  Number of whole-time equivalent nursing staff in private nursing homes, hospitals and clinics

  England

  1 October 1996 to 31 March 1997

  Number of nursing staff (WTE)

  Of which qualified nursing staff (WTE)

  All establishments1

  136,650

  51,230

  General and mental nursing homes1

  127,280

  43,570

  Private hospitals and clinics

  9,370

  7,660

  1Includes those in dual registered homes

  Source:

  KO36 form
  510W
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to ensure high quality of care in residential and nursing homes in the United Kingdom. [123080]

  Mr. Hutton
  We are reforming the regulatory arrangements for residential care and nursing homes. The Care Standards Bill, which covers England and Wales, will establish a National Care Standards Commission for England to regulate all care homes to national minimum standards to ensure consistency and improve the quality of care and protection for vulnerable people. In Wales, the National Assembly will take on the same regulatory functions as the Commission.

  In Scotland there will be a Scottish Care Commission regulating services on a broadly similar basis to that in England.

  The specific arrangements for Northern Ireland will be a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly to decide in due course.

  GM Food
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proposals he is evaluating for introducing product liability for GM food. [123389]

  Ms Stuart
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: Manufactured food, which includes all genetically modified food which has been approved to date, is already covered by the product liability provisions of Part 1 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987, a copy of which has been placed in the Library.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Terry Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to the letters from the hon. Member for Worsley of 17 November 1999 and 4 April 2000, regarding his constituent Lucy Darwell. [123401]

  Yvette Cooper
  I replied to my hon. Friend on 22 May.

  Human Rights Act 1998
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what advice he has given the National Health Service on the implications for the NHS of the coming into force of the Human Rights Act 1998. [123255]

  Ms Stuart
  We shall shortly be issuing guidance alerting the National Health Service and Social Services to the coming into force of the Human Rights Act on 2 October 2000.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Plutonium Exports
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what were the(a) origin of the reactor, (b) isotopic composition, (c) point of departure, (d) mode of transport and (e) final end-use of the United Kingdom plutonium exported to the United States of America between 1970 and 1988 in (i) the form of fuel elements and (ii) other forms. [119256]
  511W
  Mrs. Liddell
  Whenever the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority or BNFL export United Kingdom plutonium under civil arrangements they keep certain records. These records include the total amount of plutonium exported and the United Kingdom owner of the plutonium. They do not include details of the particular reactor in which the plutonium was produced. This reflects the fact that spent fuel from different UK civil reactors and belonging to different owners may be reprocessed at the same time and that the plutonium arising from reprocessing ceases to have a separate reactor-specific identity. Plutonium is attributed to an owner based on an estimate of the fissile content of the irradiated fuel originally supplied, usually on an annual basis. The specific plutonium atoms allocated to an owner are not necessarily the same atoms that the owner originally supplied.

  All exports of United Kingdom plutonium to the United States under civil arrangements have been subject to relevant bilateral and international arrangements to ensure that the material exported is used exclusively for peaceful, non-explosive purposes. The precise end use to which such exported plutonium has been put is however, a matter for the United States.

  Information relating to the isotopic composition, point of departure and the mode of transport used for each export is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  England

  Scotland

  Wales

  Month

  Respiratory diseases

  VWF

  Respiratory diseases

  VWF

  Respiratory diseases

  VWF

  January

  397

  863

  44

  79

  83

  152

  February

  277

  672

  21

  49

  98

  77

  March

  282

  1,062

  9

  98

  109

  163

  April

  365

  520

  25

  95

  61

  110

  Total

  1,321

  3,117

  99

  321

  351

  502

  With regard to VWF, the Department remains on track to have tested all claims registered to date by summer next year, with interim settlement offers following shortly afterwards. The majority of claimants will receive final settlement offers by summer the following year.

  As for respiratory disease, given the number of claimants—over 104,000 to date—it may take two to three years before all claims are complete. We introduced in March last year a national programme of spirometry, the first state of the Medical Assessment Process, which has seen nearly 50,000 claimants tested, with a further 11,000 invited to make appointments. With nearly 69,000 live claims this means in just over 12 months we have contacted 90 per cent. of claimants.

  By the end of June we expect that 2,000 claimants will have gone through the second stage of the MAP and by September that the number of second stage medical assessments will be up to 4,000 a month. In order to sustain these levels we will of course require similar numbers of completed form packs from solicitors.
  512W
  Export of United Kingdom plutonium to the United States under non-civil arrangements are a matter for the Ministry of Defence.

  BNFL
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will place in the Library a copy of the memorandum sent by Rupert Wilcox-Baker of British Nuclear Fuels to Claire Lambert in his Department's Nuclear Industry Directorate, dated 8 March 1996, concerning information about a parliamentary question asked by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent in respect of plutonium exports to the United States. [120059]

  Mrs. Liddell
  I have placed a copy of the relevant letter in the Libraries of the House.

  Industrial Diseases (Claims)
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many claims for(a) chronic bronchitis and emphysema and (b) vibration white finger have been settled, in each area in (i) January, (ii) February, (iii) March and (iv) April; and when he expects all present claims to be settled. [122817]

  Mrs. Liddell
  In the four months from January the Department had made payments in full or part settlement of claims totalling some £6.7 million to 1,771 respiratory disease claimants and some £30.3 million to 3,940 VWF claimants—broken down as follows:

  National Grid Company
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what permanent derogations have been granted to the National Grid Company; and at what locations. [123434]

  Mrs. Liddell
  Ofgem has issued derogations to the National Grid Company and other system users relating to security standards and the technical rules for connection to the system. Derogations are not permanent as they can be amended or revoked at any time.

  International Organisation of Legal Metrology
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what recommendations of the Organisation Internationale de Metrologie Legale in the last five years have(a) been and (b) not been implemented. [123450]

  Dr. Howells
  In the last five years the International Organisation of Legal Metrology (OIML) has published 31 Recommendations. Of these, 17 deal with measuring instruments which fall within my responsibilities. OIML Recommendations are used as the basis for legislation wherever practicable. The situation on implementation is set out in the table.
  513W

  Number

  Title

  Implementation

  R31

  Diaphragm gas meters

  None. Council Directive 71/318/EEC as amended has not been brought into line with R31. The Directive has been implemented by SI 1988/296

  R49

  Water meters intended for the metering of cold water

  Implementation at the planning stage

  R50 -1 and -2

  Continuous totalizing automatic weighing instruments (Belt weighers). Part 1: Metrological and Technical requirements—Tests; Part 2: Test report format

  Draft legislation in preparation

  R51 -1

  Automatic catchweighing instruments. Part 1: Metrological and technical requirements—Tests

  Draft Regulations sent out for comments on 28 April 2000.(These only cover catchweighers and not checkweighers andweight-graders, on which there is no UK legislation)

  R60

  Metrological regulation for load cells

  No separate UK legislation. These are components of non-automatic weighing instruments and automatic weighing instruments

  R61 -1

  Automatic gravimetric filling instruments. Part 1: Metrological and technical requirements - Tests

  Implemented by SI 2000/388

  R79

  Labelling requirements for prepackaged products(including prohibiting misleading packaging practices)

  None. Council Directives 75/106/EEC and 76/211/EEC as amended have not been brought into line with R79. The Directives have been implemented by SI 1986/2049 as amended

  R81

  Dynamic measuring devices and systems for cryogenic liquids (including tables of density for liquid argon, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen)

  No UK legislation

  R85

  Automatic level gauges for measuring the level of liquid in fixed storage tanks

  No UK legislation

  R106 -1

  Automatic rail-weighbridges. Part 1: Metrological and technical requirements—Tests

  Draft legislation in preparation

  R107 -1

  Discontinuous totalizing automatic weighing instruments (totalizing hopper weighers). Part 1: Metrological and technical requirements—Tests

  Implemented by SI 1996/797

  R117/R118

  R117 Measuring systems for liquids other than water. R118 Testing procedures and test report format for pattern evaluation of fuel dispensers for motor vehicles

  Implemented by SI 1995/1014 as amended by 1998/2218

  R119

  Pipe provers for testing measuring systems for liquids other than water

  No UK legislation

  R120

  Standard capacity measures for testing measuring systems for liquids other than water

  Not yet considered

  R125

  Measuring systems for the mass of liquids in tanks

  No UK legislation

  R129

  Multi-dimensional measuring instruments

  No UK legislation

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much money was spent in each of the last five years(a) subscribing to and (b) supporting the UK's committee representatives on the Organisation Internationale de Metrologie Legale. [123451]

  Dr. Howells
  The UK pays an annual subscription to the Organisation Internationale de Metrologie Legale (OIML). In the last five years the subscriptions paid have been as follows:

  Year

  £

  1995

  35,646

  1996

  40,293

  1997

  36,118

  1998

  33,004

  1999

  30,371

  Support for UK participation in the committees of OIML comes from a number of Government departments and other organisations (including industry associations). It is not therefore possible to quantify the cost of this support.
  514W
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the policy of the Government towards the work of the Organisation Internationale de Metrologie Legale. [123452]

  Dr. Howells
  The United Kingdom is one of more than 100 countries participating in the work of the Organisation Internationale de Metrologie Legale (OIML). The Government support the work of this important organisation, which contributes to the removal of barriers to trade by publishing technical recommendations in the form of draft model laws and through its system of OIML certificates. These help manufacturers of measuring instruments to obtain approval for their products in OIML member countries. The UK participates in those areas of OIML's work where we have a specific interest.

  Recruitment Industry
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received in response to his proposals relating to regulation of Temp to Perm in
  515W
  the private recruitment industry as contained in his Department's draft regulation of 16 March; what assessment his Department has made of (a) the potential effect of these proposals on the permanent recruitment market and (b) the extent to which the proposals may create a disincentive to recruitment firms to train and develop their temporary workers; and if he will make a statement. [123399]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  We have received representations from agencies, workers, unions and employers. There has been general support for the principle that hirers should have the option of a hiring extension of negotiable length, followed by free transfer, as an alternative to a "temp to perm" fee and also that there should be a limit on the period agencies may continue to demand a transfer fee after a hirer has ceased to engage a worker. Some respondents have endorsed our suggested four week limit but others have advocated shorter and longer periods.

  Employers wishing to recruit permanent staff will generally continue to do so from the outset, because they will wish to attract applicants who are looking for permanent work. This is confirmed by our analysis of independent research showing the level of market segmentation between the permanent and temporary sectors.

  Businesses using Business Link

  Quarter

  Number of employees

  England Total

  East

  East Midlands

  London

  North West

  North East

  South East

  South West

  West Midlands

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  1999–2000

  Q1 April–June

  1–9

  40,984

  3,998

  2,762

  4,059

  7,905

  1,839

  7,019

  4,675

  4,890

  3,837

  10+

  46,399

  5,012

  3,407

  4,416

  8,925

  2,219

  6,785

  4,504

  6,562

  4,569

  Q2 July–September

  1–9

  42,811

  3,822

  3,078

  4,927

  7,680

  1,954

  6,482

  5,013

  5,826

  4,029

  10+

  49,802

  5,915

  4,109

  4,502

  9,434

  2,423

  6,881

  3,996

  8,351

  4,191

  Q3 October–December

  1–9

  42,200

  4,033

  3,104

  5,110

  7,558

  1,654

  6,349

  4,199

  5,650

  4,543

  10+

  47,955

  5,577

  3,286

  5,899

  8,568

  2,305

  6,821

  3,333

  7,399

  4,767

  Q4 January–March

  1–9

  42,604

  4,256

  3,627

  4,447

  7,322

  1,845

  6,812

  3,919

  5,710

  4,666

  10+

  47,916

  5,732

  3,979

  4,273

  9,255

  2,059

  6,869

  3,489

  7,180

  5,080

  Average

  1–9

  42,510

  4,027

  3,143

  4,636

  7,616

  1,823

  6,666

  4,452

  5,519

  4,269

  10+

  48,018

  5,559

  3,695

  4,773

  9,046

  2,252

  6,839

  3,831

  7,373

  4,652

  1997–98

  Q1 April–June

  1–9

  39,296

  8,176

  1,693

  2,770

  9,973

  2,126

  4,234

  3,914

  3,748

  2,662

  10+

  36,693

  6,843

  2,186

  2,121

  6,989

  1,378

  3,942

  3,898

  6,864

  2,472

  Q2 July–September

  1–9

  42,140

  7,895

  2,036

  2,770

  8,809

  2,352

  7,116

  4,257

  3,692

  3,209

  10+

  39,243

  7,121

  2,230

  2,599

  7,051

  2,399

  4,954

  3,820

  6,651

  2,418

  Q3 October–December

  1–9

  41,340

  5,933

  2,124

  2,937

  9,121

  3,313

  7,784

  3,972

  3,189

  2,967

  10+

  39,659

  5,714

  2,440

  3,372

  7,781

  3,254

  5,201

  3,613

  5,568

  2,716

  Q4 January–March

  1–9

  44,176

  6,483

  2,264

  3,591

  10,483

  1,686

  7,625

  4,139

  3,960

  3,943

  10+

  42,876

  7,656

  2,341

  4,075

  8,002

  2,075

  4,797

  3,823

  6,476

  3,631

  Average

  1–9

  41,738

  7,122

  2,029

  3,017

  9,597

  2,369

  6,690

  4,071

  3,647

  3,195

  10+

  39,618

  6,834

  2,299

  3,042

  7,456

  2,277

  4,724

  3,789

  6,390

  2,809

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which Business Links Partnerships have developed centres of enterprise, and which business areas are covered by each centre. [123544]
  516W
  We do not believe that a disincentive for bureaux to train and develop temporary workers will be created. Hirers will continue to seek skilled staff, and bureaux will continue to be able to recoup their training costs, in the event of a temporary worker transferring to permanent employment, either through an extension of the hiring period or the charging of a "temp to perm" fee.

  Business Links
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many businesses with more than(a) one employee and (b) 10 employees used the Business Link Service in each region in (i) the most recent available year and (ii) 1997–98. [123535]

  Ms Hewitt
  As part of the Management Information requirement, Business Links provide SBS with total usage data which is broken down to usage by number of employees.

  The data requirement is to count all businesses using Business Link services for non-trivial activity. The table shows that activity for periods 1997–98 and 1999–2000. A business which receives advice twice within a quarter is only counted once, but a business which receives assistance in two separate quarters will be counted in each quarter. It is not possible, because of the risk of double counting, to give precise total usage of businesses being assisted each year.

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  There are currently 22 centres of expertise within the Business Links Partnerships funded specifically for that purpose. The Business Links Partnerships and the 22 centres of expertise are set out in the following table. A number of these projects are not sector specific and are designed to support all businesses.
  517W

  Centres of expertise

  Government office

  Business Links

  Name of project

  Sector

  GO-E

  BL Bedfordshire

  Green Link

  Environment

  BL Hertfordshire

  Benchmarking for the SME

  Benchmarking

  GO-EM

  BL Leicestershire

  East Midlands Business Angels

  All

  BL Southern Derbyshire

  Exploitation of Major Investment Opportunities

  All

  BL Lincolnshire

  Foodnet

  Food

  GO-L

  BL London North West

  Ethnic Minority Business

  Ethnic Minority

  BL London North

  CE Mark Conformance

  —

  GO-NE

  BL Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  Energy Efficiency, Environmental Efficiency and Waste Management

  Environment

  BL Northumberland

  Export Services

  Export

  BL County Durham

  Business Improvement Micro Benchmarking

  Benchmarking

  GO-NW

  BL Chester and Ellesmere Port

  Business and Intelligence Service

  All

  GO-SE

  BL Hampshire

  Improving SME Access to DERA and CLRC Expertise

  Defence

  BL Kent

  Knowledge Management for SME's

  All

  GO-SW

  BL West

  Centre of Expertise for Aerospace/Defence

  Defence/Aerospace

  BL Swindon

  Automotive Centre of Expertise

  Automative

  BL West

  "Print Link"

  Print

  GO-WM

  Staffordshire TEC

  Ceramics Industry

  Ceramics

  Wolverhampton Chamber and Business Link

  West Midlands Overseas Trade Services

  Export

  BL Sandwell

  Centre for Management Excellence

  All

  GO-YH

  Barnsley and Doncaster TEC

  Management Development and Entrepreneurship

  All

  Rotherham Chamber and TEC

  Technology Transfer

  Technology

  Humberside TEC

  Centre of Expertise for Food

  Food

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many businesses in each region have received expert advice on the use of information and communications technologies from Local Support Centres associated with Business Links. [123539]

  Ms Hewitt
  As part of the Management Information requirement, Business Links provide SBS with usage data for the Information Society Initiative Centres (formally known as Local Support Centres).

  Businesses using Information Society Initiative Centres (1999–2000)

  Q1 April–June

  Q2 July–September

  Q3 October–December

  Q4 January–March

  Average

  England total

  3,126

  4,969

  4,141

  5,587

  4,456

  East

  46

  105

  136

  246

  133

  East Midlands

  594

  467

  544

  471

  519

  London

  577

  937

  579

  557

  663

  North West

  639

  755

  617

  1,015

  757

  North East

  118

  144

  209

  62

  133

  South East

  303

  554

  384

  1,111

  588

  South West

  145

  337

  358

  449

  322

  West Midlands

  516

  1,126

  901

  536

  770

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  188

  544

  413

  1,140

  571

  Skills Training
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the members of the group developing a best practice model for large businesses to work with suppliers and customers to improve the skills of their workforce. [123564]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The group working on this Competitiveness White Paper commitment were: Mike Kinski, then at Stagecoach; Howard Bentley from Sainsburys; Jerry Cope from Post Office Counters; Stephen Dunn from Scottish Power; Barrie Oxtoby, then at Rover; and Les Shearn from British Aerospace.
  518W
  We do not collect national records of the nature of every assistance given, in order to minimise the management requirement of Business Links. However, we do ask them to omit trivial activity. The table shows activity for the period 1999–2000. The figures given are the numbers of businesses assisted in each quarter. A business which receives advice twice within a quarter is only counted once, but a business which receives assistance in two separate quarters will be counted in each quarter. It is not possible, because of the risk of double counting, to give a precise total number of businesses being assisted each year.

  Learning through Business Networks—the final output from this work—was published in September 1999.

  "Fit for the Future" Campaign
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many partner organisations and champions have been recruited to the "Fit For The Future" campaign. [123552]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  Currently there are 52 organisations involved as partners within the campaign and 103 individuals have been identified as best practice champions.

  National Campaign for Enterprise
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the progress of the National Campaign for Enterprise. [123546]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The DTI is supporting the business-led Enterprise Insight, the formal name for the National Campaign for Enterprise, which aims to create a more entrepreneurial culture throughout the UK. So far we have committed funding towards the costs of setting up the Campaign office and organising an 'ambassador' programme.

  Enterprise Insight was launched by the Prime Minister on 11 May. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry attended, taking part in discussion groups with entrepreneurs, business leaders and young people.

  Two young people's forums have already been held in Hull and Wales and further regional activities are currently being co-ordinated by the Enterprise Insight team.

  200 entrepreneurs and business people have signed up to the Campaign so far. These 'ambassadors' will participate in a range of activities to raise awareness and understanding of the role and value of enterprise in the community.

  "Creating a Great Place to Work"
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the booklet, "Creating a Great Place to Work", has been distributed to business. [123563]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The leaflet has been distributed to a large number of businesses, business support organisations and business representative organisations.

  Management Training and Development
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the Departments which are involved and the nature of their involvement in developing a national strategy for the delivery of management training and development. [123553]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Secretary of State for Education and Employment have jointly sponsored the formation of the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership to undertake the development of a national strategy for Management and Leadership Development. The Council was officially launched on 4 April 2000.

  The aim of the Council is:
  "To ensure that the UK is able to develop the managers and leaders of the future to match the best in the world. To sustain the UK's competitive performance, this must be achieved in both the public and private sectors".

  The Council proposes to pursue this aim by:

  (a) identifying key issues for management and leadership in England in consultation with the Management Councils established in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to make proposals to address them;

  (b) identifying key stakeholders and challenging them to take action on the basis of the investigations undertaken by the Council and its members;

  520W

  (c) articulating a vision for management development, in particular by developing a management development strategy for the UK, which incorporates leadership issues and specifically addresses the needs of SMEs;

  (d) reviewing the quality, relevance and support for management and leadership education and training;

  (e)monitoring progress on issues identified by the Council as in need of action; and

  (f) reporting annually to Government and to stakeholders on the progress of those responsible for taking action.

  People Skills Scoreboard
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made in extending the People Skills Scoreboard to a wider range of sectors. [123554]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  In addition to the People Skills Scoreboard for the engineering sector (published by the Engineering and Marine Training Authority), Scoreboards are being developed, in partnership with National Training Organisations, in a range of manufacturing and service sectors, such as Clothing, Textiles and Footwear, Information Technology, and Computer Services, Multimedia and Steel.

  The objective is to publish and disseminate the Scoreboards to raise business awareness about the importance and value of training.

  Late Payment of Commercial Debts
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate how many businesses have benefited from the provisions of the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. [123562]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  Small firms responding to a survey in late 1999 by the Credit Management Research Centre at Leeds University Business School were asked if they had used the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 since its introduction.

  5 per cent. of small firms who responded stated that they had used the legislation, up from 3 per cent. in the previous six months. 11 per cent. stated that they were planning to use it.

  We are also monitoring the effect on the Act on payment times in the UK. Recent research published in the Grant Thornton European Business Survey confirms that the average payment period for sales invoices in the UK now stands at 45 days, against an EU average of 54 days, identifying a downward trend in UK payment times in recent years.

  Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Internet)
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many small and medium-sized enterprises have gained the ability to buy and sell over the Internet with the help of Local Support Centres associated with Business Links in each year since 1997(a) in each region and (b) as a percentage of all businesses. [123538]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  Usage figures for Information Society Initiative (ISI) Centres associated with Business Links are published quarterly as part of Business Link
  521W
  Management Information, copies of which are placed in the Library of the House. Figures are not available prior to 1998. Since 1 January 1998 ISI Centres associated with Business Links in England have provided support to thirty seven thousand (37,016) businesses.

  The International Benchmarking Study (DTI/Pub 4108/3k/4/99/NP URN 99/797) provides data on uptake of information and communication technologies among small and medium sized companies. However, such uptake cannot be attributed to any single provider of advice.

  Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the impact of the Enterprise Fund on(a) the availability of venture capital for very early stage high technology firms and (b) the delivery of the small firms loan guarantee scheme. [123548]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  One of the key elements of the Enterprise Fund is the UK High Technology Fund which is being established to address an acknowledged weakness of the venture capital market in this area. On 3 April David Irwin announced that the fund manager, Wesport Private Equity, had been successful in raising £57 million from the private sector, alongside £20 million of Government money, for the UK High Technology Fund. The Fund has been set a final closing target of £125 million, of which £105 million will be from the private sector. Wesport Private Equity continues to raise money from the private sector towards this closing target.

  The Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme has been running since 1981 and is periodically evaluated by independent consultants. A report of the most recent study, which looked at all aspects of the scheme including its delivery, was published in March 1999. The recommendations of this report are currently being considered.

  Enterprise Fund
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the impact of the Enterprise Fund on(a) (i) local and (ii) regional provision of equity on smaller amounts to growing businesses and (b) finance for a wider range of new products and services. [123550]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  One of the key elements of the Enterprise Fund is the support available from Regional Venture Capital Funds, which will specialise in the provision of small scale equity to businesses with growth potential. Bidding guidance for potential sponsors of new regional funds was issued on 22 December 1999 and 21 notifications of intention to bid have subsequently been received. Should all of these come forward, all of the English regions will have access to at least one new, viable fund.

  The Enterprise Fund was established to address gaps in the markets providing finance to SMEs. New programmes will be developed under the Fund in response to market needs.

  Business Starts
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the growth in the number of business start-ups since the launch of the Public Service Agreement. [123533]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  Since the Public Service Agreement was launched in December 1998 it is estimated that there have been 549,000 business start-ups in England and Wales.

  Competitiveness Objectives
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list his(a) national and (b) regional competitiveness objectives. [123545]

  Ms Hewitt
  My Department's aim is to increase competitiveness and scientific excellence in order to generate higher levels of sustainable growth and productivity in a modern economy. To achieve that, we have set ourselves four over-arching national objectives: to promote enterprise, innovation and increased productivity; to make the most of the UK's science, engineering and technology; to create strong and competitive markets; and to develop a fair and effective legal and regulatory framework. Specific targets in pursuit of these objectives are set out in the DTI Public Service Agreement, which is in the Library of the House.

  At regional level, our objective is to raise the economic performance of all regions, working with other Government Departments and Regional Development Agencies. My Department pursues its policies in ways which recognise regional differences. Regional competitiveness strategies have been developed by the Regional Development Agencies, and the Department works closely with them to ensure that its regional policies, including Regional Selective Assistance, the Assisted Areas map, EU Structural Funds and new initiatives such as the enterprise grant scheme contribute towards achieving the objectives set out in these strategies.

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many staff from his Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if he will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123457]

  Dr. Howells
  From the information that is held centrally within the Department, the details we have on outward secondments are as follows:

  DTI Outward secondments from 1 May 1997–30 April 1998

  25 outward secondments, made up of:

  3 @ R6

  1 @ R7

  9 @ R8

  1 @ R9

  9 @ R10

  1 @ Fast stream

  1 @ Senior Civil Service.

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  DTI outward secondments from 1 May 1997–30 April 1998

  Company name

  Grade

  Length

  Cambs Tech

  R8

  10 months

  Nat West

  R7

  4 months

  Warwick Manufacturing Group

  R10

  8 months

  London First Centre

  R10

  1 year 11 months

  Business Link Sussex

  R10

  8 months

  Mobil North Sea Ltd.

  R10

  6 months

  SMMT Industry Forum

  R10

  3 years

  BG Plc

  R10

  2 years 2 months

  Nat West

  R8

  5 months

  Mezzo Studios

  R6

  6 months

  Sheffield Tec

  R10

  6 months

  Independent Television Commission

  R10

  1 year 8 months

  Northern Development Company

  R8

  5 months

  British Footwear Association

  R8

  2 years 3 months

  Chemical Industries Association

  R10

  2 years 2 months

  MG Telecommunications

  R6

  4 months

  Northern Development Company

  R9

  4 months

  European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

  R8

  6 months

  INWARD

  R8

  6 months

  Sachetpack Ltd.

  R8

  3 months

  British Standards Institute

  R8

  2 years

  BP Exploration

  FS

  4 months

  Ernst and Young

  R8

  7 months

  British Council Kuala Lumpur

  R6

  6 months

  Lloyds TSB Group

  SCS

  6 months

  DTI Outward secondments from 1 May 1998–30 April 1999

  19 outward secondments, made up of:

  1 @ R6

  1 @ R7

  5 @ R8

  1 @ R9

  6 @ R10

  3 @ R11

  1 @ Fast stream

  1 @ Senior Civil Service.

  DTI Outward secondments from 1 May 1998–30 April 1999

  Company name

  Grade

  Length

  British Standards Institute

  R10

  1 year 3 months

  Financial Services Authority

  R10

  6 months

  Committee for Middle East Trade

  R8

  6 months

  Financial Services Authority

  R10

  5 months

  Interregnum Venture Marketing

  R11

  1 year 1 month

  Financial Reporting Council

  SCS

  4 years 9 months

  Action 2000

  R10

  1 year 8 months

  London Chamber of Commerce and Industry

  R6

  9 months

  Nat West

  FS

  4 months

  National Physical Laboratory

  R11

  2 years

  British Industries Printing Federation

  R7

  6 months

  Action 2000

  R11

  1 year 3 months

  The Centre for Tomorrow's Company

  R9

  1 year 5 months

  Asia House

  R8

  2 years

  SITPRO

  R10

  3 years

  Pritchitt Foods

  R8

  2 months

  British Executive Service Overseas

  R8

  1 year

  BG Plc

  R10

  1 year 3 months

  Latin American Trade Advisory Group

  R8

  7 months

  DTI Outward secondments from 1 May 1999–30 April 2000

  25 outward secondments, made up of:

  3 @ R6

  2 @ R7

  7 @ R8

  2 @ R9

  5 @ R10

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  4 @ R11

  1 @ Fast stream

  1 @ Senior Civil Service

  DTI outward secondments from 1 May 1999—30 April 2000

  Company name

  Grade

  Length

  BP Gas Marketing Ltd.

  FS

  6 months

  The ILB Partnership Ltd.

  R6

  6 months

  Pritchitt Foods

  R10

  7 months

  Times Newspaper

  R10

  1 year

  Partnership Sourcing Ltd.

  R10

  1 year

  London Chamber of Commerce and Industry

  R6

  1 year

  ICL

  R7

  2 years

  ICL

  R7

  2 years

  The British Council

  R8

  2 years

  Civil Service Sports Council

  R8

  3 years

  University for Industry

  R11

  3 years

  British Invisibles

  R10

  2 years

  Manchester City Council

  SCS

  5 years

  Confederation of British Industry

  R9

  1 year

  Eureka Secretariat

  R9

  2 years

  British Standards Institute

  R10

  2 years

  Gas Consumer Council

  R11

  7 months

  British Standards Institute

  R8

  2 years

  China Britain Business Council

  R6

  2 years

  Gas Industry Safety Group

  R11

  1 year 3 months

  G. F. Design

  R8

  1 year

  University for Industry

  R11

  1 year 6 months

  BP Amoco Plc

  R8

  8 months

  Enterprising Britain Ltd.

  R8

  1 year 8 months

  Gas Consumer Council

  R8

  7 months

  British Trade International and the Invest in Britain Bureau
  Mr. Goggins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the relationship between British Trade International and the Invest in Britain Bureau. [124030]

  Mr. Caborn
  I am pleased to announce, also on behalf of the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), that the Invest in Britain Bureau will move alongside Trade Partners UK (the new brand for the Government's trade services) under the British Trade International umbrella, with Sir David Wright as the single Group Chief Executive of British Trade International. The Board of British Trade International will remain under the chairmanship of DTI and FCO Ministers and its responsibilities will be enlarged to cover inward investment. This will lead to more coherent presentation—and, over time, management—of the Government's international trade and investment activities at home and overseas. It builds on an issue which was identified in the Cabinet Secretary's 1999 review of export promotion.

  The Invest in Britain Bureau will retain a distinct identity within the enlarged organisation and will continue to have its own Chief Executive. We plan to review the IBB brand, building on work which has already been undertaken following the 1998 Competitiveness White Paper. The name of the umbrella organisation will also be reviewed in the light of these changes.

  This announcement heralds important advantages for business. The new, combined organisation will focus on the single goal of developing business competitiveness in the UK, as it interfaces with the global marketplace. Working under one umbrella the two operations will

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  focus on investment into the UK from overseas, on opportunities for business growth from investments abroad and on the broad spectrum of trade development and support at national, regional and local levels.

  The new arrangements will strengthen and better co-ordinate the relationship between investment and trade activities in central Government, devolved Administrations and Regional Development Agencies, each of which will continue to be represented on the Board of British Trade International. The enlarged responsibilities of British Trade International will further strengthen the close relationship between trade and investment work in the network of commercial offices in overseas posts, focusing them on economic advantage for the UK, whether through new opportunities for international trade or for investment in this country by overseas firms or partnerships.

  Petrol Undertakings Review
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what the reasons are for the delay in the completion of the Review of the Petrol Undertakings; when the review will be completed; and if he will publish the results of the review; [122942]

  (2) what discussions he. his officials and the Office of Fair Trading have held with (a) the major oil suppliers, (b) the United Kingdom Oil Producers Association and (c) the Institute of Petroleum, to discuss the Review of the Petrol Undertakings since January 2000; and what the outcome of those meetings was. [122943]

  Dr. Howells
  DTI Ministers and officials have not held discussions with the parties mentioned regarding the Office of Fair Trading's review of the petrol undertakings. During the course of the review the Office of Fair Trading have had discussions with, or invited views from, all sides of the industry. This has included major oil companies and retailers associations. Industry views have helped to inform the Office of Fair Trading's review.

  The completion of the review has been delayed because of consultations with the industry and because the Office of Fair Trading has had to allocate resources between several areas of high priority including the investigation of fuel prices in the Highlands and Islands.

  The Office of Fair Trading expect to advise ministers shortly on whether the undertakings should be retained, removed or amended. Policy advice from the Director General of Fair Trading to Ministers is not published. However, Ministers will announce their decision on the matter in due course.

TREASURY

  Working Families Tax Credit
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will identify on what basis, and in what numbers, those receiving working families tax credit(a) are and (b) are not, entitled to passported benefits; and what advice is given to those on working families tax credit on the category to which they belong. [119322]
  526W
  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 18 April 2000]: Working Families Tax Credit can be used as a "general passport" to various benefits so that those benefits are made available to everyone receiving Working Families Tax Credit. Other benefits, for example, help with NHS charges, are targeted on families receiving Working Families Tax Credit who have net incomes of £11,370 per year or less. At the end of March around 900,000 families were passported this way.

  Lending Rates
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the average(a) interest rates and (b) mortgage interest rates in each year since 1992. [123286]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The table lists the average 2-week repo rate, 10 year UK gilt rate, and the average mortgage interest rate in each year to May since 1992.

  2-week repo rate

  10-year gilt rate

  Building society average mortgage rate

  Year ending May

  1992

  10.8

  9.6

  11.7

  1993

  8.1

  8.5

  9.7

  1994

  5.7

  7.2

  7.9

  1995

  5.9

  8.5

  7.8

  1996

  6.6

  7.9

  7.5

  1997

  5.9

  7.7

  6.6

  1998

  7.0

  6.4

  7.4

  1999

  6.7

  4.9

  7.4

  2000

  5.4

  15.3

  16.5

  110-year gilt estimates for May 2000 year provided by Bloomberg (average of year till May 2022). Average mortgage rate includes data up till March 2000.

  Source:

  ONS. Repo rate data provided by the Bank of England.

  The figures show that by aiming to secure low inflation and sound public finances, the macroeconomic policy framework has helped keep interest rates historically low while meeting the Government's objectives of achieving high and sustainable levels of growth and employment.

  Taxation (I-E Formula)
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the tax yield has been from financial instruments or products whose taxation is subject to the I-E formula in each of the last eight financial years. [123394]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The information requested is not available.

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list(a) the financial (i) instruments and (ii) products whose taxation is subject to the I-E formula, (b) the relevant composite rates of tax applied to each such instrument and product and (c) the rates of tax used in each of the last eight financial years in respect of each such instrument and product. [123395]

  Dawn Primarolo
  There are no statutory restrictions on the type of financial instruments that an insurer may invest in to provide funds to meet payments due to policy holders. The funds that are subject to the I-E treatment are those held to meet payments due to policy holders in respect of policies of life insurance, life annuity contracts and capital redemption policies other than those relating to pension business, overseas life assurance business,
  527W
  individual savings account business and life reinsurance business. The rates of tax payable on the income and profits from those investments broadly reflect the tax that policy holders might have paid had they held the underlying investments directly.

  The tax paid by the insurer under I-E is treated as satisfying the basic rate tax liability of the policy holder. Policy holders will have no further tax to pay when they obtain the proceeds of their policies unless the policy is not a qualifying policy and they are themselves liable to tax at the higher rate. Qualifying policies are broadly those with regular premiums and a substantial death benefit that last for at least 10 years.

  The rate of tax payable by the company on the underlying investments, so far as they are building up for the benefit of policy holders, for each of the last eight years is shown in the table:

  Percentage

  Rate of tax

  Year

  Dividends on UK company shares and securities

  Income from gilts and corporate bonds

  Capital gains

  Other property1

  2000–01

  2—

  20

  22

  22

  1999–2000

  2—

  20

  23

  23

  1998–99

  2—

  20

  23

  23

  1997–98

  2—

  20

  23

  23

  1996–97

  2—

  20

  24

  24

  1995–96

  2—

  25

  25

  25

  1994–95

  2—

  25

  25

  25

  1993–94

  2—

  25

  25

  25

  1Land, underwriting commissions etc.

  2Not chargeable

  MEP Pensions
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the cost to his Department of funding the pensions of members of the European Parliament in each of the last three years; to how many beneficiaries these payments are made; and what estimate he has made of the future annual liability for making such pension payments. [119585]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  [pursuant to his reply, 3 May 2000, c. 147W]: I regret that my earlier answer was incomplete.

  MEPs receive two pensions: one from the EU and a national pension. Expenditure on the former is met from the European Parliament section of the EC budget, as my earlier answer noted.

  Number of staff recorded as having been seconded to private sector companies

  Grade

  Number

  Company

  Start date

  End date

  May 1997 to April 1998

  G5

  1

  PA Consulting

  March 1997

  June 1998

  HEO

  1

  National Association of Pension Funds

  April 1997

  April 1999

  G7

  1

  EQUUS Group Consultancy

  April 1997

  March 1998

  G7

  1

  McKechnies Ltd.

  May 1997

  August 1997

  G7

  1

  Ernst and Young

  July 1997

  February 1998

  G7

  1

  British Aerospace

  September 1997

  December 1997

  May 1998 to April 1999

  G7

  1

  Barclays Bank plc

  October 1998

  July 1999

  HEO

  1

  European Foundation for Quality Management

  December 1998

  June 1999

  528W
  Regarding the latter, under the European Assembly (Pay and Pensions) Act 1979, the basic costs of the European Parliament (United Kingdom Representatives) Pension Scheme are met from the Consolidated Fund. Pension increases are funded from the Civil Superannuation Vote. Details of the costs are published annually in the Supplementary Statements to the Consolidated Fund and National Loans Fund Accounts.

  In each of the last three financial years, the basic costs were as follows:

  £000

  Basic pension incl. Widows and dependents

  Lump sums

  1997–98

  202

  0

  1998–99

  219

  135

  1999–20001

  403

  616

  11999 was an election year to the European Parliament, many MEPs who stepped down were of retirement age or above. Resettlement grants totalling £1,364K were also funded from the Consolidated Fund.

  Note:

  As at 31 March 2000, there were 54 beneficiaries in receipt of pensions under the scheme. No estimate has been made of future Percentage annual liabilities.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many staff from his Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if he will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123417]

  Mr. Rooker
  The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is in the table.

  Secondments and attachments are part of the Interchange Initiative, which promotes the exchange of people and good practice between the Civil Service and other organisations. All sectors of the economy are involved: Voluntary, Education, Health, Public and Private. Interchange is a key component of the reform agenda. The Modernising Government White Paper committed us to increasing interchange, in particular by bringing in more people on secondment and sending more of our people out.
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  Number of staff recorded as having been seconded to private sector companies

  Grade

  Number

  Company

  Start date

  End date

  May 1999 to April 2000

  G7

  1

  Oracle

  August 1999

  May 2000

  SEO

  1

  Kazakhstan Central Bank

  October 1999

  December 1999

  2xEO, 9xAO, 1xAA

  12

  Action for Employment

  November 1999

  —1

  15xAO, 1xAA

  16

  Reed Shaw

  November 1999

  —1

  8xEO, 32xAO

  40

  Deloitte Consulting

  November 1999

  —1

  1Continuing

  Note:

  Names of individuals have not been provided in accordance with part II of the "Code of Practice on Access to Government Information".

  Economic Inactivity (Males)
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many men aged 16 to 24 were economically inactive, according to the Labour Force Survey, in each year since 1992, broken down by(a) students and (b) others. [117557]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I have been asked to reply.

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

  Letter from John Pullinger to Mr. David Willetts, dated 24 May 2000:
  The Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been asked to reply to your recent question about men aged 16–24 who are economically inactive. I am replying in the Director's absence.
  The attached table shows non-seasonally adjusted estimates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) which is the main source of labour market data on individuals. It gives the percentage of economically inactive men aged 16–24 by whether or not they are full-time students in the spring (March-May) quarter of each year since 1992.
  People aged 16 or over are classed as economically inactive by the LFS if they are not in employment and do not satisfy the criteria for International Labour Organisation (ILO) unemployment. This includes those who want a job but who have not been seeking work in the last 4 weeks, those who are seeking work but are not available to start and those who do not want a job (for example, students not working or seeking work).
  The LFS classifies people as full-time students if they are at school, on a sandwich course or full time at university, polytechnic or college.

  Economically inactive men aged 16–24 by educational status UK, 1992–99 Spring (March-May) of each year Not seasonally adjusted

  Spring each year:

  Aged 16–24 (Thousand)

  Full-time students Rate (%)1

  Others Rate (%)1

  1992

  837

  81.4

  18.6

  1993

  860

  81.1

  18.9

  1994

  865

  83.5

  16.5

  1995

  868

  85.8

  14.2

  1996

  822

  81.9

  18.1

  1997

  833

  84.3

  15.7

  1998

  865

  85.9

  14.1

  1999

  867

  85.3

  14.7

  1Full-time students/others as a percentage of the total

  Note:

  From spring 1997 LFS estimates of the totals of people in education include people who were waiting to start, or restart, a course, and hence the figures for those in (and not in) full-time education are not comparable with earlier periods.

  Source:

  Labour Force Survey, ONS

  Penalty Clauses
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the contracts entered into with private sector companies for the provision of goods or services since May 1997 where penalty clauses were triggered for non-performance; and if he will make a statement. [122023]

  Mr. Rooker
  Where appropriate DSS contracts are drawn up to incentivise suppliers to provide acceptable or better levels of service.

  Details of all such contracts could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

PRIME MINISTER

  Engagements
  Sir Peter Tapsell
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 24 May. [123070]

  The Deputy Prime Minister
  I have been asked to reply.

  I refer the hon. member to the reply I gave today to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), Official Report, column 960.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

  Jay Abatan
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Solicitor-General if he will call for a report from the Crown Prosecution Service on its actions following the attack on Jay Abatan in Brighton in January 1999. [122482]

  The Solicitor-General
  [holding answer 16 May 2000]: The death of Jay Abatan in Brighton on 29 January 1999 is a tragedy. To his family, his widow and two young children, the criminal justice system appears to have let them down.

  I informed the hon. Member in a written answer on 16 May 2000, Official Report, columns 80–81W, that I was making further inquiries about the criminal proceedings brought against those who were allegedly involved in the incident that resulted in Jay Abatan's death.

  I have now met with the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Sussex, the Branch Crown Prosecutor responsible for the prosecution team, and prosecuting counsel who had

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  the conduct of the case throughout. I am satisfied that everything that could have been done by them to secure a successful conclusion to the criminal proceedings was done.

  I know that the hon. Member attended parts of the trial, which lasted six days. It concluded on 9 May 2000 with the acquittal of two defendants.

  The history of the proceedings is this: two defendants were jointly charged on 1 February 1999 with manslaughter, affray and causing actual bodily harm.

  During the course of preparing the case for committal proceedings the Crown Prosecution Service took the unusual steps of obtaining reluctant witness summonses against two men in an attempt to clarify the sequence of events leading up to the assault on Jay Abatan. In the event they added nothing to the prosecution case and so were not used in evidence.

  The charges related to an incident which occurred in the early hours of Sunday 24 January 1999 when a dispute arose over a taxi outside a nightclub in Brighton. The dispute involved two groups of men. No witness actually saw Jay Abatan being punched. However, as a result of being struck he fell to the ground, sustained a fracture to his skull and died in hospital on 29 January 1999 without regaining consciousness. His death was the basis of the manslaughter charge against the two men.

  Prior to committal a conference was held with prosecuting counsel, the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer with conduct of the case and the police to discuss the evidence against both defendants. It was clear at the end of that conference that there was no evidence of joint enterprise and if both defendants were to be pursued for manslaughter then there was no prospect of a successful prosecution against either of them. Of the circumstantial evidence available the stronger evidence was against the first defendant, who on the evidence available was the closer of the two men to Jay Abatan at the crucial time and who had allegedly made a comment in the taxi after the incident was over: "I only hit him once". The second defendant was further away and had distanced himself from the argument at the time it was taking place in a comment to an independent witness. The decision was therefore made that the manslaughter case against the second defendant would be discontinued, unless the outstanding DNA evidence provided a link between him and Jay Abatan.

  On 24 June, the day of the committal proceedings, the results of the DNA evidence were obtained. The results added nothing to the prosecution case against the second defendant. Consequently, in accordance with the decision reached in conference, the Crown Prosecution Service withdrew the manslaughter charge against the second defendant. It pursued the manslaughter charges against the first defendant. However, the magistrate refused to commit the first defendant for manslaughter because of what he held was insufficient evidence.

  Notwithstanding this decision the prosecution, after taking counsel's advice, decided to pursue the charge of manslaughter at trial in the Crown Court. A draft indictment, which included the manslaughter charge, was therefore lodged at Lewes Crown Court on 22 July 1999.
  532W
  The prosecution wanted to continue with the manslaughter charge against the first defendant and made every effort to ensure that it remained on the indictment. The leader of the South Eastern Circuit, Mr. Michael Lawson QC, was instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service to appear and resist the defence application that the manslaughter count be struck from the indictment.

  However, on 30 September 1999, following legal argument, the resident judge at Lewes Crown Court granted the defence application to have the manslaughter count struck out. In the light of this ruling there was nothing further the Crown could do to pursue the manslaughter allegation.

  The trial of the defendants on the two remaining counts, affray and causing actual bodily harm to Michael Abatan (Jay's brother), commenced on 2 May 2000. During the course of the proceedings the defence applied to the judge that there should be no reference or mention of the fact that Jay Abatan had died in the incident. The Crown resisted this on the basis that the jury would raise questions as to why Jay Abatan was not giving evidence. However, the judge ruled that as the fact of his death could prejudice the jury and the fairness of the trial no reference should be made to it at trial. The judge also ruled that some other evidence obtained by the prosecution was inadmissible. On 9 May 2000 the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on both counts against each defendant.

  I think this case did contain some unusual features. One of these was the proactive course of action adopted by the Crown Prosecution Service in trying to get the count of manslaughter reinstated. As I have said the manslaughter charge against the second defendant was withdrawn because there was no evidence of a joint enterprise and no evidence that this second defendant had thrown the punch that led to Jay Abatan's death.

  Another feature, perhaps less unusual given the rules of evidence that apply in criminal trials, was the decision of the trial judge not to let the jury know that Jay Abatan had died in the course of the alleged affray and assault on his brother, Michael. Counsel for the Crown had argued that the jury should be told of his death because unless they were they would want to know why they were not hearing from Jay. In the event, I understand that the jury did ask to see the hospital notes but as the judge had already ruled that the fact of Jay's death could prejudice the jury and the fairness of the trial they were not told about that aspect of the case.

  The group containing the two defendants were all white. The other group were of white, black and other ethnic backgrounds. On the face of the statements available to the prosecution, many of them made on the day of the incident, nothing was said to indicate that Jay Abatan died as the result of a racist attack. Indeed one witness, who is not white, stated to the contrary. "I do not believe that this incident was a racially motivated attack". This did not mean that the Crown Prosecution Service treated the incident any less seriously. At all stages of the inquiry they were alert to the possibility that this was a racist attack but this has simply not been borne out by the evidence.
  533W
  I understand that the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Sussex will be happy to meet the hon. Member or his constituent to discuss the case in greater detail. As I am sure the hon. Member will appreciate, it would not have been appropriate for the Crown Prosecution Service to discuss the case with a prosecution witness, such as Michael Abatan, when the proceedings were still ongoing since the defence could have claimed that his evidence was tainted as a result.

  The police have not closed the file and the appeal for witnesses and further evidence is continuing. An appeal is scheduled to be made on the Crimewatch UK programme this evening.

CABINET OFFICE

  Electronic Communications Bill
  Ms Rosie Winterton
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what use will be made of the powers in the Electronic Communications Bill to remove statutory barriers to the electronic delivery of Government services. [124031]

  Department

  Legislation

  Comments

  Department of Trade and Industry

  Companies Act 1985

  Will allow: companies to communicate electronically with shareholders (e.g. distributing annual reports); appointment of proxies by electronic means electronic incorporation; electronic filing of certain documents/forms. A consultative document on a draft order to amend the law has already been issued.

  Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions

  Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994, section 22

  To allow a statutory off-road declaration to be made electronically. As the process involves signatures, a clause 8 order will not be made until after clause 7 (electronic signatures and related certificates) has come into force.

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  Law of Property Act 1925; Land Registration Act 1925; Settled Land Act 1925; Trustee Act 1925; Administration of Estates Act 1925; Powers of Attorney Act 1971; Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989

  Electronic conveyancing: it is hoped that the first draft order will be issued for consultation later this year with a view to it being made at or around the end of the year.

  Public Record Office

  Public Records Act 1958

  To allow electronic authentication of public records for court proceedings.

  Department for Education and Employment

  A single order will be made to remove barriers to electronic communication and storage in legislation on education.

  Home Office

  Race Relations Act 1976

  To facilitate electronic communication with the Commission for Racial Equality.

  Office for National Statistics

  Statistics of Trade Act 1947

  To facilitate electronic submissions of trade statistics to the Office for National Statistics, and related procedures.

  Department of Social Security

  Social Security Act 1998 Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999

  To facilitate electronic communication between members of the public and the Department on claims to benefit, child support issues, decision-making and appeals. There is significant provision under primary legislation, and the current review of operational requirements will identify any other legislative areas for orders by the end of September 2000.

  Cabinet Office (HMSO)

  Documentary Evidence Acts 1868 to 1895

  To amend the current provision that the official version of legislation is that printed under the authority of the Queen's Printer, so as to make the Official Legislation website version acceptable.

  Statutory Instruments Act 1946 and associated Regulations

  To amend provisions about the admissibility in evidence of printed issue lists, and also how SIs are transmitted to HMSO by Departments after being made. Currently they have to be sent with signed certificates but electronic alternatives to this procedure are being considered.

  534W
  Mr. Ian McCartney
  The Bill contains in clause 8 a power to amend legislation to authorise or facilitate electronic communications or storage. The use of this power will support the Government's target of making all its services available electronically by 2005. Cabinet Office Central IT Unit will maintain on its website a register of all orders made under the Bill and include a report on the use of the powers under the Bill as part of its six-monthly reports towards meeting the Government's targets for electronic service delivery.

  In its response (HC 168) to the Trade and Industry Committee's report (HC 862) on the Bill, the Government accepted the recommendation that Departments should publish their priorities for using secondary legislation to update statutory requirements currently expressed in the law by the use of such words as 'writing' or 'signature', and timetables for implementation. Some Departments have not identified any such statutory requirements that require updating. Others may use primary legislation to update them. While some Departments have identified many items of legislation to be updated by the Electronic Communications Bill, departmental priorities for the use of the powers in the Bill, or other powers, for this purpose are given in the table:
  535W

  Department

  Legislation

  Comments

  HM Treasury

  Financial Services and Markets Bill

  Consideration is being given to recognition of electronic signatures in order to support the Financial Services Authority's intention to accept applications by electronic means; and to allow for electronic communication of certain notices which the Financial Services and Markets Bill currently requires to be in writing.

  Minority Group Representation
  Mr. Woolas
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what is being done to increase the representation of women, members of ethnic minority groups and disabled people on the boards of public bodies. [124032]

  Mr. Stringer
  I have today placed in the Libraries of the House "Quangos: Opening Up Public Appointments 2000–03".

  This publication details the Government's plan of action together with individual departmental plans for increasing the participation of under-representation groups in public life.

  "Quangos: Opening Up Public Appointments 2000–03" is the third in an annual series of reports setting out the Government's commitments to the equal representation of women and men in public appointments, a pro-rata representation of members of ethnic minority groups, and the increased representation of disabled people in public life.

  Copies are being sent to all hon. and right hon. Members as well as being made available on the Internet.

  Rural Affairs
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if she will list the(a) research and (b) initiatives related to rural issues being undertaken by her Department. [123398]

  Marjorie Mowlam
  My role as Chair of the Cabinet Committees for rural affairs involves co-ordinating the work of other Departments, but I have no direct responsibility for rural policy. For this reason, it is for DETR, MAFF and others as appropriate to commission research or undertake projects on specific rural issues.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many staff employed by her Department specialise in rural issues; and what percentage this represents of the total number of staff in her Department. [123396]

  Marjorie Mowlam
  No staff in the Cabinet Office work exclusively on rural affairs. Some staff in the Cabinet Secretariat support me in my role as Chair of the Cabinet Committee on rural affairs, but they have other responsibilities as well. Officials elsewhere, principally in MAFF and DETR, support their Ministers and me on specific rural issues.

  Senior Civil Servants (Salaries)
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the average percentage increase in salaries of members of the senior civil service was for 1999–2000; and to what extent the pay awards were staged. [123415]
  536W
  Mr. Stringer
  The average individual award for 1999–2000 was 4.51 per cent. The awards were not staged.

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many staff from her Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if she will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123430]

  Mr. Stringer
  There was one secondee out of the Cabinet Office between May 1997 to April 1998. The secondment was with Coopers and Lybrand and lasted more than a year.

  There were no secondees from the Cabinet Office to the private sector for the period 1 April 1998 to 31 March 2000.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  GE Virus Pesticide
  Joan Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when and in what form the release of a GE virus at University Farm, Wytham, Oxfordshire (grid ref SP47170884) will take place; and what information he has received regarding the biosafety implications of this type of pesticide. [122513]

  Mr. Meacher
  Larvae of the Cabbage looper(Trichoplusia ni) infected with an insect-specific genetically modified baculovirus that lacks the ecdysteroid glucosyltransferase (egt) gene (responsible for promoting moulting in insects), will be released into netted enclosures this year at grid reference SP 4717 0884 near Wytham in Oxfordshire.

  Baculoviruses are a family of viruses restricted in host range to insects and a number of other arthropods. They are not infectious to man, other vertebrates, plants, non-arthropod invertebrates or other micro-organisms and are routinely used as a naturally occurring insecticide.

  The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment has considered the full risk assessment for the release of this genetically modified baculovirus and advised that the release will pose no risk to human health or the environment. The full application and risk assessment is available on the GMO Deliberate Release Public Register held in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Region's offices at Ashdown House, 123 Victoria Street, London, SW1.

  Task Forces
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many task forces have been set up by his Department dealing with transport since May 1997; if he will list the membership of all such task forces with their qualifications and place of residence; and if he will list the dates on which they are expected to report and their terms of reference. [122593]

  Mr. Hill
  Since May 1997 my Department has set up three task forces dealing specifically with transport issues, the Cleaner Vehicles Task Force, the Shipping Task Force and the Task Force for London Transport. The information requested has been placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Air Traffic
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what communication he has received from the Commission on proposals to create a European common aviation area, an aviation safety agency, and amendments to regulation 95/93 concerning airport slot allocation, and proposals for strengthening the powers of Eurocontrol air traffic services; and when each of their numbered programme initiatives are due for consideration at(a) UKREP and (b) the Transport Council. [122680]

  Mr. Mullin
  The initiatives are due for consideration at(a) UKREP and (b) the Transport Council. The European Commission was granted a mandate in 1996 to negotiate a European Common Aviation Area with 10 Central and Eastern European countries. The negotiation process is now largely completed and the Commission hopes that it will be able to present a final Agreement for signature at a Transport Council later this year.

  With regard to communication on the establishment of a European aviation safety authority, I refer my hon. Friend to my answer given on 16 May 2000, Official Report, column 83W. At the Transport Council on 28 March 2000, the Council agreed that further analysis should be undertaken of the best legal form for the EASA, with the aim of taking a decision at its June meeting.

  There has been no recent communication on amendments to regulation 95/93 concerning airport slot allocation.

  The Commission's Communication entitled "The creation of a single European sky", to which I also referred in my answer of 16 May 2000, did not include proposals for strengthening the legal powers of Eurocontrol air traffic services. Rather it envisaged measures to strengthen the provision of air traffic control services in Europe. To that extent, it is fully in line with the Government's proposals for a Public Private Partnership for NATS, which will enhance aviation safety through securing the investment needed for NATS' modernisation programme and the injection of key management skills to deliver that programme to time and budget.

  In June 1998 the Transport Council, under UK Presidency, agreed a mandate for the Commission to negotiate Community accession to Eurocontrol. EC membership of Eurocontrol would not strengthen the legal
  538W
  powers of Eurocontrol but would provide the impetus for both the reform of the Eurocontrol organisation, and to compel States to make collective commitments and to implement decisions on measures to improve the European Air Traffic Management System. The terms of Community accession to Eurocontrol are now effectively agreed, but the Commission cannot bring forward a proposal for the Council to authorise Community signature of the Protocol until the UK and Spain reach agreement on the inclusion of Gibraltar within the territorial scope of the Protocol.

  Partnership Investment Programme
  Mr. Hilary Benn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what recent discussions he has had with the European Commission on gap funding; and if he will make a statement. [122819]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  I refer my hon. Friend to my answer of 21 March 2000,Official Report, columns 471–72W. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions met Commissioner Monti on 2 March to discuss the problems we face in partnership working with the private sector in regeneration, since the Commission's decision that the Partnership Investment Programme breached the state aid rules. These discussions continue at official level.

  DVLA
  Mr. Darvill
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) how many successful claims for compensation for actual financial loss were submitted to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency as a direct consequence of the Agency's maladministration during(a) 1997, (b) 1998 and (c) 1999; [122827]

  (2) how much compensation was paid to claimants by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency arising from claims for actual financial loss incurred as a consequence of the Agency's maladministration in (a) 1997, (b) 1998 and (c) 1999. [122828]

  Mr. Hill
  The information requested is as follows. It covers ex-gratia payments made by the Agency where customers have incurred actual financial loss as a result of delays or errors:

  Year

  Number of cases

  Amount Paid (£)

  1997

  262

  7,663.73

  1998

  262

  8,529.95

  1999

  367

  121,423.73

  1The amount excludes 143 Cases, totaling some £5,521.38 where compensation has been paid for missing indentity documents associated with Photocard Licences. DVLA are in negotiation with the Royal Mail to Seek reimbursement of some of the costs incurred.

  Roads (Greater London)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what is the mileage of(a) red routes and (b) cycle lanes in the Greater London area. [122906]
  539W
  Mr. Hill
  The length of the red route network is 315 miles. There are at present some 865 miles of cycle lanes in the Greater London area comprising 27 miles on the red route network and 838 miles on the London Cycle Network.

  Departmental Properties
  Mr. Faber
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if his Department or the Highways Agency are the registered owners of the property known as No. 3, Upton Lovell, Warminster, Wiltshire; on what date the property was purchased; and for what reasons. [122929]

  Mr. Hill
  I have asked the Acting Chief Executive of the Highways Agency, Mr. Peter Nutt, to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Peter Nutt to Mr. David Faber, dated 24 May 2000:
  The Transport Minister, Keith Hill has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about Landau Cottage, Upton Lovell, Warminster.
  The Highways Agency owns this property. It was acquired on 16 November 1990 because the former owners served a blight notice requiring us to purchase it. The notice was accepted because the preferred route of the A36 Codford to Heytesbury Improvement scheme affected the property.

  Bus Stop (Bridge Street)
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will call for a report from London Transport on when the stop for southbound buses on the east side of Bridge Street will be reinstated. [123065]

  Mr. Hill
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: I understand from London Transport that the stop cannot be reinstated until the completion of road and pavement resurfacing work associated with the Portcullis House and Jubilee Line developments. The work is being managed, on behalf of the Parliamentary Works Directorate, by consultants who estimate that it will be completed by the end of September.

  Genetically Modified Organisms
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the risks involved in using genes from the cauliflower mosaic virus in the development and application of genetically modified crop varieties. [122999]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) have considered this issue in detail. A full copy of their advice has been placed in the House Library.

  ACRE conclude that the cauliflower mosaic virus, when used in the development and application of genetically modified crop varieties, represents an extremely low risk to human health and the environment.

  Joan Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will instruct SCIMAC to revise separation distances between GM and non-GM crops growing experimentally in the 540W
  United Kingdom following the disclosure of new information on cross-pollination of oil seed rape plants in Canada. [123268]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: We are investigating this and will report soon.

  HFCs
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the contribution which replacing HFCs in refrigeration and air conditioning with non-global warming alternative technologies could make in helping the UK reach its Kyoto targets. [122855]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: The recently published draft climate change programme estimates that emissions of HFCs from refrigeration and air conditioning in 2010 will be the equivalent of around 1.6 million tonnes carbon (0.9 per cent. of total UK emissions).

  Our new HFC policy sends a clear signal to industry and users that they should look closely at all the alternatives and select those that are more environmentally acceptable where they do exist. Safety, technical feasibility and cost effectiveness also need to be taken into account before investment decisions are taken. At the same time we recognise that HFCs are necessary to replace ozone-depleting substances in some applications, and that HFC emissions reduction strategies should not undermine commitments to phase out ozone-depleting substances under the Montreal Protocol.

  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what his policy is with regard to encouraging the use of non-global warming alternatives to HFCs in refrigeration and air conditioning systems which are commercially available. [122857]

  Mr. Meacher
  The Government policy on the use of alternative refrigerants to HFCs is encompassed in our new longer-term policy on HFCs set out in the recently published draft climate change programme. It states that HFCs are not a sustainable technology in the long-term
  but recognises that they are necessary to replace ozone-depleting substances in some applications, and that the HFC emission reduction strategies should not undermine commitments to phase out ozone-depleting substances under the Montreal Protocol. HFCs are used in a wide range of applications, and they will continue to be used where they are needed. At the same time our new policy sends a clear signal to industry and users that they should look closely at all the alternatives and to select those that are more environmentally acceptable where they do exist. Safety, technical feasibility and cost effectiveness also need to be taken into account before investment decisions are taken.

  St. John's Wood Station
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will call for a report from London Underground on how long St John's Wood underground station has been without two functioning escalators; what the cost is of the replacement of the two escalators; what additional cost has been
  541W
  incurred as a result of delays in the installation of the second escalator; how many dates have been announced for the completion of the work; for what reason London Underground supplied him with inaccurate information about the completion date for installation of the second escalator; and what action has been taken in respect of the London Underground employees responsible for this situation. [123456]

  Mr. Hill
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: These are operational matters for London Underground, who have informed me that the escalator replacement project at St. John's Wood station started on 11 September 1998 and involves complete replacement of both machines. During the works, there has been one 'up' escalator and a staircase.

  The total cost of the replacement of the two escalators is £4,688 million, including the relevant publicity, policing and standby engineers etc. for the cricket matches. There have been extra costs of £150,000 due to the overrun of the project.

  Completion of the second escalator was originally announced for 18 May but has been put back to 21 June 2000. I understand the delay in completion of the project has been due to water entering the mechanism causing a build up of sediment on the steelwork; this meant that repairs had to be made to corroded steelwork and new drainage installed. London Underground's escalator replacement contractors were unable to work on the escalators while this work was taking place (19 January to 17 February 2000).

  Dioxin
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what recent research the Government have commissioned on dioxin levels in the environment. [123489]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]The UK Government have sponsored substantial research programmes to assess and monitor the levels of dioxins in the environment. Dioxin levels in air have been monitored as part of the DETR Hazardous Air Pollutants Programme since 1991. Work is under way to measure levels in sewage sludge and a new UK soil survey is due to begin shortly. The Food Standards Agency, and formerly MAFF, regularly monitor dioxin levels in a wide range of foodstuffs which are also useful indicators of environmental concentrations. Results from all monitoring programmes are available on the internet.

  Incinerators
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what recent guidance the Government have given on the disposal of ash produced in incinerators. [123487]

  Mr. Mullin
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: Guidance on technical issues such as this is the responsibility of the Environment Agency.

  The disposal of ash from incineration processes is controlled under the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994. Guidance on the regulations is contained in DETR circular C11/94 and Waste Management Papers 4 and 4a. Some incinerator ash will
  542W
  be classified as special waste. In these cases guidance is contained in the Environment Agency Guidance Note, "Special Wastes: A Technical Guidance Note on their definition and classification" (The Stationery Office, ISBN 0–11–310158–9).

  Secondments
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many staff from his Department were seconded to private sector companies in(a) May 1997 to April 1998, (b) May 1998 to April 1999 and (c) May 1999 to April 2000; and if he will list in each case the companies to which staff were sent, the names and ranks of the staff involved and the duration of the secondment. [123426]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Secondments and attachments are part of the Interchange Initiative which promotes the exchange of people and good practice between the Civil Service and other organisations. All sectors of the economy are involved: Voluntary, Education, Health, Public and Private. Interchange is a key component of the reform agenda. The Modernising Government White Paper committed us to increasing interchange, in particular by bringing in more people on secondment and sending more of our people out.

  From May 1997 to April 1998
  The following numbers of staff were seconded to private sector companies:
  One Grade 5 officer to Tarmac Ltd. for a period of one year five months
  One Grade 3 officer to SBC Warburg for two years
  One Grade 6 (on temporary promotion) to Capita RAS for one year seven months
  From May 1998 to April 1999
  No new secondees—continuation of the above secondments only
  From May 1999 to April 2000
  No new secondees to private sector organisations.

  Rent Act Order 1999
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has(a) to appeal to the House of Lords in relation to the judgment of the Court of Appeal on the Rent Act Order 1999 and (b) to introduce primary legislation relating to the matters in the Order. [122856]

  Mr. Mullin
  We are awaiting the outcome of our petition to another place for leave to appeal the Court of Appeal's decision to quash the Rent Acts (Maximum Fair Rent) Order. If leave is granted we will seek an expedited hearing; if it is refused we will urgently consider all the options open to us.

  Waste Strategy
  Mr. Burgon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to review the policies in the United Kingdom Management Plan for Exports and Imports of Waste. [124080]

  Mr. Meacher
  Existing policies on exports and imports of waste are set out in the United Kingdom Management Plan for Exports and Imports of Waste, which came into
  543W
  effect on 1 June 1996. These reflect the long-standing UK commitment to self-sufficiency in waste disposal and the well-established proximity principle, namely that waste should be disposed of in, or as close as possible to, the country of origin.

  Since the Plan has been in force, there have been a number of changes at national and international level which have altered the arrangements for transfrontier shipments of waste. My Department will be issuing tomorrow for public consultation a revised draft of the United Kingdom Management Plan for Exports and Imports of Waste, copies of which will be placed in the Libraries of the House.

  The main proposals for changes to existing UK policies are:
  to permit shipments between Northern Ireland and Ireland for local disposal, provided they are in accordance with waste management plans being drawn up by the Northern Ireland District Councils;
  to permit exports and imports for trial runs provided that strict criteria are met; and
  further limited restrictions on imports of waste for disposal.

  Furthermore, the Plan reiterates the UK's commitment to the self-sufficiency principle. The UK will allow wastes to be imported for disposal in the UK from developed countries only in extremely limited circumstances. Imports from developing countries are not quite so tightly restricted, but the expectation is still that such countries will as quickly as is feasible put in place the appropriate facilities to dispose of their own waste, as far as is compatible with environmentally sound and efficient management.

  This Plan is separate from, but consistent with, the various domestic strategies in the UK, including the England and Wales Waste Strategy which will be launched tomorrow.

  Table 1: Departmental Capital Analysis

  £ million

  Department

  A(i) 1998–99 Actual expenditure

  A(ii) 1999–2000 Project expenditure1

  B(i) 1998–99 Plan

  B(ii) 1999–2000 Plan

  Agriculture

  24

  23

  24

  25

  Economic Development

  142

  144

  147

  158

  Education

  92

  113

  87

  123

  Finance and Personnel

  4

  4

  3

  4

  Health and Social Services2

  -35

  -39

  -30

  -41

  Environment

  195

  189

  203

  146

  Other

  1

  2

  —

  6

  NIO

  30

  35

  35

  31

  Total3

  453

  470

  469

  451

  1Actual expenditure figures for 1999–2000 are not yet available

  2These capital figures include receipts from the Health Trusts Debt Remuneration

  3Due to roundings, individual figures may not necessarily sum to the totals in the tables

  Table 2: Main Programme Capital Analysis

  £ million

  Main programme

  A(i) 1998–99 Actual expenditure

  A(ii) 1999–2000 Projected expenditure1

  B(i) 1998–99 Plan

  B(ii) 1999–2000 Plan

  Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

  24

  23

  24

  25

  Trade, Industry, Energy and Employment

  142

  144

  147

  159

  Roads and Transport

  32

  36

  32

  -26

  Housing

  58

  38

  58

  55

  544W
  Mr. Burgon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he will publish the waste strategy; and if he will make a statement. [124081]

  Mr. Meacher
  The Government and the National Assembly for Wales will publish "Waste Strategy 2000—a Waste Strategy for England and Wales" tomorrow, and copies will be placed in the Libraries of the House. The strategy has two aims: to reduce the amount of waste we produce; and to get more value from that which we do produce—in particular through a substantial increase in household recycling.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Public Sector Budget
  Mr. Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the main provisions for the capital budget for the public sector in Northern Ireland, broken down by(a) sponsoring department and (b) main public service function, included in the total of (i) £570 million allowed in 1998–99 and (ii) £575 million allowed in 1999–2000; and if he will publish information under the same headings for the (A) actual and (B) expected expenditure for the same years. [121454]

  Mr. Ingram
  The information requested is shown in the tables.

  It should however be noted that the capital budgets quoted in the question are indicative figures compiled by Her Majesty's Treasury for the purpose of presenting the outcome of the 1998 UK Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in the CSR White Paper, published in July 1998. These do not reflect the actual capital allocations decided upon by my predecessor in the Northern Ireland Comprehensive Spending Review, which did not conclude until the following December. The relevant capital budgets are reflected in the 1999 Northern Ireland Departmental Report (Cm 4217), published in March 1999 and are set out in the format requested.
  545W

  Table 2: Main Programme Capital Analysis

  £ million

  Main programme

  A(i) 1998–99 Actual expenditure

  A(ii) 1999–2000 Projected expenditure1

  B(i) 1998–99 Plan

  B(ii) 1999–2000 Plan

  Environmental Services

  101

  111

  107

  113

  Law, Order and Protective Services

  34

  39

  40

  36

  Education, Culture and Recreation

  93

  113

  87

  123

  Health and Personal Social Services2

  -38

  -42

  -33

  -43

  Social Security

  2

  2

  2

  2

  Other

  4

  6

  3

  9

  Total3

  453

  470

  469

  451

  1Actual expenditure figures for 1999–2000 are not yet available

  2These capital figures include receipts from the Health Trusts Debt Remuneration

  3Due to roundings, individual figures may not necessarily sum to the totals in the tables

  Paramilitary Violence
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) between Monday 29 November 1999 and Friday 11 February how many violent incidents involving paramilitary groups which took place in Northern Ireland indicating how many involved(a) Loyalists and (b) Republican groups; [122687]

  (2) between Monday 29 November 1999 and Friday 11 February how many punishment (a) beatings and (b) shootings took place in Northern Ireland, indicating how many in each category were committed by (i) Loyalists and (ii) Republican groups. [122688]

  Mr. Ingram
  The number of security incidents during the period 29 November 1999–11 February 2000 are as follows:

  Number

  Deaths

  1

  Shooting incidents

  15

  Bombing incidents

  5

  The number of casualties as a result of paramilitary style attacks during the period are as follows:

  By Loyalist

  By Republican

  Assaults

  18

  2

  Shootings

  8

  0

  Total

  26

  2

  Notes:

  1. Figures may be subject to minor amendment

  2. The Shooting and bombing cannot yet be fully attributed to groupings

  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) between Saturday 12 February and the week ended Saturday 13 May how many violent incidents involving paramilitary groups took place in Northern Ireland, indicating how many involved(a) Loyalists and (b) Republican groups; [122686]

  (2) between Saturday 12 February and the week ended Saturday 13 May how many punishment (a) beatings and (b) shootings took place in Northern Ireland, indicating how many in each category were committed by (i) Loyalists and (ii) Republican groups. [122689]
  546W
  Mr. Ingram
  The number of security incidents during the period 12 February to 13 May 2000 are as follows:

  Number

  Deaths

  2

  Shooting Incidents

  70

  Bombing Incidents

  10

  The number of Casualties as a result of Paramilitary style attacks during the period are as follows:

  By Loyalist

  By Republican

  Assaults

  17

  18

  Shootings

  26

  19

  Total

  43

  37

  Notes:

  1. Figures may be subject to minor amendment.

  2. The Shooting and bombing incidents cannot yet be fully attributed to groupings.

  Open Government
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many applications for information he received under the Open Government: Code of Practice on Access to Government Information in the last parliamentary session; and how many were granted. [121859]

  Mr. Mandelson
  I refer my right hon. Friend to the answer given by the Secretary of State for the Home Department on 18 May 2000,Official Report, columns 216–17W.

  Police Bill
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to which(a) individuals and (b) political parties he has (i) shown and (ii) given draft copies of the proposed Police Bill for Northern Ireland, indicating what undertakings he has given relating to incorporating (A) the name of the RUC in the name of the new police service and (B) part or all of the present insignia of the RUC or the George Cross in the insignia of the new service. [122799]

  Mr. Ingram
  The drafting of the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill has required consultation and discussion with a wide range of individuals, bodies and parties, as did the consultation process when Patten was published.
  547W
  The Government's position on the name and insignia has been made clear. On the name this was done in the Secretary of State's statement to Parliament on 19 January 2000, Official Report, column 848, and in response to an oral question from my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) on 17 May 2000, Official Report, column 319. On the badge, the Secretary of State said in the House on 19 January 2000, Official Report, column 848, that the badge would incorporate the new name in autumn 2001 and on 6 April 2000, Official Report, column 1221, he told the House that he was not convinced the badge need be entirely free of association with both traditions. The published Bill contains enabling provisions on both issues.

WALES

  Pig Farming
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent representations he has received on state aid for pig farmers in Wales. [122184]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I have received no representations on state aid for pig farmers, who proportionately play a very minor part in the Welsh livestock industry.

  Waiting Lists
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary on the impact of funding on the change in NHS waiting list times in Wales for those waiting over six months since I May 1997. [122185]

  Mr. Hanson
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I regularly meet the First Secretary and the Assembly Health Secretary to discuss health issues in Wales. Discussions often include funding of the NHS in Wales and the issue of waiting lists/waiting times.

  Mr. Stephen O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with the First Secretary and the Welsh Health Secretary with regard to the number of people currently waiting over 18 months for an operation.[122186]

  Mr. Hanson
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I regularly meet the First Secretary and the Assembly Health Secretary to discuss health issues in Wales. Our discussions do, of course, include the subject of waiting lists and times.

  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary about the number of patients waiting over 18 months for an operation on the NHS. [122195]

  Mr. Hanson
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I regularly meet and discuss health issues with both the First Secretary and the Assembly Health Secretary. Our discussions often include the subject of waiting times and lists.

  A483 Upgrade
  Mr. Öpik
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress he has made in securing agreement to an upgrading of the A483 north-south Wales road in the mid-Wales and North Shropshire area. [122187]
  548W
  Mr. Paul Murphy
  As the hon. Member is aware, the improvement of Welsh trunk roads is a matter for bilateral discussion between the National Assembly for Wales and the lead Whitehall department in cases such as this where decisions affect communities on the English-Welsh border. I have, however, raised this issue with the First Secretary and written to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

  Manufacturing Industry
  Ms Julie Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about the effect of the value of the pound and the euro on manufacturing industry in Wales. [122188]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I am in frequent contact with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The Government understand the concerns of businesses, and particularly manufacturers, trading within Europe, about the weakness of the euro. But it is determined to take a long-term view. Short-term fixes would be the biggest threat of all to industry, with the illusion of temporary relief followed by the threat of long-term damage.

  Policing
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he plans to hold with(a) the Home Secretary and (b) the First Secretary on policing in Wales. [122189]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I meet both the Home Secretary and the First Secretary regularly to discuss a range of issues, including policing in Wales.

  New Deal for the Over-50s
  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on implementation of the New Deal for the Over-50s in Wales. [122190]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The New Deal 50-plus pathfinder in north-east Wales has been in operation since October 1999 and was launched by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Wales. The all-Wales roll-out of the New Deal 50-plus was launched on 3 April this year at Merthyr College by the Prime Minister.

  Farming
  Mr. Gill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with the First Secretary about the state of farming in Wales. [122191]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I meet the First Secretary on a regular weekly basis and we discuss a wide range of issues, including the state of farming in Wales. The Government have clearly shown their commitment to the farming industry by the Action Plan announced at the Prime Minister's Summit on 30 March and the package of aid worth £28 million to Wales.

  The National Assembly for Wales meanwhile is taking forward a number of measures to support rural development and diversification in agriculture.

  Learning and Skills Bill
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with the National Assembly on the impact of the Learning and Skills Bill [Lords] on skill levels in Wales. [122192]

  Mr. Hanson
  I regularly meet Tom Middlehurst, Assembly Secretary responsible, to discuss a range of issues including the impact of the Learning and Skills Bill, which will establish a new Council for Education and Training for Wales. The CETW will focus education and training more purposefully and effectively to enable young people and adults in Wales to develop the skills they need in the labour market.

  Health Funding
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary about health funding in Wales. [122193]

  Mr. Hanson
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I meet regularly to discuss health funding issues with the First Secretary and the Assembly Health Secretary. We have both been interested to hear how the Assembly plans to allocate the additional funding for Wales that was announced in the March budget.

  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary about health funding in Wales. [122200]

  Mr. Hanson
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I regularly meet the First Secretary and the Assembly Health Secretary to discuss health issues in Wales. Health funding, of course, forms part of our agenda but it is for the Assembly to decide how health funding is allocated in Wales.

  Airbus (A3XX Project)
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with the First Secretary with regard to the employment implications of the A3XX project coming to Airbus UK in Broughton. [122194]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I meet the First Secretary weekly, and we frequently discuss Broughton. I was pleased to hear that the first orders have been received for the A3XX, and welcome the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence that the United Kingdom will be placing an order for 25 A400M aircraft.

  Sterling
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the impact of the present level of the pound against the euro on the Welsh economy; and what discussions he has had with the First Secretary. [122196]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I am in regular contact with the First Secretary and we frequently discuss the key issues facing the Welsh economy. The Government understand the concerns of businesses about the weakness of the euro, but is determined to take a long-term view.
  550W
  Short-term fixes would be the biggest threat of all to industry, with the illusion of temporary relief followed by the treat of long-term damage.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the impact of the value of sterling on Welsh manufacturing employment. [122199]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Government understand the concerns of businesses, and particularly manufacturers trading within Europe, about the weakness of the euro. Nevertheless, recent manufacturing export volumes have been robust across the UK as a whole, growing by 9 per cent. overall and by 6 per cent. to European markets.

  Strategic Trunk Roads
  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on discussions he has had with the First Secretary about strategic trunk roads. [122197]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Management of the Welsh trunk road network, including improvements to cross-border links with England, are matters which have been devolved to the National Assembly and are for the First Secretary to consider.

  I have, however, discussed with the First Secretary the A483 at Pant and Llanymynech, particularly the concerns of the hon. Member about road safety.

  New Deal for Young People
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with the First Secretary on the implementation of the new deal for young people in Wales. [122198]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I meet the First Secretary to discuss Welsh employment issues, and my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales holds quarterly liaison meetings with the Assembly Secretary for Post-16 Education and Training. The New Deal is a Central Government initiative with programmes delivered mainly through the Employment Service, so my hon. Friend and I are also in regular contact with ministerial colleagues on the subject. I am pleased to note that 27,131 young people in Wales have joined the New Deal programme since it was launched in the West Wales Pathfinder in January 1998, and that there has been a corresponding 61 per cent. fall in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds unemployed and claiming Jobseeker's Allowance for six months or more.

  Rail Services
  Mrs. Lawrence
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with companies providing rail services in Wales. [122201]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I shall be meeting representatives from the rail industry today to discuss services in Wales. In addition, I discuss rail transport with the First Secretary as part of our weekly meetings, as does my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales, in his quarterly liaison meetings with the Assembly Secretary responsible for transport.
  551W
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the rail industry in Wales. [122202]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I shall be meeting representatives from the rail industry to discuss services in Wales. In addition, I discuss rail transport with the First Secretary as part of our weekly meetings, as does my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales, in his quarterly liaison meetings with the Assembly Secretary responsible for transport.

  European Structural Funds
  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on behalf of the National Assembly for Wales concerning provision in the comprehensive spending review of additional funds to match spending under European Structure Fund programmes; and if he will make a statement. [122203]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I meet the Chancellor regularly and discuss a range of issues.

  The importance of the assistance that objective 1 status will deliver to Wales is a key issue which I have discussed with Treasury colleagues. They understand the significance of what this will mean for Wales. That is why the implications for the Welsh Block arising from objective 1 funding are an important feature of the Government's spending review, which is now under way.

  Penalty Clauses
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the contracts entered into with private sector companies for the provision of goods or services since May 1997 where penalty clauses were triggered for non-performance; and if he will make a statement. [122014]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  There is no record of any penalty clause having been triggered for non-performance in either the Wales Office, since 1 July 1999, or the Welsh Office prior to that date.

  Soft Drugs
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary and the United Kingdom Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator about the prevalence of soft drugs in Wales. [122176]

  Mr. Hanson
  I meet the Assembly Secretaries on a regular basis to discuss a range of issues including the misuse of drugs in Wales.

  The Assembly Secretary for Health and Social Services will be launching the refocused Welsh substance misuse strategy on 25 May 2000. This refocused strategy has been developed in the light of the UK Anti-Drugs strategy launched in April 1998.

  Police Funding
  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with chief constables about funding of police forces in Wales. [122175]
  552W
  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I met Welsh chief constables on 17 March. We discussed a wide range of issues including developments in modern policing, and manning and funding levels.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Seed Purity
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what measures he plans to introduce to deal with third-party contamination of GM-free seed. [123388]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  As I made clear to the House in my statement of 18 May 2000,Official Report, column 473–80, the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have advised the Government that the possibility that some conventional rapeseed stocks sold to farmers for sowing in 1999 and 2000 may have contained low levels of genetically modified rapeseed presents no risk to human health or the environment. I am placing the advice from ACRE and the FSA in the Library of the House. The Government have also sought the advice of the Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs (ACAF) and that advice will also be made public when it is received.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and I have received, and are now considering, legal advice on the complex legal issues raised by this incident including whether any offence has been committed.

  My officials are in discussion with the National Farmers Union on the practical and legal implications of the incident for farmers whose crops may have been affected.

  My officials have been in contact with the Canadian authorities to obtain more detailed information about the circumstances surrounding this incident. One of my officials is travelling to Canada to follow this up and will report back to me and to the EU Standing Committee on Seeds on 30 May.

  I and my officials have been in contact with the Commission and other EU member states affected with a view to taking a common approach to the issues raised by this incident. I have agreed with the French Minister of Agriculture that we should explore urgently the possibility of joint discussions between ourselves, the other member states concerned and the seed company Advanta. I will be following this up when I meet my colleagues at the informal meeting of EU Agriculture Ministers on 29–30 May.

  My right hon. Friend the Minister of State announced on 17 May 2000, Official Report, column 173W the new measures the Government are taking to ensure seed purity.

  Genetically Modified Seed
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what was the length of the consultation period prior to the addition of Chardon LL maize to the national seed list; and what considerations he took into account in determining the length of the period; [122778]
  553W
  (2) what steps his Department took to publicise the consultation on the addition of Chardon LL maize to the national seed list; [122777]

  (3) what assessment he has made of the adequacy of (a) the publicity given to the consultation and (b) the length of the consultation period on the addition of genetically modified seed types to the national seed list. [122775]

  Ms Quin
  The Seeds (National Lists of Varieties) Regulations 1982 (as amended) require Ministers to publish in the Plant Varieties and Seeds Gazette, a notice indicating their proposed decision, and the arrangements and timing (not being less than 14 days) for making written representations or applying to be heard by a person appointed by them. The Gazette was published on 3 April and gave until 21 April—a period of 18 days—for such submissions to be made. This was subsequently extended administratively to 25 April to allow for delays in making submissions because of the Easter break. These arrangements reflected the normal practice for dealing with National List proposed decisions.

  Given the wide interest in, and the publicity surrounding, the proposed decision, in addition to publication of the statutory notice in the Plant Varieties and Seeds Gazette, Ministers also issued a press notice announcing their decision. Some 4,000 letters were also sent out to those individuals and organisations who had been corresponding with MAFF about GM National List matters, advising them individually of the proposed decision and the procedures for making written representations or requesting a hearing. Information about the proposed decision, including the tests and trials data on which the decision was based, and the arrangements for making representations and requesting a hearing, were also placed on the MAFF internet website.

  EU Agriculture Council
  Mr. Casale
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Agriculture Council held in Brussels on 16 to 17 May; and if he will make a statement. [122768]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  1. I represented the United Kingdom at the Agriculture Council in Brussels on 16 May.

  2. The Council held a brief discussion of the Commission's proposal setting certain CAP prices and amounts for the 2000–01 marketing year, without reaching a conclusion. The Council will consider it further at its June meeting.

  3. The Council discussed EU enlargement on the basis of a report from Commissioner Fischler on current preparations of the agriculture chapter. All Ministers stressed the importance they attached to making enlargement a success, recognising the key role of agriculture, including its veterinary, phytosanitary and food safety elements, in ensuring this. I welcomed the Commission's measured and methodical approach aimed at securing the opening of negotiations with the "Luxembourg Six" countries next month. Along with several other Ministers, I emphasised that a successful enlargement would require action not only by the applicant countries in aligning their legislation and administrative capacity with EU requirements, but also by the present EU in further adapting the CAP as provided for in the Agenda 2000 agreement of March 1999.
  554W
  4. Under Other Business I supported the Swedish Minister's call for a discussion at next month's meeting on evidence gathered by Compassion in World Farming of unsatisfactory implementation of the welfare of animals in transport Directive, an issue I have previously raised myself in correspondence with the responsible Commissioner, David Byrne.

  Hounds (Feed)
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will review the controls on the materials that hunts may feed their animals, with particular reference to specified risk material. [123137]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: Specified risk material (SRM) may not be fed to animals. EU-wide specified risk material controls are currently being considered in the Standing Veterinary Committee of the Commission. Any redefinition of SRM is unlikely to result in an exemption to enable SRM to be fed to hounds.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish the advice his Department offers to hunts on the dead stock that can be fed to packs of hounds. [123168]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: In Great Britain the rules governing the feeding of animal by-products (which includes dead stock) to packs of hounds are laid down in the Animal By-Products Order 1999. The Order permits only certain categories of material to be fed to recognised packs of hounds in registered premises.

  Rural Development Plan
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what details he has received of the rural development plans of other EU member states, with particular reference to their level of funding. [122961]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: The European Commission has so far produced only a summary of the Rural Development Plan for Finland, which makes full use of their EU allocation.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if the projected increase in expenditure on the England rural development plan takes into account official estimates of inflation over the period involved. [122966]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: No. The projected increase in expenditure derives from modulation receipts which will be matched pound for pound, subject to the Spending Review.

  Farm Summit
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the individuals who(a) were invited to and (b)attended the Downing street farm summit on 30 March. [122969]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: The Prime Minister invited a number of representatives of key stakeholders in the food chain to attend the summit on 30 March. All organisations invited to the farm summit attended. A list of names is provided.
  555W
  List of attendees at meeting with farming and food industry leaders, at No. 10 Downing street on 30 March

  Peter Barr, Chairman, IGD Food Project, Hazelwood Foods plc

  Peter Blackburn. President, Food and Drink Federation

  Anthony Bosanquet, President, Countryside Landowners Association

  Right hon. Nick Brown, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

  Sir Ross Buckland, Unigate plc

  Ewen Cameron, Countryside Agency

  Mike Coupe, Trading Director, ASDA Stores Ltd.

  Donald Curry, Chairman, Meat and Livestock Commission

  Sir Peter Davis, Chief Executive, J. Sainsbury plc

  Ross Finnie, Minister for Rural Affairs, Scotland

  Ben Gill, President, National Farmers Union

  Janet Godfrey, Chairperson, Women's Farmers Union

  John Godfrey, National Pig Association

  Christine Gwyther, Secretary for Agriculture and the Rural Economy, Wales

  David Hanson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Welsh Office

  Sir John Harman, Chairman of Environment Agency

  Kevin Hawkins, Chief Executive, Safeways Stores plc

  Reg Haydon, National Chairman, Tenant Farmers Association

  Right hon. Adam Ingram, Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office

  Terry Leahy. Chief Executive, Tesco plc

  Lord Lindsay, Chairman of Assured British Meat

  Micael McCoy, President, NI Agricultural Producers Association

  Richard MacDonald, National Farmers Union

  Sir Kenneth Morrison, W. M. Morrisons Supermarkets plc

  Bob Parry, President, Farmers Union Wales

  Nick Raynsford, Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions

  Right hon. Dr. John Reid, Secretary of State for Scotland

  Hugh Richards, Chairman, National Farmers Union Wales

  Peter Small, Permanent Secretary for Agriculture, Northern Ireland

  Will Taylor. President, Ulster Farmers Union

  Jim Walker, National Farmers Union Scotland.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his oral statement of 11 May 2000,Official Report, column 1024, if he will list the points of the 62 point action plan launched during the Prime Minister's summit in March. [122957]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: All 62 points are contained in the "Action Plan for Farming" launched at the Downing street farm summit on 30 March. Copies of the Action Plan have been placed in the House Library.

  Apple Growers
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the decision by the French Government to compensate apple growers for the effect of consumer boycotts in Britain. [122993]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: I am aware that the French Government are providing aid for the horticulture sector but their Press Releases indicate that it is for restructuring, not compensation for the effects of any consumer boycott of French apples. My officials
  556W
  are seeking further information. There are strict rules governing the granting of state aids by member states. It is the responsibility of the European Commission to assess whether state aids comply with these rules. However if there is evidence that the French are paying an illegal state aid we will raise this with the Commission.

  EU Rural Development Policy
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what benefits he has identified from the creation of an integrated European Union rural development policy. [122960]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: The Rural Development Regulation enables member states for the first time systematically, coherently and comprehensively to plan expenditure on rural measures which aim to meet environmental, social and economic objectives for the countryside.

  CAP
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in preparing a strategy for further CAP negotiations, he has made specific provision for the possibility that Britain will retain its own currency for the foreseeable future. [122972]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: In developing agricultural strategy, no assumptions have been made as to whether or not the UK is likely to join the eurozone, or to remain outside.

  Hill Farmers
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his oral statement of 11 May 2000,Official Report, column 1028, if his statement that the England rural development plan would enable support for hill farmers to be continued meant that support for hill farmers would continue at its current level. [122964]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 5 May 2000, Official Report, column 249W.

  BSE
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when the BSE Inquiry's report will be completed. [123393]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: The BSE Inquiry requested a six month extension beyond the deadline of 31 March 2000 to complete their task. The Government have agreed this extension. The Report will be published shortly after its receipt by Ministers.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Sure Start
  Ms Kelly
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what has been the annual cost to date of establishing the Sure Start Scheme; and what estimate he has made of the number of Sure Start places in each year since its establishment and in 2000–01. [122531]
  557W
  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 17 May 2000]: The 60 trailblazers cover approximately 50,000 children aged under four in disadvantaged areas. 57 of these programmes have now been approved and most are delivering services. The total spend in the financial year 1999–2000 was £4,877,000.

  By March 2002, we intend to establish 250 programmes covering up to 200,000 children, around 8 per cent. of children aged under four at one time, and around 20 per cent. of the age group living in poverty in England. We expect most of these programmes to either start operations or start planning by March 2001.

  Post-graduate Certificate in Education Courses
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many physics graduates entered PGCE courses for secondary teaching in each of the last five years. [123036]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The number of new entrants to postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) courses for secondary teaching in Physics is not collected centrally. The numbers of new entrants to postgraduate ITT courses in England for secondary teaching in Science for the last five years are given in the following table.

  Intake to postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) in England

  Year

  Intake

  1995–96

  2,530

  1996–97

  2,564

  1997–98

  2,438

  1998–99

  2,058

  1999–2000

  2,149

  Note:

  Data are mid year provisional

  Source:

  TTA Survey of ITT Providers

  Coverage:

  Universities and other HE Institutions, School Centred ITT and Open University

  At 25 September 1999, with Golden Hello incentives, the number of Physics applications for postgraduate ITT was up by 40 per cent. on the previous year. The number of new entrants on postgraduate ITT Science courses in England for 1999–2000 was up by 4 per cent. on the previous year, effectively meeting the overall target for the year. It is too early to predict recruitment to PGCE courses in 2000–01.

  The following table, taken from the Higher Education Statistics Agency's Student Record Survey shows the percentage of those commencing PGCE ITT in England, funded by the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), who were graduates in Physics in the years 1995–96 to 1998–99. These are the subjects of first degree and not necessarily the subjects or phase in which the student is undertaking teacher training. Information for the current year is not yet available. There is a significant proportion of students for whom the first degree subject is unknown. The subjects of first degree do not include combined courses, or closely related courses such as engineering.
  558W

  Percentage of those commencing TTA funded PGCE ITT in England with first degrees in Physics. 1995–96 to 1998–99

  Year

  Percentage with Physics degree

  1995–96

  1

  1996–97

  1

  1997–98

  1

  1998–99

  1

  Source:

  Higher Education Statistics Agency's Student Record Survey

  Early-years Education
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment who has responsibility for the strategic overview of Government policy for the maintenance of pre-school learning provision. [123104]

  Ms Hodge
  The Secretary of State has overall responsibility for the Government's early education policy. The statutory duty to secure free early education places for all four-year-olds rests with local education authorities. Together with their Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships, they have responsibility for planning and monitoring the sufficient supply of high quality early education places in their area.

  Skills Task Force
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list(a) the membership and qualifications, (b) the activities and (c) the reports of the Skills Task Force since its inception. [123459]

  Ms Jowell
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: The 19 members of the National Skills Task Force were appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to serve in a personal capacity. Their names and positions within their respective organisations are listed. The Department does not hold information on members' qualifications.

  The Task Force was remitted by the Secretary of State to assist him in developing a National Skills Agenda. Meeting monthly since its launch in April 1998, the group has considered a range of themes concerned with skill demand and supply, and recorded its conclusions and recommendations in its reports. It has overseen an extensive programme of original research which provides the evidence base for its conclusions. The Task Force has undertaken over 40 formal consultation events, some with a particular sectoral or geographical focus, and has held a series of bilateral meetings with the main agencies involved in education and training.

  To date, the Task Force has issued three interim policy reports, covering: a preliminary analysis of skill shortages and gaps, vocational skills for young people, key skills, collection and use of skills and labour market information, upskilling adults and learning in the workplace. Other publications so far are the final report from its IT, Communications and Electronics skills strategy group, a recruitment guide for small businesses, and 19 research papers on various topics. All are available in the Library.
  559W

  National skills task force: Membership

  Name

  Organisation

  Position

  Chris Humphries CBE (Chairman)

  British Chambers of Commerce

  Director General

  Llew Aviss

  Llew Aviss Associates

  Managing Director

  Rita Britton

  Pollyanna (Barnsley) Ltd.

  Director

  Tony Dubbins

  Graphical, Paper and Media Union

  General Secretary

  Eric Drewery

  ABB Ltd.

  Chief Executive

  John Edmonds

  GMB

  General Secretary

  Denise Hall

  BT plc

  Head of Government, Health and Education Services

  Sir Ken Jackson

  AEEU

  General Secretary

  Dr. DeAnne Julius

  Bank of England

  Member, Monetary Policy Committee

  Eddie MacIntyre CBE

  Birmingham College of Food and Tourism

  Principal

  Ashwin Mistry OBE

  Brett and Randall Insurance Brokers

  Director

  Terry Morgan

  BaE System plc

  HRD Director

  John V. Palmer

  Steel Training Ltd.

  Chairman

  Peter Rainbird CBE

  Rainbird Group Ltd.

  Chairman/Chief Executive

  Iain Roxburg

  Coventry City Council

  Chief Executive and Town Clerk

  Sharon Studer

  3 COM Europe Ltd.

  Vice President

  Julia Tinsley

  Pitman Training Centre

  Director

  Adair Turner

  Confederation of British Industry (formerly)

  Director General

  Professor Leslie Wagner

  Leeds Metropolitan University

  Vice Chancellor

  Anne Weinstock CBE

  Rathbone Cl

  Chief Executive (currently on secondment to DfEE)

  Equal Opportunities Legislation
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Equal Pay Act 1970 in reducing disparities in pay between males and females in the last five years. [123465]

  Ms Hodge
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: We welcome the continuing narrowing trend in the gender pay gap, not least the full percentage point reduction from 20 per cent. to 19 per cent. in 1999. It is not possible to determine the precise extent to which the reduction in the last five years can be directly attributed to the Equal Pay Act but it is clear that a sensible statutory framework is an essential component. So too are our wider efforts to ensure improvements in education and skill levels and to help women stay in, or return to, the labour market after having children.

  Online Learning
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what studies he has carried out of the problem of measurement assessment and evaluation of learning conducted on-line. [123161]

  Mr. Wills
  The Department has commissioned the British Educational Communications and Technology agency to evaluate the impact of ICT on children's achievements in school. The project, "ImpaCT2", is focusing on the effect of ICT in attainment in literacy and numeracy and the core subjects of the National Curriculum at Key Stage 2, and a wider subject range at Key Stages 3 and 4. Findings from the interim report will be made available soon. The final report is due to be submitted to the Department in early 2002.

  The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has commissioned research on the use of ICT in coursework and portfolio evidence. A report on this research project is due to be submitted soon.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Terry Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when he will reply to the letters from the hon. Member for Worsley dated 14 September 1999, 4 November 1999 and 4 April 2000, regarding a constituent's inquiry about student grants and higher education fees. [123400]

  Mr. Wills
  A reply to my hon. Friend's letters was issued on 17 May 2000.

  Sixth Forms
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many secondary schools have sixth forms with(a) 0 to 50, (b) 51 to 100, (c) 101 to 150, (d) 151 to 200 and (e) 201 to 250 pupils. [123502]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The latest provisional national estimates for England are shown in the table. For January 2000, provisional figures show that there were 3,550 maintained secondary schools in England, of which 1,834 (or 52 per cent.) had a sixth form.

  Number of maintained secondary schools by size of sixth form in England, January 20001

  Size of sixth form

  Number of schools

  Up to 50

  115

  51 to 100

  319

  101 to 150

  409

  151 to 200

  398

  201 to 250

  295

  251 and over

  298

  Total

  1,834

  1provisional

  Final figures will be published in the Annual Statistical Volume "Statistics of Education: Schools in England (2000 edition)" in September.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  EU Culture Council
  Mr. Casale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what was the outcome of the Culture Council held in Brussels on 16 May; and if he will make a statement. [122767]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  I represented the United Kingdom at the EU Culture Council on 16 May. The Council held a useful exchange of views on the objectives and proposed approach to the MEDIA PLUS programme, the aim of which will be to strengthen the competitiveness of the European audiovisual industry. The Council and the member states adopted Conclusions on principles and guidelines for the Community's audiovisual policy in the digital age. The Council also adopted a Resolution on the conservation and enhancement of the European cinema heritage.

  The Portuguese Presidency presented a report on cultural diversity in the new international environment and on a recent seminar on digital radio, as well as Presidency conclusions on the value of cultural statistics. The French and Portuguese delegations informed the Council of their nominees to serve on the selection panel for the European Capital of Culture 2005.

  In the margins of the meeting I had useful discussions with the new French Minister of Culture, in advance of the forthcoming French Presidency of the EU, and with Commissioner Reding.

  Antiques (Illicit Trade)
  Mr. Pond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what arrangements he is making to ensure that the Government are able to draw on expert advice in considering options for countering the illicit trade in antiquities. [123930]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  I am convening a panel of experts, drawn from the legal, archaeological and museum worlds, and from the art and antiques trade, whose terms of reference will be:To consider the nature and extent of the illicit international trade in art and antiquities, and the extent to which the UK is involved in this;
  To consider how most effectively, through both non-legislative and legislative means, the UK can play its part in preventing and prohibiting the illicit trade, and to advise the Government accordingly.
  To report to the Minister for the Arts by 30 November 2000.

  I am most grateful to the following experts who have agreed to be members of the advisory panel:
  Professor Norman Palmer: Professor of Commercial Law, University College, London (chairman).
  Dr. Peter Addyman: Chairman of the Standing Conference on Portable Antiquities; Director of the York Archaeological Trust.
  Dr. Robert Anderson; Director of the British Museum.
  Anthony Browne: Chairman of the British Art Market Federation.
  James Ede: Chairman designate of the Antiquities Dealers' Association; Director of Charles Ede Ltd., antiquities dealers.
  Joanna van der Lande: former Chair of the Antiquities Dealers' Association; associate director of Bonhams Ltd., and head of the antiquities department.
  562W
  Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.
  Anna Somers Cocks: Editor, The Art Newspaper.

  The panel will be supported by a working group of officials drawn from all those departments which share responsibility for measures to combat illicit trade.

  English Heritage
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the occasions in each of the last five years on which English Heritage gave grants to(a) members of the board of English Heritage and (b) organisations with which board members had connections. [122635]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  Since 1996–97 this information has been made available each year in English Heritage's Annual Report. The information requested for years prior to 1996–97 is not readily collatable in the timescale required.

  Occasions in each of the last four years on which English Heritage gave grants to its Commissioners or organisations with which Commissioners had connections is as follows:

  1996–97
  conservation grant of £25,000 in respect of a Grade II' listed building owned by Lady Gass
  conservation grant of £7,000 in respect of an estate in which Lord Cavendish of Furness had an interest

  1997–98
  conservation grant of £15,000 in respect of an estate in which Lord Cavendish of Furness had an interest

  1998–99
  conservation grant of £2,000 in respect of an estate in which Lord Cavendish had an interest
  conservation grant of £10,000 in respect of an estate of which the right hon. Lord Faringdon is a Trustee and his son a beneficiary

  1999–2000
  conservation grant of £18,000 in respect of an estate of which the right hon. Lord Faringdon is a Trustee
  conservation grant of £24,000 in respect of an estate of which the right hon. Lord Faringdon is a Trustee and his son a beneficiary
  conservation grant of £8,000 to a Trust of which Philip Davis is a Trustee.

DEFENCE

  Naval Vessels
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he plans to withdraw HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid from service. [121700]

  Mr. Spellar
  On current plans, HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid are due to be withdrawn from service in 2003 and 2001, respectively. However, these dates are linked to the acceptance of the replacement vessels, the Landing Platform Dock (Replacement)s (LPD(R)s),
  563W
  named HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. In the light of delays to the LPD(R)s, the dates for withdrawal for Fearless and Intrepid are under review.

  Correspondence
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he will reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East of 21 April requesting a meeting. [122572]

  Dr. Moonie
  My noble Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement, Baroness Symons, wrote on 20 May, and has offered to meet the hon. Member.

  Websites
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 3 May 2000,Official Report, column 117W, on websites, if he will list the major service events which satisfy all the conditions (a) for which a related website exists, (b) which were sponsored by one or more companies and (c) on whose website the sponsoring company receives publicity, either by having its logo on the site, or otherwise; and if he will in each case (i) list the sponsoring companies, (ii) estimate

  Major Service event

  Sponsor of event

  Website(s) on which sponsor logo(s) featured

  Army v Navy Rugby match

  Willis Caroon

  Royal Navy—www.royal-navy.mod.uk

  Army—www.army.mod.uk

  Royal Artillery display team

  Main sponsors

  Army—www.army.mod.uk

  Kawasaki Motors(UK)

  Wurth UK

  Royal Military Tattoo

  Amey plc

  Royal Military Tatoo 2000—www.rmt2000.mod.uk

  BAe Systems

  Daily Telegraph

  NAAFI/Warrior

  THUS/Demon Internet

  Service Offshore Regatta

  EDS

  Royal Navy—www.royal-navy.mod.uk

  In addition, the Army has participated in the national Rugby League Silk Cut Challenge Cup. The company name appears in the competition's logo which features on the relevant section of the main Army websitewww.army.mod.uk/sport/events.

  Of those events listed, only the RMT 2000 website features active hyperlinks from a sponsor company's logo to the company's own website.

  ABSV
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the requirement of armoured battlegroup support vehicles will be for transportation by air; what aircraft he plans for transportation of the ABSV; and if he will make a statement. [122977]

  Dr. Moonie
  The full requirements for the Armoured Battle Group Support Vehicle (ABSV) have not been finalised. However, it is likely that the requirements will include comparable deployability to that of the Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle. This equates to its being air-portable by both C-17 and A-400M.
  564W
  the market value of such publicity on the website and (iii) state if this estimate was taken into account in negotiating the sponsorship deal. [122743]

  Dr. Moonie
  My Department's principal websites—those of the central MOD and the three Services—are not sponsored by commercial companies. Where a major Service event has had external sponsorship and a related web page exists on a Ministry of Defence or Service website, the sponsor company's logo has on occasion been featured on that web page as an acknowledgment. In a few cases logos have been hyperlinked to the company's own website. The market value of the logo placements is assessed as negligible in comparison with the value of the overall sponsorship for the separate events, and taking into consideration the estimated number of visitors to the relevant pages and current market rates for website advertising on pages of this type.

  The following table summarises the logo placements for sponsored major Service events on the Department's major websites. Detailed information on the other departmental websites maintained by individual Defence Agencies and units and on other sites maintained by non-departmental public bodies is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Production Bases Abroad
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his policy is on giving assistance to British companies seeking to locate production bases outside the UK. [122976]

  Dr. Moonie
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has the lead responsibility for providing advice and assistance to British companies seeking to locate production bases outside the UK. Such assistance is provided through the British Trade International organisation, run jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

  UK civil firms that have decided to invest abroad can obtain assistance by using the "Offset-Investment Brokering Scheme" which is run jointly by British Trade International and the Defence Export Services Organisation. This service connects Defence firms which possess indirect offset commitments, with investors, for their mutual benefit.
  565W
  Where a UK defence equipment manufacturer is successful in winning export business which requires, under industrial participation arrangements, the establishment of local production facilities, the Defence Export Services Organisation will provide additional support and guidance if required.

  Procurement (Fraud)
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate his Department has made of the yearly cost to its budget of fraud in relation to procurement contracts. [122756]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 19 May 2000]: The Department regards the whole of its procurement budget as being at risk from fraud. The cost of detected fraud is, however, difficult to quantify. The process followed is to assume, once an investigation of a potential fraud begins, that the whole contract value is at risk. Values are then revised as the case progresses to completion. On this basis, the Department's estimates of the value of procurement fraud over the last five years are as follows:

  £

  1995–96

  2,700

  1996–97

  No value

  1997–98

  1,000

  1998–99

  14,343

  1999–2000

  11,796,326

  Title

  Type

  National Association of Boys Clubs—Evaluation Post Stage

  Focus group and quantitative

  Office Redesign

  Focus group

  TA Army Medical Service Strategic Development

  Focus group

  Image of Recruit Selection Centres

  Focus group

  Officer Profiling Year 2

  Quantitative

  Be the best Advertising Tracking

  Quantitative

  January 2000 Omnibus

  Quantitative

  Army Ethnic Minority Evaluation

  Quantitative

  Nato Strategy Development Research (in conjunction with FCO)

  Focus group

  Public Attitudes to Defence

  Focus group

  Public Attitudes to Defence

  Quantitative

  Sponsorship of Formula One on Talk Radio

  Quantitative

  Advertising Tracking Research 1999

  Quantitative

  Yorkshire Initiative and Opportunities for all days

  Focus group and quantitative

  Engineer Officer TV Advert Creative Development

  Focus group

  Engineering Graduate Strategy Research

  Focus group

  Spotlight Publicity Evaluation

  Quantitative

  Advertising Tracking

  Focus group and quantitative

  Prisoners of War
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he will make an announcement on the question of a gratuity for former far east prisoners of war. [123529]

  Dr. Moonie
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 3 May 2000,Official Report, column 143. to the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell). This matter is still being carefully considered in consultation with colleagues and no conclusions have yet been reached.
  566W
  1Includes one case estimated at £916,000, one estimated at £500,000 and one estimated at £260,000

  Note:

  The three cases recorded against 1999–2000 are at an early stage of investigation

  Opinion Research
  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department spent on opinion research in the financial year 1999–2000. [123246]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: Expenditure on external opinion research carried out in 1999–2000 was £600,272. Some small local studies may not be included as details are not held centrally.

  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list opinion research projects undertaken on behalf of his Department in the financial year 1999–2000, itemising(a) focus group research, (b) quantative surveys, and (c) other market research surveys, in each case stating when and where the results were published. [123232]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 22 May 2000]: The following table gives information on external opinion research in 1999–2000. Research is carried out to explore public attitudes to Defence and the Armed Forces and the findings are used to assist planning on issues like recruitment to the Armed Forces. Research results are available in accordance with the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Families Associations Representatives
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his letter D/Min(AF)/JS PQ2803J/99 of 18 December 1999, if he will list the(a) names, (b) date of commencement in position, (c) formal employer and line manager, (d) responsibilities of and (e) salary of the Families Association representatives based at (i) HMNB Portsmouth, (ii) HMNB Devonport, (iii) Faslane/Clyde, (iv) HMS Collingwood, (v) HMS Raleigh, (vi) BRNC Dartmouth, (vii) RMTC Lympstone, (viii) HMS Excellent and (ix) RNAS Culdrose; and if he will make a statement. [123243]
  567W
  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: The tables attached with my letter D/Min(AF)/JSPQ2803J/99/P provided data received from the relevant Establishments and Units about welfare and other facilities for which provision was made at the units concerned. I understand, however, that in relation to the list of Families Association Representatives, although the Association of Royal Naval and Royal Marine Families very much hopes in due course to establish local representatives in the bases listed, it has not yet done so. That is because the Association only came into being last year and has only just recruited its first local representative, who is based in Helston, Cornwall. The Association is an independent body, although it does receive some financial assistance from my Department and provision of some accommodation and facilities. The recruitment of local representatives, management arrangements and responsibilities are all matters for the Association.

  Sunday Times (Injunction)
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he was consulted about the issue of 568W
  an injunction against The Sunday Times and others preventing publication of information obtained from the person known as Martin Ingram. [122759]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 23 May 2000]: My right hon. and noble Friend the previous Secretary of State for Defence was first consulted about this matter on 11 August 1999. The current Secretary of State was consulted on 24 November.

  Service Personnel (Divorce)
  Mr. Quentin Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the divorce rates for serving military personnel in(a) the Army, (b) the Royal Navy and (c) the Royal Air Force for the last 12 month period for which figures are available. [120408]

  Mr. Spellar
  [pursuant to his reply, 8 May 2000, c. 263–64W]: I have to advise that due to an administrative error the figure for married strength for the Royal Air Force at 1 April (1998–99) was incorrectly given as 22,417—this was, however, correctly given as the figure for the Royal Navy. The correct figure for the Royal Air Force should have read 34,808.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Hereford.

Lord Mitchell
Parry Andrew Mitchell, Esquire, having been created Baron Mitchell, of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Jay of Paddington and the Lord Levy.
Lord Fyfe of Fairfield
George Lennox Fyfe, Esquire, having been created Baron Fyfe of Fairfield, of Sauchie in Clackmannanshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Graham of Edmonton and the Lord Carter.

Sickness and Disability Benefits: Medical Examinations
2.50 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stokeasked Her Majesty's Government:
What deficiencies have been reported in the medical services responsible for examining claimants for sickness and disability benefits.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, the Social Security Select Committee recently published a report of its inquiry into Medical Services; that is, the services of the DSS. The report criticises the current service to claimants and makes recommendations for improvement in many areas. The Select Committee takes a similar approach to the Government on the measures needed to improve the quality of service provided by SEMA Medical Services.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. Is my noble friend aware that the Select Committee was scathing about the private medical agency, the SEMA Group, which is used by the Benefits Agency to examine sick and disabled people who claim benefit? The Select Committee accused that group of imposing on sick and disabled people unacceptable delays, painful examinations, rude treatment and racial discrimination? Is my noble friend aware that, although the recommendations of the Select Committee are welcome, in my view they are wholly inadequate and the Government need to reconsider the use of these private medical agencies
764
and certainly should get rid of the SEMA Group which is responsible for so much distress to many sick and disabled people?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the Government will publish their response to the report of the Select Committee at the end of June. My colleagues in the other place and officials are working on that response. I do not for a moment dissociate myself from some of the comments made in the report. The Government accept the criticism that some of the 3,000 part-time and sessional doctors, not so much the 250 full-time doctors who were with the original Benefits Agency Medical Service (BAMS) when it transferred over, have exhibited the behaviour described by my noble friend. It is quite clear that some doctors have been somewhat crass in their response to patients' needs. I believe that the right response to that is that advocated by the Select Committee, which is significantly to increase the training available to doctors, particularly part-time ones. After all, those doctors provide advice on about £25 billion of benefit. As a result, it is crucial that we get the most highly qualified and best trained doctors to deal with a very sensitive area of medicine. That is why the proposals made by the Select Committee in terms of improving the training of doctors, the auditing of their reports and so on are being taken seriously by government.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I make no comment on the findings of the Select Committee. If things are wrong, they must be dealt with. Is it not very important that people who claim a disability benefit are subject to an objective assessment of their condition in order that the money goes to those in real need because of their disability and that others who are not so entitled are sorted out from the genuine?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Yes, my Lords. The criticisms that are made by people who have been examined by doctors tend to be of two kinds. One relates to the process in which the doctor's behaviour may have been quite unacceptable. There are one or two—not very many—anecdotes of racist behaviour, and certainly some cases of insensitivity. But that is different from complaints which arise on appeal where the disabled person is perhaps less disabled than he or she believes and there is dissatisfaction with the decision based on the assessment. These are two separate considerations. The first must be addressed by training, which we seek to do. As to the second, the number of disallowed claims has remained exactly the same under SEMA as under the old Benefits Agency Medical Service. Therefore, we have no reason to believe that in terms of professional judgment there has been any diminution or alteration of standards.
Lord Addington: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the failure to provide a minimum of five days' training for the doctors involved is one of the basic problems that is highlighted in the report? Is the Minister able to provide an update on the establishment of the diploma in medical analysis which was recommended in the report? When will that

765
become a regular part of the training of those who deal with this matter, or at least of the doctor in charge? Surely that degree of medical knowledge will remove many of the problems.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, as to the second point, I wonder whether the noble Lord refers to the newly established postgraduate diploma in disability assessment. If so, that is now up and running. I believe that 28 doctors are taking the diploma. Another seven are regarded as already qualified by virtue of the qualifications that they bring to it. The noble Lord is right that we must establish this as a proper, decent, honourable and esteemed clinical specialty alongside others, such as paediatrics, with which noble Lords will be more familiar.
As to the first point about SEMA's failure to provide the full five days' training, the noble Lord is absolutely right. SEMA has tried to increase the amount of training. We have asked for, and SEMA is providing, extra modules of training on disability and ethnic awareness, gender issues and the like. We must improve that. In addition, the Chief Medical Adviser insists that all reports from medical doctors are assessed on the basis of a 2 per cent sample. He also insists that all doctors are validated and, if necessary, revalidated in terms of their ability to practise. We take the issue of training and what both SEMA and the DSS must do very seriously. This report has shown up some of the flaws in the present system.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, first, I wish the noble Baroness a happy birthday. The noble Baroness will be aware that the committee suggests that because of the perceived failure of the complaints system many claimants choose to appeal rather than complain. Can the Minister give an assurance that details of the complaints procedures will be given to all applicants?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I could not have had a nicer birthday present than this Question in the House today. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Ashley precisely tailored the Question for me. We are concerned that people should be made fully aware of their entitlement to appeal about the decision as well as about the complaints procedure. There are posters and we send out information. My honourable friend Mr Bayley has given an undertaking to look at the forms to see whether they require greater clarification on these points.
Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, naturally I warmly share in the birthday greetings extended to my noble friend. Since she did not dissociate herself from all of the findings of the Select Committee, are the Government considering any interim action in advance of a full response to the report? Meanwhile, is my noble friend aware that I am informed, by noble friends of hers and mine, that the evidence of racial discrimination is actual, not anecdotal?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, that may be right, but we do not know. The difficulty is that we do
766
not collect statistics about the ethnic background of claimants of incapacity benefit or DLA. I do not know whether or not we should collect such information, and at some stage I invite your Lordships' views on the matter. We are aware that perhaps one-fifth or one-quarter of our doctors have an ethnic community background which should make for greater sensitivity in relation to some of these matters. Having carefully read the report of the Select Committee and some follow-up evidence associated with it, my understanding is that several stories tend to be recycled. How widespread is this undeniably crass behaviour we cannot tell, but clearly just one case is unacceptable. For that reason, the training that SEMA requires doctors to undertake includes increased ethnic and disability awareness training. We hope that as a result we do not experience such complaints in future.

West Coast Main Line
2.58 p.m.
Lord Berkeleyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Following Railtrack's network management statement of March that 12,000 line closures per year would be required for the next few years to upgrade the West Coast Main Line, what action they are taking to ensure passenger and freight services are maintained to an adequate quality.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston): My Lords, the 12,000 engineering possessions a year which Railtrack considers will be necessary on the West Coast Main Line during the upgrading include about 9,000 required for maintenance purposes and are, therefore, independent of the upgrade. All 12,000 possessions are ones for which 30 weeks' or longer notice has been given to operators by Railtrack. Train operators will thus be in a position to make arrangements for passenger services to be diverted, amended or replaced by buses, and freight operators will be in a position to negotiate appropriate arrangements to enable disruption to be minimised. No permanent track closures will be involved in the upgrading works.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, first, I declare an interest as chairman of Rail Freight Group. I thank the Minister for that Answer. My noble friend is right. One cannot have such a major upgrade for a new line without closures. He is also right that alternative routes need to be found.
When the line was electrified 25 years ago, alternative routes were provided. I am told that one such route was the Midland Mainline and Buxton to Matlock. Does my noble friend believe that that line could be opened? Derbyshire County Council and Railtrack have commissioned a study. Is he surprised that the strategic rail authority has refused to contribute any funds to that study?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, the franchising director has received an application under

767
the rail passenger partnership scheme for a feasibility study of the Buxton to Matlock reopening proposal. The rules governing the use to which rpp funds can be put preclude their use for financing feasibility studies. Projects have to be advanced beyond the feasibility study stage before the rpp assistance is sought. The franchising director has no other source of funding for private feasibility studies, although he has the ability under certain circumstances to commission feasibility studies of his own.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, following on from that question, may I ask the Minister whether any arrangements have been made, and, if not, whether he will press the Strategic Shadow Rail Authority to make arrangements to provide other trains on alternative routes? I refer, for example, to doubling the length of trains to Birmingham on the Chiltern line or providing some services to Manchester by the Midland Mainline even without the reopening of the Buxton section. Given the problems with train operating companies, does the Minister believe that such arrangements could and should be made?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I cannot answer on that specific line. However, Railtrack and the operators have agreed extensive diversions. They avoid some of the areas most affected. The strategic rail authority, with whom I have checked, has not received any representation from passenger operators concerned about the effects of any of the works on their business at present. As I said, there will be few long-term route closures. Most of the operational work will be undertaken at night and at weekends.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, will the Minister ask Railtrack and the operating companies to give passengers a little notice about closures and delays? At present one receives little notice. As a long-suffering user of trains to Cumbria I say that with much feeling. Some notice to passengers would not come amiss.
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, in the re-franchising process which is already under way it is our intention to ensure that the interests of rail travellers have a greater prominence than they may have had in the past. I shall bring my noble friend's comments to the attention of Railtrack and the operating companies.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, first, I note the Minister's comments that most of the closures will be at night. That is fine for passenger train companies but not for freight companies. Can the noble Lord assure us that freight services down the West Coast Main Line corridor will not be interrupted in a way that will deter freight companies from putting their freight on rail?
Secondly, what is the Government's attitude towards compensating Railtrack for the £3 billion costs for the extra-contractual obligation to provide block signalling?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, Railtrack and the operating companies have had an extensive
768
consultation process. They have agreed well in advance the necessary diversions. It is easier to organise those diversions with freight than with passenger services. We have every confidence that that will be concluded.
The Rail Regulator is reviewing the costs of renewing and enhancing the West Coast Main Line as part of his periodic review of Railtrack's access charges. He intends to publish in June of this year that consultation document which sets out his provisional views on the efficient level of costs and who should pay for any cost overruns.

International Criminal Court: Progress
3.4 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwellasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the recent United States proposal to draft a supplemental document and to amend Article 98 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is likely to delay the process of ratification by the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): My Lords, the United Kingdom will ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as soon as the necessary legislation is in place. The recent United States proposal has no impact on this process.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that unambiguous Answer. The American paper proposes to make the power of the court to try an offender conditional upon the consent of his state, and to make state authority a complete defence. Does my noble friend agree that that is a blatant attempt to undermine the jurisdiction of a court established under a treaty which now has 96 signatories by a country which has made clear that it has no intention of signing? Can my noble friend assure the House that even if Washington is set fair to lose all its friends, this country has no intention of being dragged by its coat-tails into an isolationist wilderness?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I can reassure my noble and learned friend that. Her Majesty's Government's position will not change. I am not as downcast by the American position as my noble and learned friend appears to be. We are still hopeful that we shall be able to do sufficient to encourage our American colleagues to reconsider their position and to sign along with us. Indeed, conversations in relation to their proposals are ongoing.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, as with domestic legislation, it is good to allow several years of operation before one considers amendment? Does she also agree that if one state

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attempts to amend the statute of the International Criminal Court it will open up an enormous can of worms because many other states, which were not fully satisfied, have accepted the final draft in a spirit of compromise?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we agree with the proposals agreed at Rome. It does not appear that the amendment suggested currently by the United States will garner much favour. We hope to persuade it that the conditions which are inherent now are sufficient to meet its needs. We are not unhopeful of persuading the United States of that in the long term; but, of course, we accept that it is a challenge.

Ethiopia/Eritrea Conflict
3.6 p.m.
Lord Aveburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they will take, in the United Nations Security Council and otherwise, to persuade the parties to the current military conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to resolve their differences about the technical arrangements for implementing the Organisation for African Unity's peace plan.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we condemn the return to hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Fighting can only bring further suffering to the people of both countries. We urge both sides to cease fighting and to re-enter into negotiations with the Organisation for African Unity to achieve a lasting peaceful settlement.
We urge all UN member states to implement fully and to enforce effectively the mandatory arms embargo and the ban on related technical assistance and training imposed by the Security Council in Resolution 1298. We will continue to provide humanitarian aid to the region.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does the noble Baroness agree that the present offensive was initiated by Ethiopia, that in doing so that country was in breach of Article 2.2 of the charter of the United Nations, and that the Security Council should have said so when it considered Resolution 1278? Does she further agree that international pressure has to be concentrated entirely on Ethiopia which is the aggressor state in the present conflict, and that the visit by President Bouteflika, the current chairman of the OAU to Addis Ababa—I understand that it begins this afternoon—is to be warmly welcomed and supported? Pressure has to be exerted on both sides. It is easy at any point in history to put all the blame on one and not the other. That is not helpful. Our main focus must be on getting both sides back to the negotiating table and the cessation of hostilities. We shall commit ourselves entirely to that end.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, would the Minister agree that with the best will in the world it is
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a little late to think about a peace plan from the OAU or anyone else? The Ethiopians have broken through and are heading for the coast and they are determined to fight while negotiating. We are seeing the unfolding of further major bloodshed in the already blood-soaked Horn of Africa. At this stage, while the Eritreans are in retreat, is not the only hope to persuade the notorious Mr Zenawi and his troops to offer generous peace terms, not to push on with months of killing and fighting, and instead start fighting the famine which is blighting the whole of that area?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we have taken every opportunity to highlight to Ethiopia the real tragedy to her people and the Eritreans. The noble Lord is right to concentrate on that. The Ethiopians have pushed forward, but it has been said that it is not their intention to go as far as Asmara. They are concentrating on regaining the land which they say was inappropriately and improperly removed from them. We must do all that we can to encourage them to that end. The OAU is still a useful organ which can and will be employed to the best possible effect. The noble Lord is right in saying that the situation is difficult and that we need to focus on its future resolution.
Lord Rea: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that if the Ethiopian offensive continues it is likely to trigger another humanitarian disaster in a region that has already had far more than its fair share? Does she also agree that if the offensive continues for long enough there is a danger of restarting the long and bloody guerrilla war which ended only 10 years ago?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we are cognisant of that history. One of the tragedies of the development of hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea is that these two peoples have fought alongside each other; Eritrean blood runs in Ethiopian veins and vice versa. It is a tragedy. We shall continue to do all we can to encourage them to recognise that that tragedy can be averted and that hostilities should be stopped in order to reach a resolution to the difficulty which will allow both to go forward.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, on a more mundane level, what might the Government do to persuade the supporters of Ethiopia and Eritrea in London to stop fighting their war in the middle of Whitehall, to allow London to get on with its business and to relieve the over-pressed resources of the Metropolitan Police?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I understand the noble Lord's sentiments. For a moment, I thought that he was talking about Members of this House. There has been a deal of disruption and the police are dealing with it cogently and properly. We have seen a peaceful demonstration and are anxious that it should continue that way. We exhort all those who are engaged in it to behave in a more proportionate and reasonable manner.

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However, looking at any given point in history one sees almost a competition between Ethiopia and Eritrea as regards which can be more unreasonable than the other.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, has the Minister seen press reports to the effect that one of the objectives of the Ethiopian army is to destroy the Eritrean armed forces? Can she say whether she believes that that is an objective and, if so, how it might be possible to exert the kind of pressure mentioned by my noble friend Lord Howell?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, it is impossible to say whether that is their expressed aim because they do not acknowledge it to be so. The Ethiopians have been clear in their view that land was wrongfully removed from them by an act of aggression on the part of the Eritreans and that they want to reclaim that land. They have indicated that once they have done so they may stop.
We do not know whether that is true. The position on the ground is changing rapidly. It has changed dramatically in the past 36 hours. I can say only that we shall continue to assess the situation and try to persuade the Ethiopians that that would be an inappropriate and improper aspiration to fulfil.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I represented this country in Eritrea at her independence celebrations in 1992? I am concerned about two interests to this country. The first is the British Library in Asmara, which has never closed whatever conflicts have occurred, and the second is the war graves of British and Indian soldiers. Will they be cared for in the present difficult times?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am not able to give the noble Baroness a specific answer. Of course the war graves are a matter of great sentimental attachment to us all, and rightly so. I can undertake to discover what is happening, but I hope that the noble Baroness will appreciate that in these difficult and troubled times it is difficult to obtain an accurate account of what is happening on the ground.
Furthermore, I have no indication that the British Library has been adversely affected. Regrettably, I am not able to confirm that that is the case, but my reply is a negative as opposed to a positive. However, I shall see whether there is specific information about it and write to the noble Baroness if there is any change in what I have said today.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, whatever the professed aims of the Ethiopians may be, would the Minister agree that on the western front their forces have occupied vast tracts of the country which were not in dispute before the war? Would she also agree that yesterday they opened up a fresh offensive on the central front near Zalambessa? Therefore, whatever they may say in public, is it not likely that their aim is to destroy the Eritrean army?
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In those circumstances, does not the Minister consider that the Security Council ought to be reconvened in order to pursue the matters raised in its previous two resolutions and to impose fresh sanctions on the Ethiopians, who have flagrantly ignored the two resolutions already passed?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the situation is rapidly unfolding. The noble Lord knows that it has changed even in the past 36 hours. It may be that their aspirations will be achieved in the next 24 to 36 hours. A constant reassessment is being made. I can certainly reassure the noble Lord that the Security Council will be capable of acting swiftly, as it acted on 12th May, if those changes merit that.

Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, before we move to the Private Notice Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, perhaps I may draw the attention of the House to the guidance in the Companion. It states that proceedings on Private Notice Questions follow the rules for Starred Questions, in particular that supplementary questions should be short and confined to not more than two points. Discussions on a Private Notice Question are expected to take no more than 10 minutes.

New Millennium Experience Company: Chairman
3.17 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty's Government a Question of which I have given private notice; namely, to ask Her Majesty's Government what was their role in the events leading to the emergency appointment this morning of Mr David Quarmby as chairman of the New Millennium Experience Company?
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, the Millennium Commission offered further funding to the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) on a number of conditions. It was for the NMEC board to determine whether to accept those conditions. The chairman of the board, Bob Ayling, decided to stand down, irrespective of the conditions laid down by the Millennium Commission. The board chose David Quarmby to succeed Bob Ayling.
While the Millennium Commission is chaired by the right honourable Chris Smith and includes among its members the right honourable Mo Mowlam, it is an independent body whose membership also includes the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Dalkeith, the right honourable Michael Heseltine, Floella Benjamin, Judith Donovan, Simon Jenkins and Heather Couper. It is an independent body which acted in accordance with its remit.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for answering

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this PNQ. However, would it not have been better if the Government had volunteered a Statement on these important developments? Does the noble and learned Lord recall the words of Oscar Wilde:
"To lose one parent … may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness"?
Are the events at the Dome carelessness or incompetence? First, the chief executive, Jennie Page; now the Blair-blessed chairman, Bob Ayling; who is next? Does the buck ever stop at a Minister? And is it the case that Michael Connor, the accounting officer for the Millennium Commissioners, requested a formal letter of direction from the Minister, Chris Smith, before he would agree to release the latest tranche of £29 million, and that Chris Smith ordered his Permanent Secretary, Robin Young, to write such a letter? If that is true, is it not the case that this is a fiasco which is rapidly becoming a scandal?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, first, so far as concerns the question of a Statement, a PNQ was put down, to which we agreed. That means that we are able to answer any questions that your Lordships may have. With regard to the circumstances in which Mr Bob Ayling was replaced by Mr David Quarmby, it was necessary to prepare a new business plan as a result of the original estimates of the number of visitors to the Dome being too high. It is worth pointing out that at the moment the number of visitors to the Dome is higher than for any other paying visitor attraction in this country. However, in view of the experience of the past four months, it was necessary to rejig the plans.
An application was made to the Millennium Commission, and the commission dealt with it on its merits. It is an independent body which includes, as I pointed out, noble Lords on the other side of the House, including the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, who would, I believe, very much resent the suggestion that it is not an independent body. The commission reached the conclusion that the scheme was worth supporting. I have no idea about the detail of the circumstances in which the Millennium Commission came to that conclusion, save to say that it is an independent body which, I am quite sure, acted in accordance with its remit.
Lord Jopling: My Lords, has the Minister had time to look at the stinging criticism set out in a Motion in another place, signed by a former Labour Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip and by at least six former Labour Ministers and three chairmen of Select Committees in another place? Following the sacking of Mr Ayling, does he not believe that it would be wiser if he himself were to consider handing over responsibility for this major enterprise to someone who has experience of running such a thing?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the enterprise is run by a commercial corporation, chaired until yesterday by Bob Ayling, who, in running businesses, rightly commands the respect of many people. It is
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now chaired by Mr David Quarmby, who is also chairman of the British Tourist Authority and the Docklands Light Railway. He also commands respect in the commercial world. The arrangements that were made for the running of the Millennium Dome involved setting up a company, and that was done under the previous administration. It was the right way to proceed because it meant that the disciplines of the market-place determined how the Dome was run. We believe that that is the correct structure.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, the Minister is distancing himself totally from this matter. Can the Government really do that? Surely the reality is that the only rescuer likely to be available was the lottery fund, and no one could have relied totally on that. That board—commercial or not—must have had cash flow forecasts and figures which demonstrated that at some point it would run out of the ability to meet its liabilities. It went to the fund for assistance, knowing that it might not receive that assistance. Can the Minister tell us when the board knew that it was likely to run out of its ability to meet its liabilities, and what the date was when that would have happened? Is it possible that it might, at least technically, have been trading while insolvent?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, plainly it was a matter for the board to determine whether or not it was trading while insolvent. It is a board of responsible people who, I am quite sure, would come to the right and honourable decision in that respect. The National Lottery Fund was the funder, just as is a bank of such an operation. The NMEC company had to make a convincing case to the Millennium Commission in order to receive further funding, which it did.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, whatever their reaction to the basic concept of the Dome—and I confess that I myself had deep misgivings about it—many noble Lords and people outside the House felt that we needed to support what the noble and learned Lord was doing to make it a success. However, should we not now realise and recognise that the attendance figures have been disappointing, as has the reaction of large numbers of people who have visited the Dome, although some have enjoyed the experience?
It is also unlikely that at the end of the year this venture will be the success that we all hoped it would be. We are now in a situation where an additional sum of money has been committed. Whether that money was dependent on the removal of the chairman and whether he has been a scapegoat is open to argument. Undoubtedly, all that will come out in the books that will be written about this whole matter some years hence, or perhaps sooner.
However, as the spokesman on these Benches, I must say that we are concerned about the amount of lottery money that has been invested in this venture. Additional lottery money has now been committed and others will suffer as a result. Can the noble and learned Lord say what the future of the Dome will be

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if further setbacks are experienced? Will more money be put into it from lottery funds? It would be reassuring to hear his answer.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, with respect to the noble Viscount, I believe that he has understated the progress of the project so far. As independent polls have shown, it has received satisfaction ratings of between 80 per cent and 90 per cent. Yes, it has fewer visitors than were envisaged in the original projections, but as a business it still attracts more visitors than any other paying visitor attraction in this country. That it is perceived to be a commercial success can be seen from the fact that two highly expert commercial companies are keen to take it over from 1st January next year when the exhibition comes to an end.
So far as concerns lottery funding, the New Opportunities Fund has made it clear that the provision of more funding to the Dome will not affect any of its programmes.
Perhaps I may make one further point. When the Millennium Commission decided to go ahead with this project under the previous government, it believed that one reason for doing so was the legacy that it would leave for that part of London: 13,000 jobs in its construction; 25,000 jobs over the following seven years; and the fact that it would attract approximately £1 billion in tourism. That legacy is worth holding on for and questing for, and we believe that it is a worthwhile project.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, although I do not believe that there is any ground for rejoicing or for saying "I told you so", I believe that perhaps the noble and learned Lord would do well to offer some real thoughts about the future. How long will the Dome go on? Will any programme or timetable now be issued with regard to its performance on which it is possible for people to make a judgment?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, obviously the situation must be monitored closely, by the board, by myself as the shareholder and by the Millennium Commission. However, a competition has been running since March last year to determine who should take over the Dome at the end of December. The competition will be concluded at the end of June or the beginning of July. Whoever is selected will take over at the end of the year. That is the current timetable.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords—
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, before this Question began, the Chief Whip indicated to the House that it was not intended to take longer than 10 minutes. Of course, as the noble Viscount will be aware, when the clock shows 10 minutes, that means 11 minutes.

The London and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges
3.29 p.m.
Lord Lamont of Lerwickrose to call attention to the merging of the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges, and the consequences for companies and investors, including pension funds, if shares have to be denominated in euros; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to introduce the debate on this important subject although possibly not one with quite the same appeal as the Millennium Dome. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, who has a formidable reputation, is to make his maiden speech. I am sure that I speak for everyone in the House when I say that we look forward very much to hearing his contribution.
I declare an interest as a director of a number of financial companies, all of them listed in the Register of Members' Interests and a number of which are investors or potential investors through the London Stock Exchange. In introducing this subject I hope that I do not have to convince the House that my own interest in the matter is not commercial but relates to the economic and financial importance of the British financial services industry and the London Stock Exchange.
It may well be argued that the proposed merger between the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges is hardly a matter for Parliament because it is not in the hands of government. But if they have decided that they have a watching brief in the negotiations between BMW and Austin Rover, as they quite rightly have, they are then equally justified in keeping an eye on the future of the London Stock Exchange, an institution of enormous importance for our economy.
The proposed merger of the two stock exchanges could be immensely beneficial to London and to the whole of Europe. The vision is a bold one. My speech is intended to be in the nature of a probing one. I am not opposed to the merger; nor, however, am I wholly persuaded of its merits. Much of what I have read leads me to believe that it has been somewhat hastily cobbled together, partly in response to past failures of technology, and also pressures from competitors like NASDAQ. The merger seems to be the classic response of the traditional monopolist to embrace a competitor.
Many of the details are extremely hazy. It is rather ironic that the Stock Exchange should propose a merger without a prospectus and without giving the kinds of detail that it would itself require from a company proposing to list on the exchange. It is very far from being a completed deal. We are not so far down the autobahn that other deals, if they come, along, could not be considered. Mr Levitt, the

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chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, who might be termed the Alan Greenspan of the securities business, is himself somewhat sceptical and has said:
"Having been an alumnus of six aborted (market) mergers in the USI wonder about how they are going to apply, and the likelihood of, a common listing and common governance structure".
There are a number of worrying points about the terms of the merger. On the German side, iX will have one shareholder with a 50 per cent stake; on the UK side there will be 298 shareholders, each with a 0.17 per cent stake. Looking at those figures, no one would imagine that the London Stock Exchange had seven times the assets of its German counterpart or that there was twice the trading volume in London as in Frankfurt. On the face of it, it does not look like a merger of equals. One is puzzled by the concessions which have been made.
I appreciate that the Deutsche Borse has said that it is going to vote only in accordance with the votes passed by its members rather than using its entire shareholding. Nonetheless the structure sends a strange message. The proposed structure of the growth stocks market with NASDAQ also seems strange with six out of the 12 directorships going to the United States and the rest split between Germany and the United Kingdom.
I agree that the consolidation of stock exchanges throughout Europe may make good sense. It is not satisfactory to have 40 different exchanges serving a single market. When the LSE and the Deutsche Borse come together they could be a formidable force, accounting for 53 per cent of trading in equities in Europe. It is argued that that will reduce costs, spreads and increase liquidity. I shall come to those matters.
But how much do formal exchanges matter? Are they going to be relegated to the scrapheap of history, just like the idea that a building, a trading floor and a lot of shouting jobbers used to constitute an exchange? The real battle is between traditional exchanges, Internet dealing and ECNs, the electronically order-driven networks. Many of the questions that this merger is attempting to answer will be decided, not by officials of the markets, but by the markets themselves. They may well turn out to be very different from those wished on us by the officials of the two exchanges who, incidentally, stand to make huge sums of money out of these proposals.
I turn now to a number of questions of which I have given prior warning to the Minister and on which I hope he will be able to comment. Under the terms of the merger it is intended that the 300 to 500 English and German blue-chip larger companies will be quoted in London. Some people have speculated that this will mean the end of the FTSE 100 and all-share indices. There is nothing terrible about that, although it is important that there should be a credible replacement index because unless there are derivatives attached to those indices one will not get the liquidity in the market that is the whole point of the merger.
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While the older, mature companies are to remain quoted in London, the exciting new growth stocks are to be in a new exchange to be set up jointly with NASDAQ in Frankfurt. No company wants to be described as a low growth company, but one wonders what is going to happen to the medium capital stocks, like Babcox. One wonders whether things really will work out precisely in this neat, clear-cut way or whether the markets themselves will decide which stock is quoted in which market.
If the division between Frankfurt and London turns out as planned by the two exchanges, what will that mean for London's initial public offering business? Will it continue in London? What guarantee can there be that when growth companies, the new electronics companies, become the blue-chip companies of tomorrow, they will mysteriously return to London? It is noteworthy that Microsoft in the United States has chosen to continue to remain quoted on NASDAQ. If the new, exciting UK companies of the future are all of necessity driven to Frankfurt, there is a very considerable risk that they will be followed by an exodus of professional firms, advisers and investment banks.
That leads on to the vital question of either the opportunity or the danger, according to one's point of view, of regulatory arbitrage. In the United Kingdom we have a more fully developed and efficient system of regulation than in Germany although it is fair to say that Germany is rapidly improving. Is Daimler Chrysler really going to want to be regulated by the FSA, which is now the London listing authority, and submit itself to all the requirements of the Hampel report on corporate governance and the role of non-executive directors and directors' remuneration? I hope so, but I have my doubts.
At the other extreme, will the new small technology companies be able to side-step UK standards of reporting and accounting by being quoted in Germany? The dangers to investors of the volatility of these so-called exciting companies have been vividly illustrated in the recent past. But if they are to have lower standards of regulation in future, they will lose much of their attraction to UK pension funds and institutions. It is a very great pity that the FSA cannot be the regulatory authority for both exchanges.
There is the question of the transparency of trading in the market. A modern market needs transparency and German trading rules are notoriously opaque. Huge block trades are carried out without reporting and in secret. It seems inevitable from the arrangements put forward that this anti-competitive practice will be extended.
The justification for this deal is economies of scale. But economies of scale do not come about just by putting together two organisations called exchanges. The real economies of scale could come in relation to clearing systems. Eighty per cent of transaction costs occur in back offices and efficiencies come from lower down the curve than from where the trade happens.
A low-cost pan-European equity trading market needs a common settlement system. Yet the proposed arrangements exclude Deutsche Borse's 50 per cent

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stake in Clearstream and also leave in place the multiple expensive settlement arrangements such as Crest Cedel and Euroclear.
What had been planned in London and, according to newspapers, promoted by the Bank of England was a larger role for the London Clearing House whereby it would have been a central counter-party for all markets and allowed net trading. As the LCH already acts as a central counter-party to the international derivatives business, which flows through LIFFE with all its financial and commodity products, the International Petroleum Exchange and the London Metal Exchange, the City was on the verge of capturing even greater efficiencies. It is not clear whether that has been compromised or just ignored in the deal with Frankfurt. But what is worrying is that Euronext, the merged French, Belgian and Dutch exchange—a competitor to this proposal—has addressed the clearing matter.
Whatever else may be said about this deal, one point, which must be warmly welcomed, seems certain. It must mean the end of stamp duty on shares. If the merger goes ahead, the Chancellor will have no choice in that matter; otherwise share trading will move wholesale to Germany.
The issue of trading platforms is to be tackled, but for many people that will bring tears to their eyes rather than joy. The Sets system, installed only three years ago at such expense, is to be scrapped in favour of the German Xetra. No one, least of all the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, will easily forget the terrible problems that the London Stock Exchange has had in recent years with computerised trading systems.
Both Sets and Xetra were designed by the same firm, Andersen Consulting, so any bugs that are in the two systems are likely to be rather similar. It has been reported that Xetra has been out of action quite a lot in the recent past, including last week. Both systems are old, and faster and more advanced systems are becoming available. This time I hope that the right choice has, at last, been made but yet another change will be extremely expensive for the small brokers, even if it is petty change to the big investment banks. Small brokers are entitled to know how much this will cost and what they will be expected to pay.
One of the suspicions about the merger is that it is driven by the needs of the large investment banks with insufficient regard for retail investors and institutions. No one admires the American investment banks more than I do, but what is good for Goldman Sachs is not necessarily good for a free, open share market. Such concerns have been intensified by the somewhat insensitive handling of the matter of the euro by the stock market. Whatever Mr Cruickshank now says, certainly the Stock Exchange originally intended that all companies should be quoted in euros. Now, I am pleased to say, that the exchange seems to have retreated somewhat from that position.
To compel companies to be quoted in euros, even though Britain continues to stay out of the euro, would be to impose an extra cost, both on the retail investor and on the UK pension funds. The liabilities of the
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latter are expressed in sterling and they are obliged by law to match their liabilities and assets. The 20 per cent fall in the euro has already translated into a significant fall in pension fund assets, which has to be made up either with the use of derivatives to hedge the risk or from other sources. Obliging companies to quote in euros would add to the risk and add to the cost.
There are strong views on this issue, but surely it is another matter that should be decided by the market. As long as Britain is outside the euro, companies, taking into account the views of investors, should decide in which currency they wish their company shares to be quoted. A modern trading platform should easily be capable of that.
In conclusion, there are many question marks against this merger. It is not clear that the proposals are in the interests of investors. It may be that the competition authorities in Brussels will be able to examine the matter and obtain some of the detailed information that has been missing from the debate. I would be grateful if the Minister would comment on the competence of the Brussels authorities to do that. In the meantime, unless the Stock Exchange stops giving the impression of making things up as it goes along, and until it provides answers to some of the questions asked, I fear that members of the Stock Exchange may well believe that they have ample justification, at least for the moment, for withholding consent from this proposed deal. I beg to move my Motion for Papers.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Layard: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for proposing this debate because our economic relations with the rest of Europe are so important to us. As an academic economist, I should declare an interest. I have always tried to do something else as well as economics, so for many years I spent time on the politics of unemployment, after which I spent some time on the politics of reforming Russia, which was not quite so successful; and recently I have spent time on the reform of education and employment in Britain. However, my main job is running a research unit studying the causes of national prosperity, which include two key factors underlying this debate: the issue of industrial structure and the issue of currencies.
On industrial structure and mergers in general, I would simply say this. When the information revolution was getting under way, many people thought that it would reduce the need for large companies and large banks, because it would so greatly reduce the cost of transactions between different separate companies. In fact, the reverse has happened because the cost of transactions has fallen, even more inside companies than it has between companies. So we now see mergers taking place in every industry and we are not necessarily reducing competition because the pace of globalisation is so rapid. The same general logic is behind the merger that we are debating today.

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A related logic is producing mergers between currencies. As capital flows have become ever easier between currencies, the cost of exchange rate uncertainty and exchange rate fluctuations have risen and the benefits from using a single currency have, therefore, increased. This is the second big issue behind the debate and the aspect on which I want to concentrate. It is a very controversial issue and this is a maiden speech. However, it is often said that if you laid all the economists in the world end to end, they would never reach a conclusion! That is not fair, but on this occasion I shall not come to a conclusion.
However, I shall set out some facts about a single currency, its impact and how it works, which may not be as well known as they should be, although I believe that most of the facts I shall quote are those with which the majority of economists would agree. The basic fact is that a single currency increases trade and capital flows within the area that it covers. Thus, it increases productivity and living standards. An obvious example is Canada. Canada has its own currency, but it shares a very long land border with the United States, so most parts of Canada are nearer to the United States than they are to the rest of Canada. Canada also speaks the same language as the United States and has a free trade area with the United States, but it has a different currency.
The result is that a typical Canadian province does 20 times more business with another Canadian province than it does with a US state which is equally distant and equally wealthy. Since trade in a large market increases competition and increases productivity and living standards, Canada's separate currency is an important reason why Canada is only four-fifths as rich as the United States. Therefore, free trade is not enough—not enough for a truly free flow of goods and not enough for a truly free flow of capital, and that doubtless lies behind some of the earlier remarks which were made by the London Stock Exchange.
If one looks at the movement of exchange rates between different currencies, it is not difficult to see why a common currency is so helpful. Ideally, of course, we would like, for example, the sterling exchange rate to move smoothly to offset differences in inflation rates between us and our competitors, so that we would have a stable level of competitiveness in world markets. But the story of the past 30 years has not been at all like that. The exchange rate has in fact been a major source of shocks and uncertainty, rather than a smooth mechanism of adjustment, and the main source of fluctuations in our national competitiveness, of which today's exchange rate is just one example.
Conversely, of course, there are other kinds of shocks, apart from exchange rate shocks, which can affect a country. The main argument against EMU, of course, is that we would lose our ability to vary our interest rates so as to offset those shocks which particularly affect Britain because of our particular economic structure. However, on inspection, it turns out that our industrial structure is, fortunately for us, very similar to the average of Europe as a whole. There
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is much less difference between Britain and the rest of Europe than there is between a typical US region—for example, the Texas region—and the rest of the United States, yet all those regions of the United States happily share a common currency.
My final point concerns the question whether a single currency needs a large federal budget. It is true that if Texas has a bust, the US federal government in Washington helps it out with higher unemployment insurance and lower tax claims. People often argue that a single currency in Europe can work only if there is a large federal budget in Brussels. However, this overlooks the simple fact that US states are mostly forced by law to balance their budgets year by year, so they need that external support from Washington. The fact is that in Britain we already have more automatic stabilisation from within our own national budget than any US state receives from Washington. It is not true, therefore, that a single European currency would need a large federal budget in Brussels to enable it to work.
The basic situation is that the new technology is driving us towards a new world in which there are more large companies and more large currencies. In this context, the Stock Exchange and the nation as a whole have to make key decisions, and I hope that the facts which I have quoted are of some relevance.
In conclusion, I should like to say that in the past two weeks I have received a most wonderful welcome in this House, for which I thank your Lordships and the staff most warmly. I have also received a number of lessons on etiquette. In that connection, I have heard that in the debates in Parliament on the Irish potato famine the potato was always referred to as "that vegetable". The word "potato" was never used; nor have I used the word "euro"!
3.55 p.m.
Lord Northbrook: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House would wish to join me in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Layard, on his excellent maiden speech. The noble Lord is one of Britain's leading applied economists and has created, at the Centre for Economic Performance, one of the world's top economic research centres. Through his researches, he laid the intellectual foundations for welfare to work, and he promoted those ideas most effectively by founding the Employment Policy Institute. We look forward with interest to his useful, thoughtful contributions.
First, I declare an interest as a director of a fund management company based in London. Therefore, I speak with some experience of using the London Stock Exchange. In my short contribution, I wish to focus on the practicalities of the proposed merger between the London Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Borse. It is far too often claimed that the investment management and stockbroking firms which act for individual investors are always against change. Just like anyone else in finance, they recognise the need for these necessary changes and plan for them. Strategically, the alliance between the London Stock Exchange and the

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Deutsche Borse is a good one. Companies which seek to offer their goods and services outside their own geographic borders often most successfully do so by acquisitions and mergers, especially as competition becomes fiercer. A combination of NASDAQ Europe, electronic crossing networks, to which my noble friend Lord Lamont referred, JIWAY and persistent rumours about tradepoint, means that the choice strategically for the London Stock Exchange appears to be either alliance or decline.
Five markets are effectively formed by iX. The first is the blue chip market, which will take Europe's top 300 to 500 companies and will trade in either sterling or euros, depending on the company and its primary trading currency. The second is a high growth market for technology companies, which will be formed on a 50:50 basis between NASDAQ Europe and iX. These stocks are expected to trade in euros. UK and German companies that do not qualify for either the blue chip or high growth markets will continue to trade on their own local exchanges. In addition, the AIM market will continue as before.
I deal now with my general areas of concern about the merger. I agree with the Shadow Chancellor that stamp duty disparities, regulatory problems and the aim of doing all trading in euros are major problems, especially for the private investor. I also wish to concentrate on a few specific problems of detail from a practitioner's viewpoint. First, there is the problem of the high technology area of iX. The high technology companies will come from the Frankfurt Neuer Markt, the London Stock Exchange's Techmark stocks, excluding the upper tier, blue chip ones, and from NASDAQ. These stocks are expected to trade in euros. We are faced with a situation where a quoted London technology stock outside the top 300 to 500 European top companies will find that it not only may see the currency of its share price change but also that it will be regulated by the German regulator. Such a change may discourage technology companies from coming to the market and will also create problems if they move from one level to another. UK investors may also be deterred from investing in them with a euro share price. Also, there may well be extra custody costs in holding the share.
Going on to more detailed concerns, there are two main administrative areas where major upheaval will occur as a result of the merger. The first area is trading platforms. The market for blue chip stocks will be regulated in the UK but will abandon the SETS system, to be replaced by its German cousin, Xetra. While the Stock Exchange system fails from time to time (the most notable occasion being 5th April this year for almost the whole day), Xetra fails too, and more often. Thus there will be one set of costs to change to Xetra from SETS then a second and much bigger cost to rebuild the whole entity to give, as the exchange press release said,
"a Common Market model and regulatory approach",
offering trading in all UK equities. Some have estimated the cost of the first change to be at least £500,000 per firm and the second step—the major rebuild—to be many more times that.
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The settlement situation for stocks is also undecided. Crest, the UK system, is a European leader in terms of the capability of its market systems and its multi-currency facility. Its lead is further emphasised by the need for the Deutsche Borse clearing system to be rationalised as it will be merging with Cedel to form Clearstream. If Clearstream were to be adopted as the settlement system, then the costs to all brokers and investment houses in the UK would be significantly greater than the costs associated with changing the trading platform.
My next area of concern is that of a central counterparty. Neither the Deutsche Borse nor the London Stock Exchange has one. However Eurex (the European Futures and Options Exchange) does, and it is part of the deal. Work is also underway with the London Clearing House to create a central counterparty for SETS. The proposition is that the UK will continue to build the central counterparty. It is then to be linked to Euronext (the French, Dutch and Belgian Exchanges proposed merger) followed by a third set of changes to create a central counterparty for the entire merger. The UK Stock Exchange, in its recent press release, states,
"It is intended that trading on the unified Pan-European market will ultimately feed one central counterparty".
Who will pay for that? And is it to be in the UK or Germany? Those matters need to be clarified by the London Stock Exchange in its forthcoming information memorandum.
My next area of concern is the regulation of the merged markets. The "big five" brokers expressed the following concerns about the regulation of the merged stock markets. They believe that, while it is not practical to have a single unified market for all equity securities, given different liquidity characteristics, it is essential to have a single regulatory system which is transparent and flexible. They believe that this also needs one set of listing requirements and trading rules with fully transparent trading so professionals can see both what securities are changing hands and at what price. They believe, as my noble friend Lord Lamont stated, that German rules are notoriously opaque and less demanding than the FSA. Brokers can carry out huge block trades in secret. Frankfurt listing rules are also unnecessarily complicated. The brokers believe it is surprising that the FSA, which has taken over from the Stock Exchange as the UK listing authority, has not made that point where it is overwhelmingly best placed to be iX's regulator as well as the single listing authority.
Current shareholders in the Stock Exchange will ultimately decide its future at the forthcoming EGM. Well before that EGM is reached, more answers on how this alliance is going to work need to be given. To get that right, first, the exchange needs to publish details of the changes as soon as possible, including costs, outcomes and alternatives, and let the market users decide the most appropriate solution. It should be one which is relevant to all sectors and not preferentially weighted against any. Secondly, iX should take responsibility for at least some of the

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changeover costs of the users. Thirdly, continuous consultation should take place which actively responds to concerns.
Not only the institutions should be consulted, but the private investor must not be excluded, especially at a time when the Government are urging people into ISAs, employee share schemes and stakeholder pensions. In the first three months of this year, more than 6 million bargains were traded for the private investor. That is not a small number and therefore the brokers and fund managers who look after them must be consulted too.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Layard on his maiden speech. Not only is he one of our leading economists, he is also an inspirational teacher. I happen to know that because he taught my son and inspired him to become an academic economist too. I warmly welcome the noble Lord to the House.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for moving this Motion. Surprisingly, I share many of his concerns. But I wonder why we are debating the merger now. Despite yesterday's decision by the supervisory board in Frankfurt, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said, the deal is not done and there are many important details to be settled.
Unlike my noble friend Lord Layard, I shall mention the euro because it is referred to in the Motion. Indeed, the wording of the Motion leads me to believe that perhaps the reason for moving it is that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, sees this as yet more "euro creep"; yet another way that the euro is entering our lives, and perhaps he does not like it. But, like it or not, this is an inevitable part of being engaged in Europe. Mergers and consolidations are part of this engagement. They are part of being more competitive in the single market. As my noble friend Lord Layard said, economics is the driving force here, not politics.
The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, is concerned about companies denominating their shares in euros. There is no question of force. In fact, some companies already do this because it suits them. Indeed, our top 300 companies are quoted in both euros and sterling every day, as we can read in the Financial Times. Other companies have secondary listings in New York, again because it suits them. Currencies are a matter for the users of the market. Exchanges cannot force companies to take currency risks.
The Motion is concerned about currency risk for our pension funds. But the merger changes very little. If investors want their investments to remain in sterling, the shares will continue to be quoted in sterling. The risk will remain the same as it always was for as long as we remain outside the euro and for as long as pension funds pay out their pensions to us in sterling. The real currency concern is that the merger is taking place when the euro and sterling are misaligned and do not represent economic fundamentals. The undervaluation of the euro and the
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overvaluation of sterling could cause misleading measures of market capitalisation. That is the currency concern.
If we are to debate the iX Stock Exchange in Parliament, our concern must be how well it will serve the British economy and British business. Will iX be more efficient? Will it be a more efficient market with lower transaction costs and more liquidity? Will British business be disadvantaged, and I mean all British business and industry? Unlike the exchange rate, which only affects some parts of our economy, this will affect every part because every part of every sector of our economy is quoted on stock markets. The uncertainty will affect our businesses. While the deal is being negotiated, there will be uncertainty and financial markets do not like uncertainty. The uncertainty surrounding this merger may have an adverse effect on output and jobs in the real economy—and that is where it matters. The fact that the London Stock Exchange is now in play only adds to that uncertainty. Therefore, I hope that the terms of the merger will be finalised as soon as possible.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, that at first sight this merger would seem to benefit large companies and financial institutions. They should be able to benefit from greater exposure, lower transactions costs and greater liquidity. I am not so sure about small and medium-sized companies. Their recent experience of the London stock market has been decidedly mixed. For them, the market has been much more volatile, with huge fluctuations. Thanks to the gung-ho attitude towards dot.com businesses, many good companies have seen large declines in their share valuations, and declines in their valuations relative to their continental competitors.
For example, on the London Stock Exchange, the recent PE ratio for consumer durables has been about 8.9, whereas in Germany it has been 11, and in France it has been 14. That has caused some medium-sized companies to seek to withdraw from the London Stock Exchange by selling out to private equity funds. We are seeing quite a lot of activity in that area. Will this merger change any of that? Will it provide them with a better or larger PE ratio? Like other noble Lords, I am anxious to see.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, I too have concerns about the implications of this merger and its impact on our economy. Will it be a suitable market for the investment of our pension funds? If the iX is to be a privately owned, centrally organised monopoly market, it may offer our pension funds a poor deal. It must be an efficiently run, competitive market because those competitive markets make money for the participants. That is what I should like to see. Those matters of corporate governance and competition must be clarified and they must be got right.
Will there be access for the small investor and the small broker? There will have to be a common technology platform in the iX market, and the costs of changing over to the common system would be considerable. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, explained that.

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Then, firms will have the cost of adapting to whatever settlement system the providers of settlement services decide on. That is where the main costs lie. Those costs may be prohibitive for the small investor and broker.
There are other matters to be agreed. Will there be common accounting? Accounting is different in the UK from in Germany. There was a report in the newspapers last Thursday that regulators had agreed a common set of accounts for listing on stock exchanges anywhere in the world. That may be good news, but I do not advise noble Lords to hold their breath because the committee charged with carrying out that work was set up in 1973.
That leads me on to regulation. There will obviously have to be some harmonisation. Regulatory rules in Britain and Germany are different, but they are converging. But the ethos is different too. There cannot be a dual system. I imagine that the FSA will continue to operate in much the same way, but on a larger canvas. There will have to be broad agreement, not only on the rules of market behaviour but also on the level of consumer protection, education and information. I assume and hope that the regulators are already talking to each other about that. I hope also that the lawyers are talking too because, as we have recently learned, there are differences in the takeover codes. For example, in Germany, the code demands that employees are informed about the likely effect on jobs in the event of a takeover. Here in Britain, the code hardly makes any reference to workers. How will that difference in attitude be reconciled without any reduction in standards of consumer protection and tolerance of market abuse?
The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, is right also about stamp duty. That will have to be addressed. Duty is payable on UK shares wherever they are traded. However the ADR loophole which enables British shares to be traded in New York has operated for some 10 years, I think. Will there be a similar loophole in Frankfurt or, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said, will stamp duty have to be abolished? What index is used and how it is determined is also important. Not being in the main index has significant implications for investors and, more importantly, for companies, whether they are in or out of it.
I am not really sure of the value of debating this merger in Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said that few of these questions are matters for the Government. This is a merger—and merger matters are largely for the competition authorities, the regulators, the shareholders, the staff and directors of the companies themselves. That is where it needs to be discussed.
We want to see the information memorandum, normally prepared for the shareholders involved in a merger, because that memorandum should address and clarify the concerns which the noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Northbrook, and I share. I look forward to reading it.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for introducing this debate. It timely. I believe that we should discuss this issue way before all the conditions have been settled so we can express the doubts and reservations that we have. That may help those concerned to do a better job.
Secondly, I must warmly welcome my long-time friend and colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Layard. Among his many achievements is that he survived a couple of lectures I gave him on price theory. It does not seem to have done him much harm and he has gone from strength to strength, so he is fairly robust.
I should declare a small interest. I am a non-executive director of a small City firm, Hythe Securities, which trades in Eurobonds. Do not ask me how, but I am a non-executive director of that firm.
In terms of economic theory, mergers are seldom economically efficient. Every time economists study mergers, they find that they give tremendous help to the managers but never help the shareholders and very seldom help the consumers. They are fashionable and all sorts of City firms make a lot of money out of mergers, acquisition business and so on. But seldom can we subscribe to a Darwinian notion that mergers take place for efficiency considerations or because the more efficient firms take over the less efficient ones. Normally, the cash-rich, less efficient firm takes over the rapidly growing, cash-strapped firm. That is very often the case.
In this case that is not a bad analogy because we have a large Stock Exchange—historically, the largest in Europe—merging with a fast-growing exchange. The growth rates of the German Stock Exchange are quite spectacular. Between 1995 and 1998, in terms of new funds raised on the market, the German market doubled every year. While London was nine times Germany in terms of funds raised in 1995, it was only five times by 1998. We can see the way that the growth rate is going.
So there is a great deal of complacency in London and we really must watch it. London tends to regard itself as absolutely the best because it is the largest. The largest markets have to watch and make quite sure that they are as competitive as the small markets coming through. Over the past five years especially there has been a rapid growth of small equity markets all over Europe. They are very innovative markets. Although at present they are small in relation to London, they need to be watched.
One consideration about this merger will be whether the London market can make itself more competitive; in other words, if the merger were to fail, could it actually improve its practices and learn from other markets? Can it survive at the top? Alternatively, if a merger is the solution, it will need the infusion of new blood, new techniques and new practices. It is possible that the establishment of a totally new exchange for iX will prove to be the solution.
Obviously these markets have a physical location only, as it were, by an old-fashioned definition. We can now trade on any market from anywhere. Therefore,

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as Don Cruickshank said to today's Financial Times, we are talking about frameworks of governance when we talk about London or Frankfurt. These are not just geographical locations. The fact that stocks are being traded on the Frankfurt market does not reduce the number of jobs in London. That is not a relevant consideration. We must consider what kind of efficient combinations can emerge as a result of the merger.
There is also one very important point that we ought to bear in mind. Stock markets are agents only; they are intermediaries. The fact that they have to be efficient is in all our interests. The more efficient they are, the more our savings will come back to us in the form of pensions and so on. So it is in all our interests that markets are efficient and deal in low-cost transactions. I do not care where my pension fund puts its money as long as it gets me a large return. I do not care about the colour of the currency in which it trades or where it puts money: I want my pension fund to give me an income that will keep me happy as and when I retire. Therefore, to that extent, I consider the question of which currency markets trade in to be a purely technical one and of no significance.
We are talking about smart people; they should know how to hedge against exchange rate risks. If they do not, they should not be in the market. They are not ordinary consumers or workers; they are very smart people who trade very fast and who are supposed to know about all the instruments relevant for hedging exchange rate risks. As my noble friend Lord Haskel said, where companies choose to trade, what currencies they want to trade in or how many currencies they want to have are entirely matters for them. It is not of any concern to anyone else.
The one question to ask about this merger is: will it increase efficiency? Right now we do not know. There is insufficient information on hand to consider the question carefully. What we have had are news headlines about growth stocks over there and blue-chip stocks over here, which, when it comes down to it, are basically very cool classifications. One of the reasons behind the merger was the fact that NASDAQ was threatening to come to Europe. Indeed, one thing that such a merger will do is to stave off a separate NASDAQ/Europe and integrate NASDAQ into iX. Therefore, to that extent I believe that it will lead to a richer set of markets.
It is also premature to consider that question because this development may trigger other mergers. No doubt there is a Paris/Amsterdam merger, but there are also the Italian and Portuguese markets which might come on board with German and UK markets. Of course, as has already been said, it remains to be seen. However—this is independent of the merger—the stock exchanges have not proved themselves to be very efficient in the technology that they deploy. Basically, it is quite pathetic that they cannot get a proper computer system designed to do business; indeed, it is very costly to have inefficient machinery. I am surprised that the management concerned is not of sufficiently high quality to sort out
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such matters. I do not believe that one could afford that kind of inefficiency through technology in any other sphere.
However, we know about trading on Wall Street in the United States. There is so much trade inside the US that 97 per cent of all trades are netted out. They do not really have separate settlements, but that is not yet the case in Europe. There are far too many different markets and one has to settle bilaterally with lots of different markets. The more that markets merge, the more we shall be able to net out. That will lead to a tremendous growth in efficiency. There is one factor that we do know: convergence and integration will lead to cost cutting. For the rest of it, I think that we have to hope that the institutional arrangements that are unveiled, and subsequently the management of the exchanges, are of better quality than what we have had thus far. We must also hope that iX will be able to stand up to the more efficient markets across the Atlantic.
In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for allowing us to discuss this most important question. It is one to which we shall no doubt return when we know more about the merger. In the meantime, I think we can say, "Well, the jury is out".
4.25 p.m.
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, perhaps I may, first, welcome this debate. It is useful to have the opportunity to clarify some of the issues in what is undoubtedly a development of immense practical and symbolic significance. In that respect, I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said. I also welcome the fact that we are holding this debate in a cool atmosphere—unlike the debate in another place, where last week Mr Michael Fallon said that the Stock Exchange had not only surrendered the towels round the pool to the Germans but also given up the hotel as well. Indeed, some members of the party opposite increasingly resemble a collection of anoraks festooned with badges saying, "Save this" or "Save that". First, we had "Save the Pound" and now we have "Save the Stock Exchange". Perhaps we shall soon see a badge saying "Save our Foreign Exchange dealers" on the grounds that some of them may need to be redeployed. I still own an anorak, and would be happy to lend it to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, if he would like to borrow it sometime.
Perhaps I may also congratulate my noble friend Lord Layard on his excellent maiden speech. We were contemporaries at Cambridge, both guinea-pigs of C P Snow's "Two Cultures" experiment to turn us into scientists—with limited success, certainly in my case. So we became economists instead. I look forward to hearing many more contributions from my noble friend.
The wider significance of this debate is that it is bringing into focus—and will do so increasingly—a degree of objectivity in the analysis of our relationship with the rest of Europe. It will bring into focus such questions as the larger size of the German economy and the hugely greater size of the eurozone as a whole

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than the sterling zone. There will also be the question of the difficulties caused by the volatility of sterling. Today is not the day to debate the crisis facing manufacturing industry, but sterling is now a relatively small currency pushed between the two tectonic plates of the euro and the dollar.
Our exposure to greater foreign exchange risk has been clear ever since the euro project got off the ground; indeed, I would say that it has got off the ground successfully. Of course, time will tell but that is my prediction.
The idea that we are in the "Last Chance Saloon" as regards the role of the London Stock Exchange may now be associated with some of the remarks attributed to various people during the past few days. However, I do not think that this has been said by the incoming chairman, Mr Don Cruickshank. I quote the words of a respected financial journalist, Mr Anthony Hilton, the City Editor of the Evening Standard. He wrote on 18th May,
"People fail to realise that the London Stock Exchange was negotiating with a pistol held to its head. Both it and the German Exchange are shedding their mutual status but the capitalisation of the German market was destined to be two to three times greater than that of the London Exchange—and it was also planning to raise a cash war chest. So in a few months' time the Germans could have mounted a hostile bid that London would have found impossible to resist.
Faced with this option, Casey [the chief executive] has struck easily the best deal available for London—a much better deal than his hand would have suggested. Those who oppose it should stop and think what the alternative is. Casey deserves credit, not brickbats".
I shall concentrate on two points in the substantive part of my remarks: the currency question and the importance, or lack of importance, of that; and the perspective of pension funds, in which, of course, the trade unions have a major interest. We need to be explicit about what will happen as regards the use of sterling or the euro. The structure of the merger gives this question greater significance than my noble friend Lord Desai has acknowledged. However, that debate will continue.
By the end of next year—I am trying to keep my exposition simple—all the continental-owned companies are likely to be quoted uniquely in euros. My expectation is that many British companies will also be quoted uniquely in euros. I say "uniquely" because, although a sterling facility will be available and will be used if a company is quoted in euros, the actual listing on the board will be in only one currency. There will no dual currency listings. Indeed it has been made explicit in the prospectus—if that is the appropriate word for the relevant document—that,
"dual pricing will not be allowed",
because that could lead to imbalances and resultant wider spreads. That is the position. I quote from today's Financial Times where Deutsche Börse states,
"A company's shares will be traded in only one currency in order to concentrate the liquidity in one order book".
There could be no clearer statement than that.
The fairest statement on the relationship between the merger and the euro must therefore be that, although the issue is not a major one at the present
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time, it will become one if we stay out of the euro for a long time. One thing we are all clear about is that, whereas we could all foresee circumstances in which all trades were in euros, no one could foresee circumstances in which they would all be in pounds. I would be surprised if that contention were challenged today. I asserted that premise even before I read the article that I have just quoted. I go a stage further and assert that if someone wished to set up a new European fund in the next year, they would in all probability denominate it in euros. Could anyone doubt that?
The Financial Times has been cautious about the merger but its general assessment is worth reminding ourselves of as it is an interesting perspective. 1t states,
"at least it is a bold attempt to break the deadlocked self-interest that has bedevilled all attempts to create a much needed pan-European market".
That takes us into a slightly broader field which I wish to touch on. If I were a betting man I would say—I would have said this yesterday, but my view is reinforced by today's news from Frankfurt—that the merger will go ahead for the following fundamental reason, which has not been made explicit so far today. We have in the world today three basic time zones: Asia, Europe and America. Given that 24-hour trading will not be followed to the letter with stockbrokers working through the night—that will be the day, or the night!—the relevant trading hours for the large internationally traded stocks will be eight hours in Tokyo, eight hours in this part of the world and eight hours in New York. That is the logic of the matter.
That logic relates to another logic; namely, the integration of European industry is a fact of life which no one, however Eurosceptic, would deny. Therefore there will be three big players around the world in the sense of three time-zone players. That is the typical kind of oligopoly that exists in many industries at the present time. Incidentally, it throws up the need for parallel regulation, which I do not feel that we have.
One does not need to be reminded that at the present time many industries that wish to have a spread of investments—I refer to the motor car industry in this connection—need to look to Europe, America and Japan, not to UK equities. That is the way that pension funds invest. One could give half a dozen examples of such industries. To say that this process incurs an extra cost for pension funds is an optical illusion. At least, it is an illusion to think that extra costs will result from what may become euro-denominated prices in Frankfurt. The exposure and the volatility are no different as regards a non-sterling company. At the present time there are foreign exchange transaction costs. Therefore, a myth has developed with regard to extra currency costs in this area. Pension fund managers will have to ask themselves the same questions, whatever the currency involved. We are told that at present pension funds' exposure to Europe is about 10 per cent. That is a figure of about £40 billion out of a total of £400 billion.
We cannot easily measure trends at the present time because the relevant financial statistics are not satisfactory. Will the Government provide the figure

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for the European component of pension funds' investments overseas in the financial statistics? There is no such figure in the financial statistics at the present time. The stock of equities in this country in relation to GDP is much larger than that of the Germans. If the Germans go in the Anglo-Saxon direction, I believe that they will soon have a bigger equity stock.
I conclude by saying that I believe that the merger will be in the interests of pension fundholders in this country. I welcome it.
4.37 p.m.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Layard on his maiden speech. I declare an interest in that he has never lectured to me! He said that his speech was non-controversial. I look forward to hearing him when he is being controversial!
I make it clear that I agree with what he said although I imagine that one or two people may have considered his speech controversial, not least the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who was non-controversial today. I congratulate him on his speech. When I read it in the Financial Times earlier today I thought that we had moved into a new era of having our speeches printed in newspapers. I have the article here. I was glad to have a copy of the noble Lord's speech in advance! I enjoyed both the article and the noble Lord's speech. I agreed with much of what the noble Lord said, which surprised me considerably. I shall return to some of the points that he made. I willingly concede that on this occasion the noble Lord was non-extremist in his views. I know that I upset him once when I accused him of being extremist.
It was always inevitable, I suppose, that reference to the euro in the Motion—I do not know who drafted the rather badly worded Motion; I should be surprised if it was the noble Lord—would immediately provoke some people (both in this Chamber and outside) into expressing the usual reaction. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, did not express that reaction—although in the Financial Times he could not resist referring to the "insensitive handling" of the euro. I shall come to that in a moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said, sensibly and rightly, that many questions need to be asked in regard to the proposed iX. I agree with the many questions that the noble Lord and others have put. Without the answers, I join him in being a "don't know". We need answers to many of the questions about the details of the merger proposals.
I fear that there will be a knee-jerk reaction from some politicians. Who is right: the politicians or the market? I am rather surprised that some Conservative politicians—of all people—have said that they should tell the markets how to handle the merger. I do not include the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, among them. He deliberately excused himself from that—although he did not refer to his right honourable friend the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In The Times on Monday, the Shadow Chancellor, Mr Portillo, put forward three basic arguments for rejecting the merger—not for seeking details, but for
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rejecting the merger. Perhaps I may refer to those arguments and comment on them briefly. All three arguments have been referred to, of course, by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. He obviously does not take instructions on these matters but, nevertheless, he has read what his right honourable friend said.
Mr Portillo's first argument was that hi-tech stocks will move to Frankfurt and will involve a serious shift of business from London to Frankfurt. Secondly, he raised concerns about the German regulatory system, which I shall refer to in a moment. Thirdly, he thought that all equity trades would be in euros. I wish to deal with all those arguments, which, as I said, were also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont.
First, on the fear that hi-tech stocks will move to Frankfurt, we have not yet heard in detail how the merger will work, but I assume that, as it is a merger and not a takeover by one of the other, not surprisingly some parts of the merged exchanges will have some parts of the business. On the other hand, London is far and away the bigger financial centre; it is hugely bigger.
Perhaps many of the banks that the noble Lord has told us he represents will be based in both centres—I do not know—but I hope that he advises them from a professional point of view rather than from his views on the euro. That is an aside; I am sure that he does. I am sure that the pensions of my noble friend Lord Desai and myself would be in good hands if they were in the hands of the institutions the noble Lord advises.
Given that London is so much bigger than Frankfurt now—and is likely to be so in the future—and that it will be handling the major FTSE equities, the likelihood surely is that if there is to be any shift at all it will be from Frankfurt to London rather than the other way round. However, it is at least possible that there will be such shifts. Indeed, they are inevitable in a way because we are dealing with a different kind of market.
As to the worry about German regulations, there are serious differences between the regulation of our market and the regulation of the German market. We have the greatest living expert on our regulatory authority—the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi—who will reply to the debate for the Opposition. I hope that he will reply, not on the basis of advice that he has received from his right honourable friend Mr Portillo, but from his own considerable knowledge, having now sat through many long, tedious hours listening to, as well as taking part in, our debates.
As to the issue of the euro, the Motion states:
"if shares have to be denominated in euros".
As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, knows—as he willingly concedes—the market will decide these matters; shares will be denominated in the way that the market wishes them to be denominated. To table a Motion which refers to a fear of denomination in euros is clearly a nonsense; it is unlikely to happen.
I get confused between Mr Portillo and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, but one of them said that even if we are outside the euro zone, denomination will be determined by market forces. I think that that must

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have been said by the noble Lord; he is more sensible than his right honourable friend. Whether we are inside or outside—I hope that we will be inside soon; I know that that is contrary to the hopes of the noble Lord—the euro arguments and the euro fears are quite unnecessary and irrelevant.
Probably the most serious matter in regard to the success of the London market is the question of stamp duty. Even the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, is in favour of harmonisation between ourselves and Frankfurt in this respect. At least he wants harmonisation between ourselves and Frankfurt. Perhaps my noble friend can indicate what the Chancellor has in mind in this regard. I am not asking him to tell us what will be in the next Budget, but it would be reassuring to know that the Chancellor and the Treasury are aware that there is a problem.
Decisions should be taken by those directly concerned—the markets—and not by politicians, whether in government or opposition. In my view, it is right that the merger should happen now, but it will happen soon anyway. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said in the Financial Times, and similarly in his speech:
"A merger of the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges on the right terms could be immensely beneficial to all concerned. The vision of a market that covers half the equity trading in Europe is a bold one".
I am sure that most people, on either side of the argument, would agree with that. I certainly hope they would. We are now living in a global market and it must be sensible to move in that direction.
I hope that the decision will be taken on the basic facts and not on any false political rhetoric, especially if it is based on irrelevant and—dare one say it?—anti-foreign prejudice. We know that that exists. I am not suggesting that any noble Lords opposite have such prejudice—and that includes the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, no matter how much I describe him as an "extremist" on this subject.
Certainly there is a Eurosceptic argument. I take the other side of that argument, but I believe that it would he not only sensible but right to move in that direction in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. I hope that the merger will take place as soon as possible. In my view, it will inevitably take place in the not too distant future, even if it does not take place now.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Blackwell: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Lamont for instigating the debate and for provoking what has so far been a remarkable outbreak of consensus. I shall try to be relatively brief in adding to that. consensus.
A common view among noble Lords who have spoken is that the outcome of a merger of this kind will be ultimately determined by the markets, and that the markets will prosper only if they provide an effective and efficient trading system that meets the needs of customers. There are plenty of competitors around who will displace the merged exchange if it does not achieve that position.
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There has been widespread acceptance that the principle of global exchanges is now an important one; that there are benefits to be had from liquidity in depth; from the growth in size and scale of exchanges; and from the bringing together of trading that reflects the increasingly international trading portfolios of many investors.
But size of itself is not always the answer. The question is not so much whether the strategy is right but whether, as many noble Lords have said, it will be conducted in a way that is likely to succeed. While that is primarily up to the participants to determine, I would like to add a few observations in view of the importance of this to the wider economy.
I think the most critical question now, in ads ante of the merger, is whether the two parties can agree terms that will allow the optimum market outcome to emerge unconstrained by political compromises, fudges and woolliness that are likely to cause problems later. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, mentioned that many mergers fail to deliver benefits and I think that research would say that, where mergers fail to deliver, it is often because there are unresolved and unstated objectives and reservations between the two parties. During the courtship they may give different answers to different audiences, and thus fail to get clarity in advance on where they are actually taking the merged organisation. It is particularly important to understand and agree how power will be distributed once the two organisations have come together. The issues of power are often convenient to put aside, ignore or obfuscate, but if the issues of power and control are not understood by everyone, problems can emerge.
One critical area is obviously where the operation, control and wealth creation will lie between the two organisations as they come together. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and others have said, we have to remember here that we are not really talking about physical geographical locations in the merger because we are in an environment where electronic trading is leading to vast new developments. Physical location—what is going to be "in Germany" and what is going to be "in the UK"—is much less important in terms of the operation of the exchanges than where the traders, their screens, the users and the customers are located. As we know, that can be anywhere.
That is for the market to determine, but I think most people would expect that the focus of traders and screens will remain in London. There are a number of reasons for that; not least because that is where most of the major institutions are already located. Their resources, systems, infrastructure and their people are there and nothing in the merger itself would prevent that situation from continuing and indeed accelerating. However, for that to happen all the participants must be ready to accept that this will be the outcome should the merger take place. We should not try to build in any artificial barriers, constraints or political inhibitions that could stop the merger happening, because that would cause strains, contradictions and inefficiencies to re-emerge.

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The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, among others, mentioned the importance of the "back office", the settlement and clearing systems. There again, the physical location is much less important because the most critical thing is that the exchanges ultimately end up using the most efficient settlement system that can be put together, whether it is a utility across Europe or a number of local systems. Again, given the evolution of electronic processing—"global straight-through processing" I think is the new term—the physical location will become increasingly irrelevant in the development of the systems. There is nothing per se in the merger that would prevent that happening, so long as vested interests do not try to stop it happening in fixed locations in one place or another.
The other aspect of power that is important, as some other speakers have suggested, is that the power to set the rules lies outside the exchanges themselves. This is an area where we need greater clarity in order to understand what the future of the merger would be. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and others have said, efficient markets clearly need the right balance between, on the one hand, transparency and, on the other hand, the avoidance of undue burdens being placed on the listing companies and the traders. I think it is also important, given the tradition that we have in the United Kingdom, that the markets continue to allow the effective operation of takeover rules and the corporate activity which is important to economic efficiency.
Given all that, I think that the market participants will want reassurance that the volume market, the large stocks, will continue to operate within the successful and open United Kingdom regulatory framework that has evolved and that this will not be distorted by compromises or harmonisations that introduce some of the distortions and the lack of transparency that has perhaps characterised some of the continental exchanges, or that places barriers in the way of takeover activity.
The regulations, as has been said, are equally important for the proposed smaller company exchange, where over-rigid listing rules could block the raising of new capital. If, as is suggested, that is to operate under German regulation initially, then in this country we need to be fully satisfied that such regulation will meet the needs of United Kingdom companies and United Kingdom investors in high-risk and high-tech shares.
We also need to understand, if we can, at this point rather than leaving it until later, what the ultimate objective is, in terms of separate regulation in these two markets: whether the intent would be to bring them together ultimately under some common regulatory framework to allow shares to move from one to the other, and to have some harmonisation. Would it ultimately be acceptable if it proves to be the FSA which provides that control? If the very clear intent is to keep them separate, then we need to understand that this implication is creating two
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markets which ultimately may well be competitive rather than complementary. Those issues need to be explored rather than left under the carpet.
Finally, alongside regulation another critical power concerns tax policy. My noble friend mentioned that the United Kingdom risks being disadvantaged by stamp duty. One of the powers that may be lost here is the ability to sustain a policy on stamp duty in the United Kingdom which is different from the rest of the Continent. Again, we need to understand whether or not the Government are prepared to accept that implication. All these issues of how power will be exercised and what the implications are need to be addressed in advance of the merger taking place; otherwise, if pushed aside, these difficulties can come back later and unravel the process.
On the subject of currency, as other speakers have said, the Stock Exchange itself has now recognised that attempting to enforce a single currency trading in euros, if that ever was contemplated, is not a valid option. As with other aspects of exchange, it is the needs of customers that will prevail. It is true that many United States investors may prefer to have a single currency across Europe, because to them it is all foreign currency. However, as has also been said, as long as the United Kingdom is outside the euro, it will be important for United Kingdom investors to be able to invest in UK-denominated assets, and they will want to be able to do so. Therefore, at a minimum, it is important to offer choice as to which currency shares are traded in, according to whichever currency the listers choose. It may well be, if this merger goes ahead, that the exchange will have to offer dual currency trading in a number of shares. If it does not, investors will go elsewhere.
To sum up, it is vital to be clear about the execution issues in advance. That means facing the issues as to where power will lie both within the exchanges and in the setting of regulations around them.
5 p.m.
Viscount Chandos: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for introducing this debate, I am struck by the coincidence that 18 years ago I made my maiden speech on the arcane subject of a European Commission directive on accounting by banks. Today, in my first speech since my recycled return to the House—but not a maiden speech, unlike that of my noble friend Lord Layard who gave us an excellent contribution, so I can expect no mercy from noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, has given me an opportunity to venture into similarly complex territory.
Although I am no longer the practising investment banker that I was originally, I still have interests to declare, both as the director of a number of companies quoted on the Official List of the London Stock Exchange or traded on the AIM market. I am also an adviser—in commercial rather than political terms—to a member of the London Stock Exchange specialising in "growth" companies.

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I listened with interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and I welcome at least the open-minded position towards to the proposed merger from which he starts. However, I had the impression that the further information that the two stock exchanges have been able to release since the first announcement of the intended merger and since the noble Lord first tabled the Motion, in particular in relation to the use of the euro, perhaps led to some reshaping of his line of attack.
None the less, during his speech the noble Lord voiced his well-known concern about the euro and highlighted the alleged losses suffered by UK pension funds from holding securities currently traded for settlement in euros. It is with some trepidation that I suggest that a distinguished former Chancellor has fallen victim to an economic fallacy, even when the same argument has been advanced by the Sunday Telegraph, but I will have the temerity to do so.
The euro-denominated securities held by UK pension funds are predominantly equities and hence real assets rather than monetary ones. It is possible to assess the performance of such an equity portfolio only by considering the aggregate effect of the movement in the share price and the exchange rate. Since the launch of the euro, eurozone equities have generally performed well, not least because in many cases companies have benefited from the competitive exchange rate in which they trade. The denomination or principal currency of settlement for an equity security is essentially a veil. For that reason, I welcome the clarification from the London Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Börse that it will be their customers who determine in which currency or currencies shares will be traded.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and other noble Lords have already made clear, the London Stock Exchange is a commercial organisation with no monopoly or privileged status beyond the legacy from its earlier, more protected position. In commenting on the noble Lord's Motion, I shall try to bear in mind strictly the limitation on the roles of both the Government and Parliament in this matter, although, like other noble Lords, I believe that a significant national interest needs to be considered as a result of the proposed merger.
That national interest certainly includes the maintenance and, if possible, enhancement of London's position in the global financial markets, generating employment and other economic benefits. However, even more in the national interest is to see the most efficient and dynamic capital markets made available to UK companies of all kinds to finance their investment, expansion and growth.
When my noble friends and I were still speaking from the Benches opposite, I cited the work of the American economics writer, Professor Brock, who has argued convincingly for a causal connection between the superior record over the past 10 years of the US in net job creation and in the vibrancy of its capital markets, in particular NASDAQ and the venture capital community. Of paramount importance,
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therefore, for the promotion of new companies and new jobs in the new economy is the closing of that gap between Europe's capital markets and those in America. We should not shrink from sacrificing, if it is necessary, 1,000 jobs in the City if, by so doing, some 5,000 lasting new jobs are created in emerging companies, financed by a strengthened stock market.
As it is, from the information currently available, I believe that the proposed merged exchange—iX— offers the best prospects for enhancing the provision of capital to small, medium and large companies, while at the same time promoting the best of the established strengths of the City. The prospective efficiency gains which I understand could be achieved through massively increased netting of counter-party risks should, through reducing the capital needed by member firms to support their customer business, lower the cost of dealing for all investors; as importantly, any capital thereby freed up will then be available to support proprietary trading by member firms, the trading which in large part determines the market liquidity available to long-term investors.
The separation—in both the British and German markets—between stock exchanges, clearing houses and settlement systems means that a simultaneous resolution of all these detailed issues is impracticable I believe that, in the first instance, the merger of the two exchanges is the best possible way of achieving the desired efficiencies in settlement and risk management.
I shall touch only briefly on the issue of the growth company market, which I recognise is perhaps the most difficult area for many market participants and commentators. There is no doubt that the German Neuer Markt has been highly successful. Furthermore, while intuitively the ceding of the centre of the new growth market to Frankfurt feels threatening to UK technology and other high growth companies, I believe that the more rational sentiment should be that if the strengths of the Neuer Markt and NASDAQ can be brought to bear for the benefit of UK companies, then this will be for the national good.
Perhaps I may finish by urging the member firms of the London Stock Exchange, who will ultimately determine whether the merger will proceed, to look at the industrial, commercial and financial world around them. The very structures and institutions which may have served industry well 30 or 40 years ago are unlikely to be appropriate now, as companies both large and small trade in a hugely more open and international market.
I cannot forget the views expressed during the first debate in your Lordships' House in which I spoke. The leaders of some of the country's largest merchant banks urged a continuation of banks' ability to conceal their actual profitability through the use of hidden reserves. I recall an argument that took place at around the same time with a then banking colleague who vigorously asserted that it was in our employer's interest to continue as long as possible the archaic system of a Bank of England queue for new issues in the London stock market to protect the status quo and our banks' established positions.

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I fear that, for all the traditional strengths of the City, it was attitudes such as those which contributed to the virtual disappearance of British-owned investment banks. I very much hope that all members of the London Stock Exchange will embrace the challenge and change involved in this proposed merger with an eye to the future and not to the past.
5.8 p.m.
Lord Newby: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, on tabling this Motion—and also on his timing. Clearly, events have moved on significantly since the Motion first appeared on the Order Paper. I suspect that had this debate been scheduled even for yesterday afternoon, before we knew the outcome of the vote in Frankfurt, the tenet of our contributions might have been somewhat different. No doubt, if we were to hold a similar debate in 10 days' time, or even two months' time, they would be different again.
In many respects, the background to the situation in which we find ourselves is typical of Britain's relations with Europe. I believe that the London Stock Exchange and the City began this process with a fair degree of complacency. That was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos. It was felt that we were pre-eminent in the field and that that pre-eminence was unlikely to be challenged by any continental upstart. However, a recognition has grown that something is going on and that it is something to which we need to respond if we are not to lose that pre-eminence; unless we get a move on, the consolidation will take place without us. Now, there is common consent that there was such a rush before the French alternative scheme carried all before it that we have something of a "cobbled together" scheme. That was the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and I agree with his description.
Where do we go next? It is important for a number of reasons that, having reached this stage, the merger should now take place. The Deutsche Börse has approved it; therefore, there is a body of support for it on that side of the Channel which needs to be borne in mind. If London were to pull back, having come this far with German support, it would lead to a major question of credibility for the London Stock Exchange. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and other speakers have said, there is now an increasing number of options in terms of new systems of stock market trading, which means that we cannot merely fall back on our past position. We must move forward. Having arrived at this point, surely this is the way in which the Stock Exchange should move forward.
That said, there are clearly a number of concerns and questions that need to be addressed both before the merger is consummated and after it has taken place. One question that spans both time-scales relates to the regulatory framework. There clearly is a different regulatory framework in Frankfurt. It has lower disclosure standards and, by common consent, a less consumer-friendly style than the London Stock
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Exchange. Although there is some movement in a London-ward direction in Frankfurt, clearly it will not lead, before any merger is completed, to a single regulatory framework. To put it no higher, it is slightly odd that within the single body of the merged exchange the listing requirements and virtually every aspect of the way in which a stock is treated will depend on exactly where it will be listed first. That seems unsustainable in the longer term.
There is also a question of taxation and stamp duty. When one discusses individual taxes rather than the generality of tax harmonisation, it is noticeable how many times we find arguments in favour of a common European tax level, and this is no exception.
The matter arises also of how to deal with smaller and medium-sized stocks—which is not wholly clear at present. Within the question of scale is a further question of consultation. It is clear that the very large players have been consulted up to now but the medium and small players in London have not. That does not seem a satisfactory way of proceeding. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, talked about consulting the private investor and about the large numbers of people who were taking up ISAs and similar financial products. I suspect that consulting them on some of these issues is impractical and is unlikely to lead to a clear view being expressed. The general principle of maximum consultation has been debated a great deal in relation the FSA. It has not been followed in this case to the extent that we would wish.
There is clearly a question about the cost of switching from the existing settlement system to the Xetra system and who bears the changeover costs. There is a lack of clarity regarding the possibility of, as it were, centralised funding from the exchange to help the smaller traders.
There is the issue of which shares will be quoted in euros, and whether having some quoted in euros and some in sterling will cause difficulties. I have a very simple answer, but I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, would find it acceptable. We shall see whether it proves in reality to be a problem—some speakers have suggested that it will and others that it will not.
There is also the question of whether the merger will lead to Frankfurt or London being pre-eminent. Considerable concern has been expressed in London that the longer-term effect of the merger will be that the bulk of business will go to Frankfurt, because that is where the new stocks will be traded, including the high-tech stocks. There have also been fears in Frankfurt that it is in a sense giving up the scope for growth: that companies will opt to list stocks in London when they have the option. That possibility was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. Normally, when both sides express equally strongly held fears that the other side has the advantage, one has an instinctive sense that they have got it just about right. One can only hope that they have in this case, but it is difficult to know at this point.

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A matter of considerable concern to individual consumers is the index that will be used. Given the growth of tracker funds in particular, if a new index is adopted there will at the very least be a big re-education job to be done.
All these issues are ones with which Don Cruickshank is now grappling. Anyone who has followed his career up to now would probably agree that he has the ability both to see the big picture and to grapple with the details, which suggests that he will do it very well.
Stepping back from the short term, there are one or two broader lessons or features of this episode that I should like to draw to your Lordships' attention. First, there is the generally accepted view that a consolidation of Europe's stock exchanges must make sense—that 40 is simply too many. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, and the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, referred to the gains in terms of efficiency. In the single European market a consolidation of exchanges will make mergers and acquisitions across Europe easier, and it will be easier for individuals to hold shares. That makes a tremendous amount of sense.
A point that is relevant not just here but to a number of other developments within the EU is that the impetus for this European movement is not coming from an over-powerful Commission in Brussels or from the Council or the European Parliament. It is coming from American merchant banks. When discussing, as I am sure we shall in the months ahead, the future of the various aspects of the European economy, we shall need to give considerable weight to market pressure rather than merely the views of politicians. Politicians—and we all fall into this category—are coming very late to this issue. We were not debating it six months ago. In a sense, we are now following the market. In a number of economic issues that is a good principle.
If we accept that consolidation in Europe makes sense, and that it should be market driven, but if we see a broader consolidation than at present, it must make sense to have a single regulatory platform. Therefore, while I do not suggest that we move to that in the short term—this is particularly heartfelt for those of us who have just gone through the Financial Services Bill—there will come a time when it makes sense to be looking at a European framework document so that we do not have long arguments about exactly what is happening in Frankfurt, Paris or London. I can see that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is already looking forward to that day.
This has been a useful debate. The exact shape of the exchanges in London and across Europe must be market-driven. But one of the roles of this House is to give voice to the concerns expressed by those who are affected by economic and social change. It is also the case that, where there is a regulatory role to play, we have spent a great deal of time thinking about how to achieve a fair and transparent system. I hope that in this debate we have achieved the first of those purposes. A detailed examination of the revised regulatory requirements is, I am glad to say, for another day.
5.20 p.m.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for introducing this timely debate. Many noble Lords who had the good luck to take part in the proceedings on the Financial Services and Markets Bill will be aware that this subject emerged in the course of those debates.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, perhaps it could be described as "grown men weeping"
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, many noble Lords have illuminated this subject with their contributions, perhaps none more so than the noble Lord, Lord Layard. I congratulate him on a marvellous maiden speech. The noble Lord is a great addition to your Lordships' House, and I hope that he will play a full part in its deliberations. The noble Lord exhibited great judgment in making one point very clear. As proof of that, it is precisely on that point that I wish to concentrate my remarks. The noble Lord spoke of the logic of globalisation which underlay the merger. He also spoke of the "related logic" of the merger of currencies. It is on the historic inevitability of the merger described by the noble Lord that I concentrate my observations. The same material determinism was reflected in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, who said that mergers and consolidations were inevitable.
What are those who have Britain's interests at heart, including all noble Lords present this afternoon, to make of this merger? Is it true, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, suggested, that this merger is nothing to do with Parliament or the Government; or is it true, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell said, that the merger has wider implications for the economy; or is it the case, as the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, said, that there is a vital national interest at stake? Why has the merger struck such a chord in the minds of so many people? This is a dress rehearsal for what promises to be the most contentious debate of modern times about Britain's place in Europe and whether or not it should join the euro. When the time comes for that great national debate, the proponents of integration will put forward the very arguments that we hear in relation to this issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Layard, made the link explicit, for which I am grateful. This debate is a potent symbol of things to come. The financial services industry is a modern miracle. To my knowledge, it is the only UK industry in which Britain leads a global market. Yet the chairman of the London Stock Exchange, the jewel in the crown of British industry, tells us that Britain cannot make it on its own. He says that,
"the London Stock Exchange could not go it alone".
In evidence to the Select Committee in another place, Mr Kidney asked Mr Cruickshank:
"Is it implicit in deciding to do the deal at all that you have come to the judgment that the British Stock Exchange on its own cannot compete in international markets?"

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Mr Cruickshank replied:
"I think that is a fair conclusion to reach".
I have no doubt that what the chairman of the Stock Exchange says is true. He explains to us that mergers of stock exchanges follow in the train of mergers of companies. Those mergers are a response to the dominant feature of our age—globalisation—to which the noble Lord, Lord Layard, referred.
It was in 1982 that the term "globalisation" first appeared in the pages of the Harvard Business Review. There it was famously said that companies which adopted this new approach would "literally pave over" companies still trapped in the old national ways of doing things. At the time that was a controversial notion, but today it is a truism. Twenty years later this merger of exchanges is the result.
It has been said today by my noble friend Lord Lamont and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and by many outside this House, that American companies may have been behind the merger. That may well be true. Consider the view of Europe from the 67th floor of a US corporate headquarters building in Manhattan, Cincinnati or Washington. I believe that it would be to the following effect, "In Europe there are different countries with people having different habits, practices and customs. How tedious. If only those people were more similar. Then, instead of having six factories in 10 countries, with four research and development facilities, producing 32 products in 62 package sizes, we could have two plants, one R&D facility, and produce three standardised products for the whole of Europe. Think of the cost savings". That demonstrates the economic power of globalisation to which the noble Lord, Lord Layard, referred. That is quintessentially the American perspective.
In addition to economic power, it has a strong philosophical underpinning which was perfectly, and elegantly, described by Professor Sir Isaiah Berlin:
"The American vision is larger and more generous; its thought transcends the barriers of nationality and race and differences of outlook in a big, sweeping single view … and, therefore, to it the differences and conflicts which divide Europeans in so violent a fashion must seem petty, irrational and sordid, not worthy of self-respecting, morally conscious individuals and nations; ready, in fact, to be swept away in favour of a simpler and grander view of the powers and tasks of modern man".
That is the power of the economic and philosophical logic behind this merger which so many noble Lords today either welcome or regard as inevitable. However irresistible may be this logic, we can still ask certain basic questions of our Government before they give their blessing to this marriage. Such questions are especially appropriate in the light of the revelation in the evidence given to the Treasury Select Committee that the London Stock Exchange received "no representations" from the Treasury, the Bank of England or the FSA about the merger before it was announced. Mr Cruickshank was asked:
"Did the FSA or the Bank of England or the Treasury have any role in the negotiations before the deal was struck?"
He replied "No", but went on to say:
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"For the avoidance of doubt, there were no representations to me from senior officials or Ministers, officials of the Bank or of the FSA, as regards the terms of this arrangement".
A number of key issues emerge. The merger creates one exchange but leaves two regulators, two tax systems and two currencies. Taking each in turn, as to regulation the Minister conceded that the,
"appropriate regulatory arrangements for the merged body are not clear".
Many noble Lords in this debate have referred to that. He went on:
"I can, however, reassure the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, that the regulators are talking because the FSA has issued a press release stating that it is working closely with our German supervisory colleagues to arrive at a sensible regulatory outcome for iX".
However, the question is whether the resulting system will bear any resemblance to the regime under the Financial Services and Markets Bill over which Parliament has toiled for the past two years. The Government, extraordinarily in my view, say that the outcome of those talks between the regulators is "not a responsibility of the Government". But who will be responsible for ensuring a level playing field of regulation for all the participants in a merged exchanged? How can the FSA be the regulator for the exchanges of several countries and, at the same time, have the duty to look after the competitive position of the United Kingdom which is about to be given to it by Parliament under Clause 2(3)(e) of the Financial Services and Markets Bill? I hope that the Government will take a little more time, perhaps while the Bill is in the Commons, to think about the regulatory implications of these great proposed changes.
As to tax, my noble friends Lord Lamont and Lord Northbrook and the most distinguished former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, have sought to deal with the anomaly that the UK imposes stamp duty on share transactions at the rate of 0.5 per cent whereas the German rate is nil. Is our tax regime to be harmonised? How can it not be?
I turn again to the evidence of the London Stock Exchange to the Select Committee. Mr Wheatley was asked about this point and said:
"Our position is that stamp duty will over time become something that is disadvantageous to United Kingdom companies raising capital".
According to the Treasury's projections, stamp duty will this year contribute £3 billion to the Exchequer. If stamp duty is abolished to match the position in Germany, which it surely must be, what new tax will be raised to generate the missing billions? It is the question to which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, wanted an answer.
I conclude on currency. I do not think that it is wise to go over this sensitive ground. It has been addressed by many noble Lords. However, perhaps I may say how nice it would be for all those who are deeply interested in this merger if the Minister would state from the Dispatch Box in a clear strong voice—I hope that his cold is now much better—in terms as unequivocal as those of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett,

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the noble Lord, Lord Layard, and my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition, his plans for the future of our currency.
5.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have to start with an apology. The Takeover Panel stole my vocal chords last week and it has not had the grace to give them back again. If I have difficulty in communicating, noble Lords must blame the Takeover Panel and not me.
It has been a remarkable debate. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, said that up to his speech we had achieved consensus. We achieved consensus virtually all the way through the debate and without being boring. That is quite an achievement. We did so without repeating ourselves and while providing an opportunity for my noble friend Lord Layard to make a quite outstanding speech which contributed not just to this debate but to my thinking about the basic economic issues lying behind the subject matter of this debate. We must all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for making this possible.
First, I shall set out the Government's stance on the merger and then talk about some of the regulatory issues and matters related to trading in euros and pension funds. I shall give some thoughts about the blue-chip markets and growth markets. If I have time, I shall then respond to points raised in the debate.
As many noble Lords have said, this merger is clearly part of the consolidation process in European and global equity markets. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, went so far as to say that that development may make good sense. It is no surprise that the London Stock Exchange, as one of the world's leading equity exchanges, is involved in this process. As the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, said, if we are moving to global exchanges we are doing so because we have to reflect the creation of international trading portfolios. The exchanges are simply a reflection of the markets in which they operate.
If one has broader and deeper equity markets, one has advantages for companies and investors. Companies have a larger and deeper pool of investors to tap. Investors have a wider range of investment opportunities. All sides benefit from the lower trading costs which should result. Many noble Lords have said that this may not be the end of the game. It is highly likely that in five or ten years' time there will almost certainly have been moves in the direction of greater concentration in exchanges as well as markets.
The terms of the deal to create the iX are a commercial matter for the parties concerned, subject to their obtaining the clearances from the relevant regulatory authorities. Our interest as a nation, as a society—if I may be so bold as to agree again with the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell—is to look for an optimum market outcome rather than more temporary issues.
There has been reference to the terms of the merger. Much of it is still not known. Perhaps the Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Börse were slow
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off the mark in making their intentions clear. There have been criticisms along those lines, with some justice. If they are going to go ahead, and if the London Stock Exchange membership is going to confirm the decision of the supervisory board of the Deutsche Börse, the London Stock Exchange will have to satisfy its members that it represents a good deal, as well as providing the necessary assurances to the regulatory authorities. It is difficult for me to comment on a deal which is still in progress and on which many of the details are still not known. Those questions are for the Stock Exchange rather than the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, said that it would be premature for us to answer. It is more than simply premature. They are questions which it is in principle inappropriate for us to answer.
I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, in his interventionist mode suggesting that it was a responsibility of government to become involved in the process of the merger. I find it difficult to see how we should do so.
I turn to the regulatory issues. It has been made clear—the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, did so when quoting from the FSA—that the regulatory authorities in Britain and Germany are working together. They are considering the practical implications. They will both have to be satisfied with the regulatory arrangements if the merger is to proceed. However, the broad outlines are already clear. The blue chip market will operate out of the United Kingdom; it will be subject to UK regulation. It will be a recognised investment exchange in the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, wanted reassurance on that point. He can have it.
The noble Lords, Lord Northbrook and Lord Newby, raised this issue. It is not proposed that the FSA should perform a single regulator function for both the UK and Germany. There is some need for movement in the German regulatory regime. But it is clear that that is already happening. Werner Seifert is quoted in today's Wall Street Journal as saying that the Deutsche Börse is moving in that direction. He says that, beginning next year, German companies must report results quarterly rather than twice a year if they want to qualify for the Xetra tax index of 30 bluechip companies. I do not think that it needs heavy-handed intervention from the Government or the Treasury. The impetus towards harmonisation of regulatory regimes will happen on its own.
It is not that there is difficulty about operating as they are. I made it clear during debates on the Financial Services and Markets Bill that that already happens with the OM group, which owns the OM Stockholm exchange, under Swedish regulation and the OM London Exchange, which is a recognised investment exchange in the UK. It works perfectly well there. I repeat what I said when we considered amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Bill. We have no doubt that the provisions of the Bill relating to the recognition of exchanges are able to cope with structures such as the proposed international exchange.

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The details of which companies will be listed have not yet been sorted out, but no companies will be forced to move their listing from one company to another. German companies listed in Germany will be traded in the same market as UK companies listed in the UK. People in the UK can already trade German shares. They are aware that the listing regime is slightly different. The fact that shares are traded on the same market does not necessarily mean that investors will automatically assume that the same listing regime applies.
I turn to the issue of trading in euros. To some extent, the fears that were expressed in the wording of the Motion when the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, first tabled it have been allayed by the clarity we now have from the London Stock Exchange that it will be for the market to lead. After all, the stock market is there to serve its customers. It will follow what its customers want to do in relation to the currency used for trading shares. Even if the majority of share trading moves to euros, the Exchange will continue to provide prices of UK stocks in sterling.
My noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall is sceptical about that. I can say only that on that issue we shall have to wait and see. While not in any way diminishing the authority with which my noble friend Lord Layard spoke, I do not believe that issues for the UK's entry into the euro arise from the merger. The position is unchanged. It is as set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in October 1997 and confirmed by the Prime Minister in February 1999.
I turn to pension funds, which were a proper concern of my noble friend Lord Lea. If the trading currency for a particular stock changed from sterling to euros, we would not expect that to impose a significantly greater amount of currency risk to most investment funds. Already 40 per cent of UK investment fund assets are in non-sterling securities. Approximately 10 to 15 per cent of those are in eurozone currencies. My noble friend Lord Lea made a good point about the need for a new series in financial statistics and I am sure that the Office for National Statistics will pay attention to what he said.
The review of the minimum finding requirement will be wide-ranging and take into account several important developments since the original test was formulated. That will provide an opportunity for issues such as this to be addressed. Short-term volatility in the stock markets may be an issue. To the extent that the quoting of stocks in euros has any effect on this, it will be carefully considered.
I turn to the issues raised in the debate particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who was kind enough to give me notice of the questions he raised. However, some of his points were also raised by other noble Lords. He asked, first, about medium cap stocks, which are not quoted on the London bluechip exchange or the Frankfurt high growth companies market. I understand that the iX will continue to run national markets in addition to the pan-European markets. Therefore, British companies which do not
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fall into either the blue-chip or high growth categories will still be quoted and traded on the London exchange.
The noble Lord asked about the effect on London's IPO business. I believe that he answered his own question because I am sure he was right in saying that it will be market driven. There cannot be a guarantee that when growth companies become large companies they will return to London. However, the intention is to retain national markets as well as the pan-European markets. IPO's will continue to take place in London. While the pan-European growth company market will be operated in Frankfurt, it is not necessarily axiomatic that all such IOP business will be conducted out of Frankfurt rather than London.
I return to UK regulatory requirements and the Code of Corporate Governance, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, referred. We do not yet know the details of the standards which will be applied in the various markets. However, the current position is that foreign companies with a listing on the London Stock Exchange are not required to comply with all the provisions of the UK listing rules. Therefore, there is not absolute uniformity and any changes which might take place may be a difference in degree rather than in kind. As I have said, the European blue-chip companies based in London will be a UK-recognised investment exchange under the Financial Services Authority.
The noble Lord asked whether small technology companies will be able to side-step UK standards of reporting and accounts by having their quotation in Germany. Again, that question answers itself. Clearly, UK registered companies must follow the requirements of UK company law, regardless of where they are quoted and traded. As he said, the customers of exchanges take the standards of regulation into account when deciding where to do business. Such companies will have to take account of what the market wants and whether by departing from accepted practice they lost their attraction to pension funds.
The noble Lord raised an important point about transparency. I agree that there are differences in transparency between regulatory requirements in Britain and Germany. I do not know—I do not believe that anyone yet knows—whether the proposed merger will lead to more block trades. However, the intention is for the London Stock Exchange to continue to follow the existing requirements whereby members doing bilateral trades off the order book would need to report the trade to the Exchange.
That brings me on to the important issue of clearing and settlement, where there are potentially huge advantages and savings if existing practices can be extended. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, properly referred to the need for a central counterpart. My noble friend Lord Barnett made a similar point. The proposed merger does not cover clearing and settlement, but the boards have said that they consider that settlement should be delivered ultimately on a consolidated pan-European basis. They will be consulting users for their views on the management, ownership and structure of potential settlement infrastructure. However, in the

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expectation that there will be significant consolidation and rationalisation over the coming years, the merger is the first step on that road.
I was asked whether this meant the end of stamp duty. We always keep the position under review, but stamp duty is chargeable on trade in the shares of UK registered companies regardless of where those shares are traded, unless the season ticket charge has been paid. Therefore, one cannot avoid stamp duty simply by moving trading from London to Frankfurt. My noble friend Lord Haskel referred to the ADR loophole. That is supposed to be dealt with by the season ticket provision, so I do not believe that the noble Lords, Lord Barnett and Lord Saatchi, have reason to believe that stamp duty will somehow become unviable as a result of the merger.
We come now to the more technical issue of the trading platforms. I am not sufficiently expert to know whether Xetra is better or worse than SETS. The noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Northbrook, asked who would pay the costs of any compulsory transfer from SETS to Xetra. I am sure that the Stock Exchange must tackle that issue if it is to convince small brokers that the merger is in their interest.
I have already referred to the issue of trading in euros, which has been resolved by the clearer position that the Stock Exchange has taken.
The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, asked whether there was a remit for competition authorities in Brussels. Strictly speaking and literally, the merger falls below both the asset and turnover thresholds for consideration by the Commission in competition terms. Therefore, there is no power for them to intervene. As regards whether the UK or German authorities will feel it necessary to intervene, that is another matter and it is one for them to determine.
Perhaps the central question for most outsiders—noble Lords were notably impartial in their comments today—is: what does this mean for the financial community in London? Are we selling our birthright for a mess of pottage by keeping the bluechip market and allowing the growth market to be located in Frankfurt? At the moment, of course, blue-chip shares form by far the bulk of the market. The FTSE 100 stocks and the top 40 stocks on the Deutsche Börse form approximately three-quarters of the combined market or capitalisation of the two exchanges. The Euro top 300 index of blue-chip companies represents a similar share of total European stock market capitalisation. Blue-chip shares also represent the great bulk of trading in equities. The share of the market of technology stocks is about 40 per cent, although it is difficult to find definitions which are precise in this area.
The noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, referred to the success over the years of the Neu Markt in growth stocks, against which must be set the losses that have been suffered recently with the decline both in Techmark and in the NASDAQ industries. Clearly, that has a knock-on effect on initial public offerings. However, even if the Frankfurt growth market is likely to see the bulk of IPOs, even though it is true that their
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growth has been greater in recent years, it is not axiomatic that all that business will move to Frankfurt rather than continuing in London.
The debate this afternoon has been conducted notably with an absence of ideology and in a genuine spirit of inquiry and of genuine intention to contribute to the well-being of our financial markets and of our economy. The Government are grateful for that. I believe that the cautious welcome extended to the merger by noble Lords will be welcomed by those who are taking part in the negotiation. It is well known that the Government do not take a formal position on a merger between two private organisations. However, I am sure that both the Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Börse will be grateful for the views that have been expressed this afternoon.
5.51 p.m.
Lord Lamont: My Lords, I do not intend to detain the House for long. However, I should like to thank noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, which I believe has been helpful.
I believe that I should accept the rebuke of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, who said that there was a remarkable resemblance between an article that appeared in the Financial Times and the speech that I made in this debate. I had been feeling rather guilty about that and I had thought of apologising for it at the beginning of the debate. However, the truth is that I have become so used to bad behaviour on the part of the Government on matters such as this that my own standards have slipped and I have adopted those of the spin meisters who govern us these days.
I join with everyone who has congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Layard, on his remarkable maiden speech, which we all enjoyed. Unlike almost everyone who has spoken in this debate, I have not been a pupil of the noble Lord and have not heard arty lectures by him. However, almost as good, I have read a number of his works and, indeed, (dare I tell him) one of the measures in one of my Budgets was based closely on an idea about which he had written. I very much enjoyed what he said about Canada, although I believe that the logic of the argument about comparing the geography of different Canadian states to the neighbouring American states and comparing distances eventually would be limited by the theory of optimal currency areas. However, perhaps we could debate that further on another occasion. We look forward very much to hearing the noble Lord speak again in future.
I thank the Minister for his detailed replies, which am sure will be studied carefully, certainly by me and, I am sure, by others. I was very interested in the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and in his scepticism about mergers in general and not only about this merger. On the whole, he believed that this merger might bring some benefits. It always surprises me that generally people are not more sceptical about mergers. Indeed, I believe that a great weakness is that we do not, post hoc, go back and examine mergers to find out what happened. That is a matter on which I have always intended to question the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, but have never had the opportunity to do so.

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A number of speeches, such as those of my noble friends Lord Northbrook, Lord Blackwell and Lord Chandos, were based on their own detailed knowledge of the City, and we are much indebted to them. I particularly enjoyed what my noble friend Lord Chandos said with regard to the conservatism of the City of London and of the financial services industry in the past and about his memories of bankers who did not want to reveal their true reserves. Of course, he might have added that it was a Conservative government who introduced Big Bang. I believe that my noble friends Lady Thatcher and Lord Parkinson deserve enormous thanks for their far-sighted decision in taking on the very conservatism that my noble friend Lord Chandos rightly criticised.
My noble friend Lord Blackwell said that there had been a great and surprising outbreak of unanimity in this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, referred to the absence of ideology—which made me feel profoundly uncomfortable. None the less, I was delighted to find myself in agreement with much that was said by the noble Lords, Lord Lea, Lord Haskel and Lord Newby. My very good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, as always made an extremist speech at the centre of extreme moderation. As ever, he could not resist lashing out about xenophobia and Euro-scepticism, although for once I was exempted from that. If he is looking for xenophobia and Euro-scepticism, perhaps he should read the joint letter of Giscard D'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, published a few days ago. What it said about Turkey and the United States vis-à-vis Europe is almost unrepeatable and would deeply shock your Lordships.
The noble Lord, Lord Barnett, and, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, tried to suggest that some principle was being betrayed by the fact that a number of noble Lords on this side of the House favoured the abolition of stamp duty on shares in order that it should be brought in line with Germany, were we not supporting harmonisation. We believe in harmonisation by the market. We believe that it is good that taxes should converge in response to competitive pressures. However, we are against political decisions taken at the centre to bring about an unnecessary bureaucratic harmonisation.
I should like to reply to one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. He said that he was rather puzzled by the wording of the Motion. We are saying that everyone is agreed that it is a matter for the markets to decide whether shares are quoted in euros. Of course it is, and we all agree about that. However, it seemed to have escaped the noble Lord's notice that at the beginning it appeared very definitely that it was being proposed that all shares would be quoted in euros. As a number of newspapers pointed out, that was stated quite explicitly and it caused much anxiety. However, the London Stock Exchange and Mr Seifert have withdrawn very clearly from that position.
I also very much enjoyed the description by my noble friend Lord Saatchi of a conversation on the 167th floor of an American corporation. I believed that he was going to say that it was Saatchi & Saatchi,
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perhaps waiting to take over a clearing bank! When I travelled back on the train from Brussels today, I heard a speech that was absolutely identical to the fictitious one that he thought was being invented. It came from Americans, who were complaining about the national susceptibilities in Europe of dividing up the single market. However, as my noble friend said, the issue of the single currency continues to produce a big divide in British politics. The debate will continue. But I am pleased that on this subject today we have achieved much consensus. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion standing in my name.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

The Civil Service
5.58 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croyrose to call attention to the continuing need for a professional Civil Service and the role of special advisers and information officers; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my starting point is the British Civil Service. I then propose to consider the effects and possible future effects of temporary additions to its senior layers. I am glad that many well informed and experienced Peers are to speak. I regard it as a compliment that two Peers—the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Powell of Bayswater—have decided to make their maiden speeches in this debate.
I would claim that the senior ranks of the British Civil Service over the past 100 years at least have been the best in the world. Governments of all colours have benefited from their loyal and dedicated work. The tradition of the service has been to be non-political as servants of the Crown.
I had some personal experience of this when I was a public servant for a dozen years. After spending the whole of the war in the Army, and then well over a year in hospital after being wounded and disabled, to everybody's surprise, including my own, I was successful in the Foreign Office exam. Still under hospital supervision and treatment, my first three years had to be in London and in the Foreign Office. During part of that time I worked personally for Mr Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary in the Labour government of the day for whom I had great admiration.
In my next post at the United Nations in New York I also worked directly for other Labour Ministers, including Mr Kenneth Younger and Mr Hector McNeil, both Ministers of State. A few years later I was assigned to work for two years away from the Foreign Office to be private secretary to the Secretary to the Cabinet when Sir Winston Churchill was Prime Minister.
Noble Lords will not be surprised that I have retained a lively interest in the machinery of government; in the changes being made, changes that may have to be made and in the ability of the public service to work for governments of different complexions. I look forward to hearing the reply to

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this debate, most suitably from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office.
My Motion refers to the role of special advisers and information officers. It is now recognised that there are two kinds of special advisers—political and expert—the latter being recruited for their expertise in the subjects of a Minister's department or task. I make clear at the beginning that I am in favour of political and special advisers. My aim is not to try to abolish them. My concerns are whether they are needed in such large numbers; how their functions are defined and how they fit in with the operations of the regular Civil Service.
It has been recorded by my noble friend Lord Blake, the eminent historian, that the first political adviser in the United Kingdom was probably used by Disraeli. In their present form political or special advisers started in 1974 when Ministers in the incoming Labour government were allowed to appoint them within limits. There had been very few individual appointments before 1974. As I was a Cabinet Minister before 1974, I did not have one myself.
The numbers of special advisers have increased and strikingly so in the past three years. At the beginning of 1997 I understand that there were 38. The latest figure I have is 77, not including Scotland. I hope that the noble and learned Lord can confirm that figure or bring us up to date, and also say whether it is correct that no fewer than 30 of them work at No. 10, as reported. Individual Ministers under the ministerial code are supposed to appoint no more than two special advisers each. I ask the noble and learned Lord whether it is true that five current Ministers have exceeded that quota.
I turn now to information officers. Normally they have been part of the professional Civil Service. In my debate on 28th October 1997, I drew attention to the departure of eight heads of information divisions in government departments in the first four months of this Government. Some of their work was taken over by specially appointed replacements. I have seen a recent report that the press officers in the Cabinet Office have been increased in number from seven in 1997 to 16 now, thus more than doubled. As that is the noble and learned Lord's department, I ask him to comment. I also sympathise with him because I suspect that the additions were made because of the difficulties with the Millennium Dome. He was given an unenviable responsibility.
There is a particular provision in regulations allowing up to three special advisers to have executive powers over civil servants. Two of these places have been filled, the chief press officer, a fellow member of the Clan Campbell, and the chief of staff at No. 10, Mr. Jonathan Powell, who I believe is the brother of the noble Lord, Lord Powell, who is to make his maiden speech this evening.
That brings me to functions and how special advisers are expected to do their jobs besides the Civil Service. In reply to my debate two-and-a-half years ago, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, confirmed that
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special advisers are bound by the Civil Service code. He also stated that it was the Government's intention that, for the first time, the code should be made statutory. Can the Minister this evening bring us up to date on that?
What is the situation in Scotland and Wales? While at present there is no limit on special advisers in England, limits have been imposed for Scotland and Wales—12 and four respectively. In Scotland two of them had to leave in embarrassing circumstances, which is something that has also happened in England. I remind the House that the professional civil servants working for the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament, consisting mostly of the former Scottish Office, are still part of the United Kingdom Home Civil Service, subject to the same terms of service and codes. The same is true for the arrangements for the Welsh Assembly.
The vital, important difference concerning the Civil Service code is that special advisers are not required to observe impartiality or objectivity as the Civil Service is. Indeed, that is an essential part of a civil servant's duties.
That leads to ambiguity. For example, when the media are being briefed by two people from a department, perhaps in separate telephone calls—one from the Civil Service information officer and the other from a special adviser—the messages may differ considerably, one being "on-message" from the point of view of Millbank Tower. The present Secretary of the Cabinet is on record as stating that there is a grey area between the promotion and defence of government policy and of the ruling party's policy. The aim of the special adviser may be very different from the objective of the information officer. That is illustrated by an episode that puzzled the British Medical Association. The same announcement about £20 million for a new system of booking hospital appointments was made four times within a year, giving the impression each time that the announcement was new and that the money was also new. The fourth announcement made last September, in a health department press release, even brought in the Prime Minister, saying that he was that day announcing a £20 million revolutionary booking service.
There is nothing wrong with the repetition of announcements in order to keep the public fully informed, but it should be made clear that it is not new money and not a new announcement. I am sure that that view is shared by professional civil servants. However, a special adviser, acting as a spin-doctor, might have counted the four-fold announcement as a great success if it had not been rumbled. I do not suggest that the Civil Service is already politicised, but I warn of the danger that that could happen in certain areas.
Managing news is an art in which all governments dabble. They can decide when to make their own announcements, which is sensible. It is sensible for them to choose dates and to spread the issue of statements and releases. I understand that a

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programme that is now held centrally of dates of announcements in Whitehall is commonly known as the "grid". Manipulation of news is another matter; such as, for example, having sensational stories ready for issue quickly to blank out other news or opposition parties' activities. That is the trade of the spin doctors.
Last January the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Neill, reported on the role of special advisers. I understand that as yet the Government have made no comment or reply. I find myself in complete agreement with its main recommendations, particularly two of them for reasons that are clear from what I have just said: first, that there should be a limit on the total number of special advisers and that that should be laid down in legislation; and, secondly, that there should be a separate code of conduct for them, dealing especially with direct contacts with the media and relating to Civil Service information staffs' functions.
The Neill committee recommends that there should be a new Civil Service Act to legislate for those and other matters. I know that the Minister is always bound by parliamentary programmes, but I ask him whether the Government are preparing to introduce a Civil Service Bill and, if so, when?
In my view special advisers have a place in our system for two main reasons: first, Ministers need a political member of their staff to keep in touch with their political party and to carry out political work in developing policy that civil servants should not do; and, secondly, Ministers naturally want their policies and actions to be presented publicly in the best possible light. A special adviser can help in that. However, if this goes too far, a government may seem more concerned with giving favourable impressions than in imparting facts that may be unpalatable.
Another problem is accountability. The Civil Service is accountable to Ministers and Ministers to Parliament, a system that has been observed and well understood for decades. The House will know of occasions when Ministers have resigned but the faults have clearly been with officials. At present, special advisers are outside that system. Action on the Neill committee's report could rectify that omission. So we await the Government's reply to that report. Let us hope that, in that reply, there will be no sign or suspicion of any kind of spin. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.13 p.m.
Lord Roper: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for having selected this subject for debate this afternoon, thus giving me an opportunity to speak so soon after my arrival in your Lordships' House. At the outset perhaps I should confess that I speak in your Lordships' House at some comparative disadvantage on this subject, in that I have never been a professional civil servant, a special adviser, an information officer, nor, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, a
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Minister. I also confess that I have always had more than a slight regret that I never tried to become a professional British civil servant.
However, in the early 1990s, I spent a period directing a policy research institute for the Western European Union and, therefore, in a sense I was an international civil servant. One of the advantages of that period was that it gave me an opportunity to see the professionalism of the British Civil and Diplomatic Services and that of a number of their continental and transatlantic counterparts. For me, that was a most educative experience and certainly taught me the inestimable value to this country of our professional Civil Service.
I also remember how difficult I found it to explain to my continental colleagues the difference between a ministerial private office and a cabinet. The idea that a Principal Private Secretary could continue to serve with equal efficiency and loyalty a new Minister of a different political party after a change of government was almost inconceivable to them. Yet, I suggest, that it clearly demonstrates the ability of our professional civil servants to act with complete discretion on matters of the highest political sensitivity.
In this country, we do not always appreciate the value of the continuity and commitment that our system provides. It was only in comparing it with that of other countries that I truly understood the advantage that we have. Therefore, I completely agree with the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, and his colleagues, including my noble friend Lord Goodhart, in the sixth report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life when they say,
"that we take for granted what many other countries are still trying to establish".
In a moment, I shall return to what we can do to assist others in establishing more effective, more honest and more professional civil services.
Before doing so, I should like to say a word about special advisers of whom, over the years, I have known quite a number of various political flavours and some of whom I see in your Lordships' House, including of course, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. I do not see any necessary contradiction between the exemplary ethos provided by our Civil Service and the appointment of a limited number of special advisers. Therefore, I am happy to find myself in complete agreement with the present and past Secretaries of the Cabinet who recently, in their evidence to the Neill committee, argued that in terms of numbers there is no present threat to the Civil Service from a limited number of special advisers.
However, I feel that there can be qualitative problems if, for instance, special advisers are perceived as gatekeepers who appear to insulate Ministers from the advice of other officials in their department. Issues can also arise if appointments of special advisers to posts such as that of Chief Economic Adviser or indeed some of the senior information officers are made too frequently from outside the Civil Service. In reducing career prospects, it seems to me that that could reduce the morale of permanent civil servants and perhaps in the long term have an effect on recruitment.

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We should not be complacent, but I believe that the opportunities for scrutiny, both in this House and by the Select Committee on Public Administration in another place, as well as by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Neill, provide a system of checks and balances that demonstrates that one does not need a written constitution, or perhaps even statutory provision, to maintain the all-important ethos of public service.
My other experience of the past decade has been in post-communist societies, particularly in south-eastern Europe. As this Motion refers to the professional Civil Service, I should like to say something about that aspect of civil service. In south-eastern Europe I have seen the central problem of developing a professional civil service that understands the very changed ethos of operating in a democratic society. It is easier to change the formal political structures, to create new democratic political parties, to organise and hold free elections in post-communist countries than it is to transform the public administration and to ensure that civil servants understand that they are now at the service of the citizen, rather than the reverse, as was the case under communism.
The task, therefore, of building effective professional public administrations with an ethos of public service is one of the main requirements not only for the 10 central and eastern European countries which are candidates for membership of the European Union, but also, I would suggest, for the other countries of the western Balkans now included in the Stability Pact. Without honest administration in those countries based on a professional civil service, popular support for democracy and an effective market economy can all too easily be eroded.
This country already does a certain amount to assist in the development in other countries of professional civil service structures. I am aware of the work that is done by the International Consultancy Group of the Civil Service College, the International Public Service Unit in the Cabinet Office, the Department for International Development and others; but, looking at the scale of the problem and the importance of developing healthy public services in countries, the success and stability of which are essential for the future of our continent, I believe that we should ask whether this is an area where we have a satisfactory overall strategy and whether we could not do more. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord the Minister in his reply to this debate could say whether, as we approach the sesquicentenary of the Northcote-Trevelyan report, which provided the basis for our own professional Civil Service, we could expand on what Britain is doing to help others to develop equally professional civil services.
An area in which the Officers of this House and of another place already provide considerable service in Europe, and further afield, is the provision of the procedural backbone to the parliamentary meetings of a number of European and international bodies. I therefore first became aware of the courteous rigour of the Officers of this House when serving on the
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assemblies of the Council of Europe and of the Western European Union when I was in another place some 20 years ago. I am most grateful for the continued assistance of the Officers of the House and for the welcome that I have received since my arrival from so many noble Lords, many of whom, irrespective of where they sit in this House, seem to be old friends.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Sawyer: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for giving this House an opportunity to debate this issue this evening. I also pay tribute to the excellent maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Roper. I am sure that his experience in politics, in the academic world, and in public life, particularly in the European field, will be a great asset to this House. His speech this evening was interesting, well informed and challenging. I hope that in the weeks, months and years that go by we shall have the opportunity of hearing further from him on this and other subjects.
I should like to say something about special advisers, and I want to take a fairly wide interpretation of the issue and perhaps treat it in a rather unorthodox way. In essence, I believe that it is important and essential that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet should have the benefit of independent advice in two forms. First, they should have available to them special knowledge and experience from outside the Civil Service relating to the key tasks before them and the particular issue that they need to tackle. This should be wide ranging and should include the possibility of helping politicians not just to become effective cabinet members but also effective political leaders; secondly, that should provide a link between government and party, about which I shall have more to say later.
I hope that this debate will not be narrow or inward looking. It is not just about numbers or costs or narrowly defined rules, and we should not in a debate of this kind be trapped into addressing this issue in conventional or traditional ways. The role of special advisers relates essentially to the culture of government. It is about the kind of government that we really want. To appreciate the need for special advisers, we need to take a view of the big picture, we need to take a strategic view of the issue, and we need to think about how we can obtain from the Government the best for the people. In addition, we increasingly need to look outside the traditional confines of politics and civil servants and into the industrial and commercial revolution that is taking place in the wider world. We need to ask ourselves what we can learn from the wider world to help us to do our job more effectively here. Politicians of all parties moving into government from opposition need help and advice which will not always be available from civil servants. If that advice is of a political nature or dimension, it should not be available from civil servants.

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The big picture is how we can get the most effective government for the people out there who vote for parties and for governments. In the first place, of course, it is about delivering on manifestos and commitments. The Civil Service is essentially there to deliver on that task, but government is about more than delivering on manifestos and implementing policies; it should also be about culture. It should be about creating a culture in which people feel positive about elected political leaders of all parties. That does not mean that people will not make choices about differences—that is how it ought to be—but people should not feel negative about politics, politicians and political power.
The parties in this House and in another place which put forward politicians for election, and the voters who vote for those candidates, want something more from politicians than service delivery. They want more than policies on education, health, or whatever it may be. People want pride in the political process and in politicians; they want to trust the political process and politicians; they want openness and honesty; they want respect for both the people and the politicians; they want to be heard; they want their views to be taken into consideration. These matters are not about policy delivery. They are about the nature of government and the culture which governments create to govern people. What we need to achieve these things is leadership, in the widest possible sense.
I believe that this is the context in which need to look at the role of special advisers. It is to help men and women who often have little experience of leadership to face the challenge when they enter government, to give these politicians with enormous responsibility some support and advice which, for them, is outside the normal civil service environment. Sometimes it will be special, sometimes it will be political, but more often it has to be about leadership. If we think about it in these terms, we shall make progress. Any senior executive in the world outside politics would be surprised at a debate about whether a Cabinet Minister with enormous financial, political and personal responsibilities is over-serviced by having two special advisers. I believe that they would be surprised at that fairly narrow view. We therefore need to open things up. We need to look outside; we need to listen to what people say; and we need to look at what people do outside politics in order keep pace with the growing, changing world outside.
For the Prime Minister's Office, it is, of course, crucially about leadership. The new arrangements in the Prime Minister's Office—the Policy Unit, the Strategic Communications Unit and all the other new initiatives—are there to prepare and to extend his leadership capacity, and that is very important. It is about strategy and co-ordination; it is about making joined-up government work; and it is a phenomenally difficult and complex task for anyone to carry out. We have, of course, to be very careful. When we create new institutions in which we have new people close to power, the people in the old institutions which still exist outside, who are still necessary, sometimes feel
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left out. It is therefore important with new institutions that people in the Cabinet, and in the PLP in the case of my party—in the party machine—should not feel excluded. This is the essence of leadership, and that is why leadership is so important.
An innovative government looking to strengthen leadership at the top need to find ways of including people in the middle and at the bottom. So the role of the special adviser is partly about scrutiny and accountability to Parliament—I fully accept that that is necessary—but it is also about much more. It is about a culture; how we flatten the structures; how we bring government closer to people and how we bring people closer to the Government. That is essentially the new and developing role that I should like for special advisers.
I should like Government Ministers to have the opportunity to have special advisers who particularly take an interest in those leadership issues. They could be part time. They could be from another walk of life; they do not have to come from the Civil Service or political appointments. They could comprise a wide range of people. But that is a subject for an extended debate. In the context of being positive about the new ways of working with civil servants and special advisers—both having important roles to play—I hope that the Minister will give consideration to some of the points that I have made.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Powell of Bayswater: My Lords, as a former civil servant; as the grandson, the son, the brother and the father of either former or current civil servants, I obviously find this debate irresistible. I should start by declaring an interest, but whether it is a fraternal interest in a special adviser or a paternal interest in a civil servant I am not sure. Perhaps they cancel each other out.
I had my first knowledge of this House as a civil servant sitting in the Box during a debate on Rhodesia in 1979. The late and much-lamented Lord Soames was uncharacteristically flummoxed by an intervention. I scribbled out the answer and an aerodynamic and fleet-footed Whip carried it to him, whereupon he waved it in the air and said, "Manna from heaven, my Lords; manna from heaven!".
I do not aspire to offer much manna today, but I should like to make a few points on the Motion based on my rather atypical experience both as a civil servant and, more recently, as a merchant. Perhaps I may start by saying how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for tabling a Motion on which I dare to make a maiden speech, and on a day on which I am unusually in this country. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Roper, on his maiden speech, while inwardly chiding him for setting a higher standard than I can possibly aspire to.
My first point is that I do not sense that politicisation of the Civil Service is a serious issue. Despite all the talk of "one of us", I can think of no case in the time as Prime Minister of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when a Civil Service

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appointment was affected by ideological leanings, and I am sure that the same is true today. There was a preference for men of action over purely cerebral types, and quite right too.
I am pretty sure that civil servants do not feel themselves at risk from politicisation. It is much more of a bogyman for politicians, and their concern seems miraculously to vary depending on whether they are in government or opposition. And if on rare occasions civil servants become, or even appear to become, politically tainted, there is an honourable way out. They may even find themselves on the Cross-Benches of the House of Lords.
So rather than tilting at windmills, it is better to focus on improving the performance and professionalism of the Civil Service. The present Cabinet Secretary is to be congratulated on some first-class work in that direction, in particular on adopting business planning methods and creating inter-departmental groups rather than pitting one department against another; and linking rewards with results—a long overdue change. Unfortunately, some management gobbledegook has crept in too; things like, "360 degree feedback". But I hope that we can get back to the tradition where civil servants speak and write good plain English.
Anything which breaks down the notion of the Civil Service as a priesthood, cloistered and aloof from the rest of the world, and brings it into the marketplace is very desirable. Our system does not encourage the extensive leavening of outside experience which comes with the in-and-out system in the United States. All the more reason therefore to second civil servants out to jobs in the private sector to gain experience. But they must go into real jobs if the experience is to be valuable. In my experience, one of the greatest differences between the Civil Service and the private sector is the degree of responsibility and accountability which relatively young people running a business experience compared with their Civil Service counterparts at the same stage of their careers. That is something which needs to be experienced by civil servants, and I am sure they would welcome it if given the chance.
Secondly, the Motion refers to the role of special advisers. Once again, I do not see any great threat to the professional Civil Service from them. Wise civil servants know how to work with special advisers and make the best use of them, and vice versa. But to my mind, too many of the special advisers are in the wrong places. The great majority, virtually all, are attached to Ministers' offices, where they tend to cabal, gossip to the press and intrigue on their Minister's behalf, creating unnecessary conflicts. I would much prefer to see their undoubted expertise, which they bring to government and Whitehall, spread more widely through the government machine. I believe that there is scope to appoint more outside experts, whether political or not, to what are traditionally Civil Service positions, in particular where new policy initiatives need to be worked up. That would make the most of their specialised knowledge and their commitment to
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change in key policy areas. It is also in the spirit of breaking down the barriers between the Civil Service and the world outside and letting in some fresh air.
To say that that would infect and politicise the whole Civil Service is simply crying wolf. It happens in other systems, notably the United States, without the sky falling in or the end of democracy as we know it. We need to avoid being overly sanctimonious on these issues.
In the case of information officers, the market will surely determine whether or not they are overly politicised. Journalists expect good hard news delivered straight. If they feel they are receiving excessive spin or political slant, they will discount both the story and the source; it is a self-correcting mechanism. There is indeed the problem of repetition to which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, referred. It brings to mind the case of Lord Whitelaw, who was once repeating the same page of his speech and was challenged on it. He said, "Of course I am repeating it. It is the most important part of my speech".
I add one word about the role of 10 Downing Street, where I worked for an unusually long time. It is a remarkable institution whatever government are in power. What makes it effective is its small size and intimacy. Not only is No. 10 smaller than any other head of government office even now among major countries; it is—or certainly was—the only one small enough to get an instant decision by sticking one's head round the Prime Minister's door. That is a huge advantage envied by other governments for the speed of decision-taking.
While a No. 10 which provides a strong and effective lead in Whitehall is in my experience desirable and welcomed by the Civil Service, it would be a great mistake to allow it to become too big and spill out into a full-scale Prime Minister's department, with hierarchies and a tortuous chain of command. I hope that that temptation will continue to be resisted.
Lastly, I am immensely and more than conventionally grateful for the help and courtesy which I have received from Members of the House, its Officers and staff. It is one of the qualities which makes membership of this House both an honour and an extraordinarily rewarding experience.
6.37 p.m.
Lord Patten: My Lords, we should all be grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for introducing this debate and allowing us to hear the noble Lord, Lord Roper, make an interesting speech. It was most thought-provoking, with his references to what might be done to promote good governance in south-east Europe and elsewhere, and we look forward to more of him in the coming months, as we do most assuredly of the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater. I congratulate him also on his remarkable maiden speech on behalf of the whole House. He said that he came from a kind of hereditary caste of civil servants, administrators and writers of speeches. It is a remarkable double act to have the noble Lord on the

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Cross-Benches while his brother labours as a most distinguished chief of staff to the Prime Minister in No. 10. Indeed, those interested in genetic engineering may well seek a sample from one or other, or both, to see whether there is a secret in the Powell genes.
Among the secrets which will long be kept, alas, are the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, on his long and distinguished tenure in No. 10 Downing Street as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister between 1983 and 1990. I suspect that we may hear not very much of that. That is probably in the firm traditions of the British Civil Service. However, if the noble Lord seeks to have an edition of memoirs of those years privately printed and circulated, he will find me among the many willing subscribers.
He can also have the satisfaction of knowing that he has probably had a much greater influence on public affairs in this country, in Europe and elsewhere than many a Minister. That is an enviable position for any civil servant.
I have always greatly admired the British Civil Service. There is not much that can be said about it except that there is no such thing as a bad or incompetent civil servant; there is only a bad or incompetent Minister. One of the few sensible remarks ever written by a sociologist was by Max Weber and it was so sensible, I wrote it down. On civil servants, he said:
"The ideal official conducts his office in a spirit of formalistic impersonality, without hatred or passion, and hence without affection or enthusiasm".
There is indeed a great lack of affection or enthusiasm among many of the civil servants with whom I have been privileged to work in the past. But I have never felt for one moment any taste or taint of partiality in the advice that I was given over the years. That must make it all the more galling for some of our distinguished civil servants that some among the special advisers who inhabit Whitehall in growing numbers—and I am not against special advisers, and this is not the beginning of a tirade or rant against special advisers—have begun, so gossip within the Whitehall village tells one, to order around civil servants. That is entirely wrong.
There is a proper place for special advisers. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy spelt out the need that a Minister or Secretary of State may have for someone to help him with speeches and with his links to the political party to which he belongs. He needs someone to explain to civil servants that going to make a political speech is more important than opening a bypass on a Friday afternoon. One needs that service to deal with all those delicate matters.
However, I echo something which the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, said. There is a need to have more special advisers but not the political special adviser. Each Secretary of State or Minister should be limited to one political special adviser to look after his back. I should then happily see a growth of special advisers who were brought in to do the serious
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strategic thinking policy jobs, because sometimes, in the pell-mell life both of government and the Civil Service, it is difficult for civil servants to find time to pause and to reflect in order to do that. So I should not at all mind seeing more special advisers in government.
A trade-off of that may be getting rid of the superfluity of junior Ministers. That would be a sensible way of saving public expenditure so that money is spent more usefully.
I say to the noble and learned Lord who is to reply to the debate that it is critically important that, in the present grey area that we have concerning special advisers and the lack of definition of their role, we urgently need two things. We need to have a proper code of conduct for special advisers. If there is a grey area, we need to define where the problem is and where the potential nuisance may be. In the case of special advisers, it is not possible to rely on the Civil Service Code of Conduct, excellent though that is, because special advisers are partly political animals. We urgently need a review of their position and role in relation to the Civil Service and the general public. Many of them come from the real world and will return to the real world—and that is very good—learned in the ways of Whitehall and Westminster.
Secondly, because of their particular position—they may be on sabbatical from some bank in the City, from a trade union, a public relations or political lobbying company—there should be a register of interests which is publicly available to those of us in this House and another place and also to the general public. That should contain the declared interests of special advisers who are not professional civil servants. They are necessarily birds of passage, moving from one part of the world into government and out again.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord will find some time in his winding-up remarks to respond to the request for a code of conduct for special advisers and, secondly, for a register of interests of special advisers.
I end by dealing with information officers. There has been a lot of talk about the politicisation of the information officer service. That is not necessarily true. But to a large extent we have government by spin doctors. Spin doctors have had an unfortunate effect, particularly on some of our news broadcast services. I see the noble Lord, Lord Birt, in his place on the Cross-Benches. As a former distinguished Director General of the BBC, he might like to tell the House his views on the high standards which obtain to the following situation. In the morning, thanks to some spin doctor from the Government, we are told on the news service that "a Minister or a Secretary of State will later on today say that…". Later on in the same broadcast an opposition Conservative spin doctor says "Later on, the opposition spokesman on this subject will say that…". We never hear whether it has been said. There is little analysis by what used to be one of the great news gathering and news reporting organisations in the known universe. We look forward to hearing any views which the noble Lord, Lord Birt, may have on that.

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I believe that the best people to speak for government are Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, said that he thinks that it is good to have a lot of information officers in No. 10 because they enhance the leadership capacity of the Prime Minister. One can imagine the late Lord Attlee, one of the great Prime Ministers of the 20th century, taking his pipe out of his mouth and making a pithy comment about the need to have his leadership capacity enhanced by spin doctors gathering in larger and larger numbers.
There is a warning for the Government here: live by the spin doctor; die by the spin doctor. Wait and see.
6.47 p.m.
Lord Warner: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for giving us the opportunity today to discuss this particular issue. I pay tribute to the two maiden speeches, especially the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Powell. I recognised some of those sentiments from my own experience as a civil servant.
I speak in this debate from the double position of having been a senior civil servant for about 20 years and having worked as a special adviser. I can certainly say that as a senior civil servant, I have crafted some crackingly good speeches for Ministers of all persuasions, often on subjects about which I profoundly disagreed with them. So I know only too well the capacity of the Civil Service to carry out that function in a dispassionate and objective way.
I have also worked as a special adviser in the present government. In that capacity, I have observed no unwillingness on the part of Government Ministers to listen to the views of civil servants or to cast to one side the views and advice of the Permanent Civil Service. Indeed, there may have been occasions when Ministers in the Home Office might have wished they had listened more to the advice of the special advisers than to the Permanent Civil Service on some of the particular episodes which have arisen in the past two to three years.
In my experience of the British Civil Service, there is a strong attachment to continuity. I wish to explore that particular issue for a few moments. That attachment to continuity is a strong feature of the working ethos of much of the Civil Service. I certainly have subscribed to that notion of continuity in my time as a civil servant. It may be that in my formative years, I was over-exposed to long pep talks on that subject by various Permanent Secretaries. But it is certainly an important part of public policy-making because continuity of policy serves as a benchmark against which to measure change.
One of its strengths is that it gives a starting point from which the Civil Service can advise Ministers on change. But for that system to work, I suggest that it requires two things: it requires confidence on the part of the Civil Service to put forward the downside of particular policy proposals; it also requires tolerance on the part of Ministers to listen to the downside arguments of particular policies to which they have become emotionally extremely attached.
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One of the problems that arises from time to time, and one which leads to accusations of politicisation, is that the Civil Service can sometimes lose confidence in its ability to expose the downside. I noted some aspects of that in the 1980s, which were certainly contributory factors to my leaving the Civil Service. I have also noted, from time to time, individual Ministers of both major political parties displaying a certain intolerance and impatience about listening to the downside arguments. Those are the critical factors in making the machinery work effectively.
However, the reverse side of the continuity coin is that we need agents of change. My noble friend Lord Sawyer exposed many of those considerations in his speech. Policies outlive their relevance. In my own experience, the political cadres are rather quicker to spot this than the bureaucratic cadres. That is why there is a continuing need for a substantial leavening of outsiders in the machinery of government. It seems to me to be wholly irrelevant whether you call such people special advisers, consultants, task forces, advisory committees, review bodies, or whatever. We do the public interest no great service by pressurising politicians to rely on the permanent Civil Service as their major, if only, source of advice on complicated policy issues in a modern society.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, seemed to cite with a sense of shock the fact that the number of special advisers had doubled under this Government. One could actually interpret those figures as meaning that previous governments have shown a dereliction in their duties in not using special advisers enough and in not opening themselves up to alternative viewpoints in the way that they developed public policy.
We must accept that the Civil Service machinery has inertia built into it. I have certainly been part of that machinery, but I shall not confess publicly to some particular episodes on this; indeed, my lips are sealed on the issue. But the philosophy of continuity, the strong emphasis on departmentalism, the lack of direct operational management experience among many senior civil servants and the gender and ethnic imbalance in senior posts, all raise considerable doubts in my mind about how well equipped the senior Civil Service is for modern government today.
Perhaps I may give noble Lords a quotation. It is one that I have given before in the House, but it bears repeating. It comes from John Major's autobiography, and reveals how unsupported a Prime Minister can occasionally feel when trying to take forward his particular policy areas. This is Mr Major's account of the 19 departmental responses to a minute that he sent them about action on the "Citizen's Charter":
"The responses from most departments were slow in coming and weak in genuine content. Some failed to address the key issues service quality, real or surrogate competition, local delegation of power and improved accountability, and appeared to believe that institutional change within Whitehall would see me off. Wilfully or carelessly the point was being missed".

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That is a Prime Minister five years before the 1997 election. Some of those concerns seem to me to have been echoed very recently by Sir Richard Wilson and his Permanent Secretary colleagues in their proposals for reforming the culture of the Civil Service.
I see no reason why this Government should be apologetic about using more special advisers and outsiders to bring about change. From my own experience in the Home Office, I believe that that can often be for the good, although, as I have already mentioned, this has caused problems on one or two occasions. We must recognise that this Government were elected on a manifesto of change. I believe that they are entitled to bring in those with such expert outside advice, as well as those with a political background, to engineer that change.
It is also worth bearing in mind that this Government inherited a senior Civil Service in which posts had been cut by 20 to 25 per cent in the two years before the 1997 election through senior management reviews in that period. I suggest to your Lordships that that represented a considerable reduction in the policy capability available to the new Government. In these circumstances, they have a duty to enhance that capability by bringing in some outsiders.
6.54 p.m.
Lord Chadlington: My Lords, I am also most grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for initiating this important debate. I should like to join others in congratulating the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Powell of Bayswater, on their excellent maiden speeches. As someone who spent his entire working life in the world of public relations and presentation, perhaps I may declare my professional interest in the way that government present themselves and their policies to the electorate.
As other speakers have said, the Civil Service is really the backbone of government. It provides the transition of seamless democratic government from one administration to another. Its impartiality is sacrosanct. I quote from the Civil Service code:
"The constitutional and practical role of the Civil Service is, with integrity, impartiality and objectivity, to assist the duly constituted Government of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Executive or the National Assembly for Wales … whatever their political complexion".
Equally, I am convinced that no modern, progressive government can underestimate the importance of policy presentation and the role played by special advisers and information officers in that process; it is indispensable.
The issues then, as I see them, are, first, the interrelationship and clarity between the Civil Service and the special adviser network; secondly, how both are managed and funded; and, thirdly, what codes of conduct apply, both during and after employment in government.
Politicians, in common with all other responsible professionals in our society, need to have the benefit of best practice advice in the presentation of their
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decisions. This is an era of mass communication. The Internet, global 24-hour news and a media, adversarial in its approach, with an insatiable appetite for comment, simply demand this.
However, the more professional these presentational PR skills become, the more difficult it is for the public—the voters—actually to get at the truth and really to believe that they know what is going on. Fact, fiction and spin all meld together into an indiscernible fog. This, in turn, makes the media even more adversarial and probing—a vicious circle.
The result, of course, contributes to the prevalent very deep mistrust of politicians and a disinterest in politics. The Performance and Innovation Unit publication, The Future and how to think about it, alleges that almost three quarters of young people now believe that voting will have no impact on their lives and they are disinterested in national politics.
As my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy pointed out, at the start of 1997 there were 38 special advisers across government. That number has now more than doubled under the present administration, and I understand that it has more than trebled in Downing Street. Previously, special advisers in 10 Downing Street were restricted, on the whole, to the Policy Unit. They now hold an unparalleled number and range of senior advisory roles, including the Chief Press Secretary, the Chief of Staff and the Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury.
The ministerial code states that each Cabinet Minister may appoint up to two special advisers—"political" or "expert". But as the Neill committee points out in Reinforcing Standards:
"At a recent count five Cabinet Ministers employed more than two special advisers".
Therefore, perhaps I may join my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy and ask: who are these five Cabinet Ministers; and what role do these special advisers play?
Of course, other countries do have similar systems to those which appear to be evolving in this country. It may be that such a system is right for this country, but I am concerned that we appear to be moving from one system to another by the back door, without any public debate. Is there not a danger of special advisers in large numbers usurping career civil servants and the important impartial, politically neutral role that they have to play?
If the Civil Service is even perceived to be losing its influence, will that not also make it a less attractive career prospect for our very best young graduates? In the same report I mentioned a moment ago, one survey,
"found only 1 per cent [of graduates] interested in a career in the civil service".
A dumbing down of the Civil Service can only be detrimental to our Government and to our country.
With accusations that special advisers are doing political work while technically being civil servants, the Civil Service has reason to be concerned that perceptions of its impartiality are being jeopardised. To find proof of this look no further than 10 Downing

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Street where two special advisers, the Prime Minister's Chief Press Secretary and his Chief of Staff, have executive powers over civil servants. The Independent newspaper described the Chief Press Secretary in a recent article as,
"an unsatisfactory hybrid, half civil servant, half special adviser".
Currently all special advisers are, of course, funded by the taxpayer and their cost has more than doubled since the election, to about £4 million.
I have, on several occasions in your Lordships' House, lamented the fact that Ministers, after a testing day, could no longer let off steam to close political allies without the nagging fear that, usually at a most inappropriate time in the future, these explicitly expressed concerns would appear in print or on television. Now, of course, we must add the Internet to that—a medium which has no editor and no accountability. The Internet is increasingly the source of stories which find their way into the traditional media. It is the vindication for the use of gossip and insubstantial rumours.
A special adviser, often plucked from media obscurity, can one day be writing for a newspaper, be employed by the BBC or a PR company, and the next be at the heart of government. It is a two-way street. Advisers may be drawn from the media and PR but they go back there too. There is limited vetting and limited loyalty. I join others in asking the Minister to address whether there is not a case now for an agreed code of conduct for special advisers. Of course we should remember that every special adviser is not a vengeful hack looking for a story to spin or a back to knife. It is, however, the free movement between the heart of government and particularly the media which raises issues not only of actuality but of perception.
And so I look to this Government, who have done more than any other to show how to manage perceptions—rightly and professionally in my view—to ensure that the Civil Service's impartial role is strengthened, clearly differentiated from political advice, the costs of which should not only be managed but properly allocated, and that a code exists to ensure those who move from the commercial world to government behave in a manner which reaches the standards we have every right to expect from those who lead and develop our country's future.
7.2 p.m.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe: My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for introducing this debate and providing us with an opportunity to speak on what I certainly believe to be an important subject. I very much enjoyed the embarrassment of riches in the two maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Powell. I was particularly struck by the reference to the need for democratisation in eastern Europe as that is something close to my heart.
I wanted to speak in this debate because the Nolan committee, on which I served, dealt with some aspects of the role of civil servants in its first report in 1995. I remained on the committee when the noble Lord, Lord
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Neill, became its chairman. In 1999 we reviewed progress on our recommendations in the first report. We looked specifically at the role of special advisers.
We had, in both cases, the benefit of a large number of comments not only from parliamentarians Put also from commentators, academics and members of the public. A large number of concerns were aired, some of which have surfaced in the debate this evening. I wish to address just two of them in the light of the evidence which the Nolan/Neill committee received; namely, the possible politicisation of the Civil Service, linked to the role of special advisers, and whether the role of special advisers is being abused.
Twenty-five years ago, in the 1970s, I was a trade union official representing staff in a range of government departments. Therefore I was able to get to know the machinery of government pretty intimately and to appreciate the role of civil servants in it. It gave me an abiding respect and admiration for the professionalism and integrity of almost all the civil servants I got to know.
My contact over the years with the Civil Service, in various jobs and voluntary posts, has remained close. I still retain that same respect and admiration. Then, and now, I believe that the country had, and still has, some of the brightest minds and the clearest thinkers in its Civil Service. Some of the contributions that we have heard tonight from former civil servants have demonstrated that.
I agree with one of our witnesses in the first Nolan inquiry who said,
"it is a priceless gift that we have an impartial, non-corrupt civil service".
That is not to say, of course, that things cannot go wrong. That first inquiry took place at the same time as the investigation by Sir Richard Scott into the export of defence equipment, in which civil servants along with Ministers were implicated. However, in general we received no evidence that in the Civil Service standards of political impartiality, or the ideals of public service, were under threat.
Since my time in the 1970s, the Civil Service has been transformed. The demands on it have changed dramatically. Management skill—this was not something that was much talked about by senior policy civil servants in my day—is now an essential feature of the professional civil servant, as is the ability to manage budgets.
There has been a real shift in culture. Civil servants now regard themselves as providing a service. Back then, I remember all the heat and opposition that were generated when civil servants were asked to give their names to members of the public who telephoned them. My noble friend Lord Warner echoed some of those concerns about service and accountability.
Back in the 1970s there were 750,000 people in the Civil Service. There are now about 450,000. To manage that kind of downsizing, as anyone in business will know, requires good leadership and good management. As government has opened up, civil servants have had to face demands for greater accountability for the work they do. I do not think that

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there is any doubt that they are a professional body of people. However, they are not just professional managers. They are expected to give impartial advice. We in this country have the notion of a permanent Civil Service able to transfer its loyalty and its expertise from one elected government to the next. Despite some ritual huffing and puffing when governments change, all governments have accepted that the Civil Service has done this admirably.
But there is also the issue that Ministers have to wear many hats. They are not just policy makers; they are constituency MPs; they are Members of a House of Parliament; and they are members of their own political parties. They have to organise their lives to fulfil their responsibilities in all those roles. Civil servants cannot advise on all of them.
The role of special advisers, providing both a political dimension and expert advice, certainly makes that easier. At the same time, as the Ministerial Code states, it reinforces,
"the political impartiality of the Permanent Civil Service by distinguishing the source of political advice and support".
However, I was much struck by a comment of the economist, J K Galbraith, who said,
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable".
I suspect that that does not sound hugely appealing to politicians who largely want to be seen as knights fighting for the right because in those circumstances the "right way" becomes distinctly indistinct! Therefore I do not think that it is at all surprising that Ministers look both to the professional Civil Service and to special advisers to provide them with guidance on how to navigate the currents between the Scylla of disaster and the Charybdis of the unpalatable.
I return to the Neill committee. Almost all the witnesses we heard were quite clear that special advisers were a valuable component of the machinery of government. Indeed, the union representing senior staff, which one would expect to voice concerns if there were concerns to be voiced, supported the system. The First Division Association stated that special advisers,
"performing their job effectively, and reflecting the views of their Minister, can assist greatly in the smooth working of a department in their liaison with civil servants".
The main concern expressed to us, which has been referred to by one or two noble Lords today, was about the exponential growth in the number of special advisers. The noble Lord, Lord Roper, raised the point about gatekeepers; that it was not only a question of numbers but of the privileged access that a specialist adviser has to his or her Minister. There is clearly no ideal number. I do not think that anyone feels they can indicate the number they think best; different governments will have different needs.
But the need to remain vigilant about the impact on the Civil Service is crucial. Its role and impartiality are too precious a part of our unwritten constitution to allow it to be tainted by default. On the other hand, it is important for all concerned, including the media, to understand the role played by the political adviser as
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well as the role played by the civil servant. I join others in believing that a separate code of conduct for special advisers would be a good idea. That is only one of several recommendations made by the Neill committee. Like other noble Lords, I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate he will come forward with a timetable for the consideration of the overall recommendations of the Neill committee.
7.11 p.m.
Lord Birt: My Lords, I shall swim against the current a little and focus on the requirements for a professional Civil Service and not on the issue of special advisers. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Patten, will forgive me if I do not yet spring out of the trap and share with your Lordships the true confessions of a retired director- general on the issues that infuriate him so much.
The British Civil Service is one of Britain's most successful institutions. From a long involvement with it from the outside, I learnt to appreciate the talent of its people. The Civil Service is still attracting some of the best and most able people in the country. I learnt to admire their shrewd dissection of policy issues, their steeliness—an oft not mentioned quality—and their dedication to public service and to high standards of probity—all qualities abundantly exemplified by the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, whose characteristically witty and wise maiden speech we all enjoyed.
In recent years I admired, but was not surprised by, the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, managed a seamless transition from one administration to another. Civil Service traditions run strong and deep— serving well any party in government is an unassailable conviction of everyone whom I know in the British Civil Service. That conviction gives us the continuity that the noble Lord, Lord Roper, rightly valued in his carefully argued maiden speech.
Over the past 15 years or so I noted with approval the path of reform and modernisation, which continues under the considered leadership of Sir Richard Wilson. Sir Richard has identified the challenges for today's Civil Service. I read with interest the strategy for further reform that he presented to the Prime Minister in December last year.
Perhaps I may underline some of the challenges that Sir Richard identifies. First, we have started the journey but we have a very long way to travel before the public sector matches the best standards of customer service achieved in the private sector. Secondly, the Civil Service has started to use new technology to communicate with itself and the citizen, but, in my view, it was slow to appreciate the opportunity and it is behind where it should be.
Thirdly, I am sceptical that the generalist tradition of the Civil Service is any longer right for a world of growing specialism and expertise. Unless the British Civil Service has highly professional functions—in finance, in technology, in human resources—with a state-of-the-art understanding of the latest techniques

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and thinking, it will fall behind best private sector practice. I have no doubt the Civil Service can grow its own in all of these expert disciplines, but it should not be afraid to recruit specialists in every function at every level from outside the Civil Service.
Fourthly, from my own experience, the greatest leap the Civil Service needs to make is to acquire the strategic and analytical skills developed by business schools over past decades and embraced by successful private sector companies. Helping civil servants at every level to acquire those skills is the challenge for the new centre for management and policy studies that Sir Richard has set-up.
In a world marked by globalisation, by technological revolution and by the so-called wicked, profound, complex problems, governments have to be able to acquire and to use knowledge and insight to look and plan ahead. I am not persuaded that the centre of government or individual departments yet have the capability to do that.
The overall challenge for the British Civil Service—a great institution of the 19th and 20th centuries—is to grow and to develop a new professionalism for the 21st century.
7.16 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I worked for three years as a bottle washer for the great Lord Beveridge when he was drawing up his famous report and afterwards. I used to hold his coat while he made many speeches to audiences. He always began in this way:
"I rise to greet you and after that, with your permission, I will remain seated".
Today I am afraid that I have to go a little further and not rise to greet your Lordships. I ask your permission to remain seated, for reasons which I hope are temporary.
I never cease to marvel at the mental and moral adjustments made by the great civil servants—referred to so ably by previous speakers—who have made invaluable contributions to the country. We are told in the Gospels that we must not serve two masters, but civil servants have to serve at least two masters. They have to carry out the orders of the Government and of Ministers, and they have to follow their own consciences. So they are following two masters. It is no good questioning them too closely about this; one will never get an answer. It is like asking lawyers, "I-low do you defend a man when you know he is guilty?"; one will never get an answer.
Perhaps I may offer a few reflections based on varied if slightly out-of-date experience. I served in four Ministries. I joined the Attlee government of 1945–51; I was Secretary for War; Minister for the British zone of Germany; Minister for Civil Aviation; and First Lord of the Admiralty. I was never quite in the Cabinet—that came a bit later—but I served in all those government departments.
I had never heard of any special advisers in those days, but when Sir Winston Churchill arrived, of course, his special advisers were popped into the Cabinet. That is rather a different approach. My dear
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old friend, Professor Lindemann, the Lord Cherwell—one of Sir Winston's closest friends—became a Cabinet Minister. That was one way of dealing with it.
However, leaving that aside, in the years when I was in those offices and later when I was Leader of the House and in the Cabinet, it never occurred to me that civil servants voted and actually had political instincts at all. They were just there to carry out policy. Only the other day I discovered that a lady who was a dear, close secretary of mine in the Cabinet when I was Leader of the House was in fact voting Conservative at the same time, It never struck me at the time, but of course they have to live a schizophrenic life; that is what we expect of them. On the whole, it works as well as, or perhaps even better than, anything else would.
Following my time as a Minister in the Foreign Office, I met Dr Adenhauer, at that time the Chancellor of the Federal German Republic. He begged me to go back to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary (Clem Attlee and Ernest Bevin) and urge them to join the Franco-German iron and steel pact from the beginning. That would have brought us into Europe straight away. I was laughed to scorn and shown a document from a high Treasury official saying that if we tied ourselves to Europe we were tying ourselves to a corpse. That was the Treasury line, which I do not think was very different from the Foreign Office line in 1950.
By the time I was Leader of the House here in 1964 I was being urged by the Foreign Office to go further, further and further towards Europe—further than the government line. The people in the Foreign Office were thinking hard: they were very clever people and they were gradually going to have a definite influence. Who can say what the influence amounted to?
Again, turning to the Home Office and penal affairs, with which I was much concerned how much influence has the Home Office exerted? It is impossible to say. There have been various ups and down in penal policy for many years, with a kind of progressive tendency towards reducing the number of prisoners. Then when Mr Michael Howard became Home Secretary the prison population went up in four years by 50 per cent. Maybe the Civil Service influenced that, I do not know and I do not think that anybody knows.
All that can be said is that over those years the Civil Service promoted a lot of criminological research, and certainly they helped in the movement which led to the greatest improvement in our time in the life of this country: the abolition of capital punishment. I think the Civil Service must have played its part in promoting thought and discussion on this matter.
So today, have I got anything to recommend at all? As to special advisers, I have never had much to do with them. The only time I was at all close to the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, when I was with hire on one occasion in the Cabinet Office. At a critical moment he suddenly said: "Send for Gerald and Marcia". He meant Gerald Kaufmann and Marcia Williams. They were called in. I do not know whether they would be called special advisers, or what they would be called, but when it came to a crisis they were the people that Harold Wilson sent for.

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We see all these special advisers, of one sort or another, and we have had all the figures quoted today. There has been a tremendous expansion. Of course I am biased very much in favour of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. That is for two reasons. I am now honoured to think that he and I are linked in a family sense. Also, he is a supreme example of how a person can face physical handicap—in his case heroically received, while others of us have received it in a far from heroic fashion. We look up to him as a "senior prefect" and therefore I am inclined to go along with everything that he says.
I must add a further thought. What we have benefited from in recent years have been the inspectors who play a particular part in the penal realm, in which I have operated for a long time. We owe an enormous debt to Stephen Tumim and the present David Ramsbotham. These two are great men. They are officially appointed but they are independent. Their job is to criticise, and I hope that, whatever arrangement we make in future, we preserve the essence of our Civil Service, and that we shall preserve more and more the arrangements to make it possible to have a critical spirit.
7.24 p.m.
The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for giving us the opportunity to debate this matter today. I also take this opportunity to join other speakers in congratulating the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Powell, on their stimulating and witty contributions tonight.
It will come as no surprise to the noble and learned Lord the Minister that I want to concentrate on the role of special advisers. I wholeheartedly accept that they can and do contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of government. As has been made plain by many of your Lordships tonight, they have their uses. However, that is not the point at issue. We have to wrestle with the fact that concern about their role, their remit and their numbers has mushroomed during the life of the current administration. In many respects the situation is rather like a ball of string. In the hope of unravelling its complexity, we can tug on what may seem to be separate strands but then, far from unravelling, the knots pull ever tighter.
The Government have argued that these anxieties owe more to perception than to substance and, as such, they are unfounded. But here is the rub. Justified or not, the perception does exist that special advisers or, more correctly, the way in which their political incarnation is operating under, and being used by, this Government is beyond the pale. The substance of concern is neatly encapsulated in the definition: a government special adviser is a study in power without accountability.
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What this necessarily implies is that the rules regulating their conduct need to be both certain and robust. In effect, it is a constitutional issue. Unfortunately, we need look no further than the Neill committee's comprehensive analysis of the issue in Chapter 6 of its sixth report to detect some of the weaknesses and inconsistencies in the current regime. I, therefore, like other noble Lords, would ask the noble and learned Lord the Minister whether and when the committee's recommendations R18 to R25 inclusive will be implemented. In particular, pending the appearance of the proposed Civil Service Act, will the Government afford the opportunity to both Houses of Parliament to debate both,
"a limit on the number of special advisers that can be appointed",
as advocated in R20 and, to echo my noble friends Lord Patten and Lord Chadlington, to debate also a draft free-standing code of conduct for special advisers, as called for in R25?
Moving on, the suggestion has been made—the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, repeated it tonight in his remarks on leadership—that the use of special advisers, particularly those in No. 10, can be justified because it makes for a much stronger and more effective centre. However, I find it difficult to reconcile the concept of a strong centre, suffused with an innate tendency to centralise, with the stated intention to devolve power away from the centre. The two concepts are chalk and cheese.
Of course, excellent advocate that he is, the noble and learned Lord has a pre-prepared defence here. In replying to a Question for Written Answer, he has argued that:
"Strengthening the centre of government to co-ordinate and oversee the delivery of policy is quite different from the Government's programme of devolution and local government reform".—[Official Report. 31/1/00: WA 12.]
This is an intriguing insight into the way in which the Government themselves perceive the effectiveness and role of their special advisers. It is the phrase,
"co-ordinate and oversee the delivery of policy",
that is so telling. This is echoed in a recent article from the Evening Standard:
"Another mandarin, a Blairite sympathizer, sums up: 'On a PR level having a strong centre is working and co-ordination in principle is obviously a good thing. But on a practical level, although there is a lot more machinery at the centre, at the end of the day it provides more of a forum for discussion than for making decisions and getting things to happen. So in that sense, nothing much has changed—.
In effect, not only the perception, but also the experience—even from those within the machine—is that this "strong centre" is singularly failing to deliver in any meaningful way. As Sir Peter Kemp puts it:
"Mr Blair may be pulling on the levers, but are the delivery cables joined up or just waving in the wind? What matters in the end is the actual delivery of improvement on the ground, not just the elegant thinking and machine-building".
All this underscores how urgent the problem actually is. It is all the more ironic, therefore, that the Cabinet Office has recently launched the most intensive investigation yet into why people are so disengaged from the political and electoral processes.

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But is not the reason already well known? In very great part, Parliament has ceased to matter. The perception— that word again—is that decisions are now made behind closed doors by unaccountable and unelected special advisers. In this, there is a,
"geography of politics in which proximity to power is everything. The title special adviser under New Labour has given the holder—whether in Downing Street, the Department of Health or the Welsh Office—unparalleled access to ministers".
In other words—rather ironically I noted that the noble Lords, Lord Powell and Lord Roper, both made this point—they perform a "gatekeeper" role. They are the grit in the oyster of the traditional lines of communication within Whitehall and Westminster. What flows logically from this is that the reins of control are shifting remorselessly away from the electorate. People sense that the tentacles of an already over-mighty executive are being fashioned in a way that is designed to bypass both their anxieties and their mandate.
Peter Riddell's article in The Times of last Monday is grist to that mill. As he so rightly points out:
"The real question is whether the Commons is able, and being allowed, to hold the Government to account and scrutinise its activities".
Inevitably, as special advisers lay their hands ever more decisively upon the levers of power and control within Whitehall and Westminster, so the capacity of all Members of Parliament to hold the executive to account is diminished. Little wonder that, as a reaction to Ministers' response to the Liaison Committee of another place, Mr Riddell commented:
"The Government has not only rejected all the most important recommendations but its response is also evasive and mendacious. The style is almost a parody of Sir Humphrey Appleby trying to look positive, but being almost wholly negative in substance".
We can only speculate on the extent to which political advisers were involved in the drafting of that response.
The words used in the Labour Party's general election manifesto bear repetition:
"There is unquestionably a national crisis of confidence in our political system".
It has not gone away; and it is inextricably linked to the way in which the current administration, however inadvertently, is changing the architecture of the executive to the detriment of transparency and accountability. Lest anyone doubt this, I offer noble Lords an extract culled from an article by Benjamin Wegg-Prosser in the Guardian in January of this year. I make no apology for quoting it at some length:
"There is no greater fear for a senior civil servant than a cabinet minister's special adviser stepping on his toes or bypassing officials. However, much of the great progress that this government has made since the election would not have happened without the energy and drive of the special advisers involved. Political appointees were instrumental in many significant decisions: granting the Bank of England independence to set interest rates; implementing devolution in Scotland and Wales; creating the Social Exclusion Unit; and, within Whitehall, in implementing the communications revolution which has dramatically improved the way government departments present their achievements to the public".
Gosh! And I thought all of that was the responsibility of those who have been elected to office.
7.34 p.m.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, the excellent initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, in tabling this debate has been rewarded by excellent contributions, but in particular characterised by two very fine maiden speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater.
I wish to speak as a member of that most powerful of unions, the union of ex-special advisers. I have taken the precaution of having two other members of my union sitting on either side of me. However, this House enjoys the presence of many more special advisers. Three distinguished heads of the No. 10 Policy Unit sit on the Benches opposite: the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, and the noble Lords, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach and Lord Blackwell. We have on this side my noble friend Lord Donoughue. Special advisers even sit on the Liberal Democrat Benches: the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay" who is not in his place, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally. There are none sitting on the Cross Benches; it would be a little odd if any were to do so.
Leaving myself out of that list, I do not believe that any noble Lord would doubt that those noble Lords bring a great deal to the proceedings of your Lordships' House. These are people with a great weight of experience. It is puzzling that in our newspapers we read about a completely different breed: wicked spin doctors who use their arts to undermine the great tradition of the impartial British Civil Service.
What is the answer to that puzzle? Perhaps it could be that the new lot are much worse than the previous lot. I know that many more younger people are included in the new group and that the quality may vary, as it always does. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that many of them will one day sit in this Chamber. However, I believe that the No. 10 Policy Unit, under the leadership of David Miliband, is as strong as any that I have seen in my time working in and around Whitehall.
Perhaps it could be that the job itself has changed and that these people wield vastly more power Before the debate I was reminded of Harold Wilson's classic description of special advisers when he first introduced them in the Labour government of 1974. Nothing has changed since then and the substance of the job is the same now as it was then. In essence, "We brief and they spin".
However, one change cannot be denied; namely, that the number of special advisers has risen. Thirty-eight were in place when the last government left power, while at the last count there are 72 today. I do not know, but that number may possibly be rising further. Perhaps I may make two reflections on that development. First, that is not a large number of people for our Government, given that we have some 3,000 senior civil servants. The figure represents around one special adviser for every 5,000 regular civil servants. The notion that these people are in complete control simply is not plausible. Secondly, this was a new Government who came into office with a huge

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agenda to deliver. It was not surprising that they needed more special advisers than the previous administration, which, in the immortal words of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick—who, I am afraid, is no longer in his place—was,
"in office but no longer in power".
I do not believe that we have encountered a new phenomenon here, even though it suits certain people to stir up that suspicion.
I shall take my argument a little further. I think that it was the invention in 1974 of the special adviser that has made it possible for the British tradition of the impartial Civil Service to survive and flourish. In 1976 I left the Department of the Environment because my Minister, Tony Crosland, had been made Foreign Secretary. The telephone rang in my new, grand office. It was the late Sir Ian Bancroft, who will be known to many in this House. He was a distinguished civil servant and Permanent Secretary at the Department of the Environment. Sir Ian said, "David, I have a problem and I need your help. The new Minister has arrived and he does not want to have a special adviser. Can you speak to him because you know that this department cannot function without one? Who will write the speeches for Conference? Who will do all the jobs that only special advisers can do?"
I popped back to the Department of the Environment to see the noble Lord, Lord Shore of Stepney—he was Peter Shore at the time—and put my argument to him. He did not seem to be very interested and asked whether I had anyone in mind. I said that, because Barbara Castle had just lost her job, someone very good had become free. As a result, the noble Lord, Lord Shore, appointed a promising young man named Jack Straw. The department welcomed him, as it welcomed me. To this day, nearly a quarter of a century after I left, my best friends include many of the people with whom I worked so closely there.
The relationship between the established Civil Service and political advisers is a complicated one but it can be made to work. As in any case where power is at stake, there will obviously be tensions. People will bump into each other from time to time and there will be problems. Almost universally, the most effective political advisers are those who work with civil servants, each understanding and respecting their different roles, skills and jobs and finding a way of working together.
I do not like to introduce even a moment's dissent into the debate, but I am slightly sceptical about the idea of codifying these matters. I note that Sir Richard Wilson, when he appeared before the Neill committee, said that he had transcripts of Alastair Campbell's press briefings, and that Alastair had said that if there was anything he did not like he would pop in and tell him to knock it off—I paraphrase of course! It is a fascinating scene to imagine, as Alastair is a good deal bigger than Sir Richard. I am sure that he used a poetic phrase. I do not think that hard rules are the answer. What makes the arrangement work is the relationship between the people involved and their desire invariably to work together in the national interest.
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The invention of special advisers is not an example of the corruption of the British constitution; it is an example of its huge strength in building on institutions that work and evolving them so that they work in new circumstances. Occasionally, it suits members of the party opposite to make political capital out of the growth in the number of special advisers under this Government. I understand that. But when they come back to office, if ever that dire day dawns, they too will want their special advisers to bring in their programme; and I shall be very surprised if they are any less numerous. I hope and trust that, when they do so, they will have my support and that of the House.
7.42 p.m.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for initiating this important debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Roper and the noble Lord, Lord Powell, on their stimulating and interesting maiden speeches. We have been privileged to hear excellent speeches and I thank both noble Lords.
I must declare an interest—a minority interest it appears—for having been, for a short while at the beginning of my career, a full-time permanent civil servant rather than a special adviser. Also, throughout my life I have been married to a permanent civil servant. I come to the debate with an interest in the main question that is posed regarding the professional Civil Service. It led me to look up some information on the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms, which were vital reforms that took place in the middle of the 19th century. They comprised three important factors. The first was selection by open, competitive examination rather than by pulling strings, influence, father's influence and so forth. The second was promotion by merit. The third was paying our civil servants a salary high enough for them not to be open to bribes. Those were the three important elements in the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms.
What I find interesting is the degree to which the reforms were controversial at the time. I have in front of me a speech that was made by Gladstone in the other place, in which he tried desperately to persuade people that it was a good idea to introduce promotion by merit and competitive examinations. He said:
"Promotion by merit is not believed in but is looked upon with distrust, and regarded as a cover for jobbery … The consequence of this is that, although there are many excellent incomparable men in the service, yet a low tone pervades the public service: the quantity of duty performed is small; bad and middling men are overpaid, and therefore the good men are under-paid".
He went on to say,
"you must throw open the civil service to all the world, you must obtain for it the best men as far as you can ascertain who are the best men by an examination and by the most rigid scrutiny, and then, whatever other evils you may incur, you give it to be understood that the men who come into the civil service do not receive their appointments by favour, and have not any other right to obtain or hold their places except the right which depends upon efficiency".
It was quite strong stuff. He did eventually persuade the Civil Service to do it; it took 15 years.

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I am pleased to say that one of my predecessors on these Benches, John Stuart Mill, also wrote of the reforms:
"The proposal to select candidates for the Civil Service of Government by a competitive examination appears to me to be one of those great public improvements the adoption of which would form an era in history. The effects which it is calculated to produce in raising the character both of the public administration and of the people can scarcely be over-estimated".
He was prescient in his comment. Indeed, the reforms have lasted for 150 years.
The importance of the reforms was brought home to me, as it was to my noble friend Lord Roper, in the course of my work in the European Union relating to issues of cohesion and the structural funds. My job was to try to advise governments on what might best promote innovation and policies leading to innovation. One of the issues that arises there is the capability of the administrations to carry through reforms and to administer the structural funds coherently and well. Many look with admiration on our the Civil Service. As my noble friend Lord Roper said, we possibly take it for granted, but it is a great privilege to have a Civil Service of this nature.
I said that the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms have stood the test of the past 150 years. That is not completely true. There has been a distinct change over the course of the past 20 years. In some senses, by the end of the 1970s, when the role of special adviser was introduced, many people were questioning whether the administrative civil servants who dominated the Civil Service at the time and the ways of Whitehall were appropriate to the increasing powers that had been gained by the Civil Service through the welfare state. Indeed, the increasing centralisation of Whitehall was being called into question. Many of the executive roles in health and social services which had traditionally been for local government were taken into the centre, leading to large executive agencies. The problems of handling increasingly complex problems caused a loss of faith in the Civil Service. It led, first under the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher and subsequently under John Major—and even now under the present Government—to increasing concern as to whether we were getting value for money as regards the whole issue of accountability. There is now a clearly perceived need for checks and balances on professional probity and a much more integrated and interlocking process.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, made clear, there is also a need for public servants to see themselves as servants of the public rather than as above the public. Fire walls between professional advice and political decisions might be desirable but cannot always be maintained, as was well illustrated in the BSE affair. As a result, at present the Civil Service is in a bit of a mess and does not quite know where it is going. In many senses the reforms of Sir Richard Wilson and the White Papers on modernising government which preceded them were an attempt to pull the Civil Service out of that difficulty and to look to the future.
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I believe that four issues emerge from that. First, there is a need for a much more fluid civil service structure, with interchange with the outside world. Secondly, there is a need to take into account evidence-based data and their use in policy-making. That has led, for example, to the establishment of bodies such as the Performance Improvement Unit in No. 10. Thirdly, there should be much wider public consultation and awareness of the role of the Civil Service in public relations. Finally, there should be emphasis on joined-up thinking both within and between arms of government.
I make three comments on the scenario as it now presents itself. First, as to the need for a more fluid civil service, during the 1970s I was privileged to spend four years in the United States. At that time I came into contact with both permanent civil servants and political appointees. My perception at the time, which has not changed since, was that the bringing in of political appointees at the top levels of the civil service provided a catalyst for much new thinking. There was nothing wrong with it, except that it was clear from conversations with full-time civil servants that they were cut off from the top levels of the service. That process removed from them the ultimate positions of power and authority to which they could aspire, and that was a detriment. But that leads me to believe that some movement in and out has benefits and provides a catalyst for new ideas. It is important, nevertheless, that the Civil Service leads to permanent secretary posts for those who look to it as a full-time career.
Secondly, I turn to the role of specialist advisers and information officers, on which much of this debate has centred. Ministers have for some time had specialist advisers, but it has always been understood—we return to the distinction in Northcote-Trevelyan—that the permanent civil servants are the professionals. Before that, those civil servants were courtiers. To an extent, today specialist advisers are courtiers and perform much more closely the role of a cabinet than a private office. Here there is a distinction between a cabinet and a private office. Nevertheless, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, made clear, specialist advisers help the system to function more smoothly. But it is of vital importance—perhaps we come back to "Sir Humphrey"—that at the end of the day the permanent civil servants should be able to give the best possible advice plainly and fearlessly. As the noble Lord, Lord Powell, said, it is a matter of being able to say to the permanent secretary that he is wrong, and why.
Finally, I refer briefly to the true professional civil servants: scientists, medics, lawyers and economists. Over the past few years there have been many changes in Whitehall. With the development of modern technologies it is sad that very few scientists and engineers have been attracted into the Civil Service. I should like to draw to your Lordships' attention a

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report entitled Review of S&T Activity Across Government published last year by the Council for Science and Technology. The council said that it was,
"not convinced that any department was really staffed, organised or sufficiently aware to make the best possible use of science and technology in delivering their short and medium term objectives … a key source of recruitment to departments, particularly at middle management levels, has largely dried up as a result of the privatisation of, or arm's length relationship with, research establishments which were previously staffed by civil servants".
One matter of which we should be aware is that the old public sector research establishments provided a route whereby scientists and technologists within the Civil Service could come into the mainstream. That has dried up. In this modern age it is extremely important that that happens. I end by again congratulating our two maiden speakers and emphasising the importance of this issue.
7.55 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, not only your Lordships but all members of the public should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for having introduced this most important debate and allowing us to hear so many interesting contributions from all sides of the House, in particular the two excellent maiden speeches. Interestingly, the noble Lord, Lord Roper, said that he did not speak as either a civil servant or special adviser. However, the noble Lord, Lord Powell, pointed out that he came from a family of virtually hereditary civil servants. He himself had worked for many years in the Thatcher government and now his brother is chief-of-staff to the present Prime Minister.
Soon after the Government came to power I became concerned about the status of two advisers employed by the Prime Minister, especially as they were to be invested with powers not normally given to advisers. I tabled a Question for Written Answer to obtain details of their salaries. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, was unable to reply on the ground that their terms of employment had not yet been fixed. I repeated the Question some time later, but it took over four months before I received the information. The wait was disturbing because the law requires a written memorandum of terms to be issued to an employee within two months of the commencement of his employment. I could not imagine that the two excellent, highly qualified gentlemen in question had started work without a contract and, therefore, unaware of what they would be likely to be paid.
Since I accept unreservedly that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, was merely passing on the information that he had been given, or reporting that he had not been given any information, it appeared that the Government had sought to avoid disclosure of those figures to Parliament. Eventually, the figures were made public. Mr Alastair Campbell and Mr Jonathan Powell currently each receive £93,562 per annum.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy and other noble Lords have referred to the number of special advisers which has risen from 38 under the previous
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government to 72 in 1998–99. According to a recent Written Answer given by the right honourable Dr Mowlam in the other place, the cost has risen to £4.2 million, apart from the cost of their staff and offices, details of which I have been unable to discover. It has been reported, however, that the bill for foreign trips for special advisers was £500,000 last year.
Perhaps I may refer to another phenomenon to which I have referred in the past. There exists within Downing Street a mysterious organisation called the Strategic Communications Unit. Despite requests, I have never been able to discover whether its functions are to do with the strategy of communication or communication about strategy. What I do know, following a reply by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, on 18th June 1998, is that the cost was then expected to be in the region of £500,000 a year. Doubtless the cost will have increased since. Perhaps when he replies the Minister can tell the House the current cost. If not, perhaps he will be able to bring me up to date by writing to me. I understand from a letter from the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the noble and learned Lord who is to respond to the debate, that the costs were looked at as recently as February this year. In the original reply I was told that the cost was to be met from across Whitehall within existing budgets, but it does not really matter how many government departments share the cost. The question is: on what is the money being spent? It is clear that that particular unit is the centre of government spin—a veritable gyroscope—for which, I believe, the taxpayer is paying.
The fact that Ministers have special advisers is not a new phenomenon. They date back at least to the days of Gladstone and Disraeli. According to Lord Blake's biography, when Disraeli brought his private secretary, Montague Corry, into Downing Street, he was described by one protesting Cabinet Minister as the "in fact Prime Minister". That is a foretaste of the protests which have been made about the status and considerable power and influence of Alastair Campbell more than 100 years later. Lloyd George appointed temporary ministerial advisers. In 1974 Harold Wilson authorised the appointment of up to 30, including a new No. 10 Policy Unit. He defined them as advisers to Ministers in the development of government policy and its effective presentation. With the complexity of modern Government, the intrusiveness of modern communications and the demand for instant answers by the media, the existence of special political advisers is undoubtedly a necessity, not only here, but in most democratic governments.
However, in the United Kingdom we have another almost unique asset: a wholly independent nonpolitical Civil Service which has attracted over many years the finest of graduates from our best universities. I do not think that it is too great an exaggeration to describe them as the Rolls-Royce of our system. But they should not be abused, as I believe has clearly been the case as regards the Dome. Will the Minister reply to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish today? It is a simple question. Did Michael Connor, the accounting officer for the

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Millennium Commissioners, request a formal letter of direction from the Minister, Chris Smith, before agreeing to the latest £29 million; and did Chris Smith order his Permanent Secretary, Robin Young, to write such a letter?
The existence of special advisers with the duties described by Harold Wilson as,
"advisers to Ministers on policy and presentation",
is. I believe, a necessary safeguard against the independence of senior civil servants being compromised. However, the fact is that the advisers themselves are usurping and undermining the functions of the Civil Service.
In another place, the Prime Minister boasted that his official spokesman—a job normally performed by a civil servant—does an effective job in attacking the Conservatives. The strategic communications unit and a research and intelligence unit with a staff of 11 between them report to Mr Campbell. We all recall the speed with which the Government, as soon as they came to power, dispensed with the services of 16 out of the 18 long-standing, established departmental press officers, replacing them, one assumes, with others perhaps more sympathetic to the Government and thereby undermining the neutral Government Information Service.
The Ministerial Code, published by this Government, limited the number of special advisers to two per Minister. In some de0partments, according to the Neill committee, it seems that this number is being breached. Several noble Lords asked the Minister for information on that. The Government must ensure that the boundaries between the work of special advisers and civil servants is clearly defined and, as recommended by Neill, advisers' contracts should require them to comply with a code of conduct.
My noble friend Lord Northesk quoted the description by the Independent on Sunday of a special adviser as,
"a study in power without accountability".
I believe that that was derived from Oscar Wilde who over 100 years ago said,
"an eminence grize shares one attribute of a prostitute. Both have power but no responsibility".
With their power and influence, it is essential that those special advisers should be directly answerable to Parliament, not merely through their Minister. The activities of special advisers—they are set out in the model contract which designates them as temporary civil servants—must be properly enforced. For example, Mr Bill Bush is employed under the model contract. Yet he is in charge of the so-called research and intelligence unit at. No. 10 whose brief is to run the rebuttal database dedicated to defending the Government against criticism. This is the super-databank called Knowledge Network that Dr Mowlam assured another place on 8th March would be put on the net so that there will no question of work being done that honourable gentlemen will not see.
That database is funded by the taxpayer. However, it transpires, contrary to the assurances of Dr Mowlam, that its contents will not be available to all
848
Members of the Government, much less to Labour or Opposition MPs. The contents of the databank can be exported easily to the Labour Party's Millbank database which is similar and compatible.
I do not have time to continue this catalogue. In seeking to sideline Parliament, the Government are trying to set up a presidential system with a power base which will give the Prime Minister unprecedented power over Whitehall. We hope that in his reply the Minister will not deny the undeniable but will assure us that the normal neutrality of the Civil Service of which this country is justifiably proud—it is a model for all other democracies—will be cherished and never put at risk.
8.5 p.m.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for initiating the debate. It has been extremely interesting. With one or two exceptions, there has been a wide measure of agreement about interesting issues.
I join noble Lords in offering my most sincere congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Roper, on his extremely interesting maiden speech. He struck a chord when he referred to the need to try to help southeastern Europe in the setting up of their administrative systems in the light of their history which has not encouraged a system serving the citizen rather than bureaucracy. My geography may be wrong, but the British Government have engaged in significant numbers of projects, in particular in the Balkans, to try to help in that situation. In Albania, for example, we are providing assistance for the establishment of a civil service. In Montenegro, we have for several years provided support to public administration reform. I shall write to the noble Lord setting out the details.
I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, on his maiden speech. As he began his speech it was impossible to see any notes and I assumed that the noble Lord was about to deliver his maiden speech without one note. It indicated a degree of sang-froid. However—disappointingly, I thought—the noble Lord then produced a wodge of note:; which somewhat spoilt the early effect! His speech was incredibly interesting. He spoke with particular authority having been in Downing Street, as he said, for an unusually long time in a somewhat unusual situation. His speech should therefore be given particular attention.
The theme of the debate focused almost exclusively on the relationship between special advisers and the Civil Service. The Government are totally committee to maintaining a non-political permanent Civil Service. In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, we have given a commitment in principle to legislation for the Civil Service. We have a heavy forward legislative programme and will take forward that legislation as and when a suitable opportunity arises. I am not in a position to give a more detailed answer.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has been in the Foreign Office and was private secretary to the then Cabinet Secretary. He therefore has particular

849
knowledge of how the Civil Service works. He thought that the British Civil Service was the best in the world. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, echoed that belief, describing it as the "Rolls-Royce" of civil services. I have not worked with any other civil service. However, my experience has been of an excellent, well-motivated, independent, impartial Civil Service, genuinely dedicated to serving the public interest. I agree with all noble Lords who said that if we lose such a jewel, we lose something of huge importance to the quality of administration in this country.
The Civil Service, above all, recognises that to retain that standard it is necessary constantly to see whether change and improvement can take place. Many noble Lords referred to the reforms introduced by Sir Richard Wilson and to his determination to ensure that the Civil Service deals with today's challenges. That is to be applauded and is an indication of the quality of the Civil Service.
I turn to the issue of special advisers. I hope that my remark will not be regarded as disrespectful, but even the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, accepted that special advisers were a good thing. Characteristically and with her usual flair, the noble Baroness then heaved off on to something else. However, the noble Earl and other noble Lords asked several questions about special advisers.
First, they accepted that special advisers were a good thing in principle and helped the good running of government, but they were worried about particular aspects. They were concerned about the number of special advisers and referred to the fact that there are 79 in this Government. They feared that as a result there was politicisation of the Government. Let us consider the comments of people in the front line and involved in the process. In evidence to the Neill committee, Sir Richard Wilson said:
"I do not think the Senior Civil Service of 3,500 people is in danger of being swamped by 70 Special Advisers. That is not what is happening and I do not see it as creeping politicisation".
The noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, said that politicians like to refer to "politicisation", but the Civil Service does not find it particularly problematic.
Peter Riddell, commenting in The Times on the Neill report, stated:
"Talk of the wholesale politicisation of Whitehall is much exaggerated. There is a strong case for special or political advisers and for the current total".
A leader in the Independent stated:
"The number of political appointments remains tiny in relation to the size of the policy-making arm of the Civil Service".
Therefore, the independent judgment is that there are not too many special advisers. The Civil Service says that there is not politicisation. A large number of today's speakers have indicated that they do not believe the number of special advisers is too great. With respect to those who have raised the issue, I suggest that there is no evidence to support their case. Those who would be expected to know do not believe that politicisation is a problem.
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The second concern raised today is that special advisers should be accountable. The question was asked: what about a code of conduct for them? The point was mentioned in particular by the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, and the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington. It is important to make three points in relation to it. Of course, we shall consider the recommendation, but the present position is that the Government were responsible for introducing for the first time the model contract for special advisers. It sets out in a schedule the duties and responsibilities of special advisers. No previous government had done that. It indicated clearly their responsibilities. There is therefore transparency about the terms on which they are employed.
Secondly, special advisers are subject to the Civil Service Code which applies to them save in relation to objectivity and impartiality.
Thirdly, they are subject to the same rules on conflict of interest as would be any civil servant. If they take a job subsequent to leaving the service, it is for the Civil Service to determine whether they act in accordance with the conflict of interest rules.
Therefore, there are a number of safeguards: a clear code and clear contractual responsibilities. Yes, we shall consider seriously the Neill recommendation, but it is wrong and ill informed to suggest that there is not proper accountability.
It was then suggested that special advisers are not accountable. They are civil servants; civil servants are accountable through their Minister; so are special advisers. No reason was given as to why special advisers should have different arrangements from those which apply to civil servants. Is it seriously being suggested that the Principal Private Secretaries to Cabinet Ministers, because they have access to them should be directly accountable to Parliament? With respect, the suggestion is absurd. A special adviser is just as accountable to his Minister as is any member of the Civil Service.
Whether it be on the basis of numbers; whether it be on the basis of a sufficient clarity of their rules; whether it be in relation to accountability; if one looks at the evidence one sees that there is no basis for the attacks which have been made during today's debate. Indeed, many of the speakers accepted that that was the position.
I turn to other issues raised. I refer first to the position in relation to Scotland and Wales. Separate arrangements apply to the appointment of a limited number of special advisers in Scotland and in Wales. Ministers in the devolved administrations account for those appointments and their costs. In order to allow for those appointments, an amendment had to be made to the Civil Service Order in Council. Under the terms of the devolution legislation, the appointment of special advisers, as with all other appointments to the Civil Service, is a reserved matter. The Prime Minister, as Minister for the Civil Service, would be expected to approve appointments of special advisers in Scotland and in Wales. The amendment to the Order in Council was designed to reflect the spirit of devolution.

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Provided that the new administrations stay within the upper limit on numbers and appointments are made in line with the terms and conditions set out in the model contract, the Prime Minister would not expect to become involved in the appointments process.
Questions were asked about which Cabinet Ministers have more than two special advisers. The Secretary of State for Education and Employment has three full-time and two part-time advisers. One is an expert adviser, Professor Michael Barber; the other additional member is to help the Secretary of State with his paperwork because of his disability. The Deputy Prime Minister has additional advisers because of the vast range of his department's responsibilities and his specific responsibilities as Deputy Prime Minister. The Secretary of State for Scotland has an additional adviser part-time and unpaid. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has additional advisers: three expert members of the Council of Economic Advisers. The Minister for the Cabinet Office has appointed two special advisers as the UK anti-drugs co-ordinator and his deputy. Those seem perfectly sensible reasons why there are additional special advisers in relation to those five Cabinet Ministers.
Perhaps I may pick up a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who identified the Members in this House who have previously been special advisers or heads of policy units. I agree with him that they are people of considerable standing who make a real contribution to this House and have made a real contribution in their jobs as special advisers. Looking across the range of special advisers who are presently serving this Government, one sees an equally impressive bunch of people. There are people such as Michael Barber, Keith Halliwell, Gary Hart, Andrew Adonis, Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell; people who have had considerable success in their previous careers and are bringing that to the benefit of the Government.
I turn to the GICS and the knowledge network. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, made a number of complaints about the knowledge network. It involves the storing of basic facts and figures on a network that would be accessible throughout departments. It is like an IT filing cabinet. If in a large organisation there were not the means to access such information from a number of points throughout, it would be behind the times. It is a means whereby all departments can access the same information and it is a measure that any institution should properly introduce.
I move on to the question of press officers and information officers. Questions were raised in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, about the number of press officers and information officers who had resigned or left in the course of the government changes. It is not unusual to see moves of officials who work for Ministers after ministerial changes. Therefore, after a complete change of administration it is not surprising to see a number of moves.
Since May 1997, all vacancies at head of information level have been filled either by existing civil servants or through fair and open competitions, each supervised by
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a Civil Service commissioner. Between January 1979 and 31st December 1981, l 3 changes affected 12 of the 18 posts. Therefore, on a previous occasion where there was a change of government, there was a substantial number of changes of post. Again, I do not believe that it would be right to say that that is something either unusual or wrong.
I deal with the question of the position of the two special advisers at No. 10 who have executive powers. It has been suggested that the decision to amend the Civil Service Order in Council and to provide No. 10 with two special advisers with executive powers is another step towards the politicisation of civil servants. Again, I quote what Sir Richard Wilson said to that suggestion:
"I do not see that as in any way politicising the Civil Service. I see it as being a very minor and rather technical development or recognition of what happens in No. 10".
Again, there is nothing at all to back up that allegation.
It has also been suggested that briefing of the media by special advisers is something new under this Government. Successive administrations have used special advisers in this way. Under the terms of their contract, special advisers can brief the media on matters of government policy. Their contracts clearly state that they are appointed to advise Ministers on the development of government policy and its effective presentation. In evidence to the Neill committee, Mike Granatt said:
"Special Advisers in departments have always in my experience to a greater or lesser degree spoken to the media on their Minister's behalf. Some Special Advisers do not like doing it and have not done it. But I have worked for Ministers in two departments under the last Government where the Special Adviser had a specific role in talking to the media".
Those are the words of the current head of the Government Information and Communication Service, who was describing in public the position under the previous government. Therefore, I do not believe that there has been a change or that there is anything unusual about this.
Of course, it is easy to make the sort of allegation that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, made, supported by the noble Earl, Lord Northesk. However, when one examines the detail, one sees very little in that allegation. One sees that the people at the coal face of the administration do not agree with that view. By that, I do not mean the politicians; I mean the civil servants.
Finally, perhaps I may deal with the point that the noble Baroness raised with regard to the Millennium Dome. She referred to matters that affected advice given in relation to the Millennium Commission. I am not privy to advice given to that commission; nor should I be. The Millennium Commission is an independent body. Advice given to it would not be given to a body such as the New Millennium Experience Company, which funds it. Therefore, I am, not in a position to answer the question that she has asked in relation to that matter; nor should I be.
I am greatly obliged to all noble Lords who have contributed to this very interesting debate. Again, I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for initiating it.
8.23 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, in the short time available before the debate must come to an end, I should like to thank all speakers who have taken part and have made it, in my opinion, a debate of very high quality. There were two outstanding maiden speeches by the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Powell. The contributions that followed have come from a wide range of experience: the Civil Service, business, public relations, former special advisers and also membership of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I am extremely grateful that speakers with those backgrounds have taken part in the debate.
I should like to thank especially the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for his reply and for dealing in the time available with most of the questions raised. He confirmed that the present number of special advisers is 79. Different figures have been given. I suggested 78, so that was not too bad. However, that type of information all helps. It is not so much the present number that is important as the fact that the number has doubled in the past three years. I believe that most of us are concerned about the rate of increase and whether there will be a further increase, perhaps doubling in the next three years. That is an issue that many of us will be watching.
In his reply, the Minister spoke also about accountability. I was particularly interested in that issue because I had pointed out that the professional Civil Service is responsible to Ministers and that Ministers are responsible to Parliament. My interpretation of what he said is that special advisers are also responsible to their Ministers. However, I do not believe that it is clear whether Ministers must answer to Parliament about the conduct of their special advisers in the way that they do for the Civil Service. That will all come out when the Government respond to the Neill committee's recommendations because the committee queried that subject.
At the end of his response, the noble and learned Lord also mentioned the question of problems that arise from special advisers who brief the press. I do not believe that any of the speakers were criticising that. They were pointing out that confusion arises when a Civil Service official briefs the media at the same as a special adviser from the same department. That can be muddling for the media because the two do not necessarily send the same message. Again, that will all come out when the Neill committee's report is considered by the Government because the committee raised that particular point.
I am extremely grateful to the Minister and to others who have taken part in the debate. I now beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Suspension of Hospital Medical Practitioners Bill [H.L.]
8.27 p.m.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Knight of Collingtree.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Dean of Harptree) in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Sections 1 and 3: procedure etc.]:
Baroness Knight of Collingtreemoved Amendment No. 1:
Page 3, line 3, leave out ("applications under section 1 and").
The noble Baroness said: With permission, in moving Amendment No. 1, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 2 because, as the Committee will see, Amendment No. 1 removes words which Amendment No. 2 replaces. Therefore, the two are clearly strongly linked.
I tabled these amendments in order to meet the points made by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. The Committee will find its comments set out in its 8th Report of this Session, HL Paper 43. These two amendments deal with the only suggestion made by the Select Committee for a change in my Bill. I would perhaps describe them as "tidying up" and "listening to" voices from outside which were anxious that the Bill was so tidied. I beg to move.
Earl Howe: Although, as my noble friend has explained, these are largely technical amendments and therefore are worthy of support, I wonder whether I may be allowed to comment more generally on the subject matter of Clause 4 in the light of our debates at Second Reading. My impression from the Minister's speech at that stage was that, while he recognised the significance of some of the issues highlighted by my noble friend, he did not believe that a Bill such as this was the appropriate way in which to address them, and that the consultation process currently in train was likely to point the way towards other mechanisms which would deal satisfactorily with suspensions as well as with the more general issue of doctors whose clinical performance fell under criticism.
In particular, the noble Lord referred to the need to put in place robust monitoring procedures to ensure that doctors are not suspended unnecessarily, nor for an inordinate length of time. I accept that the CMO's proposals hold out the hope of a fairer and better process for some doctors whose standards of clinical performance are subject to criticism. But, as the Minister acknowledged, there will be cases when suspension is seen by hospital management as the only appropriate option available.

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I worry that Department of Health guidance may prove insufficiently effective to ensure the proper protection of doctors under human rights legislation, and more particularly to ensure that the systems in place in all hospitals are mutually consistent and consistently fair. I am, for example, concerned that a doctor would have a cast-iron right to independent representation and to a fair appeals process. Is the Minister confident that those aims are achievable without going down the legislative route? In other words, how will it be possible for the Secretary of State to bind hospitals into following set procedures that will deliver the equitable outcomes that we all want to see? If such fairness and uniformity cannot be achieved, the consequence is almost bound to be that doctors will resort to litigation. That would be a highly undesirable phenomenon.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Clement-Jones: I do not intend to go into great detail in relation to the subject matter of the amendment. I simply have a couple of questions. Naturally, as we on these Benches explained at Second Reading, we support the Bill and the rights provided under it. Clearly, in the light of the recommendations of the Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation, these two amendments are sensible, as the right of appeal to a tribunal is of the essence of the Bill.
Can the Minister say whether, since 13th April, he has considered the issues contained in the Bill in any greater detail? As I said at Second Reading, there are issues in the Bill that are not contained in the Governments proposals in Supporting Doctors, Protecting Patients. There are key safeguards: the requirement for consultation, particularly with "appropriate practising clinicians"; the duty to consider alternatives to suspension and whether that is needed to protect the interests of patients, staff and the practitioner; the requirement to give reasons for decisions and to convey those to the National Health Service Executive and any private hospital—a key requirement; the requirement to review; and the right of appeal to a tribunal, the very essence of the amendment that we are debating.
I do not believe that we can simply treat the consultation as frozen in aspic and await the results of that consultation. I hope that the Minister's mind has been influenced to a degree by the contents of the Bill and by the points made at Second Reading.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): A technical amendment has brought us to the core of our debate at Second Reading. The noble Baroness knows that while the Government are not convinced that her Bill is the right approach, none the less, we recognise the conviction with which she brings the matter to our attention. There is no doubt that the issue of poorly performing doctors is one that merits considerable attention by the Department of Health and individual employing NHS trusts.
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I have reflected on the debate that we had at Second Reading, but to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I say that I remain of the view that disciplinary issues such as these should not be a matter for legislation. I say to the noble Earl that I believe that it is possible to ensure that MIS trusts deal with suspensions and general disciplinary matters in an appropriate manner with which I believe your Lordships would be satisfied. It is possible to ensure that that happens through a performance management approach, which is the jargon used in the NHS to describe the way in which the Department of Health can assure, through Ministers and its accountability to Parliament, that the NHS is managed well at the local level.
We put considerable faith in the Chief Medical Officer's paper, Supporting Doctors, Protecting Patients, as that outlines the process of how doctors with problems can be helped. In the future we expect there to be an assessment and support service that will enable employers to deal with problems quickly and ensure that doctors with problems are helped. We believe that, as the majority of doctors who have problems relating to performance will be referred to the assessment and support service, there will be less of a need for suspensions. In future, suspending a doctor would be an exception rather than the rule.
However, the new system would retain the power of suspension of hospital doctors, but that would need to be considered only if a doctor refused referral to the assessment and support service. The employer can take action under internal disciplinary procedures in the case of alleged personal misconduct or failure to fulfil contractual responsibilities to protect patients where there is imminent danger to them or where the new service reports that the referred doctor's problem is serious and intractable.
The current status is that the consultation process is now closed. We are considering the comments that we have received and we shall announce our decisions in due course. However, I remain convinced that the process recommended by the CMO, subject to any changes as a result of consultation, is the route down which we should go. I fully accept that where disciplinary procedures have to be used, including the suspension of doctors, that needs to be an effective and fair system. I can certainly assure noble Lords that we shall have an effective performance management system in place to ensure that that occurs.
As far as the amendment is concerned, the noble Baroness is to be congratulated on bringing the matter to the attention of the House because it clears up the technicality raised by the Select Committee.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: I am grateful to the Minister for some of his words, but perhaps I can comment on what he has said. First, this Bill is not—I repeat "not"—about poorly performing doctors. Out of 201 cases that I have monitored, only 25 were found guilty. The Bill is not brought forward in order t o deal with poorly performing doctors. Secondly, the BMA, which has studied this subject almost as long as I have,

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is fully in agreement that this Bill is the only way in which to help the injustice that has been taking place because the report does not cover the matter.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Knight of Collingtreemoved Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, line 7, at end insert—
("( ) Regulations made under subsection (2) shall be contained in a statutory instrument which shall be laid before Parliament and subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Functions) Order 2000
8.40 p.m.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 8th May be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to speak to this order and also the following order together. The subjects for consideration are the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2000 and the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Functions) Order 2000.
Before going into the details of the orders, it may be helpful to put them into context and give a brief explanation of their purpose. The Scotland Act recognised that in some cases it would be appropriate for the Scottish Ministers to be able to exercise executive powers in areas where primary legislation continues to be a matter for the UK Parliament. This is commonly known as executive devolution. Section 63 of the Scotland Act allows functions in reserved areas to be transferred to the Scottish Ministers, or for the Scottish Ministers to be given a role by introducing requirements for them to be consulted or for their agreement to be obtained to the exercise of functions by UK Ministers.
Noble Lords may recall a previous order, considered in June 1999, called the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 1999—the first executive devolution order. That order ran to 30 pages, transferring a wide range of functions to the Scottish Ministers. The first order now before us adds a number of additional functions to those already executively devolved, where it has been agreed between the UK Government and the Scottish Executive that this is appropriate.
I turn to the content of the Scotland Act (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order. The National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health
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Visiting for Scotland (NBS) is an executive, non-departmental public body. Its function is to maintain and develop standards of professional education in nursing, midwifery and health visiting, through the approval of institutions and courses and through research and development programmes.
The board is part of the UK regulatory framework for the nursing professions, and the regulation of nurses and midwives is a reserved matter under the Scotland Act. Currently, professional self-regulation of nurses is carried out by five bodies: the UK Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC) and the four national boards, one each for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The national board for Scotland is, therefore, an integral part of the UK regulatory system, responsible for ensuring that entrants to the profession in Scotland and the courses of preparation that they undertake meet the UK Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting standards.
However, it brings a distinctive Scottish perspective to this role, promoting developments in nurse education which are in tune with the Scottish higher education system and which meet the needs of the NHS in Scotland. For these reasons, it has always been funded by and accountable to the Health Department in Scotland.
Because of this, the UK Government and the Scottish executive agree that responsibility for the board should rest with the Scottish Ministers. The order therefore transfers to the Scottish Ministers all the ministerial functions under the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1997 as they relate to the national board for Scotland.
In addition, article 8 of the order provides for new arrangements for the auditing of the accounts for the national board for Scotland by the Auditor General for Scotland, to be consistent with the arrangements for public sector audit set out in the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000.
The order also includes entries relating to the Disability Rights Commission. This body was set up earlier this year under the Disability Rights Commission Act 1999 and replaced the National Disability Council.
The separate order under Section 106 of the Scotland Act creates a new requirement that one of the commissioners should have "special knowledge of Scotland". The first order before us keys into this requirement and provides that this appointment is to be made with the agreement of the Scottish Ministers. Similar requirements were already in place for the National Disability Council.
Article 2 of the first order deals with the Tax Credits Act 1999. Section 15(3) of this Act allows the Secretary of State to accredit organisations which may approve childcare providers for the purposes of eligibility for the childcare element of the working families' tax credit and the disabled persons' tax credit. Such organisations must meet certain criteria. This article will provide that when an organisation is accredited

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for the purpose of applying a scheme for childcare providers in Scotland, the function will be treated as exercisable in or as regards Scotland.
In addition, the function of making regulations under Section 15 of that Act will now be exercisable by the Secretary of State only with the agreement of the Scottish Ministers. Section 15 provides for these regulations to put in place a scheme which would establish a new category of person whose charges for providing childcare would be taken into account when assessing eligibility for the childcare element of the working families' tax credit and the disabled persons' tax credit. In practice, this scheme will ensure that the childcare provider must be approved by an accredited organisation. This scheme also authorises making grants and loans to these organisations and ensures that the fees that they charge are reasonable.
The subject matter of Part VI of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 deals with speed limits and is largely reserved, although some functions have already been executively devolved. This order further devolves certain functions in relation to temporary speed limits. This will mean that the Scottish Ministers will be able to make an order to impose a maximum speed limit, for periods of up to 18 months, on specified roads.
Article 4 relates to the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. This Act contains provisions relating to employment zones and allows for schemes to be set up in designated areas where special benefit rules can apply. Participants in the schemes are helped back to work by allowing them to anticipate funding for up to six months' worth of spending on training and jobsearch. To this they can add money equivalent to the payments that they would normally receive from the jobseeker's allowance.
Under the Act, the Secretary of State can also provide a wider range of support for activities within the employment zones which help people to get and keep work. This policy of "helping people to help themselves" extends to unemployed people who are seeking to become self-employed.
As a result of this order, the Scottish Ministers will be able to make payments to persons providing suitable facilities for claimants of the jobseeker's allowance to be trained for long-term employment. The Scottish Ministers, concurrently with UK Ministers, will now be able to fund any such eligible activity within an employment zone in Scotland.
Article 6 amends the first executive devolution order. The entry in the original order in respect of rule 4(1) of the Merchant Shipping (Formal Investigations) Rules 1985 was intended to transfer a function from the Secretary of State to the Scottish Ministers. However, other legislation in 1990 had already removed the ministerial function and conferred it on the Lord President of the Court of Session. Unfortunately, this was not identified during the preparation of the order. The entry in the original order is therefore redundant and is being removed.
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The other articles in the order are purely technical, either to amend certain terms and references in various enactments or to make transitional and saving provision with the transfer of functions.
On that basis, I hope that your Lordships will feel able to support these two orders. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 8th May be approved [18th Report from, the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale.)
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome these orders. The process of transferring powers to the Scottish Ministers is clearly ongoing. There are several variations of transfer. Some will be outright, some will be shared with the UK Ministers and some will be merely transfers of responsibility for the administration of a function, whatever it is. The Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Functions) Order is concerned with the appointment of the next and subsequent disability rights commissioners. I am satisfied that the initial appointment was made after consultation with Scottish Ministers, and that this order confirms that such a process will happen again. I am enjoying the expression,
"appears to the Secretary of Stale to have special knowledge of Scotland".
That is all very quaint, and worrying. It smacks of the, "fly low over Africa, I'm writing a book about it" type of knowledge. I would have preferred wording about the commissioner's domicile being in Scotland.
That said, this is a measure of limited extent which ensures that Scottish Ministers can recommend a Scot to the Secretary of State for appointment. It also confirms that there will be Scottish representation on the Disability Rights Commission. Though it will not set the heather on fire, it is an order which is very much in line with the spirit of devolution and with the continuing reform of the Union.
Going on to the transfer order, as the Minister explained, that is somewhat more meaty than the previous one. I note that, unlike the previous one, it has to be approved by both the UK and the Scottish Parliaments and therefore it is a Type A order. Not only does it have greater content, but it also has several different varieties of transfer within it. First, there is a UK function which is exercisable in Scotland by the Secretary of State subject to a requirement for the agreement of Scottish Ministers. The accreditation of childcare agencies for tax credit purposes is appropriately transferred.
Secondly, functions are transferred from the Secretary of State to Scottish Ministers—an outright transfer. The actual functions relate to the temporary speed limit setting and also to those elements of the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act which deal with the National Board for Scotland
Thirdly, there are functions which are to be shared by Scottish and UK Ministers. Here we have the Employment Zones, which are clearly part of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act. The Job-club Plus

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scheme is very welcome and I note that there are similar measures to devolve it to the National Assembly for Wales.
Fourthly, we have a function to be exercised with the agreement of Scottish Ministers. That looks to me to be the same measure as in the previous order. It involves the appointment of the disability rights commissioner. Is that a case of prolixity on the statute book? Fifthly, we have a modification of the principal order. I am content with the removal of this merchant shipping function on the grounds that it has already been transferred to the Lord President of the Court of Session.
Overall, this order continues a welcome process of devolving power to the Scottish Parliament. It is essential that devolution be generous and that it becomes obvious, as a result, that substantial autonomy within the British Union can be achieved. This Parliament should, wisely, take a back seat while the Scottish Parliament finds its feet. The first primary legislation is now reaching the statute book. Not to do so would play into the hands of those who would either dismantle the British Union or try to revert to the 1707 settlement.
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for explaining these orders in such detail.
I wish to raise only one specific point, though I shall be interested to hear her replies to the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie. My point concerns the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order. That involves tax credits.
Can the Minister tell me whether tax credits will now be handled in a different way from those in England and Wales? If so, what will be the effect? Also, is it possible that the transfers will impinge on the rights of Parliament to revise taxes or tax credits? I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness's reply.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords who spoke and who, I believe, welcomed the orders. I agree with many of the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, relating to devolution and its development. He is right that these orders are made up of many different strands of different kinds of devolution. We have always said that in an exercise on the scale of devolution there will be elements which have been overlooked; issues will continue to arise which need to be dealt with, either to do with new circumstances or in the light of experience. Indeed, the noble Earl is quite right: these orders include elements of all of those.
The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, asked specifically whether the orders duplicate as to the point he raised. We feel that the answer is definitely no. In accordance with Section 106 the order creates a requirement for a commissioner with special knowledge. The order relating to Section 63 requires Scottish Ministers' agreement to the Secretary of State's selection. So there is a distinction.
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The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, asked specifically whether these provisions in relation to the tax credits Act mean that in some way taxation matters are being devolved. He asked whether this would impinge on the Westminster Parliament's rights. The answer is no. There are two elements in the order relating to the working families' and the disabled persons' tax credits under this Act. One is to be found in Article 3 of the order, which, taken with the schedule, confers the powers under Section 15(3) of the Act on Scottish Ministers. That means that they will accredit those organisations who can approve childcare providers, whose charges will be taken into account in calculating the childcare element of the working families' and disabled persons' tax credits. The function of assessing providers of childcare is clearly best carried out by those with expertise in the devolved areas of social work or education.
The other element covered by the order is the making of the regulations under Section 15 of the Tax Credits Act to set up the scheme for designating organisations whose charges can be taken into account in assessing those tax credits and related matters. This regulating power is to remain with the generic Secretary of State. But, as a result of this order, the agreement of Scottish Ministers will be needed.
I hope that noble Lords find those responses acceptable and feel able to support the orders.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2000
8.57 p.m.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvalerose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 8th May be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this order. I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Development Commission (Dissolution) Order 2000
8.58 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty)rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 12th April be approved [17th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first of the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper.

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The purpose of this order is to wind up the final business of the Residual Rural Development Commission to transfer some property to the Secretary of State and to apply the Superannuation Act 1972 to certain employees or former employees of the Development Commission and the rural community councils.
These steps flow from the creation of the Countryside Agency and the establishment of regional development agencies on 1st April 1999. On that date the Rural Development Commission functions were transferred to various bodies and since then the Rural Development Commission has carried on in a compact form to complete a range of residual administrative and personnel-related tasks.
It has taken a little longer than was anticipated to finish the work involved. Over the past year or so the remaining commission staff have been working hard to ensure that the interests of former staff and client groups have been respected and to reduce the RDA's liabilities to a minimum so that its successors have few additional responsibilities or liabilities. To ensure that nothing whatsoever is overlooked, this order also provides that any remaining liabilities are transferred to the Countryside Agency, with just a single property lease to be transferred to the Secretary of State. That is a former commission office in Taunton. The office space in Salisbury occupied by the Residual Commission is rented from the Countryside Agency and the rental agreement will cease when the commission is dissolved.
The order also applies the provisions of the Superannuation Act 1972 to certain members of the Development Commission (Staff) Superannuation Scherne1984. As was the case for serving staff who transferred in April 1999, all pensioners, deferred pensioners and residual commission staff currently in the development commission scheme will be offered broadly comparable pension provision and preserved pension rights through membership of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme, a scheme with identical provisions to that operated by the RDC.
The small residue of commission staff, headed by a chief executive and accounting officer, elected to stay on for this process in the knowledge that, during or at the end of the process, they would either retire or be made redundant. The staff numbers have further diminished over the past months to reflect the progress in completing particular tasks.
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the Rural Development Commission for its work spanning most of the last century. I put on record our tribute to the staff for that period. In its last operating year it played an important part in helping the Government to develop guidance on rural policy issues to RDAs. I commend the order to the House.
864
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 12th April be approved [17th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Whitty.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Greater London Authority (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2000
9.2 p.m.
Lord Whittyrose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th April be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this order is to make minor technical amendments to the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and to simplify provisions of the Representation of the People Act 1983 which are amended by the GLA Act.
It might be helpful for your Lordships if I briefly describe the effect of the provisions. Paragraph 2 of the schedule amends Section 29 of the Act, which is an interpretation section, so as to remove the definitions of "first preference vote", "second preference vote" and "the London figure". The defined expressions are no longer used in any provision outside Schedule 2 and are therefore superfluous.
Paragraphs 3 and 5 of the schedule make amendments to Sections 35 and 73 of the Act. They are introduced so as to make it clear that in each case the provisions concerned are subject to both Sections 38 and 380, both of which sections also provide for the delegation of functions of the GLA.
Paragraph 4 makes a small change to Section 45 of the Act. Section 45 provides that the mayor will make a report to the Assembly before each of the 10 monthly meetings the Assembly must hold each year. The amendment to Section 45(8) clarifies the extent of the mayor's right to refuse to disclose advice that he has received from functional bodies, members of functional bodies or officials of functional bodies.
Paragraph 6 amends a minor typographical error. Sections 88 and 89 set out the rules for calculating the basic amounts of council tax for the GLA. The GLA is responsible for police services in only part of the GLA area, the inner and outer boroughs, but not in the City of London which has its own police force. Section 90(1) identifies the expenses of the Metropolitan Police Authority as the only expense borne by the GLA, which does not relate to the whole of Greater London. Section 89(2) of the Act cross-refers incorrectly to Section 90(2); this should be Section 90(1).
Paragraph 7 of the schedule makes a small change to Section 269 of the Greater London Authority Act. Section 269 itself amends the Highways Act 1980 so that local highway authorities in London may construct traffic-calming schemes which do not

865
conform to current government regulations and without the need for specific authorisation by the Secretary of State. This fulfilled the commitment in our White Paper.
Paragraph 8 amends Section 337 concerning the publication of the spatial development strategy. Section 337(6) allows the Secretary of State to issue directions to the mayor not to publish the spatial development strategy until inconsistencies with national policy or planning guidance are removed. The Act currently refers to "relevant planning guidance". The amendment alters this to "relevant regional planning guidance", an expression defined in Section 337(10), thus providing clarification as to when the Secretary of State may issue such a direction.
Paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 amend minor typographical errors in Section 367, and Schedules 4 and 32.
Paragraph 12 makes three amendments to the Representation of the People Act 1983. The amendments all arise out of provisions contained in Schedule 3 to the Greater London Authority Act 1999. The purpose of Schedule 3 is to amend the Representation of the People Acts so that elections under the GLA Act can be dealt with as local government elections.
The first two amendments under paragraph 12 are to Section 76 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 which imposes limits on the election expenses of candidates and their agents. The purpose of these amendments is to remove an infelicity in the drafting by making it clearer that, in GLA elections, the limits on expenses which must not be exceeded are those set out in orders made under Section 76—rather than those specified in the section itself as in the case of other elections.
The third amendment under paragraph 12 is to repeal an unnecessary amendment to the Representation of the People Act 1983. Schedule 3 to the GLA Act inserted Section 189A into that Act. The section provided that references to an election under the Local Government Act include a reference to a GLA election. This insertion was in fact unnecessary because another amendment contained in Schedule 3 to the GLA Act had already provided for the same thing, by inserting Section 203(1A)(a) into the Representation of the People Act 1983. The draft order accordingly repeals the surplus provision. Again, the purpose of the amendment is to remove a small infelicity in the drafting. The law remains unchanged. I beg to move.
866
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th April be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Whitty.)
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, in the unfortunate absence of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, it falls to me to respond to this order. Clearly, I am off my usual patch at this moment but I am interested, or perhaps even fascinated, by devolution.
The order sets out to tidy up some loose ends and in the explanatory note claims that it makes a few minor drafting amendments. On examination, we believe that there are two issues which are substantive and worthy of comment.
First, paragraph 7(4) requires the Secretary of State to be notified of certain traffic-calming works and for the GLA to have regard to any comments made by the Secretary of State. That seems to us to be a substantive change and, what is more, to be a breach of devolution.
It then goes on to impose on the GLA the need to comply with the Secretary of State's new regulations on publicity and consultation. The GLA really should be able to handle that itself. It must be treated as a grown-up organisation.
Secondly, in paragraph 8, we query the concept of regional planning guidance. Surely the relevant planning guidance is generated nationally. I should have thought that any regional variation was exactly what the GLA exists to create. Having said that, we wish the order well.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I welcome the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, to this Greater London debate in the absence of his noble friend Lady Hamwee. He is someone whose knowledge of devolution in other parts of the United Kingdom is clearly being brought to bear on this matter.
On the first of the noble Earl's points, I should remind him that I took part in both the exchanges across the Dispatch Box and in correspondence with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about a related matter on traffic calming; namely, humps. The provision in the Bill in relation to consultation with the Secretary of State, which allows the GLA to have nonstandard humps, was clarified as a result of that correspondence and the intervention of the noble Baroness. This order simply extends the same provision to other forms of traffic calming and, therefore, is consistent with the assurances that we have given in the House. It is just that the matter was not absolutely comprehensive when we dealt with it.

867
As regards the noble Earl's second point on regional planning guidance, I believe that he has somewhat misinterpreted the position. As with other local authorities, the planning guidance with which these local authorities are asked to conform in this context is the regional planning guidance. It is, therefore, being made explicit here by way of this amendment, rather than referring in general terms to planning guidance.
868
Therefore, it conforms with our approach on planning more generally in England. I am not entirely sure of the situation in Scotland but I suspect that it is not that different. I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at nine minutes past nine o'clock.

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