Sitting of 26 June 2001

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS

  PRIVATE BUSINESS
  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS](Revival)
  Ordered,
  That so much of the Lords Message [21st June] as relates to the Barclays Group Reorganisation Bill [Lords] and the National Australia Group Europe Bill [Lords] be now considered.
  Resolved,
  That this House concurs with the Lords in their Resolution.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

WAYS AND MEANS

  SESSIONAL RETURNS
  Ordered,
  That Returns be laid before the House for Session 2000–01 of information and statistics relating to—

  (1) Business of the House;

  (2) Closure of Debate, Proposal of Question and Allocation of Time (including Programme Motions);

  (3) Sittings of the House;

  (4) Private Bills and Private Business;

  (5) Public Bills;

  (6) Delegated Legislation and Deregulation Orders;

  (7) European Legislation, &c.;

  (8) Grand Committees;

  (9) Chairmen's Panel; and

  (10) Select Committees.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions
  HEALTH
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  HEALTH

    Smoking
    David Taylor: What progress has been made in assessing the impact of under-age smoking on physical development. [480]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Yvette Cooper): The evidence shows that smoking during childhood and adolescence increases respiratory problems and may retard the rate of lung growth, and also increases the chance that these people
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    will continue smoking as adults. That is why it is welcome that under-age smoking prevalence fell from 13 to 9 per cent. between 1996 and 1999, but why we need to go further in addressing under-age smoking.
    David Taylor: Is the Minister aware of the research that has been undertaken by the university of Strathclyde, the results of which show that there is an extremely strong tendency for under-age smokers to poison themselves with the products of the firms whose cigarettes are most heavily promoted? Does she agree that that leads to the ineluctable conclusion that the reintroduction of the Bill to ban tobacco advertising should take place not only during this Parliament, as the Labour party manifesto promised, but during the current Session, which is what Labour Back Benchers want?
    Yvette Cooper: I am aware of the research that my hon. Friend has mentioned. I welcome his strong support for the tobacco Bill. It is an important part of the strategy to reduce deaths from smoking. I think that, like me, he will be disappointed that the Bill is not already on the statute book, thanks to the Conservative party's decision before the election to sabotage it. We are committed to reintroducing the Bill in this Parliament as soon as time allows. Governments must take difficult decisions, but my hon. Friend will be aware of the comments of my right hon. Friends the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister on this subject.

    NHS Acute Beds
    Sue Doughty: If he will make a statement on the number of acute beds in NHS hospitals. [481]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): Latest figures show that there are about 108,000 acute beds in the national health service. The NHS plan provides for the first increase in general and acute beds for more than 30 years. We have given a commitment to provide an extra 2,100 general and acute beds and 5,000 extra intermediate care beds by 2004.
    Sue Doughty: Is the Minister aware that, of the 366 beds in the Royal Surrey county hospital, 41 are occupied by long-stay care patients who should be going on to nursing care? Does the Minister have any plans to increase the funding for social services to provide adequate care? Does she have any plans to lift the threats to community hospitals in Surrey?
    Ms Blears: I am glad of the opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to Parliament. It is always a pleasure to see another woman in this place, even if she is not in my party. We are well aware of the position in West Surrey. We have already provided significant extra resources to help to reduce waiting times. An extra £33 million has been provided during the current financial year. New medical admission units are helping at the Royal Surrey and Ashford hospitals. There are an extra five critical care beds at the Royal Surrey hospital.
    I am of course aware of the pressures on delayed discharges. We must change the way in which services are organised to meet patients' needs. The issue is not

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    only about bed numbers. We must have the right type of beds at the right time in the right place to meet patients' needs. We are also putting extra money into social services. There will be 3.4 per cent. more over the next three years. That will be a real-terms cash increase of 12 per cent. for social services. Local organisations should work together to ensure that their systems work for patients. There is much more to do, but we are making genuine progress.
    Helen Jackson: May I warmly welcome my hon. Friend to her new job? I warmly welcome also the increased numbers to which she has referred. However, is she aware of the worry among many heart patients in the South Yorkshire area, given the possible closure or reduction in facilities at the Northern general hospital arising from the rationalisation of heart transplant units throughout the country? Many people are worried that this process will have a serious effect on heart treatment for patients in the South Yorkshire and Yorkshire and Humberside areas.
    Ms Blears: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her kind words. I am aware of the deep concern of many people in South Yorkshire and in many other areas where these matters are being considered. I understand that they are being considered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Obviously we must ensure that there is no knock-on effect, whatever the decisions might be, for people who need treatment as a result of coronary heart disease. That is a top priority for our Government. Decisions will be taken in due course on these extremely important matters.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: May I welcome the hon. Lady to her new job and ask her whether she will, for a moment, rejoin the real world? Is she aware that West Sussex has had £15 million stolen from its social services money by the Government, to be redistributed elsewhere? Is she also aware that 30 beds are blocked at the East Surrey hospital and at Crawley hospital, and that 20 beds are blocked at the Princess Royal hospital in Haywards Heath? Does the hon. Lady understand that the kind of glib answers that she has given provide no comfort to the many old people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and who badly need to get into a better kind of care?
    Ms Blears: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, where I come from, we are rooted in the real world and our feet are on the ground. We are extremely aware of the pressures on social services and on the health service, and we do not seek to deny them. We put in place the practical policies and resources that were never available for social services under previous, Conservative Governments. There were massive cuts during their Administrations, rather than real-terms increases of 12 per cent. in personal social services.
    Patients want services that are designed to meet their needs at the time when they need them. The Conservatives make simple calculations: they like to talk about numbers and simple facts. However, the health service is a complex organisation and we need to ensure that the services that the NHS and social services provide take into account the complex needs that people have. We are determined to meet the needs of patients at the right time and in the right
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    place. The difference between us and the Conservatives is that we have put our money where our mouth is and put the resources into the service.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I must tell the House that I need briefer questions and, of course, briefer answers.
    Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: May I join other hon. Friends in congratulating my hon. Friend on her elevation to the Front Bench? When she considers the number of acute beds in NHS hospitals, will she look particularly closely at maternity units? Does she recognise the need to roll out more money for extra investment in such units? She may also be aware of the visit that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State paid to Northwick Park hospital during the election campaign to look at the maternity unit that serves my constituents. I think that he was taking time out from trying to find the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). In the light of my right hon. Friend's visit—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the Minister can now reply.
    Ms Blears: I shall try to be brief, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. As he may know, we have put an extra £100 million into maternity services and intend to recruit an extra 2,000 midwives. Improving maternity services is a top priority for this country, because women deserve the best services at that time in their lives.
    Mrs. Caroline Spelman: May I add my congratulations to the hon. Lady on her appointment? Today's Hansard contains a written answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) on delayed discharges, which clearly shows an increase in the last recorded quarter to 31 March last year. The hon. Lady was talking about the real world. In the real world, there are queues of ambulances outside the overfilled Birmingham hospitals. Will the hon. Lady accept that the Government have made no progress at all on bed blocking?
    Ms Blears: No, I do not accept that at all. There are real problems of delayed discharges for social services, but I understand that there have been meetings in the past seven days—Birmingham is a case in point—between local authorities and the national health service to try to ensure that a system can be put in place to increase capacity for people awaiting discharge, and that the services are used in an appropriate way.
    We are also introducing care trusts. That is one of our policies aimed at ensuring that people get better services, in which we establish links between the national health service and council services such as housing. Problems in that area are often the reason for delayed discharges, and we need better integration between the national health service and local government to ensure that services are provided in the right place at the right time.

    NHS (Private Finance)
    Mr. Colin Breed: What assessment he has made of the impact of private finance within the NHS. [482]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): The private finance initiative is making a major contribution to the biggest hospital-building programme the NHS has ever seen. Through the PFI, six major new hospitals have opened and another 17 are under construction, representing capital investment in the NHS of more than £2 billion.
    Mr. Breed: The Secretary of State will be aware that the people of Liskeard, in my constituency, have been waiting for their new hospital for a very long time and that it is hoped that that will be provided very shortly through a private finance initiative scheme. Will he confirm that, should that PFI scheme fall through for any reason whatsoever, other resources available to him will be used so that the hospital can be brought on-stream at the very earliest opportunity?
    Mr. Milburn: I will need to examine the individual case that the hon. Gentlemen mentions. However, whenever the go-ahead is given to a new hospital—as he will know, for very many years the go-ahead was given to very few hospitals, and there is an enormous backlog in new developments, renovation and rebuilding—we test to determine whether the private finance initiative or funding through the Exchequer route would be the best value for money for patients and the taxpayer. Very often the PFI comes up with the goods, but sometimes it does not. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall consider each and every such case to ensure that local communities receive the services that they need and that taxpayers receive the value for money that they require.
    Mr. David Hinchliffe: On the concordat with the private sector, does the Secretary of State have any idea of the proportion of doctors working in the private sector who also work part time in the national health service? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that those doctors' patients who are on health service waiting lists are not being disadvantaged by those doctors' involvement in the private sector?
    Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question and his continual guidance on the subject. He keeps me on the straight and narrow.
    Dr. Evan Harris: No, he does not.
    Mr. Milburn: That is a matter of opinion.
    There are two answers to my hon. Friend's question. As he is aware, we are in the middle of a quite complex and difficult negotiation with the British Medical Association on a new contract for consultants. Like many people in the profession and the national health service, I think that a new contract is long overdue. A very simple deal is on offer for the BMA and for consultants; we will pay more money to NHS consultants for working in the national health service in exchange for their giving up
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    some of the work that they do on privately paid-for patients. That seems a good deal for both doctors and patients.
    As my hon. Friend also well knows, the vast majority of doctors working in the private sector also work in the national health service. By and large, private sector hospitals do not employ their own doctors but take advantage of the doctors whom we employ. It seems to be right and proper that, wherever care is provided, whether in a private sector hospital or in an NHS hospital, we do not end up with the absurd situation in which we transfer NHS doctors and nurses away from treating NHS patients. It is NHS patients who should come first.
    Mr. Philip Hammond: The Secretary of State will know that there has been a great deal of interest in the clinical staffing of elective surgical units to be provided by private partners under public-private partnerships. He himself—although not the Prime Minister—seems to have ruled out the provision of clinical staff by the private sector. Can he confirm whether that includes ruling out the use of clinical staff employed by a private agency to work in those units?
    Mr. Milburn: I think that both sides of the House agree that the biggest problem in the NHS is not so much a shortage of cash as a shortage of capacity. As we said in 1997 and repeated in the just-finished general election campaign, there is therefore no case for transferring NHS doctors, nurses and clinical staff out of the national health service. It is important that we keep clinicians, clinical services and clinical staff inside the NHS.
    I should, however, clarify one other point as I know that the hon. Gentleman is rather obsessed with the idea that public is bad and private is good. We take a completely different view. Our view is that we will use the private sector when it is appropriate to do so and when the private sector can bring something to the table, whether that is expertise or finance, although there are clear boundaries around that involvement. Moreover, reform of the national health service has to be led by people within the national health service.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: Are any NHS medical services, equipment or treatments being provided by means of private finance but under contract to the NHS?
    Mr. Milburn: Medical equipment is being provided by private sector suppliers, as has long been the case. People sometimes say that private sector firms should not be making a profit out of the national health service, but that is simply one of the absurd arguments about the issue. Who do hon. Members think have long been building national health service hospitals? Private sector firms have been making a profit out of that, as have equipment suppliers.
    We must judge what is in the interests of the NHS, and there are some clear tests: can the private sector bring something to the table for the benefit of NHS patients, can we assure patients in the NHS that they will get the highest standards of care wherever they are treated, and most importantly, is the taxpayer getting a good deal?

    Autism
    Mr. Tim Boswell: What the place of persons with autistic spectrum disorders is in the national strategy for learning disabilities. [483]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Jacqui Smith): Those who also have learning disabilities will benefit directly from the national strategy set out in "Valuing People". Furthermore, the Government are working with the Medical Research Council, professional bodies and other experts to examine current knowledge on autistic spectrum disorders and to consider how screening, diagnosis and early intervention can be improved.
    Mr. Boswell: While thanking the Minister for that answer and welcoming her to her new post, may I ask her to acknowledge, with her prior knowledge of disability issues, the concern of the National Autistic Society that the present, rather ritualistic definition of learning disabilities in the learning disability White Paper is likely to exclude 80 per cent. of people within the autistic spectrum who are able or, in certain cases, highly intelligent? Will she have particular regard to the reference in the White Paper to the need for a proper assessment of communication and social skills in determining whether or not services should be provided, to ensure that local authorities do not, as they have threatened, withdraw those services because they have read one item and not another?
    Jacqui Smith: I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be unreasonable of local authorities to withdraw services from people on the autistic spectrum on the basis of a very narrow definition. Of course the implementation of the learning disability White Paper proposals will improve services for those with learning disabilities, but by bringing together health, social care and educational agencies, we will have the scope to improve opportunities and services for people on the autistic spectrum. I recognise the concerns of the NAS, and my officials will be meeting the organisation in the near future to talk about their concerns in detail. We will, as we are committed to do, work on what more we need to do to improve services for people on the autistic spectrum.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: In giving a warm welcome to my hon. Friend the Minister in her new post, can I ask whether she agrees that people who experience autism are often gifted as well—for example, in art or music? Will she confirm that to help those people achieve fulfilment, the Government will continue with their commitment to advocacy, which was so important in the field of learning disabilities in the last Parliament?
    Jacqui Smith: My right hon. Friend makes an important point concerning the wide range of needs within the autistic spectrum. I agree that for those high-functioning people with autism, it is extremely important that, when developing services, we enable them to have a voice on the way in which those services are delivered. That is why advocacy is at the centre of the learning
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    disability White Paper and the way in which we will develop all services, which will be centred on the users and will reflect their needs.
    Mrs. Marion Roe: How does the Minister intend to speed up the early diagnosis of those with ASD? What support services will be available to the families of children who have ASD, because they, of course, are very important?
    Jacqui Smith: My previous experience in this area suggests to me that we need to develop good working relationships between social services departments and education services. The hon. Lady will be aware that the Department for Education and Skills is consulting on and publishing the special educational needs code of practice, which will be very important in terms of the early identification of children with ASD. We are looking across Government at how we can develop help for children below the age of two by bringing together education and social services. As the hon. Lady rightly points out, our work to support carers and families through the NHS plan will be important in this area.

    Primary Care
    Mr. Kevin Hughes: What proposals he has for delegating spending to NHS primary care groups and trusts; and if he will make a statement. [484]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): By 2004, we will ensure that primary care trusts control at least 75 per cent. of NHS resources. I also intend to allocate funding direct to primary care trusts rather than through health authorities. That will put the spending power directly in the hands of front-line NHS staff.
    Mr. Hughes: I am grateful for my right hon. Friend's answer, but is he aware that constituents of mine in Stainforth are having to wait up to two weeks for an appointment to see their general practitioner at the Field Road surgery? Ten years ago, there were only three GPs at that surgery. Now there are six, along with four nurses, eight receptionists, a practice manager and a practice secretary. It beggars belief that people are having to wait up to two weeks just for an appointment to see their GP. So will my right hon. Friend ensure that when he delegates that money, some of it is spent on ensuring that my constituents do not have to wait that long to see their GP?
    Mr. Milburn: Yes—I would not dare say no, after that. There is a real issue here, in that although we have made progress in some aspects of waiting, there is an awfully long way to go. People tend to wait too long for treatment on the national health service, whether for a hospital operation or, sometimes, for a GP's appointment. That varies immensely—in some parts of the country, people can get access to a GP quite quickly, while in other parts, as my hon. Friend has just pointed out, people can sometimes wait two weeks or more to see their GP. We must put that right.

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    That is why I think that patients will in the end support the idea in the NHS plan that they will be guaranteed an appointment within a reasonable period of time—within 48 hours. Many GPs already guarantee that level of service to their patients. We reckon chat between a third and a half of all GPs are already agreeing appointments within 48 hours. We now need to ensure that we put in place the resources and the reforms to other parts of primary care to make sure that that level of service is guaranteed not just for some patients but for every patient.
    Dr. Evan Harris: May I join the Secretary of State's Back Bench Members in seeking to keep him on the straight and narrow? Will he accept that however small the pieces of the cake, if the cake is not large enough it will not solve the health service's problems? My health authority tells me that the amount of growth money is dwarfed by the list of "must do" items, and their cost, emanating, from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Does the Secretary of State accept that when the "must do" list from NICE exceeds the growth money, funding is cut from services that are not subject to that guidance—the Cinderella specialties?
    Mr. Milburn: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new duties on the Front Bench as the Liberal Democrat spokesman on health matters. His promotion is clearly very good news for him, and it is probably also good news for us. I noticed from the hon. Gentleman's website that he proudly boasts that he used to be an adviser to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—no doubt advising him in the art of humility and self-effacement. I just hope that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon is more successful in his current job than he was in his previous one.
    The hon. Gentleman referred to funding for the drugs and treatments that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence says are necessary for patients. As he is aware, we, at least, fought the election campaign on a manifesto commitment that in future, when NICE says yes to a drug or treatment, we would direct local health services to ensure that that is provided for the benefit of all NHS patients. Ultimately—the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), who is chuntering away, has been urging; this on us—the decisions about how the money is spent must be taken locally rather than being taken nationally by me.
    Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: In ensuring that extra resources go into primary care, will my right hon. Friend ensure that mental health is not forgotten? Will he also ensure that we do not repeat the problems of postcode medicine that have been faced in south Lancashire?
    Sandra Gidley: Postcode lottery—
    Mr. Hoyle: I am asking the Secretary of State, not you.
    Mr. Milburn: I do not want to intrude on private grief. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am tempted to say that he should perhaps take some tablets too. There has been a postcode lottery in these big services—mental health and so forth—and we must try to solve that. In the national health service, people want to know that they will receive treatment according to their needs and not
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    according to where they live, how much they earn or what they are worth. That is why it is right to have national standards and to have institutes such as NICE that can provide advice to people in the NHS about which treatments work and which do not. That is happening now.
    I can certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance that, alongside cancer and coronary heart disease, services for the elderly and those who have mental health problems are at the top of our list of priorities.
    Dr. Liam Fox: Will the Secretary of State confirm that from now on, following the concordat that he signed with the private sector, primary care groups and primary care trusts will be able to buy care for their patients directly from the private sector, missing out the NHS as the primary provider?
    Mr. Milburn: That is a matter for primary care trusts to decide—[Interruption] If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will answer the question in my own way. He can pose it as he wishes, but just because I do not answer it as he wants does not mean that it is the wrong answer. Primary care trusts will be in the driving seat. They will have to decide how to spend the resources available. That is right and proper. In the end, there is a big difference between the hon. Gentleman's policy and ours. His policy is that public is bad and private is good. Ours is that the answer to the problems of the national health service lies in that service.
    Dr. Fox: Why has the Secretary of State tried to pretend in the past few days that the concordat allows less freedom than it does, by talking about strict limitations on what provision the NHS can buy in the private sector? The document that he signed talks of
    "not only at times of pressure but also on a more proactive longer term basis";
    and, on elective care, of
    "Primary Care Groups or Primary Care Trusts commissioning directly from a private and voluntary health care provider"—
    "as long as they can demonstrate high standards and value for money".
    Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that it does a disservice to politics in general when he pretends one thing during the election campaign and another to his Back Benchers, while the truth is that he has taken a major step forward for primary care groups and trusts to miss the NHS out entirely as the provider of care? Why does he not come clean and admit that that is what he is doing?
    Mr. Milburn: I have just answered the hon. Gentleman's question. However, a fallacy lies at the heart of that question and, with respect, of his approach. As hon. Members on both sides of the House know, the truth is that, by and large, we thankfully have one monopoly provider and that is the NHS. As long as a Labour Government are in power, that will remain the position. NHS principles and the national health service are not up for sale.
    The hon. Gentleman has an entirely different policy—it is one that not only did not win favour at the general election, but one that he is so scared about that he did not even talk about it during the campaign. On one further

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    minor point, I hope that he manages to retain his position when there is a Conservative Front- Bench reshuffle, because that would benefit the whole House and certainly the Government. Some of my hon. Friends have been dismayed that he has not thrown his hat into the Conservative leadership contest, but I have some words of comfort—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I will give the Minister some words of comfort—I call the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley).
    Ms Joan Walley: The strength of primary care trusts lies in the way they can respond to and meet local needs. When my right hon. Friend considers delegation, will he ensure that the allocation of money to the trusts is speeded up? Also, in the modernisation process that is taking place in the national health service, will he ensure that we do not end up with larger primary care trusts than those that have just been set up? The trust in my constituency is doing a splendid job and I want it to continue to do so.
    Mr. Milburn: Again, that is a matter for local discretion. The primary care groups that are moving towards primary care trust status must have a hand in that decision. It is obviously of benefit when the boundaries between local authorities—which, as has been noted, provide social services, housing services, and so on—and the primary care trusts are coterminous. The value of that is that it makes the system easier to operate and easier for patients to understand.
    However, there should be no doubt about the Government's commitment. We want to make sure that the people who were in charge of front-line patient services—such as GPs, community nurses, representatives of the local community and local authorities—are in charge of the resources available for patients. That has to be right.
    At present, about 50 per cent. of the NHS is controlled by primary care groups. I hope that 75 per cent. of the overall NHS budget will be controlled by primary care trusts by 2004. What is more, we need to remove some of the tiers of bureaucracy that stand in the way of the ability of front-line staff and services to do their jobs. That is why the NHS regional offices will be abolished, as will two thirds of health authorities.

    NHS Pay
    Simon Hughes: What plans he has for bringing the pay of NHS employees up to the level of comparably qualified people working in the private sector. [486]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): Independent pay review bodies recommend levels of pay for medical, dental and nursing staff, and for some allied health professionals. The review bodies are required to take account of recruitment and retention of their remit groups. In addition, we are working in partnership with trades unions and professional
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    organisations to agree modernised and fairer pay systems for all national health service employees. Our proposals for pay reform were outlined in the NHS plan.
    Simon Hughes: I am disappointed that it is not the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box. Labour's NHS plan states that the Government are in favour of a new pay system for the NHS, and figures published today detail the pay received by the service's humble and self-effacing nurses. They show that general nurses get about two thirds of what is paid for agency work, while a theatre-registered general nurse gets paid about half the rate for an agency job.
    Is it the Government's plan to bring the pay of people who work for the national health service up to the levels available outside, so that they will not leave the service and work elsewhere? If so, will he ensure that all those working for the NHS come within the pay review body structure? Above all will he ensure that ambulance personnel receive the sort of pay that people who save lives every day deserve?
    Mr. Hutton: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are serious about pursuing the matter of pay modernisation and reform in the NHS. The NHS is the biggest employer in the country, with more than 1 million staff. It is trying to recruit and retain staff in a very competitive labour market. Good progress has been made with the introduction of new retention and recruitment schemes for primary care staff, nurses and others, but there is, of course, more to be done. However, the key to the reform of the pay system, for which the hon. Gentleman and others have called, will be to make progress on the proposals that we outlined in February 1999.
    Those proposals to oversee and overhaul the pay system were confirmed in the NHS plan, and they depend on establishing a modern system of job evaluation. It is very important that we get that right, which is why we are trying to reach agreement with the trade unions and the professional organisations.
    It is very important for the NHS to make progress on pay. We are serious about making progress as quickly as we can.
    Paddy Tipping: Surely one of the best ways to reward and motivate NHS staff is to identify and promote best practice, wherever it occurs. Will my hon. Friend the Minister deny the outdated dogma of "private sector good, public sector bad", and seek change and higher morale in the NHS by looking at existing best practice in our surgeries and hospitals?
    Mr. Hutton: I agree very strongly with my hon. Friend. The big problem for the NHS has existed since the beginning in 1948: how do we incentivise and reward good practice across the service, so that people in Cumbria or Cornwall can be equally confident that they are getting the best possible service? I also agree that a key approach is to find new ways to reward and incentivise staff, and we are prepared to do that.
    However, although pay is an important element, the Government can do other things to improve the morale of NHS staff and to help with their recruitment and retention. For example, we can ensure that the NHS is the best

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    employer in the country, as well the biggest. We can look at child-care facilities, provide access to such things as low-cost housing, and make more widely available across the service more family friendly patterns of employment. All of that will help the NHS in all parts of the country, as well as in my hon. Friend's constituency.
    Mr. Speaker: I call Mr. Desmond Swayne.
    Mr. Milburn: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: I thank the Secretary of State for his welcome.
    What did the Government mean when they told the review body for nurses' pay that there was
    "no case for a special pay response from us this year on grounds of recruitment and retention"?
    What planet is the Minister on?
    Mr. Hutton: The hon. Gentleman lives on the same planet as the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames). It is not one inhabited by normal human beings.
    What we mean is that there is a job of work to be done to improve recruitment and retention across the NHS. That is precisely what we are doing. We have announced new plans and new proposals to make sure that we make progress. There is no question of our not living in the real world.
    Conservative Members are full of the NHS now, the things that are wrong with it and what they want to put right, but I remind them that during the month of the general election campaign they would not talk about it at all. They were too frightened and too embarrassed about their policies to have the confidence to talk about them to the public.

    Demographic Change
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: What new resources he will make available for areas of continuing population growth. [487]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Jacqui Smith): My hon. Friend's constituency will benefit from the increased investment that the Government are making in the national health service. In distributing the increased investment, we allocate funding to health authorities on the basis of the relative needs of their population. The most important determinant of need for health services is the size of the population, and each year we update the formula that we use to take account of the latest available population projections from the Office for National Statistics.
    Dr. Starkey: May I remind the Minister that Milton Keynes is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country and has had an increase in population year on year of 2 per cent. for more than a decade? although some extra beds have been provided in our hospital and we are to have a new diagnostic and treatment centre, the occupancy rate for adult acute beds averages 93 per cent. My hon. Friend's fellow Minister of State, my hon Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), who visited the hospital before the election campaign, understood the stress that the hospital was under, and he
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    has also received a letter from consultants at the hospital stressing their problems. Will she urgently consider providing both capital and revenue inputs now to bridge the gap until the new diagnostic and treatment unit comes on stream?
    Jacqui Smith: I recognise the pressure that staff at Milton Keynes general hospital are working under. I have seen the letter that my hon. Friend sent to my hon. Friend the Minister. I thank her, as an advocate for her constituency, and the staff of the hospital for the good work that they are doing under difficult circumstances. I agree that it is important that the plans for the new diagnostic and treatment centre are taken forward as quickly as possible. I understand that the project board has been set up.
    I understand my hon. Friend's concern about extra funding to deal with some of the problems. We are actively considering a recent bid from the health authority for £1 million of additional resources for Milton Keynes general hospital. That bid is receiving extremely active consideration from my hon. Friend the Minister. That money would be on top of the extra resources that the authority has already received.
    It is important that, in undertaking its modernisation review, the health authority looks at the particular needs of the Milton Keynes area and how they can be addressed. I hear what my hon. Friend eloquently says on behalf of her constituents, and I know that my hon. Friend the Minister, who is considering that bid, has also heard it.
    Alistair Burt: Is the Minister aware that, despite the projections, my constituents in North-East Bedfordshire still find themselves with a health authority that is some £17 million underfunded, even though it is an area of substantial population growth? When can she reassure my constituents that adequate resources will be made available by her Government before that population growth comes on stream so that we do not have continually to play the inadequate game of catch-up?
    Jacqui Smith: As I have already outlined, the key issue for the hon. Gentleman's constituents is how the formula allocates the resources. We have already made it clear in the NHS plan that we are anxious to reduce inequalities, that that would be a key criterion for allocating NHS resources and that we shall be considering how to level up the resources of less well funded health authorities. The hon. Gentleman, who has experience of election campaigns, both successful and unsuccessful, has a bit of a cheek to return to the House pressing for extra funding after campaigning during the election on a promise of between £16 billion and £20 billion of cuts. One cannot say one thing to the country and another to the House.

    Macular Degeneration
    Mr. Alan Simpson: What treatment is available within the NHS for macular degeneration. [488]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Yvette Cooper): There are two kinds of age-related macular degeneration. Dry age-related macular degeneration accounts for 90 per cent. of cases

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    and has no currently available treatment. Wet age-related macular degeneration can be treated with laser coagulation and photodynamic therapy on the NHS.
    Mr. Simpson: I know that the Minister will share my concern about the increasing numbers of older people who suffer from macular degeneration—bleeding at the back of the eye that destroys all central vision and results in near blindness. I know that she is also aware that the Queen's medical centre in my constituency is one of four centres of excellence which are offering treatments in the United Kingdom that had previously been available only in other parts of Europe.
    I am sure that the Minister will be delighted to know that those treatments take up no more than half an hour of NHS time, but I am sure that she will share my concern to discover that patients in Nottingham are being told that they cannot have access to such treatment under the NHS unless they can fork out £1,000 a time for it. Will she look into the charging process that makes those treatments available in our own funded programmes, and give the House some assurance about when we shall be able to guarantee that those treatments will be available on the basis of need, not wealth?
    Yvette Cooper: I can assure my hon. Friend that I will look into the cases that he describes. I am not aware of the details that he is talking about. I know, however, that we have asked the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to examine one of the proposed treatments, visudyne, which is being trialled in many areas across the NHS, to assess its clinical and cost effectiveness, so that we can follow set recommendations throughout the NHS instead of different recommendations being followed in different areas.
    Mr. David Tredinnick: May I correct the Minister and say that macular degeneration can be treated by using homeopathic remedies, by herbal remedies and by using acupuncture? Is not it very regrettable that, since the introduction of primary care groups in the national health service, the number of complementary therapies available in the health service has decreased? Will the Government look into that urgently? Was the Minister aware that last week was homeopathic awareness week, which of course was very important?
    Yvette Cooper: I certainly congratulate the hon. Gentleman on finding an opportunity to raise complementary and alternative medicine in Health questions—the clock was ticking and I wondered when he would find the opportunity to do so. He has taken the opportunity to inform the House of the fact that last week was homeopathic awareness week.
    I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the possible impact of complementary and alternative medicine on treating age-related macular degeneration. He is aware that we have provided extensive information to primary care groups to promote their awareness of the impact that complementary and alternative medicine can have. The choice of treatments is obviously a decision for primary care groups and trusts to take, but we are keen to ensure that they have full information about the benefits of complementary and alternative medicine so that they can take informed decisions in the interests of their patients.

    Basildon Hospital
    Andrew Mackinlay: If he will make a statement on measures proposed to improve the accident and emergency department at Basildon hospital. [491]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): Of the £150 million that has been invested in improving accident and emergency departments across the country, Basildon has received £338,000, which has already helped to fund the refurbishment of the resuscitation room and provision of a children's waiting area.
    Andrew Mackinlay: I thank the Minister for that reply. When the Secretary of State had just become a junior health Minister, I introduced an Adjournment debate, which I expect he will recall. In prophetic terms, I explained that the closure of the Orsett hospital A and E department—the decision was made under the Conservative Administration—meant that the Basildon A and E department would not be able to cope. Will she send some of her folk down from the Ministry to have a look? There is massive overcrowding, people have to stay in the A and E department because they cannot go on to the wards and there is bed-blocking, which is largely caused by Essex county council. That needs to be tackled. We are in a crisis in which I can no longer acquiesce by my silence, and I will not do so.
    Ms Blears: I am aware of my hon. Friend's consistency on the matter and that he raised it again in his contribution on the Queen's Speech. We have already done better than sending officials down, because, in February, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State visited with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith), who has made similar representations for a long time. As a result of that visit, an extra £7.2 million was awarded to build a third storey on top of new wards. That will provide an extra 108 beds at the hospital, but, to help with emergency pressures in particular, the provision of a 27-bed ward is being brought forward six months. It will open just before Christmas and will be in place when the hospital experiences peak demand—over Christmas and into the new year. Although we hope to achieve a better flow of patients into those new beds, we are acutely conscious of the tremendous problems at Basildon and we shall continue to monitor them.

    PFI Projects
    Dr. Julian Lewis: How many PFI projects are awaiting his approval. [492]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): Since May 1997, 64 major hospital schemes worth more than £7.4 billion have been given the go-ahead to proceed under PFI, representing the biggest hospital-building programme in the history of the national health service. For major schemes, Ministers approve the final PFI proposal in the full business case. No FBCs are currently awaiting approval by Ministers.
    Dr. Lewis: Does the Minister recall that, last year, the NHS executive pulled the plug on two proposed PFI community hospitals, one in Sheppey and one at

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    Lymington? Since then, the Sheppey project has been built as a publicly funded hospital, but nothing has happened with regard to the hospital at Lymington, which is desperately needed to serve the New Forest area. Could the difference in treatment be explained by the fact that the hospital in Sheppey was in a Labour marginal seat and the one in the New Forest area was not?
    Mr. Hutton: Labour Members used to be accused of being conspiracy theorists—clearly, that infection has spread to the ranks of Conservative Members. There were problems at Lymington of which the hon. Gentleman, to be fair to him, will be aware and the new primary care trust is trying to find a way forward as quickly as possible to resolve the outstanding issues that need to be addressed. We shall give our support to finding the speediest way possible to resolve the problems at Lymington.
    Mr. Derek Foster: Through the Minister, may I thank the Secretary of State for a PFI project, which he has signed? The beautiful building rising in the centre of Bishop Auckland will be a superb example of the concept of public-private partnership, but may I tell them that an instruction to deliver is not a mandate to privatise? Will my hon. Friend ensure that the NHS is saved from an unnecessary and counter-productive battle and that we get on with the job, which he is doing so splendidly, of delivering?
    Mr. Hutton: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his remarks about the Bishop Auckland scheme and I remind the House that it is a good example of what the PFI can do. The public sector capital route would have required a 10-year rebuilding programme over three separate phases. Under the PFI, we were able to achieve that in one go over three years. He is absolutely right-it shows the benefits of private finance and public partnerships.
    Let me say to my right hon. Friend, all my hon. Friends and Opposition Members that the Government have no plans to privatise the NHS. We have made that absolutely clear. We need and require a modern and effective relationship with the private sector and we shall achieve that, but we are not privatising the NHS. The NHS is not for sale.

    Beta Interferon
    12. Mr. John Bercow: When the decision by NICE on the availability of beta interferon to multiple sclerosis sufferers will be made. [493]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): The National Institute for Clinical Excellence is now consulting on the draft economic model and data on the cost effectiveness of beta interferon and glatiramer acetate. NICE anticipates that its appraisal committee will reconsider the evidence next month and, subject to any further appeals, we expect it to issue its final guidance by November this year.
    Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the Minister of State for that informative reply. Will he confirm that beta interferon for multiple sclerosis sufferers is effective only when it is used early in the course of the disease? Does he accept the estimate of the Multiple Sclerosis Society that hundreds of
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    people will be irrevocably disabled if they are denied access to the drug during the extension of the NICE appraisal? If he does, how can he guarantee that his Department's proper exhortation to continue prescribing the drug will be heeded at the local level?
    Mr. Hutton: We do not issue guidance simply to amuse ourselves; its purpose is to deal with the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes. The wider issues about the benefits, or otherwise, of beta interferon are matters for the national institute to address. That is why we established it, and we await its guidance with interest.
    Hugh Bayley: Does my hon. Friend accept that beta interferon is not the only treatment for multiple sclerosis? It is effective for some patients, but not for others. Does he agree that it is important that other treatments, such as specialist nursing, are made available? Will he assure me that NICE will also consider the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of other treatments for multiple sclerosis so that patients get the best possible treatment?
    Mr. Hutton: I confirm to my hon. Friend that NICE is examining the widest possible range of treatments for people who suffer from multiple sclerosis. It is important that it has the opportunity to do that properly, on the basis of all the available evidence, and we have asked it to do precisely what he describes.
    Sir Patrick Cormack: Does the Minister accept that the time that NICE is taking to determine the issue makes its acronym increasingly inappropriate? Will he confirm that beta interferon is significantly cheaper to buy in other countries, such as Australia?
    Mr. Hutton: I do not know the price of beta interferon in Australia, but it is desperately important that NICE takes the time that it needs to get the judgment right. It thought that it needed more evidence before it could reach a properly balanced conclusion and we should give it the time to do that.

    Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry
    Valerie Davey: When the report of the Bristol Royal Infirmary inquiry into the management and care of children receiving complex heart surgery will be published. [494]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): Professor Ian Kennedy, the chairman of the Bristol inquiry, has not yet submitted the report to me. When he does, I shall seek an early opportunity to present the inquiry's findings to the House and to publish the report.
    Valerie Davey: The parents and friends of those who were directly affected by the events in Bristol have been waiting a long time for the report and will be disappointed to hear that reply. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the inquiry's findings are reported at the earliest possible moment and that that happens in Bristol, not London?
    Mr. Milburn: The finalisation of the inquiry's report, is rightly and properly a matter for the independent inquiry, which we established to examine the serious issues raised by parents, families, doctors and other staff members. I look forward to receiving the report and, when I do, I assure my hon. Friend and her constituents that I shall try to address the House as quickly as possible and to ensure that it is published in full.

    General Practitioners
    Mr. David Rendel: What plans he has to increase the number of practising general practitioners. [R] [495]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): We are committed to increasing the number of general practitioners by at least 2,000 and GP registrars by 550 by 2004. We will also invest in 1,000 more medical school places on top of the 1,100 already announced. In March, we also announced a further investment of £135 million over the next three years to improve the recruitment and retention of GPs and nurses.
    Mr. Rendel: I should make it clear that I have an interest in that my wife is a GP.
    Does the Minister accept that many GPs have now reduced their consultation times to as little as five minutes because of the pressure on them? Does he further accept that that is far too short a time for them to give a proper first-class service to their patients? Given the mediocre means that he has just announced for increasing the number of GPs, does he accept that it will be many years before GPs can give a longer average consultation time to their patients?
    Mr. Hutton: No, I do not accept much of what the hon. Gentleman says. We are all aware that GPs are expressing concerns, and I shall shortly be meeting the chairman of the general practitioners committee to discuss those concerns and other issues that he wants to raise. There is a serious way to deal with the issues, and then there is the Liberal Democrat way. The hon. Gentleman has just pooh-poohed £135 million worth of extra resource. I see his hon. Friends making hand gestures and behaving generally in a rather stupid fashion. The important thing is that we have set out the resources that we intend to provide. The hon. Gentleman's party failed to do that. We are working with GPs in a seriously constructive way to resolve the concerns that they and others are expressing.

BILL PRESENTED
  EXPORT CONTROL
  Ms Secretary Hewitt, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Straw, Secretary Clare Short, Mr. Secretary Hoon, Secretary Tessa Jowell and Mr. Nigel Griffiths presented a Bill to make provision enabling controls to be imposed on the exportation of goods, the transfer of technology, the provision of technical assistance overseas and activities connected with trade in controlled goods; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 5].

Point of Order
3.31 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you be kind enough to clarify one particular point for the newly elected Members of the House? Is it correct that a newly elected Member should not table a question until he or she has made a maiden speech, but may ask a supplementary?
Mr. Speaker: It is the practice of the House, but it is not an absolute rule. I hope that that helps the hon. Gentleman and new Members.

Orders of the Day
  Debate on the Address

    FIFTH DAY
    Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [20 June],
    That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
    Most Gracious Sovereign,
    We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament—[Mr. Sheerman].
    Question again proposed.

  Rural Communities and Transport
  Mr. Speaker: I have accepted the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
  3.32 pm
  Mr. Tim Yeo: I beg to move, as an amendment to the Address, at the end of the Question to add:
  "But humbly regret that the Gracious Speech makes no reference to agriculture and the countryside, contains no proposals to assist farming, tourism and the rest of the rural economy to recover from foot and mouth disease, does not include any commitment to establish an independent public inquiry into the origins and handling of the epidemic, and does not explain how the new Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, from whose title agriculture is regrettably excluded, will protect the countryside and the environment without changes in planning policy to prevent excessive development on greenfield sites, to the detriment of balanced development of the inner cities; regret that specific measures to improve transport are notable by their absence from the Gracious Speech; and have no confidence that the Government will achieve the world-class public services that they promised prior to the general election.".
  I again congratulate the Secretary of State on her new appointment and I express my sympathy to her for the loss of her voice, with which I heard her struggling on the radio this morning. She is the first head of a new Department with wide responsibilities and she carries a formidable burden in that capacity. On behalf of the Opposition, I genuinely wish her well in the task that lies ahead. I welcome the creation of the new Department. In establishing it, the Prime Minister seems to have heeded advice that I first offered in an article in Country Life in 1994, although I would have defined its role slightly differently.
  Before dealing with the crisis in rural communities, the plight of farmers and other matters referred to in our amendment, I want to mention the wider environmental agenda on which the future of agriculture and the countryside, not just in Britain but elsewhere, ultimately depends.
  This is, as others have mentioned, the first British Government to be elected in the 21st century. I hope that, in future, environmental criteria will be one of the main benchmarks against which they will judge all their decisions, and by which they will measure the success of all their policies, not just those for which the Department has direct responsibility.

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  Sustainability is the great challenge for the new century. The world's population is growing, and all around the globe people naturally aspire to better living standards. As a result, unprecedented demands are being placed on our planet's natural resources. Meeting those demands in a sustainable way must now be the top priority for Governments everywhere. We are all stewards of our inheritance. It is our duty to leave behind a world better than the one we inherited—a world that is not consuming natural resources at an irreplaceable rate. That is a duty for which the Prime Minister has shown scant regard in the past four years.
  Geraint Davies: How does the hon. Gentleman reconcile sustainability with his manifesto commitment to reduce the price of petrol?
  Mr. Yeo: May I give the hon. Gentleman a little bit of advice? From where he stands, the result of the general election was extremely bad news because it means that the Government Benches continue to be thickly populated by people who rise to ask planted questions.
  Mr. John Bercow: It did not get him a job in the last Parliament.
  Mr. Yeo: My hon. Friend anticipates my point: the problem as far as the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) is concerned is that only a very small number of those lackeys will be rewarded with ministerial posts. If I may offer him another piece of advice, I believe that the hon. Gentleman will command the respect of the House and of his constituents, and he might even gain the attention of his Front Benchers, if he speaks on the merits of the issue and offers constructive advice to the Government, instead of trying to make cheap debating points about what may or may not have been the record of previous Conservative Governments.
  Few promises have been more spectacularly broken than Labour's pledge to be the greenest Government ever. However, in welcoming the Secretary of State, I recognise that she comes to the Department fresh, so we shall live in hope that the Government will repent of their errors.
  On specific aspects of policy, I shall first explore another area on which Labour's record thus far has been truly dismal: agriculture. In the past four years, agriculture has been brought to the verge of extinction. Farm incomes have collapsed by two thirds, and 20,000 jobs a year have been destroyed in each of the past two years—even before foot and mouth disease hit Britain in February. I do not believe that a Labour Government would have allowed any other industry to suffer in that way without implementing a package of emergency measures, making regular statements to the House and establishing working parties and special Cabinet Committees to achieve the industry's survival. In 18 years of representing a rural constituency, I have never seen the farming community so demoralised or so despairing of its future.
  The Secretary of State heads a new Department whose title does not even mention agriculture. She heads a team of Ministers in the Commons, not one of whom has agriculture as part of his main responsibilities. Those
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  omissions confirm the worst fears of many people in the countryside that Labour simply does not care whether farming survives as an important British industry.
  It is not merely the title of the Department that conveys that chilling warning; it is the actions of the Labour Government over the past four years. In a period of steadily worsening crisis in farming, Labour has refused to block substandard food imports from entering Britain, even when they threaten human or animal health. Labour has refused to introduce honesty in food labelling, even though consumers are misled every day about the origins of the food they buy. Until foot and mouth disease struck, Labour refused to claim much of the available agrimonetary compensation, even though part of the cost of that cash help for British farmers is met by the European Union. Labour has refused to protect the best and most versatile agricultural land from the threat of development, even though that risks irreversible loss of Britain's finest farmland. Labour has refused to stop gold-plating Brussels regulations putting ever greater burdens on farmers, slaughterhouses, food processors and thousands of other businesses. Labour has refused to protect conventional and organic farmers from the threat posed by genetically modified crop trials that are neither properly controlled nor effectively monitored. I urge the Secretary of State to reverse every one of those mistaken policies.
  Mr. Jon Owen Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman display his knowledge of agriculture by telling the House which UK industry receives more subsidy than any other? Which UK industry receives a subsidy equivalent in amount to the subsidies given to all others?
  Mr. Yeo: I am bound to say that even I, with my extensive knowledge of the way in which Labour has treated agriculture for the past four years, was not aware that it was the Labour Government's policy to cut further the subsidies that are currently paid. We live in a world in which every advanced and wealthy country subsidises its farmers. If Britain alone were to go down the route that is advocated by the hon. Gentleman and perhaps supported by his party, then as night follows day, what remains of a once great British industry would be immediately destroyed.
  Ms Joan Walley: Much of what the hon. Gentleman has told the House is myth. We should look at the detail. Does he agree that the detail is what is important? Was not it a Labour Government who introduced a ban on liquid condensate? On a range of issues, the Labour Government have—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman displays his knowledge by not even knowing what I am talking about. He should look at the record of the previous Conservative Government and at what this Labour Government will do.
  Mr. Yeo: It is this Labour Government who have refused to take any action against poultry meat imports from the far east, where growth-promoting drugs are used that have been banned throughout the European Union on health grounds. It is this Labour Government who have refused to take action against French or German beef that contains illegal and dangerous cuts. It is this Labour

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  Government who deliberately talked out a Bill that was introduced by a Conservative Back Bencher last year which would have introduced honesty in food labelling.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural kffairs (Mr. Elliot Morley): It would be illegal.
  Mr. Yeo: The Under-Secretary of State says from a sedentary position that it would be illegal to introduce honesty in food labelling. That is exactly the problem. The Labour Government refuse to contemplate any action to defend the position of either British consumers or British producers. If they are not willing to take on the bureaucrats in Brussels on that issue, there is no hope that anything remotely resembling a level playing field will ever be introduced for British agriculture. British taxpayers would regard it as a perfectly proper use of their money to fight a legal action to introduce the principle of honesty in food labelling. As soon as there is a Conservative Government, we will put that at the top of our priorities.
  Mr. Gordon Prentice: What the shadow Minister said earlier is simply incorrect. In the previous Parliament, the Labour Government banned four antibiotic growth promoters, including Virginiamycin. As someone who holds himself up as an expert in agriculture, perhaps he would apologise to the House for getting that wrong.
  Mr. Yeo: Again, the hon. Gentleman has made my point for me. This Government are willing to stop those practices in Britain, but they do nothing at all to stop goods that have been produced using the same practices abroad from coming into the British market.
  Mr. Alex Salmond: On the subject of legality and otherwise, does the hon. Gentleman remember the Merchant Shipping Act 1988? The then Conservative Government were warned about the illegality of what they were doing—they were trying to define on grounds of nationality instead of residence. As a result of continuing with that, they ended up having to pay £100 million to Spanish quota hoppers. Is he recommending that course of action again?
  Mr. Yeo: I am recommending a course of action that will protect British consumers from dangerous, substandard imported food. I believe that it is perfectly proper for the British Government to consider coming into conflict with the European authorities to protect British consumers. As it happens, both the European treaties and the World Trade Organisation rules contain specific provisions that allow the principle of free trade to be over-ridden where considerations of human or animal health apply. Indeed, all I am suggesting is that the same standards that we apply to every other industry be applied to farming and to food products. We do not allow substandard products that may endanger human life to come into this country—for example, motor cars that do not meet European standards. Why should we allow food that fails precisely the same tests?.
  I move on to common agricultural policy reform. I hope that the Secretary of State will set out the Government's long-term aims. They should aim, first, to apply the
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  principle of subsidiarity to the CAP and, secondly, to end discrimination against farmers in member states that are outside the single currency area. That is an urgent issue, given the continuing weakness of the euro and the imminent expiry of the agrimonetary compensation arrangements. Thirdly, the Government should aim to rethink the basis of agri-environment schemes. I hope that the Government will publish a paper on the options for CAP reform and instigate a debate both inside and outside Parliament.
  I turn now to foot and mouth disease. I regret to say that the Secretary of State did not get off to a happy start in her answers to questions on the issue last Thursday. Neither the tone nor the content of her replies to very reasonable questions from hon. Members on both sides of the House suggested that she realised the extent of concern in the countryside or the urgency of the measures that are still required. Hon. Members readily understand that after less than three weeks in the job, she will not be on top of all aspects of her brief, but her ignorance of some of the important issues is not, I am afraid, a reason for falling so quickly into the bad habits of her predecessor and making statements that are not true.
  The responsibilities of the Secretary of State's new Department are wide ranging, and I trust that there will be another chance to debate foot and mouth disease specifically before the summer recess, but I want to touch briefly on four aspects of the epidemic today. First, a full and independent public inquiry is needed. Last Thursday, the Secretary of State steadfastly refused to countenance an inquiry on that basis—again confirming fears that the Government are hoping for a small, low-level review of the epidemic, conducted in a way that minimises the risk that ministerial blundering will be exposed to public gaze and that will prevent Ministers, including the Prime Minister, and former Ministers from being questioned in public.
  The Prime Minister was, by his own account, in personal charge of handling the crisis from late March until, I understand, yesterday. His extraordinary claim that the Government were in the home-straight of defeating foot and mouth disease just before the election clearly owed everything to his wish to deceive voters into thinking that the crisis was over, and nothing to the facts. In the three months that the Prime Minister was in personal charge, he did not once see fit to make a statement on the subject in the House.
  The scale of the disaster, the damage to the livestock industry, the countryside, tourism and the whole rural economy, and the enormous cost to the taxpayer clearly justify a full, independent public inquiry. To help that process, I am today publishing and placing in the Library possible draft terms of reference, and I am inviting my counterparts in all other parties to consider them and to suggest any amendments that they feel should be made, with the aim of reaching all-party agreement on this very important issue and about the need for the inquiry and the basis on which it will be conducted. I have also written this morning to the Secretary of State to make it clear that she would be most welcome to join any discussions that take place.
  The second aspect of the epidemic is the need for a full recovery plan. Last Thursday, as reported at column 172 of Hansard, the Secretary of State confirmed that the Government would introduce such a plan, but refused to say when. The crisis in the countryside caused by foot

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  and mouth disease cannot wait until politicians find time to consider the problems at their convenience. Thousands of businesses face imminent collapse, and many need cash help now. It is more than three months since we suggested that interest-free loans should be available to such businesses and repayable only when they return to profitability.
  Ministers, whose salaries are paid regularly each month, do not always realise the agony of people whose businesses are running short of cash; they need help today. To back up the interest-free loans, we believe that further measures to increase rate relief are also required. Will the Secretary of State say why England will not match the measures already taken in Wales? Will she ensure that help is available in rural areas hit by the disease, even when those areas happen to fall inside urban local authorities? Will she set out as soon as possible the measures to be taken to deal with the new difficulties that will result from the ban on lamb and sheep exports? Will she announce the withdrawal of the Government's unworkable proposal for a 20-day ban on livestock movements? Will she introduce proposals for the recovery of the tourism industry, to help the livestock sector recover after the loss of valuable breeding stock and to assist other parts of the rural economy, including the important equestrian sector? Will we hear again soon from the rural task force, whose former chairman is, once again, absent from the Chamber?
  Mr. Bob Blizzard: The hon. Gentleman has just outlined a package of financial measures, which he would like to be put in place to assist the countryside. He has told us many times in recent weeks that his party could identify savings worth £8 billion in the Government's Budget. Why did he not propose putting that £8 billion into some of those measures, rather than proposing to spend on tax cuts the sum that he believed could be saved?
  Mr. Yeo: I am sure that it will be a comfort to the Government Whips to tick off another box to show that one of the questions that they planted has been asked. [Interruption.] I am quite happy to answer the question because I set out my view many times before the general election. The answer is that we believe and hope that this epidemic is a one-off crisis. It is a proper use of the Government's contingency reserves to meet the costs of a one-off crisis. That is precisely the purpose of the reserves. The expenditure commitments that I have outlined, which are precisely those that I outlined before the general election and during the campaign, would be met by a claim on the reserves.
  Thirdly, there is the need for additional compensation. Last Thursday, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wrongly alleged that I advocated compensation for
  "any unrecovered losses by anybody in any circumstances."—[Official Report, 21 June 2001; Vol. 370, c. 172.]
  I have never suggested that, and I regret that the right hon. Lady distorted my comments. I remain concerned, however, about businesses that have suffered unrecoverable losses directly as a result of foot and mouth disease. I shall give the right hon. Lady an example.
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  Farmers whose cattle pass the age of 30 months experience a fall in the value of those animals that can never be recovered. Before foot and mouth disease, those animals would have been moved off the farms and sold. Given the foot and mouth disease restrictions in many parts of Britain, farmers were not able to sell the animals but received no compensation.
  At the request of the previous Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I set out on 5 April in a letter seven categories of loss caused by foot and mouth disease which the Opposition believe should be compensated for from public funds. Will the Secretary of State comment on the proposals in that letter? If she has not seen it, I suggest that she speaks to officials and asks for a copy of it. As eventually the Government have had to do nearly everything that the Opposition have suggested, she may find it helpful and a saving of time if she studies the proposals that we h e already sent to her Department.
  Will the right hon. Lady say whether she agrees with the response of the former Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 26 April on the specific issue of over-30-month old cattle? When she responds, will she say whether she expects the review to which the right hon. Gentleman referred to be completed?.
  The fourth aspect of the epidemic that I wish to highlight is vaccination. I think that the Secretary of State indicated on Radio 4 this morning that vaccination is once again under consideration. Why is that the case if the Government have made the progress in overcoming foot and mouth disease that the Prime Minister claimed? Setting aside the mystery of why an option that was examined as a possible solution when the crisis was at its peak should be reconsidered now, nearly two months after the Prime Minister said that the Government were in the home-straight, perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us what circumstances have changed to lead to the reconsideration.
  Since the Government rejected vaccination in April, is there scientific evidence available that points to a new need for the process? Has the disease become endemic in some areas, or is it that with the election out of the way the Government are no longer afraid of the National Farmers Union? Will the right hon. Lady say what the purpose of vaccination now would be? Can she or her advisers answer the three questions that I have posed since March when vaccination was first seriously considered?.
  First, would vaccination reduce the number of animals that have to be slaughtered? Secondly, would it speed up eradication of the disease? Thirdly, would it bring forward the date on which Britain regains its disease-free status? I have asked these questions each time that vaccination has been discussed. I have said throughout that if the answer to at least two of these questions is yes, the Opposition will support vaccination, but I am still waiting for the answers.
  I move on to the environmental issues. Yesterday's announcement, characteristically made by the Prime Minister outside Parliament, that the Government are to review energy policy raises the issue of climate change. Can we be clear who is now responsible for this area of policy? Is it the Secretary of State or is it the Deputy Prime Minister? Or has the Prime Minister abandoned hopes of achieving joined-up government and essentially decided on this issue, which so clearly has both domestic and international dimensions, to institutionalise muddle and possibly conflict within the Government ranks?.

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  Is it the diplomatic skills for which the Deputy Prime Minister is so famous that qualify him to continue handling sensitive international negotiations? What steps do the Government propose to take to try to persuade the United States to respond more positively in the wake of its regrettable decision not to ratify the Kyoto agreement? What roles will the Secretary of State play, if any, in the Government's review of energy policy?.
  Will the Secretary of State confirm that Labour's dogmatic decision to block the construction of 15 new gas-fired power stations has had a damaging effect on the UK's carbon dioxide emissions, and that allowing those power stations to be built would have cut carbon dioxide emissions by almost three times more than the total included in the Government's package of energy taxes?.
  The Government's disregard for sustainability extends beyond their approach to climate change to the whole area of planning and development. It is sadly obvious that the way in which the new Department has been set up downgrades consideration of environmental concerns in planning decisions. For the first time for more than a generation, planning policy is now under the control of a Department that has no environmental remit at all.
  Will the Secretary of State exercise any influence over planning policy and decisions in future? Does she recognise that current Government policy involves using up greenfield sites at an unsustainable rate? When will the Government stop ordering local councils to build thousands of houses on greenfield sites in defiance of local wishes? Is not it time to give local communities a bigger say in planning decisions?.
  Why is Labour using regional planning guidance to force more than half the regions in England to review the green belt? Has not Labour already destroyed enough of the green belt in the past four years, without inflicting even more damage? Does the Secretary of State understand that once they have been developed, the green belt and the greenfield sites outside the green belt never return to their previous uses, and that whole areas that once enjoyed silence during the day and darkness during the night are lost for ever? Does she recognise that giving the go-ahead to bulldoze yet more greenfield sites and to concrete over yet more of our green and pleasant land simply reduces the incentives for developers to tackle the urgent tasks of regenerating our run-down urban areas and of re-using more previously developed sites?.
  Labour's planning policy of environmental vandalism is not only disastrous for the countryside but hurts the towns by denying them the chance to benefit from the regeneration to which the private sector would undoubtedly devote more effort if Labour did not make it so easy for them just to develop greenfield sites.
  The countryside is threatened not only by bulldozers. Peaceful areas such as the Stour valley in my constituency, part of the Dedham vale area of natural beauty which extends to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), are also threatened by noise pollution from aircraft. I recognise that new air routes may be needed as the number of flights increases, and that extra airport capacity is likely to be required, but the best way to make that environmentally acceptable is to encourage quieter aircraft. I wonder whether the Government have a strategy to that end.
  Mr. Bercow: Given the frenetic spread of mobile telecommunications masts, often in worryingly close proximity to schools, homes and hospitals, would my hon. Friend care to say something about the desirable revision of planning policy guidance on that subject? Will he also agree with me that it is imperative that the Secretary of State should do so this afternoon?
  Mr. Yeo: My hon. Friend raises a matter that is of great concern to people all over the country, particularly to many parents who are worried about the presence of, or proposal for, a mobile phone mast close to a school where their children are studying. The concern about these masts is widespread and very real, and I very much regret that the Government have been dragging their feet over toughening up the planning regime for them. Conservative Members have been making clear, strong proposals on this matter for a considerable period. I hope that the Government will lose no time in responding to these suggestions. Any delay in taking action by the Government will simply provoke greater anger in urban and rural areas, and may also increase the health risks that may result from badly sited mobile phone masts.
  The Government's hostility to the countryside in the past four years has sadly not been confined to their neglect of agriculture. Resources have been systematically switched away from rural areas. Shire counties lost an estimated £700 million in funding in the previous Parliament, and Labour's reluctance to extend the limited reduction in business rates already introduced for some village shops, post offices and pubs threatens the survival of many businesses that are the life-blood of their rural communities. I urge the Secretary of State to take up another of our suggestions and cut another £1,000 off the business rate bills of vulnerable rural shops, post offices pubs and garages.
  The countryside is at risk from other threats. Labour's obsession with pressing ahead with genetically modified crops regardless of the environmental consequences could threaten Britain's wildlife and jeopardise the livelihood of many farmers. Will the Secretary of State give an unequivocal guarantee that no commercial planting of genetically modified crops will be permitted until their environmental impact is fully understood and advisers such as English Nature and others have confirmed that it is environmentally safe for such planting to take place? Will she also ensure that no genetically modified crop trials are authorised on sites within cross-pollination distances of organic farmland, and will the Government fulfil their obligations under the biosafety protocol to introduce liability legislation on damage that may arise from the environmental release of genetically modified organisms?.
  Finally, will the Secretary of State say whether, under the new Whitehall structure, she will chair the rural affairs Cabinet Sub-Committee? What will be the role in future of the rural advocate? Will the Government follow the practice of their predecessor and publish an annual update of the rural White Paper?.
  Time does not permit me to address various other issues such as animal welfare, biodiversity, fisheries and forestry, but I hope that they will soon be debated in the House.

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  Labour's first term was one of missed opportunity environmentally, malign neglect of the crisis in agriculture and hostility to much of the countryside.
  Peter Bradley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Yeo: No; it is too late.
  The fact that the only reference in the Queen's Speech to rural issues is the promise to give time for yet another vote on banning hunting is a frightening indication of the Government's priorities for their second term. Now that the electorate have given Ministers a second chance, I urge them to use it to rebuild the rural economy, to support farming in the wake of the foot and mouth epidemic and to strengthen protection of the environment at home and lead the debate on the green agenda abroad. If they do those things, they will have the full support of myself and the Opposition. If they fail, they will be rightly condemned inside Parliament and outside it.
  4.3 pm
  The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Margaret Beckett): I shall be brief.
  My Department's role in achieving sustainable development goes far beyond the rural environment. It covers the full range of environmental challenges, which are issues that affect the whole country. We have led the world in setting the strategy for a cut in greenhouse gas emissions. We have also legislated for greater protection for wildlife and landscapes and delivered cleaner rivers, beaches, air and drinking water. We shall continue to attempt to do that.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I have the greatest admiration for my right hon. Friend, but surely there must be some way in which we could allow one of her junior Ministers to read her text.
  Margaret Beckett: I believe that that is the case. However, if it is possible for me to communicate with the House, I should prefer to do so. If my hon. Friend is telling me that she cannot hear what I am saying, that is a different matter.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I always hear every word.
  Margaret Beckett: I shall endeavour to continue.
  My Department will work with other Departments to ensure that sustainable development is at the heart of the Government's policy. It was clear from the remarks of the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) that he has little to say about rural areas and not much to say about the Opposition amendment. The only two things that he had to say were, first, to imply that had the Opposition become the Government, they would have done all the things that they failed to do in the 18 years when they had the chance and, secondly, that the tragedy of foot and mouth disease is not only the most devastating thing ever to befall the British countryside but, in some way, almost the fault of the Government.
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  The amendment regrets the Department's new name, although it reflects the widespread recognition that the future of agriculture is as part of the food chain and that sustainable agriculture is a key element in that chain.
  The amendment and the hon. Gentleman's remarks illustrate the almost unbelievably selective memory of the Opposition. He referred to the need to protect the countryside from genetically modified organisms. The only people who have so far licensed GM foods were the Conservatives when in government. He demanded a commitment to a public inquiry into foot and mouth disease. That comes oddly from a party who steadfastly refused any kind of inquiry into the BSE crisis, which was certainly one of the worst disasters to befall this country and continues to overshadow agriculture today.
  When the present outbreak of foot and mouth disease is over, the Government will want an inquiry into what took place. We will want it to be thorough but speedy; we will certainly not want it to be delayed or expensive.
  Mr. Eric Martlew: I am glad that the Government will hold an inquiry. Will it take evidence from Cumbria, the worst affected area?
  Margaret Beckett: My hon. Friend makes an important point, which will be considered.
  Just as BSE is only part of the legacy left to the Government by the Conservative party, so it is only part of the problem of the agricultural industry, let alone the wider rural community about which the hon. Member for South Suffolk said so little.
  Mr. James Gray: The Secretary of State said that we are less committed to the countryside than we might appeal and that the Government are very much committed to it Can she explain why there was no reference of any kind whatever in the Queen's Speech to agriculture, rural problems or the countryside, apart from a commitment to a free vote on the banning of foxhunting?
  Margaret Beckett: The hon. Gentleman's timing is immaculate; I was about to come to precisely that point. The amendment claims that the Gracious Speech ignores the countryside, but its priorities are the improvement—including through legislative means—of education, health and crime, as well as of wider public services. They are just as important—perhaps even more so—in rural areas as elsewhere.
  On average, between 1983 and 1997, 30 village schools closed each year. When the Conservatives left office, they left a third of all villages with no local shop. Nationwide, more than 3,000 post offices were closed and the Conservatives planned to privatise the rest. Britain spent less on rural development and green farming than any other EU country, except Spain and Greece, which were much poorer. By 1997, three parishes in four lacked a daily bus service of any kind.
  Although the amendment calls for changes to planning policy
  "to prevent excessive development on greenfield sites",
  the Conservatives released 1,200 hectares of green belt land for development in their last year of office alone. What was that about all spin and no delivery?.

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  In sharp contrast, let me highlight some of the things that the Government have done. We set up the BSE inquiry that the Conservatives shirked, but we also put our money where their mouth has usually been. Last year, only two village schools closed. Last September, we set up a £40 million small schools support fund to begin to raise standards in schools with fewer than 200 pupils. English shire counties received £447 million extra to raise school standards overall and to tackle repairs. We have already legislated to extend 50 per cent. mandatory rate relief to all village food shops, as well as to sole village pubs and petrol stations and to new, small-scale non-agricultural enterprises on farms. The Post Office is obliged to prevent closure of rural post offices unless it is absolutely unavoidable. We have set out a seven-year rural development programme costing £1.6 billion.
  The hon. Member for South Suffolk asked me about reform of the common agricultural policy. That is not the subject of today's debate, but through modulation of the existing CAP scheme, we have again shown the direction in which we wish it to go. I refer to measures such as the rural enterprise scheme through which we can help farmers respond better to consumer requirements. We are also refocusing the support that we provide to hill farmers and have substantially increased the money available for agri-environment and farm woodland schemes. That is on top of providing short-term help in the agriculture industry as a whole.
  Two thousand new or improved rural bus services have already been provided, and 30,000 hectares—an area three times the size of Bristol—have been added to the green belt. That is the record that the Conservative party seeks to deplore.
  What of the future? We shall build on the rural White Paper with a programme of investment to support the improved public services that rural areas so desperately need. I shall chair the rural committee to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
  Extra resources are being made available to continue help to small schools, with the target that all rural schools should be connected to the internet by 2002. We are investing £270 million to support the post office network and to offer new services through computerised links. We are committing an extra £100 million of public and private funding over the next three years for the renewal of market towns to make them the focus for economic regeneration. Ninety such towns have already been announced, and we expect a further 30 to follow.
  Three thousand affordable homes a year are on their way and a £30 million police programme should help to cut rural crime. Some £239 million over three years will be invested to boost rural bus services, supporting dial-a-ride, taxi and car-sharing schemes, with a new £15 million parish fund for community-based solutions.
  The whole of England can now access NHS Direct and in the new NHS plan, up to £100 million will go on improving general practitioner services. Improvements will include new mobile units, one-stop centres and tele-links to hospitals in 100 areas covering the majority of people in the countryside.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: I am grateful for the Secretary of State's visit to the Ribble valley yesterday to talk to farmers and those affected by foot and mouth in the tourism industry. She listened very carefully to what
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  they said. They asked her whether they would have a future in tourism or farming after foot and mouth is eradicated. She said that she did not have an open cheque book, but can we expect an announcement from her soon on a survival package for those involved in tourism and agriculture who have been blighted by foot and mouth?
  Margaret Beckett: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that I listened very carefully to what was said yesterday. I have borne it in mind and will continue to do so. Work is in hand on a farm recovery plan and also on longer-term developments for the countryside for which, as he will appreciate, his constituents and others present called yesterday.
  Mr. Bercow: I congratulate the Secretary of State warmly on her appointment and wish her success. Given the flow of imports into this country that satisfy neither the meat hygiene nor the animal welfare criteria that we rightly demand of our own produce, will she undertake to introduce new honesty in food labelling legislation so that consumers can know the country of origin and the method of production of food and thereby make a free and informed choice about what to buy?
  Margaret Beckett: It was the Labour party that supported improved labelling for foodstuffs when the Conservative party opposed it. As for some of the specific requests of Conservative Members, not only have they been illegal since the previous Government signed up to an agreement under the Single European Act, but the National Farmers Union is on record as saying that they would be both illegal and counter-productive. This country has billions of pounds worth of exports from the food and drink industry, and the measures proposed by the hon. Gentleman and his party could jeopardise them. We will do everything that we can to protect British consumers, subject to the rule of law and to taking action that is not counter-productive.
  Crucial in the context of rural services as a whole—this is a commitment that the Conservative party never even thought of giving—is the pledge in the rural White Paper to set a rural services standard. That will he a statement of what services rural people are entitled to expect and it will be independently audited every year. All major Government policies will be assessed for their impact on rural communities when they are drawn up. We shall set up national and regional rural sounding boards to give rural stakeholders a voice at the heart of government.
  What all that shows—not in words from a party that had 18 years to deliver, but in concrete examples of delivery from this Government and concrete commitments to follow them up in future—is that we have laid out our commitment to investment and reform in rural areas as much, and perhaps even more so, than in the country as a whole.
  Since being appointed to the new Department, with its crucial focus on sustainable development, which requires us to consider the economy, social issues and the environment together, everyone to whom I have listened in rural areas—not least in the farming community—has expressed a desperate desire for a renewal of hope, ambition and prosperity in Britain's countryside. The constituents of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) did so yesterday. That is not only an ambition

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  and an aspiration that the Government share, but an aspiration that is at the heart of, and given expression to in the programme for, the Queen's Speech.
  4.16 pm
  Mr. Don Foster: I congratulate the Secretary of State on her appointment to the new Department and wish her well. I also congratulate her on contributing to the debate today despite her difficulties with her voice. I hope that she will be better soon. Despite the brevity of her contribution, she said rather more about her aspirations for the new Department than we heard in the Gracious Speech.
  Many of us will have read with considerable interest the press release that the new Department put out on 14 June and will share the new Secretary of State's ambitions for her Department. In it she states:
  "Our aim must be to enhance the quality of life through promoting: a better environment; thriving rural economies and communities; diversity and abundance of wildlife resources; a countryside for all to enjoy; and sustainable and diverse farming and food industries that work together to meet the needs of consumers."
  I suspect that everyone in the Chamber would applaud those aims and wish the Secretary of State well in achieving them. They are fine words, but, sadly, the words in the Gracious Speech give us cause for considerable disappointment. There is little sign that the Government will do anything to put them into action, or of what the new Department is to do.
  The Queen's Speech states that the Government are determined about
  "Tackling climate change and making a reality of sustainable development".
  As has been implied, however, the key issue is the Kyoto protocol, which we understand is to be left in the hands of the Deputy Prime Minister, so there will be no action for the new Department there. The only other relevant reference in the Queen's Speech is to the vote on hunting with dogs. As we all know, that is to be a free vote, so it is not an issue for the new Department.
  The Secretary of State rightly pointed out that many other issues, such as the need to improve health, education and transport and the fight against crime, are as vital in rural as in urban areas. I agree, but her Department will not deal with those matters. We are pleased about the dismantling of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the establishment of the new Department, but what is it going to do?.
  The hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) rightly and properly mentioned farming. We know that the foot and mouth crisis has resulted in the slaughter of 5.5 million animals and the payment of £1 billion in compensation already. Sadly, we still hear of new cases almost daily. There was no reference to that crisis in the Gracious Speech or, more particularly, to any Government plans to set up a full and independent inquiry into foot and mouth and their handling of the crisis. The House and the country at large will want to know, for example, what impacts the common agricultural policy and the Government's management of the rural economy have had. What has been the impact of the gradual decline of the end-use price that farmers now receive on the way in which livestock is moved around the country, and on the spread of foot and mouth disease?.
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  Only by means of a full inquiry, along the lines of the Phillips inquiry into BSE, will we discover what are the lessons that we urgently need to learn. I strongly urge the Secretary of State to say more than that there will be an inquiry: she must state categorically that it will be a full, independent and public inquiry, with the widest possible remit.
  Mr. David Heath: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that there must be a full inquiry into the circumstances of the foot and mouth epidemic and its consequences for the wider economy. Does he agree that it should also examine how the disease was contained so effectively in those continental countries where outbreaks occurred, and why the containment of isolated cases in this country was so unsuccessful?
  Mr. Foster: My hon. Friend is right. We need to look more widely into the matter. Indeed, I suspect that the inquiry should also look at how the rather different regime that exists in Scotland handled the crisis.
  As he has done before, with the support of Liberal Democrat Members, the hon. Member for South Suffolk rightly raised the issue of consequential losses. He said that there was a need to look at the compensatory framework in relevant cases, and I very much agree with his remarks. The Government have already introduced a number of measures in connection with that matter, but they have not said for how long those measures will apply. Many people will be interested to know what the Government's plans are in that respect.
  However, we hope that the new Department will look at other issues beyond the public inquiry into foot and mouth. Other hon. Members have already mentioned the protection of the green belt. We argue that the Government should look urgently at the possibility of introducing a greenfield development tax to make it more difficult to build on green fields. It is an obscenity that there are 150,000 homeless households in this country, and yet there are a staggering 750,000 empty houses. Before we start talking about building new houses on the green belt, we should look at measures to redress that ridiculous imbalance.
  Mr. Gray: Corsham in my constituency is not far from the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The Government's proposal to build 850 houses on a brand-new greenfield site has been endorsed and permitted by the Liberal-Democrat controlled North Wiltshire district council. Does he agree with that or oppose it?
  Mr. Foster: I do not know the full details of the case, so I shall not be drawn on that question. However, local authorities are being placed in a difficult position by the imposition of housebuilding targets by central Government. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in trying to persuade the Government to change their approach. Local authorities should have a much greater say in setting such targets in their areas.
  The Government should also consider a variety of other measures. For example, action should be taken to strengthen opportunities for farmers' markets in different parts of the country That matter is especially close to my heart, as the first ever such market in this country was established in my constituency.

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  The Department should introduce measures to tackle the huge regulatory burden placed on people working in agriculture. Reference has been made already to the gold-plating of EU legislation, but other measures that need to be introduced include the establishment of one-stop shops where people working in agriculture can obtain information about the various farming support payments that are available. Perhaps the Government should also consider establishing a parliamentary ombudsman for those who work in agriculture.
  The new Department also covers the crucial issue of the environment. The Labour Government have not shone on that issue in the past four years. They appointed Jonathon Porritt as their environmental adviser. In The Daily Telegraph on 16 October last year, he said:
  "Anybody looking at it dispassionately is going to have a hard job proving that Labour has put the environment at the heart of Government, which is what they claimed They would do."
  I hope that the new Secretary of State will do everything in her power to ensure that the environment truly is put at the heart of everything that the Government do.
  In the past four years, under a Labour Government, the use of renewable energy has remained static at only 2 per cent. of the UK's primary energy, and targets to reduce soot and dust—the so-called PM10s—have been downgraded. In rural areas, air pollution is now at its worst for 10 years. Plans to tackle fuel poverty have been downgraded by the simple expedient of changing the definition. One million households have allegedly been taken out of fuel poverty by that means.
  Under a Labour Government, we have had one of the lowest recycling rates in the EU. Sadly, even plans to reduce car use and increase cycling have been downgraded. It has not been a happy record. The Government could do a lot. They could take measures to boost recycling, make greater use of renewable sources of energy and increase the penalties on polluters. As the hon. Member for South Suffolk said, the Government could introduce rules of corporate environmental responsibility.
  I agree that the Government need to take action not only in this country but elsewhere, not least in respect of the recent decision by President Bush on the Kyoto protocol. He has thrown down the gauntlet on action to deal with climate change. It is one thing to seek renegotiation of the protocol; it is another to repudiate it in the way that he has. I hope that the Government will recognise that it is debatable whether President Bush has a mandate for the line that he has taken. It is certainly debatable whether in the medium term the American economy can be sustained unless action is taken to minimise energy use. I hope that the Secretary of State and, even more important, the Prim Minister, will take the lead with our European partners in putting pressure on President Bush to rethink his disastrous decision.
  It was a great disappointment that there was little evidence that the Prime Minister talked to President Bush about the Kyoto protocol during the summit last week when he had the opportunity to do so.
  Geraint Davies: I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that the Deputy Prime Minister was a key player in the original protocol? Does he recognise that the fiscal incentives that we have introduced to encourage people to use smaller cars and the tax that we impose on petrol put us in a leading role
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  in the environmental agenda relative to other EU countries? Does he accept that in those terms a great deal of progress has been made?
  Mr. Foster: The hon. Gentleman challenges me on several issues. I welcome the contribution that the Deputy Prime Minister has made, although I remind the hon. Gentleman that the right hon. Gentleman's negotiating skills, especially with his French counterpart, could be called into question. We are perhaps sitting on our laurels in respect of our success in meeting the targets set by the Kyoto protocol. The results of an independent analysis of Government action suggest that we have much more to do, and that many of our successes so far have resulted from policies adopted, perhaps inadvertently, by the previous Government, especially in respect of the so-called dash for gas. Bearing in mind some of the plans that the Government have had to reduce growth in the use—and indeed to reduce the absolute use—of motor vehicles, I question whether the Government have been remotely as successful as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
  That brings me neatly to the other topic for debate today: transport. Here, too, we have a new Government Department, with a new Secretary of State. On 18 June, the new Secretary of State said—again I quote from the Department's press release—
  "Transport is at the top of the Government's agenda and we are determined to deliver a better transport system".
  A better system is certainly needed, but it is a great pity, given that this is apparently at the top of the Government's agenda, that there was no mention of transport in the Gracious Speech. The new Secretary of State rightly says that we need a better transport system, but there is no suggestion that he will take any action to help achieve it.
  I suspect that all in the Chamber would agree that the public transport system is a shambles and that, even for those who rely on their cars, there is now increased congestion and delay. The one thing that we now know above all is that that congestion and delay is costing this country dear. The Confederation of British Industry estimates that congestion on our roads costs British businesses some £20 billion a year. Our doctors tell us that the resultant pollution brings forward thousands of deaths every year. Ridiculously, it was possible to get around a Victorian city more quickly in a horse and cart than it is to get around a modern city in a modern motor car.
  Even for those who rely on their motor cars, as some, particularly in rural areas, sadly must, the situation is not good. We shall persuade more people out of their cars only if we have a better public transport system. Yet it is a Labour Government who, over the past four years, spent less Government money on public transport than even the previous Conservative Government were spending on it.
  To take as an example the shambles on our railways, it is no wonder that passengers feel that the Strategic Rail Authority cannot work out a strategy, that Railtrack cannot run a railway and that even the Deputy Prime Minister could not work out who to blame next.
  I believe that many, although not all, in the House would agree that the shambolic state of our railways was shaped by the Tories' disastrous rail privatisation, which led to an unwieldy, fragmented structure, with hundreds of different parts all competing with one another. It was

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  a recipe for the chaos that ensued, and in part led to the tragedies of the Paddington and Hatfield rail crashes, and the absolute obscenity of Mr. Gerald Corbett, the former chief executive of Railtrack, being offered a golden goodbye of £1.3 million, despite his admission that both he and Railtrack had failed.
  Sadly, the new Secretary of State has said that he has no plans for any structural changes within the railway, yet structural change is now urgently needed. I do not support the calls from many people for renationalisation because I recognise that bringing back Railtrack alone would cost billions of pounds—money that I truly believe should be used not to line shareholders' pockets but to invest in improving our railways.
  Some changes could be made. Parts of Railtrack—those directly responsible for the running of the railways—are run as a monopoly. It is not right in a monopoly to have a conflict between shareholder profit and passenger safety. We should restructure those parts of Railtrack that relate to the running of the railways, as distinct from its property management portfolio activities, and turn them into a not-for-profit public interest company.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would leave Railtrack as a private company in charge of all the property side and leave the taxpayer to bear the burden of all the work that has to be done on maintenance and improving the railway?
  Mr. Foster: I am grateful to the hon. Lady, for whom I have great respect as Chairman of the Transport Sub-Committee. No, I am not saying that. She will be well aware that Railtrack has assets that have no direct connection with the railways, such as buildings in the centre of major cities and so on. I am referring to those properties and their management, as distinct from the properties and activities that directly relate to running the railways. [Interruption.] I am glad to see, from the movement of the hon. Lady's hand, that I am already beginning to bring her round a little.
  The hon. Lady will be aware that her Committee has been critical of the way in which our railways operate. On other aspects of transport—National Air Traffic Services, for example—she and her Committee have advocated a model similar to my proposal for Railtrack.
  On restructuring, the new Secretary of State could go even further. For example, to reduce the number of elements in our railway system, he could reduce the number of franchises. He could also allow more of the train operating companies to take responsibility for maintaining the track on which their trains run. Rather than the perverse system under which 300 people are employed to work out delay attribution, he could introduce a completely new system giving incentives to train operators. At any one time, 60 people are sat down working out who is to blame for any one train delay. That is nonsensical.
  Many, many changes need to be made and I urge the new Secretary of State in the new Department to reconsider his statement that he has no plans for structural changes to our railway.
  Geraint Davies: On the hon. Gentleman's comparison with the NATS model, is he advocating that the Railtrack
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  model should be a public-private partnership with the train operating companies and the Government forming elements of that partnership? Would not that be an equivalent?
  Mr. Foster: Again, the hon. Gentleman takes me down paths that I do not want to follow at great length. He will remember the lengthy debate about NATS and the plans for part privatisation, which were vigorously opposed from these Benches and by more than 100 Labour Members, airline pilots, trade unions and others. For those parts of Railtrack that are directly related to running the railways, I advocate a model similar to that proposed for NATS by the Select Committee.
  Adopting such a model, which would involve a not-for-profit public interest company, would enable that company to raise money through bonds and there is now a much greater likelihood that that model would attract additional private sector finance. Many Members are well aware of the difficulties that Railtrack is experiencing. It is unable to attract private sector investment, its credit rating has plummeted and it is having problems bringing in additional private sector money, although the Government's 10-year transport plan depends on that significantly. Therefore, the model that I propose would help the Government to achieve their desire to have £60 billion invested in the railways, which is much needed, including the split that they propose.
  The hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) must be aware of the ludicrous situations that have arisen over the past couple of months. Railtrack has constantly come cap in hand to the Government to ask for yet more money and for payment of money that it would receive in due course to be brought forward. The sad truth is that money that taxpayers have handed over will be used to pay shareholders' profits and the golden goodbye to Gerald Corbett. That is not how I want taxpayers' money to be used.
  The word has gone out that civil servants in the new Department are referring to it by the acronym DETOL. I simply say to the new Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions that our transport system needs far more than sticking plaster and DETOL if we are to put it right. A lot more needs urgently to be done.
  The creation of two new Departments and the appointment of two new Secretaries of State has already been mentioned. But that in itself will not do much to address the many concerns of people in our rural communities about the environment and the need to create a safe, reliable and affordable public transport system.
  Mr. David Kidney: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Foster: No, shall not.
  Urgent action is needed from the two new Departments. Sadly, from the contents of the Gracious Speech, it looks as if we might be in for a big disappointment.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Before I call the next speaker, I must inform the House that Mr. Speaker's decision to impose a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches now applies.
  4.40 pm
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I recall my beloved mother telling me of a crooner in the 1930s who was known as "the whispering singer". I never understood the advantage or attraction of such a performance, but having listened to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I realise that it may have had a quality of its own, not usually heard in the human voice. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her sterling performance.
  The Queen's Speech is a clear indication of the fact that the Government have been given not only a positive mandate, but a series of instructions. The general election proved conclusively that the electorate do not want Her Majesty's loyal Opposition back in charge: they have too many uncomfortable memories of what happened when they were in government. The electorate know that many fundamental services are sadly in need of renewal, development and improvement, and they decided that a Labour Government with a large majority would be capable of delivering the level of service that they want. That is what we expect of the Government.
  At long last, legislation has been placed on the statute book to create the Strategic Rail Authority and support rural transport such as buses. Those measures can be used to transform the situation for the average person. The normal passenger does not want to stand on an unstaffed, dirty station wondering whether they are safe while they wait for a train which, if it arrives at all, will probably be late and filthy, with lavatories that are virtually unusable. Normal passengers want to know that they will have sufficient services to get them to work on time. They need bus services that meet train services and they want better facilities such as proper bus stations in addition to fully staffed services, so that they can use those constant and vital parts of the public services in the most efficient and comfortable way.
  If the Government are to deliver that, they face many difficult and sharp problems and they need to take some hard decisions. An incoming Minister needs to consider the Strategic Rail Authority. I am second to none in my admiration for Alistair Morton, but in the two years of its existence, the authority has delivered neither the agenda nor the decisions that are needed. In spite of the appalling accidents that have caused so much uproar in the railway industry, it is clear that the train operating companies and Railtrack have yet to address the difficulties that make it impossible for the average passenger to receive the level of care that he or she needs.
  Why is it, in this day and age, that almost as soon as the train operating companies got over the trauma of what happened at Hatfield, they started to squabble among themselves? Why is it that Railtrack seems incapable of taking a major decision that will have an impact on the services or produce high-quality care and safety? Why is it that we reward very inadequate management on the basis that the previous general executive of Railtrack was rewarded for failing at his job? I would be happy to leave Parliament tomorrow with the same compensation that was handed out to Mr. Gerald Corbett, if failing in one's job is all that is required, but I see no obvious way in which I can demonstrate how incompetent I am. Having looked at what people get paid for these days, it is no wonder that there is real disillusion and disappointment among the general public about what is happening in our transport services.
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  I want to address two narrow points. Because of the length of time that it will take to have an impact on the transport system, great and immediate action must be taken on the control of the Strategic Rail Authority and the direction in which it is going. The train operating companies must be told that they will not be given franchises unless they guarantee high standards for the passenger. The passenger must come first, and it is about time that we said that over and over again.
  Above all, Railtrack must cede many of its responsibilities. It is no use saying, "We don't want restructuring" and then saying, "Oh yes, we would like them to do this, but to keep that." We are talking about a private monopoly company, not a state company, and it does not do the job that it was set up to do. It appears incapable at director level of understanding that it is a railway company. It still has only one engineering director. It does not have an in-house engineering inspection department and, in many instances, it is incapable of insisting that its contractors comply with the terms and conditions laid down in their contracts. That cannot be acceptable. None of us would accept that quality of work in our own homes, so why do we accept it within the public services?.
  There is another matter that is dear to my heart. The Government had better sort out their attitude towards the mix of private finance and public funds. Railtrack is a classic example of how we hand over vast amounts of assets to private companies which then fail disastrously to provide what they have undertaken to provide. The Government had better think hard about that. If there is any suggestion that private companies with a legal commitment to make a profit for their shareholders will be brought in to run the NHS, I believe that the public are ahead of us in rejecting the idea. That is not the way to do it. It is not the way to provide high-quality clinical services or anything else.
  Look at the private hospitals built alongside NHS units. Look at what they charge the NHS for the provision of services. Look at the poor standard of care that is still only too acceptable. At the weekend, some very nice ladies told me what they want from the local county social services for the care of the elderly in my constituency. Their complaint was simple. They said, "It's appalling. The Government are going to require providers to pay the national minimum wage. We will have to increase our wages bill." They will have to pay £4.10 an hour to people who have responsibility for the elderly in Britain. I do not regard that as acceptable; indeed, in this day and age, I do not regard it as defensible.
  I will not support Government moves that lead Britain away from a national health service provided by people committed to public care, towards a service that is far too frequently looked upon by private health companies and insurance companies as a way of making massive profits. We have seen what that means in the transport industry. We saw what happened when companies such as British Rail Engineering were sold. Managers were brought in and told to run the company but they were incapable of doing what they had been asked to do. Private firms came in and asset-stripped entire companies. As always happens in such cases, the British public were left with the worst deal, paying all the bills, not getting the services and finding that it was unacceptable to question loudly what was happening. Many members of my family have been wholly committed to the NHS. I have never received

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  private care because I have strong views on the quality of clinical care provided in the private industry—and it is an industry.
  I say this to the Government: I expect results in the transport industry and I expect the national health service to benefit from large sums of taxpayers' money and to achieve high clinical standards of care. I do not expect a Labour Government in any circumstances to treat the workers in the national health service in the same way as workers in the transport system have been treated in the recent past. I see no hope of the Government getting support from many members of the Labour party if that is their intention.
  4.50 pm
  Mr. Peter Duncan: It is with a sense of enormous honour and no small degree of humility that I rise to present my maiden address following my election success in the constituency of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale. It is a privilege to follow the right hon. and hon. Members who have already spoken with great passion and ability in the debate on the Gracious Speech. My ambition is to prove, in the months and years to come, a willing ambassador and representative for my constituents, while paying due regard to the traditions and respect accumulated by the House over the centuries.
  My constituency and its boundary-changed predecessors have been well represented in the past by some exceptionally able Members of Parliament, who have gained great respect on both sides of the House. Most recently, Mr. Alasdair Morgan was an eloquent and forceful advocate for the region and for Scotland as a whole during his term as Member of Parliament for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale between 1997 and the recent Dissolution. Although we may have disagreed about Scotland's place in the United Kingdom, Mr. Morgan was in all senses an honourable Member who set new standards in terms of being accessible to his constituents. I have spoken to many residents of the three counties encompassed by my constituency and have yet to speak to one who does not acknowledge the open and able way in which Mr. Morgan represented them. One of the most important aspects of party politics is to recognise quality on both sides of the House: Alasdair Morgan served us well.
  Prior to Alasdair Morgan's arrival, between 1979 and 1997, the noble Lord Lang of Monkton was Member of Parliament for Galloway, and then for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale. The Chamber has seen many exceptional talents in its long history, and Lord Lang was surely one of its most eloquent; he now brings his talents to bear on proceedings in another place. He served the House well throughout his time as Secretary of State for Scotland and as President of the Board of Trade and during his spells at the Department of Trade and Industry and the Scottish Office. During that time, by common consent, he never lost sight of his role as a constituency Member of Parliament and he was a forceful advocate for my region. They are big shoes to fill.
  Galloway and Upper Nithsdale is a constituency that is rightly described as "Scotland in miniature"—although the fact that it covers more than 1,500 square miles means that "miniature" may well not be the most appropriate
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  adjective. It encompasses the three principal counties of Wigtownshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and part of Dumfriesshire covering upper, mid and lower Nithsdale. From the burgh boundary of Dumfries, it stretches westward to the busy port of Stranraer and northwards up the Nith valley to Kirkconnel and the Ayrshire border.
  The tourism and farming industries are the bedrock of the local economy, based around the small market towns of Castle Douglas and Newton Stewart. My constituency, by common consent is host to some of the finest dairy herds in the UK and some of the most expansive upland hill sheep farms. Our pedigree farm stock includes the world-famous belted Galloway, to whose profile this particular new Member's has somewhat cruelly been compared.
  Our tourism market has suffered greatly from the foot and mouth crisis that has gripped our region, like so many others, but we look forward to welcoming old friends and new to treasures such as the Scottish national book town at Wigtown, the fishing port at Kirkcudbright and the rugged scenery of upper and mid-Nithsdale, with its mining towns and small communities dependent on fishing, field sports and walking tourism.
  As you will be aware Mr. Deputy Speaker, the climate in Scotland is not always the most clement. I am happy to reassure the House that the subtropical climate of the gardens of Galloway remains a huge draw for visitors, no doubt aware that the Mull of Galloway is further south than Hartlepool. The climate and the gulf stream have created a corner of Scotland where palm trees happily co-exist with the Scots pine.
  The rural communities scattered across that half of Dumfries and Galloway are a delight to the visitor, but a challenge to maintain. I am sure that all hon. Members would support the view that Scotland's diversity is its attraction. Part of that diversity lies in its sparse population in rural areas. I am well aware of my obligation to play my part in sustaining those rural communities. Too often, families are separated far too early when offspring have to leave to find work or to further their education. We must find a way to keep those communities together by encouraging sustainable development and long-lasting rural and family communities that work.
  This is an important time to represent Galloway and Upper Nithsdale. The challenge to create viable long-term communities has been made all the more critical by the arrival of foot and mouth disease earlier this year. Following its spread across the constituency, the sense of emptiness is in places palpable. Farmyards lie empty, fields lie overgrown and auction marts that were for so long the social centre of rural Britain lie sadly dormant.
  Given that mine is a constituency in which farming and tourism are the major employers, the House will understand that foot and mouth has ripped the heart from Galloway. The worry, the despair and the torment have been unimaginable. We must all hope that the progress against the disease can be maintained, and that life can return to some degree of normality as soon as possible.
  Mr. Speaker, you will be aware that my particular accent has not emanated much from the Conservative Benches in recent times. I am happy to be the advance party for others who will surely follow, and in the meantime I will make a habit of providing simultaneous translation for those who require it. It remains important that this House be a meeting place for all opinions the

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  length and breadth of the United Kingdom. I am delighted to be the one to return the Scottish Conservative and Unionist tradition to the Floor of the Chamber and I look forward with relish to my time ahead.
  I look forward to representing in this House a beautiful and unique part of the United Kingdom. I feel passionate, as hon. Members I hope will have understood, about the particular needs and views of my constituency. I look forward to playing my small part in moving the region forward.
  4.58 pm
  Mr. Gordon Prentice: It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan). He follows a long line of distinguished hon. Members representing that constituency. I found his speech very entertaining, although it contained a sombre note because, like mine, his constituency has been struck with the dread contagion of foot and mouth disease. He said that he was an ambassador for his constituency. He carries a heavy burden because, for the Conservative party, he is an ambassador for the whole of Scotland. I suspect that there will continue to be a small advance party after the next general election, but I wish him well.
  I want to confine my remarks to foot and mouth disease. My constituency of Pendle has now been touched by the disease; it struck just after the general election. Before then, it was held in the so-called Settle-Clitheroe rectangle. The A59 was the firebreak. We were all keeping our fingers crossed that the disease could be contained on the Ribble valley side, but, on 9, 10 and 11 June, that firebreak was breached and three infected farms and 16 contiguous farms were culled out. Those farms lie in a horseshoe around Barnoldswick, the town where I live. Five further farms have been culled out—the farms contiguous with infected farms that lie outside the Pendle boundary. We have also had dangerous contact cases in Barrowford, as well as near Colne, but fortunately there have been no funeral pyres. All the animals have been taken away because the rendering capacity now exists, and people have been spared the torment of the black smoke and the odours of animals being burnt in those dreadful pyres.
  Feelings have been running high in my constituency. Many accusing fingers have been pointed at the Government and others. I was gratified to learn that the Secretary of State had accepted an invitation from the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) to meet farmers at Gisburn. Yesterday, I took some farmers from the Pendle area to meet the Secretary of State, and they told me afterwards that she had handled the meeting very well. There was a lot of praise for her straightforward handling of the questions and she impressed the farmers, but some of the concerns that came out of the meeting still have to be addressed by the Government full square.
  At the centre of the concerns was whether British farming had a future after the disease had finally been stamped out. If the farmers take the compensation and restock, will there be a cap on numbers? Several farmers said that the 20-day movement ban would kill the industry. I do not know what the answer is if we want to prevent foot and mouth taking hold and spreading again, but there were real concerns about that. There were concerns about foot and mouth being endemic in the deer population, and I know that the Minister will want to comment on that in the winding-up speech.
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  Concerns were expressed by people in the agricultural supply industry whose businesses were reeling. The number of bad debts in farming made it very difficult for the people who supply the farmers to carry on. It was suggested that people in the agricultural supply business could do some of the work that former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food officials are doing at present in advising farmers, on disinfecting, and so on.
  There was much concern that compensation was not reaching farmers quickly enough. That is clearly critical, because farmers, like the rest of us, cannot survive on fresh air, and they need to know when they will get their money. That is not an exhaustive list of the issues that the farmers raised, and there was an expectation that an inquiry will take place.
  It sticks in my throat when I hear the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), who speaks for the Conservative party, banging on about an inquiry, given that it took the Labour Government to hold an inquiry into BSE. Why could the Conservatives not have held an inquiry into BSE during their long period in office? They had to wait for us to win the 1997 election to have an inquiry. However, I do not want any inquiry to be like the Phillips inquiry, which took two years to complete. It would take a week to read the entire Phillips report, which runs to 15 volumes. Life is too short for that; I want an inquiry that will be focused, that will not take for ever and that will supply the answers to some of the questions that have been posed.
  Outside the meeting, farmers also expressed other concerns, which, for reasons best known to them, they did not raise directly with the Secretary of State. Some people were anxious that the vets themselves may have spread the disease—I do not know the answer to that. Another criticism was that vets with a background outside farming were brought in from overseas. A farmer told me that a vet from Florida who did nothing but treat exotic animals came over to deal with foot and mouth disease.
  This is a case in which the Government are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The state veterinary service had 220 vets, which was clearly not enough. We needed to bring vets in to deal with the outbreak, and the number increased to 750 or 800 vets. Clearly, there is always someone who is prepared to mock or sneer and say that the vets brought in did not have a perfect command of English or whatever, but the important factor was that the vets could identify the disease and recommend the proper action to take.
  There were concerns about lorry loads of carcases being removed from the infected area in Pendle along country roads through areas that were not infected. I am not aware of the logistics involved in getting the animals to the renderers, and I invite the Minister to comment on that.
  There was a separate meeting about the state of the rural economy. I was told—it is a shocking statistic—that £1.2 billion was lost to the north-west economy as a result of foot and mouth disease. I, and many others, are still waiting for the list of successful towns that bid for help under the market towns initiative. That information should have been made available on 12 June, and I am still waiting.
  There are many angry people in Pendle who have pressed the case for vaccination. They set up a small group, the Heart of Britain foot and mouth action group,

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  which managed to persuade Pendle borough council to back a resolution calling for the introduction of protective vaccination in areas immediately threatened by the disease, and mass vaccination in areas that rely on tourism. That could mean the entire country outside urban areas. It seems that the question has not been properly thought through. I agree with the Government's position, which is that vaccination should be held in reserve. It is possible to vaccinate rapidly if the situation becomes completely out of control.
  I advise those who have written to me about these matters to refer to the remarks of Jim Scudamore, the chief vet, in his contribution to the inquiry undertaken in the last Parliament by the Select Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. On 21 March, Mr. Scudamore persuasively set out the arguments for vaccination, as well as the huge downside involved in taking that route.
  The Liberal Democrats' policy should be put on the record. At a public meeting in my constituency, the Liberal Democrats gave people the impression that their party's position was to vaccinate everything that moved in the farmyard. That was not the position. On 14 June, the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats on these issues, said that it was not the time to move away from slaughter and disposal.
  How extensive is the foot and mouth epidemic? I have only two more minutes. Many think that it is endemic in the upland sheep and the deer populations. During the BBC's "World at One" on 12 June it was reported that MAFF had referred to a programme of testing upland sheep. Of the 60,000 sheep tested, it was found that 15,000 were carrying the foot and mouth antibody. I should like—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.
  5.9 pm
  Mr. John Horam: I am delighted to be the first Conservative Member to be able to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) on his maiden speech. It was a pleasure to hear a good Scottish accent on the Opposition Benches—my mother is half Scottish—and one that I could understand. There was no need for translation.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) made a typically eloquent and forceful contribution to the debate. Perhaps that is not a genuine compliment because I know that he is not standing for leadership of the Conservative party.
  Mr. Yeo: There is time yet. Mr. Horam: Indeed.
  I agreed with my hon. Friend when he said that he was pleased that the Gracious Speech included a reference to tackling climate change and making a reality of sustainable development. I am strongly of that view. if the Government really wish to take that approach, after making their declaration in the Gracious Speech, they could reincarnate the Select Committee on the Environmental Audit. I see two distinguished Labour
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  Members who were members of that Committee, but I do not think that any Opposition Members present in the Chamber sat on it. Were it in existence, we would be harrying them, as much as we did in the previous Parliament, to commit themselves to tackling climate change, to making a reality of sustainable development and to making those issues the heart of their policy in government.
  As a matter of fact, by a peculiar quirk of our procedures, there is no impediment to that Committee being set up immediately. Unlike all other Select Committees, apart from the Public Accounts Committee, we do not have to be set up by the Committee of Selection. The Whips could get together and reach an agreement today to reincarnate the Committee, and I have mentioned this to a Government Whip and to the Whip who is talking away on my own Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson). Let us get on with that, so that we can have a real debate about sustainable development instead of the good but token remarks in the Gracious Speech.
  Obviously, the main theme of the Gracious Speech—or perhaps I should say the main priority; we are getting into semantics here, but I understand the difficulty that the Government are in—is improvement in our public services. Few of us would quarrel with that—it was certainly the theme of the general election—and that applies across all the public services, including the police, health, schools or whatever.
  I want to concentrate on transport and to drag the debate away, if I nay, from the concerns of the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), who rightly spoke about agriculture, BSE and so forth. I want to concentrate on my own concerns as the Member for Orpington and a Member for out great capital city. Transport is a real problem in the capital city today. Many of my constituents commute into London to come to work. Indeed, many of them work at the House of Commons and I know of the problems first hand, because they complain to me regularly about the nature of the commuter services that they have to undergo daily.
  First, commuters have to get to the station and find a car park; the buses are not always reliable. The trains are often late when they get there, as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) mentioned. A recent commuter watch by the Evening Standard found that 25 per cent. of the trains going from Orpington to central London on the Connex South Eastern line were late. When commuters get on the trains, they habitually find them overcrowded.
  Overcrowding is the problem that people complain about most often in my constituency. Indeed, some of the staff members here have complained that, in this hot weather, they have almost fainted while going home after a day's work in the House of Commons. The fact that they are packed, like sardines, into an overheated old carriage makes me wonder about safety. If something went wrong, what would happen? That is clearly on people's minds since the recent accidents, which we are all very sad about.
  When commuters get to London, they have to face the underground, where the gates are frequently closed because no more people can be accommodated on the platforms. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has said of facing the horror of an

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  evening's journey home in temperatures of 90 deg F that it would not happen to animals. Human beings should not be allowed to be carried in that fashion legally.
  There are huge problems. It is not only that the present situation is so bad. There is also very little light at the end of the tunnel, which itself seems a long way off. Even Ken Livingstone, the Mayor, said the other day that it would be at least five years after the next election for Mayor—fortunately for him—before we should see any significant improvements in transport in London. Similarly, Sir Alastair Morton said only yesterday, I think, that it would be at least five years before we saw any major improvements in the railways. That is a very long way off when one is sitting in a packed train going to work.
  I remind the House that London is the great engine of economic growth, and we cannot afford to have more dispirited people turning up for work. I look to the Minister to say something about how the situation on my own commuter line can be improved. I want practical measures to be introduced, for example, to deal with the problems of overcrowding. There should be some reasonably affordable short-term solutions, such as platform lengthening, signalling replacement, and dealing with bottlenecks such as the infamous Borough market junction, which could lead to some improvement to the commuter line that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) and I share. Such measures would allow people to carry on with some hope that something will happen, not just in the long-distant future, five or 10 years from now, but in the foreseeable future.
  The beginning of a Parliament is a good time not only to think of immediate concerns of that kind—important though they are to my constituents—but to stand back and examine the Government's approach. It is essential, in relation to the new Departments in particular—whose creation at least shows a recognition of the need for a fresh Government approach—that there should be clear thinking and clear-cut decisions. In that respect, I welcome the report from the Institute for Public Policy Research—not a Conservative think-tank, but one that is more oriented towards new Labour—which had some sensible things to say. In particular, it made the point that we should drop the dogma. How often have we exchanged dogmatic views of "public right, private wrong" or "private right, public wrong" across the Chamber or in a general election? We have had our fill of such exchanges in the past few weeks and should try in the interests of our constituents to drop as many of them as possible. We should also recognise that different solutions are appropriate in different circumstances.
  I certainly recognise that the Government's transport inheritance from their predecessor was not perfect. The privatisation of the railways, for example, was overcomplex and made a signal error—Sorry about the pun—by splitting track management from train operations, organisation and management. My view is not that of hindsight; to the horror of me then Government Whips, I expressed it on Second Reading of the Railways Act 1993. I have always felt that that separation was a fundamental error in our privatisation plan.
  Nevertheless, privatisation has some advantages, an important one being that, to some extent, it has removed the Treasury's dead hand from investment. It has also made the railways more customer oriented.
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  I therefore accept that, because of their transport inheritance, the Government have been constrained in their transport decisions. However, despite all its obvious faults, Ministers have undoubtedly made matters worse by dumping all the blame on Railtrack after the recent accidents. Consequently, Railtrack is now not the vehicle for raising private capital that it was originally envisaged to be. That is a serious problem for those trying to attract extra investment to the railways rapidly, so as to give relief to constituents such as mine.
  The Government have a serious choice to make about whether they are going to support Railtrack, so that its share price increases and it is able to attract investment and private capital, or whether—as the hon. Members for Bath (Mr. Foster) and for Crewe and Nantwich were saying—to restructure Railtrack. I would not be averse to the latter option. Railtrack is so subsidised by taxpayers' money that there is case for saying that we should take the equity for that and thereby make Railtrack effectively a renationalised company.
  Subsequently, bits of Railtrack could be leased out to the operating companies and management of the operating companies could be reintegrated with management of the rails. We might then have a sensible and less complicated system. It would be a fitting finale if we called the new organisation the British railways board, as Simon Jenkins humorously suggested the other day. That is the type of process that we need.
  The Government have only themselves to blame on the underground; they cannot blame their predecessors. Ministers not only created the underground public-private partnership of their own volition, they recreated all the mistakes that had been made in the Conservative Government's privatisation of the railways. The PPP is too complex. Even Bob Kiley says that he cannot understand it, and I should think that he has studied it far more than anyone else has. It also envisages splitting rail from track as happened in the railways privatisation.
  The Government have some clear decisions to make on the underground. Should they—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's 10 minutes are up.
  5.18 pm
  Ms Meg Munn: As I represent part of the city of Sheffield, hon. Members may be surprised to see me speaking in a debate on the Queen's Speech that is focused on rural issues. Hon. Members who have not visited the constituency of Sheffield, Heeley may not appreciate how green it is and how many of my constituents take a keen interest in rural affairs. However, I am sure that hon. Members will know that Sheffield, like Rome, is built on seven hills and that Heeley has its fair share of them. They afford residents some of the most magnificent views of the city and of the beautiful Derbyshire borders that are at the southern boundary of my constituency.
  The constituency also boasts a farm, Heeley city farm, which not only has animals, but which offers work training, education and various community enterprises, all of which are seeking to work in an environmentally friendly manner.
  It is a particular privilege for me to represent Sheffield, Heeley, as it is the area where I grew up and where I first joined the Labour party. I am only the third Labour

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  Member for the constituency and have the distinction of knowing both previous Labour Members. The seat was first won for Labour in 1966, when my father was the election agent. I know that many people still remember the then Member, whose name made him an ideal candidate. In these more cynical days, it would perhaps be thought of as a deliberate ploy to select Frank Hooley, with "Hooley for Heeley" providing an easy and memorable slogan.
  By the time of the 1970 election, with a father and uncle as councillors in Sheffield, I had already developed an interest in politics and took to debating the case for Labour with my school friends. A permanent reminder is my school photo of that year, in which I can be seen proudly wearing my "Hooley for Heeley" sticker. It was, however, to be an early lesson in losing; the Conservative candidate won that year, with a narrow majority of 713. Four years later, Frank Hooley was re-elected and served the people of Heeley as an excellent constituency Member until 1983.
  In that year Bill Michie was elected, continuing as Member of Parliament until his retirement at this general election. I also first knew Bill when I was a child. My earliest memory is from a time when he was standing for the local council when I spent a morning with my sister making red rosettes in the campaign room. However, I cannot claim to have made the rosette which he stills wears to this day, prominently sporting an "Old Labour and proud of it" sticker.
  In his maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) highlighted the physical differences between himself and his predecessor. I, too, claim differences from mine, and not just differences of gender. Robert Waller and Byron Criddle, in their "Almanac of British Politics", described Bill Michie as follows:
  "With a style of beard and intensity of manner redolent of the English Civil War, he is one of the PLP's irreducible hard left core."
  In a national newspaper during the election, I was described as
  "strapping with a pleasant toothy smile."
  It could have been worse. They have yet to pronounce on my political views.
  Since my selection as Labour candidate for Sheffield, Heeley in July last year, I have been involved in campaigns in the constituency. On many occasions, people have told me of the work that Bill Michie did for them. Organisations have spoken highly of his contribution in supporting their aims and assisting them wherever possible. I pay tribute to his 18 years as the representative for the constituency.
  Not only am I the third Labour Member of Parliament for Sheffield, Heeley, I am also the third Labour Co-operative Member for a constituency in Sheffield. The first was A. V. Alexander, subsequently Lord Alexander, who represented the constituency of Sheffield, Hillsborough. He was first elected in the early 1920s and had a distinguished political career, serving in government as First Lord of Admiralty and Minister of Defence. In May 1929, he said:
  "There will be many cries raised at the General Election, but the overriding issue will be the cure of poverty and unemployment."
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  These are still issues for us today and I am proud to be a member of a party that has these goals. However, we should not be content that, over 70 years on from that speech, we are still grappling with the same problems. Nevertheless, that we find ourselves in a position where these are realistic goals is a tribute to the Labour Government of the past four years and to the measures set out in the legislation proposed in the Queen's Speech. There is also recognition that we should not be content with tackling such issues only within our borders, but that the reduction of poverty should be a central aim of United Kingdom international development assistance.
  The second Labour Co-operative Member for Parliament—also for Sheffield, Hillsborough—was George Darling, who was first elected in 1966 and served until 1974, when he was made a life peer.
  I am sure that, like me, many new Members have received letters congratulating them on their victory; some from old friends or, as in my case, former bosses. One, however, was particularly unexpected. Richard Corbett, Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber, wrote as follows:
  "Dear Meg, I am writing to say how sorry I am that you were not elected. I know how terribly disappointing it must have been for you."
  I hope that he does not know something that I do not; disappointment would hardly cover it.
  Finally, I wish to comment briefly on the adoption and children Bill. I want to associate myself with the comments of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who urged us to scrutinise the Bill properly as it will affect the lives of many children. Over the past five years, I have had experience of, and significant responsibility for, making decisions on adoptions. The importance of these decisions cannot be underestimated; they demand considerable care and expertise. Adoption cannot be viewed merely as substituting one set of parents for another for a child who needs a new family. Adoption has lifelong implications for all three sides of the adoption triangle—the birth family, the child and the adoptive family.
  I welcome proposals to speed up adoption for the many children who are currently awaiting adoptive families. Setting up a national register will help to ensure that children are matched as soon as possible with approved adoptive parents.
  I particularly welcome the proposal to place a duty on local authorities to provide adoption support services. Most of the children who are adopted today have been in the care of the local authority. Their experiences will mean that they will demand more care and support than other children. A child who settles happily into a family at the age of three may experience extreme difficulties when a teenager, with which she or her family are ill prepared to cope. The continuing availability of support for those involved in adoption can be crucial if a family is to avoid further breakdown. I make a particular plea that such support is properly funded and that consideration is also given to putting funding for adoption allowances on a firmer footing.
  In my work, time and again, I was amazed to see what the love and dedication of families could do for children who had experienced neglect and abuse. Adoption is so often about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

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  There are many children waiting for more ordinary people to come forward and care for them. The Bill will, I believe, help to achieve that goal.
  I am pleased to support the Queen's Speech.
  5.27 pm
  Mr. Nigel Evans: It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn). Her predecessor, Bill Michie, was well known in the House. Everybody got on well with him, and he will be missed. He has been replaced by a lady with a toothy smile, as she told us herself, and we look forward to seeing that toothy smile for many years to come. She has already mentioned an interest of hers, and I know that she will be joined by many right hon. and hon. Members who wish to see some common sense in adoption matters. We wish her well in her campaign on that issue.
  This is an important debate on the Queen's Speech, and I wish to use my time to concentrate on the effects of foot and mouth. The disease has hit Ribble Valley very hard. At the outset of the general election, the constituency saw a number of outbreaks and, sadly, they have carried on apace.
  We were delighted when the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs came to Gisbum yesterday. The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and I were there, along with members of the farming fraternity and the tourism industry. They were able to put their concerns to the Secretary of State at first hand. They made a number of suggestions and although I thought it quite right that the right hon. Lady did not come forward with immediate answers—after all, she is still feeling her way in this new Department—she listened to what they said. They will be waiting to hear what constructive proposals she makes in the weeks immediately ahead—some people cannot wait months for new proposals.
  It is sometimes said that foot and mouth affects only a small percentage of livestock. However, where foot and mouth strikes, it affects 100 per cent. of animals. At this time of the year, we are used to seeing sheep, lambs and cows in the fields. Yesterday, I was at the home of a farmer whose animals had been culled in Worston. She told me how devastating it was. People are used to seeing all the animals in the fields, but there are no animals in the fields surrounding certain villages now. It has hit the people very hard.
  Today, I sent messages to farmers who had written in. One wrote:
  "Everyone should realise that this disease is far from over, and people's lives are being ruined. You only need to look at the faces of our local farmer and his family to understand that a lifetime of work and commitment has been ended at the hand of a slaughterman's gun due to the spread of foot and mouth."
  I have other such messages, which speak with passion and experience about the enormous impact of the disease. It is not only farmers but their neighbours and friends who are affected because they feel for the farmers in their plight. They want the disease to be eradicated as quickly as possible.
  People also want to know that there is a future for farming. That question was raised yesterday. The hon. Member for Pendle mentioned the rumours that persist that when restocking takes place it will be at a greatly reduced level and that there is a conspiracy to reduce the
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  number of animals. I was reassured when the Minister said that there was no such policy. We want to know what is to happen in the short and the long term.
  I hope that the inquiry will be full and public. We do not want it to continue for an inordinate length of time or to be inordinately costly, but we want a thorough examination that will be useful. I do not know what happened to the 1967 report, but it was not as useful as it should have been—we would not have been facing the present distress if it had been. We have to learn from 1967 and from what is happening now, so we need a public inquiry. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) has made suggestions and has laid them in the Library. I hope that the Minister will be able to consider constructively that suggestion about how the public inquiry should be undertaken.
  Many people are questioning how the disease has spread into new areas. One lady asked me yesterday whether we knew if the disease could live on the beaks of birds and, if so, for how long. She suggested that birds get at the carcases or on to diseased animals and that it is spread in that way. Such questions are being asked and we need to know the answers.
  Farmers have referred to the importing of meat that is not of the same quality as our meat. It has been suggested that diseased meat could have caused the outbreak. If that is the case, we need to know and we need to be reassured that positive action will be taken to prevent that from happening again.
  Yesterday, farmers were talking about a level playing field. They agree to enforce all the extra hygiene rules and the regulations to ensure that we have the highest standards of meat and yet they face competition from abroad—from inferior meat from countries that do not have the same rules and regulations. That cannot be right or fair.
  People want a full debate about the disease. We have not had such a debate in Government time and I hope that we will have at least one full day to discuss it before the recess. That is not too much to ask of the Government. Whenever the Government were intending to rise for the recess, they could add one more day for business. Let us debate the matter then. It would be wholly wrong to rise for the recess without a full debate in Government time so that we can all make positive contributions.
  People want honesty about the disease. Farmers are angry because they believe that its importance has been downgraded and kicked to one side. The media were interested before the election, but now that that is over we cannot get their interest back. The issue has been sidelined and people are forgetting about farmers. We need to let farmers and those who have been blighted by foot and mouth know that we have not forgotten them and that we understand the pain that they feel and their situation.
  The question of compensation has been raised. In some cases it has been paid late, but it has at least been paid. Farmers outside the dairy sector who have not been able to move their animals for months have suffered too, but they have received no money. I do not know what some of them would have done had they not had help from the agricultural charities. When a similar crisis breaks out again, we must look at what support can be given direct to farmers who, because of foot and mouth, can neither move nor sell their animals.

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  In addition, are farmers who receive compensation expected to live off that money? My fear is that the erosion caused by living expenses over, say, six months will mean that they will not have enough money to restock to the levels obtaining before foot and mouth hit. The Government have not addressed the general problem of restocking but perhaps, when the disease has been eradicated, we can start to look at the future for farming in this country.
  I have heard many horror stories from farmers whose animals have been culled. In some cases, the culling has not been performed humanely. I have heard about pot shots being taken at animals in the fields. That happened in Ribble Valley in the past couple of weeks, and it cannot be right. We were told, after a similar incident in Wales, that such a thing would never happen again. It must not; people involved in the slaughter must be directed to ensure that it is done in the most humane manner possible, and that animal carcases are removed. However, I still do not understand why animals are not buried on-farm.
  We must look to the long-term future, and decide what direct action can be taken to help the tourism industry. My constituency has many tourism industries that have been badly affected by the disease. The Secretary of State said that she wanted to get on top of the problem by the autumn. She has our full support, but action must be taken before the autumn comes—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his 10 minutes.
  5.37 pm
  John Mann: I prepared for this, my maiden speech, with the most exquisite of cream teas at the village school fair this weekend. After it, I went to one of my house's outbuildings, where I rummaged through some of the junk of yesteryear. I came across a very old and dusty trunk, such as might feature in classic children's books—it is mysterious enough for Harry Potter to look at. With trepidation, I prised it open. I found a few historic gems and two old newspapers. One was a rolled-up edition of the Daily Mail from 1934. The paper was a broadsheet in those days, but its contents were familiar, with stories about an opium raid in London, concern over the school syllabus, the jailing of a gang of shoplifters—and about a professor calling for an integrated transport system. How times have changed!.
  Since 1934, the House has heard only two maiden speeches from hon. Members for Bassetlaw—from Captain Fred Bellenger in 1936. and from Joe Ashton in 1968. Captain Bellenger was reputed to have the most beautiful spouse of any hon. Member in the House at the time, and I am certain that that tradition has been upheld in this Parliament. My wife is a business woman, an occasional lorry driver, and an exporter to Europe, so I can he certain that I will be kept well informed about the concerns of business with regard to the price of diesel.
  Captain Bellenger called for an increase in MPs' pay in his maiden speech, and Joe Ashton's autobiography reports that he took up the theme. Reputedly, his first words to Harold Wilson were, "Prime Minister, when do we get paid?" Like Fred, Joe served the constituency well for more than 30 years. The particular affection that local
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  farmers and member s of the Conservative party felt for Joe is testimony to his appeal. I have given a solemn undertaking to my constituents never to mention Sheffield Wednesday other than today in saluting Joe's work—the two being inseparable. My own preference is for the Tigers—Worksop Town—and, on current trends, I will soon be entertaining Joe as the two teams meet in the same league.
  Joe's autobiography has a foreword by the former Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook, who was, I am afraid, too busy to accept my invitation to Workshop during the recent election campaign. More's the pity, as I can announce today that the award for the top election breakfast in 2001 goes to May's cafe in Workshop. It provided a veritable feast—enough to sustain any politician through through of the campaign.
  One of the things least known about Bassetlaw is where it is. Well, north Nottinghamshire is Robin Hood country, although whether in his coup d'etat Lord Hattersley intends to star as Robin Hood or one of the merry men, I am not yet sure. We have a swathe of green across the constituency: it was once the dukeries, where landed gentry rested at leisure.
  Let me return to the old trunk, for I mentioned a second newspaper. Pasted to the inside of the trunk is an 1880 edition of the Retford and Gainsborough Times headlined "Tories gain in Sheffield"—strange times indeed. I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) on an excellent maiden speech. I am sure that she will go well in the House. The year 1880–121 years ago—was the last time that Bassetlaw had a Member of Parliament who lived in the constituency, as I do. I live in the strawberry capital of Britain.
  In 1880, my village had 40 dwellings, three of them pubs. There were two murders, one of them of a publican by the staff of one of the local pubs, and there was a severe alcohol problem. I have still to uncover any evidence of crowd incursions onto the village cricket pitch. Village life is rather more placid these days.
  Swathes of red strawberries fill the fields during summer, and these are no ordinary strawberries. The best strawberries are hand picked and packed and then sent around the country to supermarket distribution centres. If I go to the local supermarket, I may find that my local strawberries have done a round-Britain trip. In reviewing our agricultural policy, I echo local sentiment—what a strange way to run the world.
  My village has what every village needs—a school, a pub and a post office. I shall be looking to this Parliament for policies that sustain tin that basic social infrastructure of rural life. During the pre-election period, I lived on a large beef farm. I take this opportunity to congratulate those in my constituency and elsewhere who acted with speed and certainty to take precautions that have left Bassetlaw and Nottinghamshire foot and mouth free, unlike in 1967. We need a food policy that gives our farmers and rural communities certainty in planning, not merely for a year or two but for 20 years and more.
  We also have the brown of many brownfield sites. With 4,500 job losses in the past 12 months—worse than in any constituency in the United Kingdom—we need sustained investment. We certainly have the land, especially at former colliery sites.

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  My forefathers came from Epworth, six miles across the Yorkshire border. They were saddlers and contemporaries of John Wesley. Bassetlaw is endowed with many fantastic Wesleyan chapels, and untapped tourist potential certainly exists. We are also the home of the pilgrim fathers. When Finningley airport is opened, as it surely must be, there will be tremendous potential for enticing American tourists. In February, large numbers of tourists come to Bassetlaw as part of the countryside turns white at Hodsock priory with the most beautiful white snowdrops one could find anywhere. I recommend it to everyone.
  Communities of every type comprise Bassetlaw. The people are hard working and honest; they are grafters. In the war, they were the men who dug the coal, and those who fought for king and country, and the women who made the bombs, many of them stored in secret locations across my constituency. These are not an office-based people by tradition, but they can be, if given the skills.
  I hope that I have given the House a bit of the kaleidoscope of the colours of my constituency—the greens, the reds, the browns, the whites. But in the last century, there was one other seasonal colour. Every four or five years, for about three weeks, every hedgerow, farmer's field and roadside verge turned a dark blue. That was until one spring in 1997, when that traditional blue was seen much less. In this new century, I am pleased to inform the House that not only has that unnatural visitor virtually disappeared from Bassetlaw's fields and hedgerows, but the farmers who once planted it with abandon now remove it on sight, should it spread to their land.
  I look forward to serving the people of Bassetlaw well in the House.
  5.46 pm
  Dr. Richard Taylor: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). He was among the first group of MPs that I met at Westminster, in a television studio, and all the new Members there made it clear that their prime duty would be to their constituents, which I found very welcome. I would argue about the best election breakfast, because I could recommend the Horse Fair cafe in Kidderminster, and I would argue about the strawberries—the strawberries of Wyre Forest are magnificent—but if that is a sample of the speeches that we shall get from the hon. Gentleman. I look forward to more.
  I address the House as, I believe, the oldest new boy. I have had the ultimate compliment for the older generation in that the Fees Office, before it would pay me, demanded to see my birth certificate.
  I come with an overwhelming mandate from the people with whom I have lived and worked—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat when I am on my feet. Someone's mobile phone is going off; we really cannot have that in the House.
  Dr. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I come with an overwhelming mandate from the people with whom I have lived and worked for nearly 30 years,
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  and they have now given me the greatest honour and privilege—that of representing them here in the House before you.
  My predecessor, the former hon. Member for Wyre Forest, was the first Labour Member for the constituency for 40 years, and on election he took the welcome decision to move and to live locally. He was known as a very hard-working constituency MP, who took on many local personal and general problems with great energy and commitment. He achieved rapid promotion, but he took advice from politicians and civil servants and a small minority of local doctors about the hospital, the single local issue that meant most to his constituents. He genuinely believed that he was doing the best for his constituents in that and all matters.
  Wyre Forest—rather like Bassetlaw, I do not think that anyone knows where it is—is in north-west Worcestershire, a large rural area with some towns, and suffering badly from foot and mouth disease, particularly in the neighbourhood of Chaddesley Corbett. The large towns are Kidderminster, known for its carpets, for the Kidderminster Harriers and for the Severn Valley railway; Stourport, known for its inland docks, being the Blackpool for the Birmingham residents; and Bewdley, sadly known for its floods, but also for its festival. Hon. Members who represent Birmingham constituencies probably do not realise that, in the middle ages, Birmingham was referred to as Birmingham by Bewdley.
  The previous hon. Member for Tatton, whom I count as one of my friends and mentors, described himself as "An Accidental MP". I am exactly the opposite—an intentional MP but of late onset. "Late onset" to a doctor means late in life.
  Recently, it has been my intention to become an MP because of an all-consuming passion, born out of an intense anger about the arrogant, dismissive and unfair treatment that my friends at home have had to suffer at the hands of unelected quangos and civil servants. I and the majority of voters knew that the voice of the people was not being heard, despite successes at local elections, and we decided to use the ultimate weapon of the democratic society—the ballot box. We demand that we be heard and that our views and needs be recognised and acted on.
  I must mention the uniquely drastic, punitive and unfair downgrading of Kidderminster general hospital—an acute hospital of 300 beds that earned a charter mark for all its services. How has that been allowed to happen? Consultation was, I am afraid, a farce. The option appraisal was dressed up in pseudo-statistical clothes, but was, in reality, just a vote. The application for judicial review asked a simple question, "Is it lawful to consult on one preferred option only?" The answer, of course, was yes, so the quality of consultation was not revealed, only the quantity.
  How has the change been allowed to progress unhindered? This is sinister. Following local doctors' initial documented and unanimous disagreement with the health authority, they have been effectively silenced. Three consultants across the county have bravely spoken in public about disasters and disadvantages, and they have all been censured by managers and politicians. Thus, doctors who opposed the downgrading have been effectively gagged and it was possible to promote the myth that local medical opinion was in favour of the changes.

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  The other myth that was devastating to us was that the downgrading took place because of royal college guidelines. That was not the case. Let us look around the country: the same royal college guidelines have been interpreted entirely differently, so more sensitive downgrading has taken place at Kendal, Bishop Auckland, Neath, Hexham and several other hospitals.
  My constituents will not rest until it has been made possible to ensure the provision of emergency services locally. In the meantime, the scandalous waste of money planned for Kidderminster must be stopped. The newest ward block opened in 1995 at a cost of £14 million. It is about to be gutted at a cost of £13.7 million to provide one-stop clinics, which have been in place in existing buildings for 10 years. That local hospital issue is an example of the threat to local hospital services for rural and semi-rural communities throughout the country.
  The wider issues on which I was elected are to campaign for fairness and openness in decision making and against the use of spin, and for a greater voice for ordinary people in major decisions that will affect them and to help them cut through red tape. I welcome the promises to improve education and to help the police to fight crime. In particular, I welcome the emphasis laid on foot and mouth disease today, because my constituents are badly affected.
  I shall also campaign to protect the original ideals of the NHS. I am extremely worried by the threat of increasing privatisation of the NHS. Given my long experience as a doctor in the NHS, as a patient, a manager and, previously, a health authority member, my dream is to represent the patients' voice, which is so weak at present.
  I must recount a moment of our campaign. Outside a middle school, I was besieged by children who all wanted my autograph. I was slightly amazed until I realised that they thought I was standing for election against the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair)—the Prime Minister himself. I am pleased to say that that is not one of my ambitions. My ambition is much easier to achieve. I have already appointed myself my party's shadow health spokesman. against little competition. Above all, I shall prize my independence; I have no master save the people I represent, who returned me to the House with such resounding authority.
  5.55 pm
  Mr. David Chaytor: First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) on his extremely interesting maiden speech, which held the rapt attention of all Members of the House. His detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the national health service will enable him to make an important contribution to the deliberations of the House in the years ahead, but for only four years, I hope. I was also impressed by the other Members who made their maiden speeches this afternoon—my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) and the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan), all of whom will make valuable contributions.
  I want to say a word or two about the formation of the new Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I welcome that development, as the abolition of the
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  Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was long overdue, and the Ministry had few friends as foot and mouth disease took its course. The decision will also enable the Government to make the linkages between agriculture, food production and environmental policy that much tighter, which I welcome.
  On the other hand, there are dangers, because environmental policy may come to be considered as entirely an issue of the countryside and be defined rather softly as involving protection of green fields, tree planting, making small changes to agriculture and protecting rural villages. It would be unfortunate if we allowed that to happen, because, essentially, environmental policy should deal with the hard and important questions of waste management, the sustainability of our natural resources, the quality of life in urban and suburban areas, the nature of our transport systems and energy supply.
  I therefore ask the members of the new Department's ministerial team, who are working in a Department that ties environment and agriculture together more closely, not to forget their responsibilities to ensure that the work of other Departments is scrutinised and influenced in terms of its environmental impact. I call on Ministers to take a particular interest in the work of the Treasury and fiscal policy and the work of the Department of Trade and Industry as well a matters of transport and local government.
  I want to make a brief point about foot and mouth, which has dominated the debate. My constituency of Bury, North is largely urban and suburban, but it contains a small agricultural interest. Thankfully, the farmers in my constituency have not suffered directly because of foot and mouth, but many businesses in urban and suburban areas have been affected. Therefore, when the Government consider the consequences of foot and mouth and, in particular, the compensation payable to its victims, will they please pay attention to urban businesses that have suffered because of what has happened in the countryside?.
  We tend to think entirely in terms of farmers and rural businesses, which is a worrying tendency that I want to check, because I know of businesses in my constituency that have gone through an extremely difficult period over the past six months. They need some attention, too.
  I welcome the fact that there will be an inquiry and I understand the Government's desire to hold it urgently and quickly rather than have it drag on for years and years. That is understandable, and we need to learn the lessons of how the disease has been managed and gradually brought under control. However, in focusing on the disease itself and in trying better to equip ourselves to cope with a future cut break, we are missing the bigger picture. It is difficult to say this when so many farming communities have be en stricken by foot and mouth, but the bigger picture is that many aspects of the intensive industrial agricultural practices to which we have become used for half a century are unsustainable. Indeed, some are revolting and need to be challenged and banned.
  I hope that the Government will not only conduct an inquiry into the management of foot and mouth to learn lessons for the future, but hold a wider debate on the nature of food production. The consumption of less meat would have enormous advantages for the economy of the countryside. Its impact on human health would improve

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  the quality of people's lives. Biodiversity would also be enhanced. I want an inquiry to take place about moving away from intensive industrialised agriculture.
  Mr. David Drew: Does my hon. Friend agree that we should also consider consumption? What this country lacks is an effective food policy.
  Mr. Chaytor: I agree completely. We should also consider how four large supermarkets control the supply of food and most people's diet. There are wider issues than disease management.
  On climate change, it is interesting that we have a new Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but that, according to the Order Paper, the debate does not cover the environment. Although the Opposition's amendment makes a passing reference to protecting the environment, the most profound issue that every country faces is the threat posed by climate change. All the excellent policies in the Queen's Speech and the Government's achievements of the past four years will be as nothing if we do not get the policy on climate change right.
  I was interested to hear the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) make encouraging remarks about the importance of climate change. He said that his party recognises the problem, but the Conservatives said nothing in their four years of opposition and did nothing in their 18 years of government to acknowledge the threats posed by climate change. That must be seen in the light of the new intransigence of the Bush Administration in the United States and new scientific evidence.
  The second report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, published in January, revised upwards its assessment of global warming. In the past few days, Nature published research by Scandinavian scientists on what impact the melting ice floe in Greenland might have on the Gulf stream. It could lower the temperature in the United Kingdom, which would have an impact on agriculture. We must get to grips with that. It is no good simply saying that it is a good point; the Government have to continue to be prepared to take the hard decisions to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, which the Opposition have resisted.
  The Government announced yesterday a serious review of energy policy. That is overdue, but welcome. The country is at a crossroads. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw was concerned about the price of diesel. We can continue to delude ourselves that we can burn off fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow and that the supply of coal, gas and diesel is infinite, but we cannot sweep under the carpet the fact that the price, of diesel and other fossil fuels needs to increase if we are to reduce consumption. The difficulty is that there is huge public resistance to that—they have not made the connection between burning diesel, petrol and oil for heating and the impact that that has on climate change.
  I call on the Government to think more seriously about how they can raise the consciousness and understanding of the public. They need to conduct a major information programme on the link between burning fossil fuels and the impact of climate change. I hope that the Minister will assure us that he will not sit back and rest on the laurels of the achievements of the past four years, and that he intends to make great progress on climate change policy.
  6.5pm
  Mr. Michael Weir: In my maiden speech to the House, I should like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Andrew Welsh, who served the people of Angus so well for so many years. Andrew was first elected to the House in 1974 for the constituency of Angus, South. He then served as Member for Angus, East and, since 1987, for Angus. In all those years, he effectively pursued, with single-minded determination, the interests of his constituents and of Scotland. I am delighted that Andrew continues to serve the people of Angus as our first Member of the Scottish Parliament and as convenor of its Audit Committee.
  Angus is a constituency of small towns and villages with a large rural area comprising the eastern part of Angus, small parts of Dundee and the villages of eastern Perthshire. It also includes my home town of Arbroath, where the first declaration of Scottish independence was signed in 1320 and where we look forward to hosting the signing of the next.
  Angus is a beautiful part of our country, but it is not without its problems. In his many years in the House, Andrew Welsh fought for the future of health services in Angus and, to coin a phrase, that work goes on. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) told us about the situation in his constituency. That is all too familiar to the people of Angus. One of the greatest problems facing rural areas in Scotland is the centralisation of services. Last week, the Prime Minister and other Labour Members talked about improvements in the health service, but that is not the experience of my area and many other rural areas in Scotland.
  The health trust in Tayside has possibly the biggest deficit in the country. It cannot even tell us its exact size. It has embarked on a policy of centralisation of services, with disastrous consequences for my constituency and those of my hon. Friends the Members for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) and for Perth (Annabelle Ewing). Stracathro hospital—the only hospital between Dundee and Aberdeen to offer acute services—is under threat of closure. Services, including acute medicine, are being removed to Dundee. In the past two years, we have suffered cut upon cut. Tayside health board undertook an acute services review to examine the health service in Tayside and make recommendations. Yet before its report was considered, the health board announced the removal of acute medicine from Stracathro.
  In the Prime Minister's speech last week, he mentioned staff morale in the health service. On Tayside, it is at rock bottom. They do not know from one week to the next what is to happen to their hospitals or jobs. It has become a vicious circle: staff leave to find security, but new staff cannot be attracted because of the uncertainties of the future. We are told that a new hospital in Angus will replace Stracathro hospital. Perhaps it will form part of the biggest hospital building programme since the war that the Prime Minister mentioned. However, the new hospital will not have anything like the range of services that are provided by Stracathro. Services that are removed to Dundee are unlikely to return to Angus.
  We have been told that no cuts have been made to public services, but if services are removed and a hospital provides lesser services, what is that if it is not a cut in services to a community? As we have heard, Angus is not alone in that.

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  In the Queen's Speech we are told that patients will be given greater influence over the health service. The people of Angus want an end to the ruinous rundown of services and the crazy centralising agenda that will leave no acute services between Dundee and Aberdeen. Those who have driven up the A90 may have seen the sign for the cafe at the entrance of Stracathro which says:
  "Ye May Gang Faur and Fare Waur".
  That may well turn out to be the epitaph of hospitals in rural Scotland because many of my constituents will have to gang faur and may fare waur, if they can ever get there in the first place.
  There is a difficulty at the heart of the Government's programme for the NHS. They talk about the health service in rural areas and the private finance initiative, but how many private finance companies will invest in small rural hospitals or schools? They will be looking for the big projects in urban areas.
  You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be aware that the provision of health services in Scotland is a devolved matter, but, ultimately, funding is decided by this House. In the course of the debate on the Queen's Speech, former Ministers on both sides of the House have called for a re-examination of the Barnett formula. But hon. Members should be aware that that formula will produce a squeeze on Scottish spending of some £2 billion during the next three years, of which some £400 million will come from health.
  How do the Government believe that the Scottish health service can be improved in that situation? The continual squeeze can lead only to more closures and poorer services for patients in Tayside and throughout Scotland. There is, of course, an answer to the question, and that is to give the Scottish Parliament the full fiscal autonomy that would allow us to invest Scotland's wealth in Scotland's health and other services. I am sure that we shall hear a lot more of that argument in this House.
  The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) mentioned the level of petrol tax. The Chancellor's refusal to concede any ground on the level of fuel duty imposed on our motorists causes great hardship in rural areas, particularly in rural Scotland. A one-size-fits-all policy designed to ease traffic congestion in the cities does not work in rural areas where, in many places, there is no realistic alternative to the private motor car. It is impossible for someone to get from the top of Glen Isla to hospital in Dundee by public transport. High fuel prices hit everyone in rural areas, particularly the less well-off. A litre of petrol in the Angus towns is already significantly more expensive than in city areas, and it is even more expensive in the few rural petrol stations that have managed to stay afloat. The people of rural Scotland face the double whammy of centralisation of services and increased travel costs.
  The provision of good health and other services is essential to maintain rural communities. The removal of such services will inevitably lead to a lower standard of life and economic decline. If we cannot even provide good health services, how can we attract new employers to our rural areas? We should not concentrate purely on agriculture. Many small towns in our rural communities are suffering greatly from the current economic situation.
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  The need for new investment was graphically illustrated in my constituency in the past fortnight with GlaxoSmithKline's announcement that it was putting its Montrose factory up for sale following yet another merger. That announcement was made to the stock exchange in London before it was made to the work force or to the people of Montrose. It was a complete shock to the town, causing great distress and anxiety to the work force and townspeople, and it was not helped by some of the sensationalist reporting on the extent of possible job losses.
  That factory is by far and away the biggest employer in Montrose and the surrounding area. Any rundown will cause great economic hardship. That example shows how the actions of large companies can decimate communities. There may be grounds for cautious optimism that the situation in Montrose may not be as bad as first feared, but the future hangs in the balance and the workers and their families face anxious times. The Government wish to
  "introduce legislation to encourage enterprise, strengthen competition laws, and promote safeguards for consumers."
  But there is nothing in the Queen's Speech about consulting the workers. The Government have recently signed up to the European directive on consultation, and I hope that the regulations made thereunder will have real teeth.
  If the Government's central objective is really
  "economic stability…leading to a more prosperous and inclusive society"
  they must look clearly at the need to encourage industry and industrial development in rural areas such as Angus—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am afraid that I must halt the hon. Gentleman there.
  6.15 pm
  Albert Owen: In rising to make my first speech to the House I am fully aware of the history that goes before me. Ynys Môn, or as it is known in its English form, Anglesey, is unique in parliamentary terms. Since the second world war, four different parties have represented it in the House.
  First, there was the Liberal party with Megan Lloyd George, the daughter of the great Welsh Prime Minister. She served the island from 1929 to 1951. Her powerful presence in the House ensured that Anglesey was in the political mainstream during those difficult times.
  In 1951, the Labour party, through Cledwyn Hughes, later Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, took the seat and served for 28 years. I shall pay tribute to Cledwyn later.
  In 1979, Anglesey went blue. The Tory Member, Keith Best, was a popular and hard-working Member, but he fell from grace by—let me put this gently—immersing himself in the popular share capitalism of the day and becoming a little enthusiastic, as a consequence of which his parliamentary career came to an abrupt end.
  My immediate predecessor, Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones, took full advantage of Mt. Best's downfall and, in 1987, Ynys Môn returned its first Welsh nationalist Member. In 1999, Mr. Jones was elected to the National Assembly for Wales and took on a dual mandate. He later became leader of Plaid Cymru and stood down at the general election to concentrate his efforts in Cardiff. I wish him well in that task— at least until 2003.

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  I return to pay tribute to Cledwyn Hughes. He was a true giant of Welsh politics and represented Anglesey in both Houses of Parliament for more than 50 years. Cledwyn was never a quitter. The 1951 election was his third attempt, against the advice of his father, a staunch Liberal and friend of Lloyd George. Cledwyn was one of the few people I have known who could say that Lloyd George knew his father. He was driven into politics by the desire to improve the quality of life for the people of Anglesey.
  As Opposition spokesman, Cledwyn put to good use his background in local government and law, and ensured that social legislation to improve people's living conditions was at the top of the agenda. Following the 1964 election, he became a Minister with responsibility for overseas affairs, and in 1966 he became the second Secretary of State for Wales. He was a passionate supporter of devolving matters and, along with Jim Griffiths, was the true architect of Welsh devolution.
  Cledwyn was chairman of the parliamentary Labour party during the latter years of the Callaghan Government, and went on to lead the Labour party in the other place. During his tenure as Member of Parliament for Anglesey, the island experienced unprecedented economic growth due to his drive and enthusiasm. In December last year, I had the privilege of being his guest when he was given the freedom of the city of Cardiff for his services to Wales and to the capital city. Alas, that turned out to be his last public engagement, but a fitting tribute was paid to Cledwyn by the lord mayor of Cardiff, who said:
  "Cledwyn was an outward looking patriot, as opposed to an inward looking nationalist".
  Those words are so true. Cledwyn was at ease at the heart of Welsh, British and foreign politics.
  But the best tribute to Cledwyn was paid on 7 June when the people of Anglesey elected a Labour Member of Parliament. It was the first of only two gains for Labour on that night. After winning Ynys Môn, Labour represents the four corners of Wales. Ours is the only party that can assume the title of the party of Wales: "y blaid gwir Cymru— the true party of Wales". Ynys Môn is affectionately known as "Môn Mam Cymru—the mother of Wales". History attributes the name to the extensive cornfields that supplied the Welsh nation during many invasions. The island was a chief centre for the druids, cursed the Romans and later became a stronghold of the princes of Gwynedd. For 200 years, Anglesey was also subject to Norse raids. Anglesey has a rich history, but it does not live in the past. Today, it is a centre of Welsh culture and gives a welcome or "croeso" to people from all over the world. Its scenic beauty is second to none, but hon. Members should not take my word for it—please visit.
  It is a great sadness that, over the past two decades, Anglesey has, none the less, risen to the top of the wrong league tables. It has the highest unemployment in Wales and the highest rate of depopulation, with about 500 young people aged between 18 and 36 leaving the constituency to seek work each year. Ynys Môn is a diverse constituency. Predominantly rural, in recent months it has suffered terrible loss owing to the foot and mouth crisis. Both agriculture and tourism, as well as auxiliary businesses, have been hit hard.
  However, because of the resilience of the island community, it is already moving forward and looking forward to the challenges of the future. I believe that I
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  can play a proactive role in that and that measures announced in the Queen's Speech will assist. Fundamental issues were addressed in it: the modernisation of public services is key. While many of the public services are now devolved to the National Assembly for Wales, it is vital that there is genuine co-operation between this House and the Assembly. I regard myself as having equal roles as a facilitator and a legislator. I am comfortable with the new politics that has emerged post-devolution and I welcome the Government's commitment to devolution in Wales and Scotland and to retaining a strong United Kingdom. Economic stability and sound finances are the foundations on which that can be built.
  A fully integrated transport system is vital to delivering prosperity throughout the UK, especially to areas on the periphery such as my constituency. I am pleased that in 1997 the Government undertook the dualling of the A55 across Anglesey and made it a priority. That venture is now complete and I believe that it offers great opportunities to the local economy. It is worth mentioning that under the Tories the A55 did not extend beyond Llanfairpwll—I shall spell that out for Hansard later. It is also worth pointing out that Plaid Cymru failed to influence the A55 project. It took a Labour Government to achieve that, which is further evidence of Labour delivering for Ynys Môn. There is evidence of improvement in the railways, but we still have an awfully long way to go and I shall work with my colleagues on the north Wales coast to ensure that we achieve our goals. Everyone throughout the United Kingdom needs a modern transport system.
  On modernisation, as the Leader of the House said, this House itself needs reform. How many Parliaments offer a personal hanger on which to hang one's sword and gown on day one, but fail to provide newly elected Members like me with an office or a phone until much later? Archaic splendour must be balanced with modern efficiency. I am aware that much hard work has been done, but priority must in future be given to new Members.
  In the past four years, the Government have made a good start in many respects, but I am tired of the remarks that Labour has done nothing for rural communities in its first term. In my constituency, more than 2,000 people benefit from the minimum wage, a further 2,000 families from the working families tax credit, pensioner households from the winter fuel payment, and families from increased child benefit and smaller class sizes. I choose to speak in terms of a united community, rather than rural and urban communities. Ynys Môn might be on the periphery in geographical terms, but I intend to make it central in political terms. Few people get the opportunity to represent their native constituency. The people of Ynys Môn ask for nothing more than "chware teg—fair play."
  Arriving in Parliament can be a daunting experience for some new Members: some are in awe, others in fear of the place. I am mindful of my late father's words of wisdom and support, without which I would not be standing here today. I believe that he was quoting Robert Louis Stevenson when he told me:
  "Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage."
  In the coming months, I will work with other Members diligently and with commitment and courage to ensure that social justice is not an empty clich¨ but fundamental

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  to the Queen's Speech and the programme set out therein. I intend to provide the people of Ynys Môn—the mother of wales—with a strong voice in the mother of parliaments.
  6.25 pm
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell: It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). He made an excellent maiden speech in which he spoke eloquently about several of his predecessors from a variety of different parties. He gave us the rich history of a seat that some of us have had the pleasure of visiting on our holidays, and he spoke about the issues facing his constituency in this Parliament. On the strength of his maiden speech, the whole House will look forward to hearing him speak in future about his constituency and the issues that are of concern to his constituents.
  One cannot be a maiden twice, and I return to the House of Commons after an absence of four years—described on Friday by my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary as a "sabbatical". I do so in a spirit of great humility, first, because I am conscious of the fact that I have a second opportunity to represent a community—on this occasion, the royal town of Sutton Coldfield; and, secondly, because the experience of the past week has made it clear to me that this is a very different House of Commons from the one that I left only four years ago. I know how much I have to learn from my colleagues about the art of opposition and I look forward to doing so. I am, of course, sorry that I am not representing my former constituency, Gedling, which I represented for 10 years, but this is an opportunity to thank my successor, who was far more generous than he need have been on the occasion of his maiden speech in 1997.
  It is an enormous honour to follow Sir Norman Fowler, who was well known on both sides of the House. He represented the royal town for 27 years, although, like me, he was a retread from Nottinghamshire who made the pilgrimage across to Sutton Coldfield. He stood up for the midlands against decisions made by southern-based decision makers that often favoured the south over the midlands. On that subject, I should like to express my hope that yesterday's visit to Birmingham by the Minister for Sport reflected a genuine desire to see whether the excellent plan for "the people's stadium", proposed by Birmingham to substitute for the lamentable performance of Wembley, might come to pass. I greatly hope that the Birmingham proposal will be given a fair wind.
  Sir Norman dignified politics. It is no exaggeration to say that he was deeply respected and loved in Sutton Coldfield. Throughout the campaign, I met many non-Conservatives who had voted for him because of his hard work for the constituency over many years. He also scored many significant achievements in Parliament. His abolition of the dock labour scheme was highly controversial at the time. The major changes that he made to the pensions industry were not without their problems, but it is largely thanks to his pioneering work that today this country has the largest amount of funded pensions in Europe—indeed, we have more than all the rest of the EU combined. It is sometimes forgotten that Sir Norman was Secretary of State for both Health and Social Security for no less than six years—a remarkable achievement.
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  Sir Norman returned Conservative finances to the black when he was chairman of our party, and I believe that he is the only chairman in living memory to have received two standing ovations in the course of one speech at the Conservative party conference—no mean achievement, given the alleged average age of the membership of the Conservative party. It will be of great comfort to his many friends in the House to learn that Sir Norman will soon be installed in the other place, where he threatens to play a major role—in addition, of course, to spending more time with his family.
  Following a disastrous decision in 1972, the royal town of Sutton Coldfield became part of Birmingham, albeit for local government purposes only. The royal town is a distinct community: we have our own schools, churches, hospitals and magistrates courts, and a myriad of voluntary sector groups that reflect the enthusiasms that characterise Sutton Coldfield. In the 16th century, the town benefited greatly from Bishop Vesey, who appears to have plundered his see at Exeter to the great advantage of his home town. Sutton Coldfield received a royal charter in 1528. Its endowed municipal charities have grown since then and do much good work. They are jealously guarded from the predatory paws of Birmingham.
  Sutton park is the largest municipal park in Europe. It covers 2,400 acres; 70 acres is covered by water. It is a national nature reserve and has recently received a lottery heritage grant for work on heathlands, and a woodland grant. It is a wonderful amenity for local people. It is no exaggeration to say that, while dining at the Boathouse beside the water, one might imagine that one were in the Canadian rockies, rather than five miles from the centre of Britain's second city.
  Sutton Coldfield is an area of high affluence, low unemployment and generally high-quality housing, but it is not without its challenges. It groans under the weight of development. Infill, backfill, planning conundrums and the erosion of the green belt are ever present threats throughout Sutton Coldfield. We are very concerned at how the Pedimore development, which was much spoken about in the House by my predecessor, has been given the go-ahead. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) said, local communities should have far more say in planning decisions. That is at the top of our concerns in Sutton Coldfield.
  We have many excellent local schools, particularly secondary schools, including two grammar schools, which are over-subscribed and very popular, but we need another secondary school. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that some of the saddest letters that Members of Parliament receive are from parents who spell out that they cannot get their children into the school of their choice. We are enormously enthused by a Church of England initiative, which may lead to the building of an additional Church secondary school in Sutton Coldfield. Today, I have written to the Bishop of Birmingham to ask that we be given serious consideration.
  The bed-blocking problem in Birmingham affects Sutton Coldfield. I hope that it is now belatedly being addressed, but it is an important problem that must be solved.
  We are very concerned about crime. I do not suggest that Sutton Coldfield is in the grip of an epidemic, but over recent years budgets have been constrained, there has

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  been a tremendous increase in bureaucracy, a decline in police morale and a lamentable drop in the number of special constables. I hope that all those matters can be addressed with great care.
  It is against that background that I judge the Queen's Speech. There is no doubt that there is much in it that will be welcomed. I hope that the Government will be able to deliver for my constituents in Sutton Coldfield. I have listened with great care to what the Government have said about health. I have an indirect interest in the health industry because my wife is a doctor in general practice. I am acutely conscious that my constituents, if they are unfortunate enough to be afflicted by cancer, stroke or cardiac disease, are materially less well off than their opposite numbers in many European countries, including Germany and France. That materially worse experience——the great anxiety for both them and their families—cannot be blamed on the last Conservative Government; it cannot be argued that the blame rests with them. The Government have promised world-class public services. They know the tunes, but they must deliver. My job as Member of Parliament for Sutton Coldfield will be to try to ensure that they do.
  It is not just about money. The belief is growing that the post-war consensus on the national health service does not deliver. We must look elsewhere—to other countries. The Government must maintain access and availability, but, increasingly, it is up to others to run and to manage health care. I hope that the Government will consider carefully how to make this country's health care the envy of other European countries, instead of continuing to decline and deteriorate. I look forward to the time when we have workplace schemes and stakeholder health plans perhaps, and health care is more in available through the proper ordering of the involvement of the private sector. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make a retread maiden speech.
  6.35 pm
  Mr. Alan Hurst: I am uncertain whether the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) was delivering a maiden speech, but, in any event, he is certainly worthy of congratulation. His speech bore the hallmarks of a maiden speech in that it lacked extreme partisan rancour and had historic and geographic erudition, which illuminates all our minds when we consider such matters. Indeed, it might be said that, if every speech were a maiden speech, the quality of what we hear would sometimes be raised. Fortunately, I am not in a position to make a maiden speech, although there were moments during my election count when I thought that I was coming jolly close to being born again.
  I would like to comment on the Queen's Speech, particularly with regard to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I think that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made a number of mistakes over a number of years. One of my distinguished predecessors, Sir Valentine Crittall, the first Labour Member for Braintree, was also the first Labour Under-Secretary of State for Agriculture. His picture looks down upon me from my office wall every day. In that sense, the Ministry had a good part to play.
  Agriculture is not the only part of our rural communities, but it would be unwise co downgrade it too far. All our rural communities ultimately depend on the
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  widespread part played by agriculture. It is wrong to say that the Government have done nothing for agriculture. The amount of subsidy that is, rightly, paid to agriculture is enormous. It is the most supported industry of all. Indeed, I believe that more public support is given to agriculture than to all the other industries put together. That is not to say that it is wrong, but it should be recognised that that is the case.
  Some people say that we should reform the common agricultural policy and move away from subsidy and support. My view is that we should perhaps change the approach to subsidy and support. It is unrealistic to believe that British agriculture in all its forms can survive in a completely free market. We have heard about palm trees in the west of Scotland. Certain parts of our nation may have climates that are more amenable to agriculture than others, but there are parts of the world with which we can never compete in terms of climate, land and soil. Notwithstanding that fact, our economy needs a strong agricultural base. Therefore, I support the continuation of support and subsidy for British agriculture.
  Agriculture is not the only aspect of the rural community. Over the past four to five years, we have made progress in several areas. I do not subscribe to the view, which is normally expressed during election campaigns, that there is town and country and never the twain shall meet. The towns rest upon the countryside, and people interchange between town and countryside. To set one against the other can do no good.
  There are particular difficulties in rural communities, one of which is transport. We all subscribe to co-ordinated transport—to better transport. Some villages and hamlets will never have a half-hourly bus service, but we need to find out how to build a valuable and useful transport system in our rural communities.
  I am somewhat concerned about the operation of private bus companies. Enormous Government and county support goes into rural bus routes. Every time a private operator makes a loss on a bus route, he closes it and expects the county to pick up the bill. That is the opposite of the principle of cross-subsidisation. If a company operates a private bus service, it should take the good with the bad: it should run profitable services and pay for the unprofitable services out of some of that profit. We should not expect the public purse to take all the unprofitable routes and the private operator to take the profitable ones. Clearly, bus services in rural areas need greater regulation and co-ordination.
  Another matter that would make a colossal difference to the lives of people in country areas is an increase in home-to-school transport. If we are serious about reducing the number of motor cars on our roads, the time and place to do it is in transporting children from home to school and back again. Anyone who drives at any time during a school holiday suddenly realises how empty the roads are at half past eight in the morning, compared with the amount of traffic before the holidays. If greater public finance went into providing home-to-school transport, the benefit would be felt not only by children, but by their parents, who are often encumbered in ferrying children around—sometimes to three separate schools. Indeed, we would be providing a service that has been lacking hitherto. The Government have done well in the support that they have given to home-to-school transport, but I urge them to go further so that we can greatly enhance village communities.

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  The crucial social element in the countryside is the post office. We have all lamented the decline in the number of post offices, which has happened over many years; this is not a party issue. The Government have promised that new banking measures will be introduced into the post office system. That is welcome. The Government answered a parliamentary question that I tabled saying that benefits and pensions will still be paid in cash after 2003. That must be encouraged if we are to keep the flow of business through local post offices.
  If the post office, the public house, the church and the chapel disappear from the local community, it becomes little more than a dormitory housing estate. We must ensure that those facilities remain. We must do all within our power to increase local employment and work based on agriculture and its subsidiaries, where possible. However, we must also encourage other appropriate businesses in the countryside, so that it becomes a living countryside, as opposed to a picture-postcard ideal that people visit at weekends and for holidays.
  6.42 pm
  Lady Hermon: I rise to speak in the House for the very first time in the knowledge that my constituency was last represented by a woman in 1955, the year I was born—no maths please. I am a lady, and I should not like anyone to do the calculation. In fact I am the first woman to be returned to the House from Northern Ireland in almost 30 years. The previous one was Bernadette Devlin, who represented Mid-Ulster as a Unity Member of Parliament in 1969—by the way, I promise not to assault the Home Secretary—and then as an independent from 1970 to 1974. I grew up on a farm only a few miles from her home in Cookstown, but our paths never crossed. She was a Catholic and I a Protestant, and we went to separate schools. When she was 10 and I was two, a new Royal Ulster Constabulary sergeant was appointed to Coalisland, a small village lying between our respective homes.
  The previous sergeant had been blown up by a booby-trap bomb placed by the IRA during its 1950s terrorist campaign. The new sergeant tolerated no nonsense. He was a strict disciplinarian and gained a reputation for being somewhat fierce—so much so that, as a child, I remember that the threat of seeing the sergeant was the ultimate deterrent to bad behaviour in our house. The fierce sergeant was none other than Jack Hermon.
  Some 30 years later, Jack Hermon was Chief Constable of the RUC, and I was an academic lecturing in the law faculty at Queen's university. One of my colleagues at that time was a shy, bookish, softly-spoken, red-haired, bespectacled young lecturer. How the years have improved my colleague my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), the leader of the Ulster Unionist party! I am delighted that he was comprehensively and very wisely returned as our leader by the Ulster Unionist Council at the weekend.
  In 1987, having been outraged by the Chief Constable's discrimination against women in the RUC, I wrote an article criticising him bitterly for his actions, of which I sent him a copy. Months of silence followed, then a phone call. It was a man's voice—the voice of someone claiming
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  to be the Chief Constable, Sir Jack Hermon. All the women here will know what I mean by the phrase, "women's intuition": we know instantly when something is a hoax. I knew instantly that it was a hoax call, so I responded, "If you're the Chief Constable, I'm Brigitte Bardot." So much for female intuition and instincts. To my enormous embarrassment, he was who he said he was, and I was certainly not Brigitte Bardot. So it was that we met, subsequently married and made our home in North Down.
  I have, therefore, only been called Lady Hermon for the past 12 years. For the previous 33 years, I had been Sylvia Paisley—although I am not related to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), and nor do I share his political views. I was, nevertheless, delighted when he said that the best decision that the Chief Constable of the RUC ever made was to marry a namesake of his.
  When I first stood for selection as a candidate in North Down, I immediately learned how I was perceived by the media. The Irish News—the excellent main nationalist paper and one of my favourites—ran a story about the four candidates. Tin name of each appeared with a little descriptive note. Alongside mine was what was to become a traditional little note: "Lady Hermon, wife of the former Chief Constable of the RUC", and so on. A similar note appeared for each candidate, although they were not described as being married to the Chief Constable. The paper's problem was which photograph to include. Did it put in my photograph or that of any other candidate? No, it put in the photograph of Jack Hermon.
  Victory at a general election brings many rewards, including, in my case, a photo of me—not Jack—with one of our Airedale dogs. That picture appeared on the front page of The Sunday Times. If I had received a pound coin every time someone had said to me, "What a beautiful dog you have," I would be enormously rich by now. Let me give a bit of advice to all hon. Members: they should never have their photograph taken with a handsome dog.
  Amid all the other results in Northern Ireland, where voters appear—I emphasise the word "appear"—to have polarised to Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist party, I urge the House to note the message of co-operation and moderation from North Down. I was selected only on 9 May, the day that the general election was called. In less than a month, Catholics and Protestants, the small Jewish community in Northern Ireland and the Chinese community, Unionist voters, Alliance voters, Social Democratic and Labour party voters, Progressive Unionist party voters and the Women's Coalition all felt comfortable in voting for and returning me to the House with a majority of more than 7,000.
  I am, therefore, enormously proud of the people of North Down. They have returned North Down to the Ulster Unionist party; they have returned a woman to Westminster; and, in me, they have returned someone who remains strongly pro-agreement. The people of Northern Ireland need and deserve to see all the agreement implemented; it must not be allowed to stumble and fall at this stage.
  I pay tribute to my predecessor, who no one will deny was a colourful character. Robert McCartney QC held the seat from 1995, during which time he made a lasting impression on political life in Northern Ireland. As well

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  as being a colourful character, he was a powerful orator and he remained something of an enigma to the end. Despite having declared that
  "there was more than a whiff of Lady Macbeth about Lady Hermon",
  he did not hesitate to step in front of me—leaving his back exposed—to address the press corps before I could make my acceptance speech when the count was declared on 8 June. What a real character. I sincerely wish him well in what was for him an unexpected retirement from the House.
  North Down is truly a beautiful coastal constituency. For those who cannot visualise it, it runs along the top of the Ards peninsula. My home town of Donaghadee is well known for its splendid lighthouse, which was built in 1836 and is still in perfect condition, as are all the 100-plus steps that I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to climb and descend regularly as a form of exercise. The maypole, which dominates the centre of Holywood, is also in perfect condition and attracts tourists every year.
  Mercifully, the rural hinterland has escaped the ravages of foot and mouth disease. I have listened with great attention and great concern to those who have a dreadful blight on their constituencies as a result of foot and mouth. We in Northern Ireland have escaped the worst of the ravages. That is in no small measure due to the skilful handling of the crisis in Northern Ireland by our own Minister with responsibility for agriculture, Brid Rodgers, to whom I am delighted to pay a warm tribute on behalf of the farmers in my constituency. My father, who is still farming at the age of 85, said that had she been standing in his constituency, he would have voted for her, and he is a long-standing Unionist. She has handled the outbreak superbly well.
  During the election campaign I was struck, and rather offended, by the fact that North Dawn was frequently described in the media as the gold coast, with the "have yachts and have nots"—and more recently as "the gin and Jag" constituency. These descriptions paint a grossly inaccurate image of my constituency and its wonderful people. I shall take a few moments to paint a different picture.
  It is true that in Bangor we have a magnificent marina that is full of yachts. It is the fourth largest marina in the United Kingdom. It is true also that in Bangor we have the Kilcooley estate, where there are about 650 children without one play park or playground between them. Millisle is a small coastal village which is scenic for tourists, but having canvassed there I can tell a different story. It was there that I was asked for my autograph for the first time. It was a humbling experience to find that young children regarded it as the highlight of their day, week, month and perhaps their year to ask a parliamentary candidate for her autograph.
  The lives of all these children deserve to be enriched with much more investment in youth facilities the length and breadth of the constituency.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady has used up her time. There will be other occasions.
  6.52 pm
  Mrs. Helen Brinton: It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), a new Member. I congratulate her sincerely on winning
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  her seat, on winning it as a woman and on being born in 1955. I was born in 1954, so well done. The hon. Lady spoke forcefully and passionately about her constituency, and I am sure that she will be an ornament to her party and to the House. I am sure also that she will not be represented any more by pictures of attractive dogs or husbands, but by her own picture, as she deserves.
  I welcome the creation of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It will enable the Government to reform the food chain, to promote a more diverse system of agriculture and to regenerate the rural economy. These are issues that concern us all, whether we live in town, as I do, or in country. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Rural Affairs said in the Western Mail of 18 June,
  "Rural areas are not on a different planet."
  The creation of DEFRA clearly implies that agriculture will no longer be producer dominated. The over-dominance of producers encouraged an unhealthy rift between farmers and consumers. Ultimately, it did not even best serve the interests of the industry. Now the Government will be able to look after the food chain in a more integrated way and ensure for once that the interests of farmers and consumers go hand in hand. That means also, and most important, that agriculture practices can become more sustainable, and can protect, rather than detract from, the natural environment and our wildlife.
  In all these matters, as many Members have said this afternoon, it is vital that we engage with public opinion. Most people are not concerned only with the cost and quality of their food. They can appreciate the wider environmental issues. There needs to be a wider debate, and perhaps the sort of debate that we have had today. I appreciated the comments of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who spoke so movingly about foot and mouth disease.
  There is a case for interests to come together to collaborate on getting things right rather than wrong. Producers and the National Farmers Union, for example, should be involved. Supermarkets, consumer groups and tourism interests are clearly vital, as are groups such as the Countryside Alliance, which is not only a hunting lobby. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds should also be involved.
  The average net farming income is about £5,200 per farm in England. That is not sustainable. The common agricultural policy and a producer-dominated Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food did not deliver, and I am glad that MAFF has gone. There is no simple answer, but part of the solution must involve a progressive shift in subsidy payments from commodity and volume production support towards rural development, farm diversification and investment.
  The then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), secured some progress on the so-called modulation of the CAP a couple of years ago. That is good, but we must go much further. Integrated farm management, as promoted by Linking the Environment and Farming, whose activities I have been delighted to promote in the House, and organic farming require support while they become more established in the marketplace.
  Sometimes farmers are thwarted in their attempts to diversify by unhelpful planning regulations. I heard of a farm-based zoo that was refused permission to expand on

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  the ground of the increased traffic that that would generate. However, it was given permission to fill a field with executive homes, which was not what farmers wanted.
  A major underlying problem in rural areas—we have heard about this from hon. Members on both sides of the House—is a lack of public transport, which leads to a dependence on cars for those who have them and to isolation or restricted social work and education opportunities for those who do not. The previous Government announced substantial funding to promote rural bus services, and we look for real and solid improvements on the railways, taking account of a full debate in the House. There is no quick fix.
  Car numbers are likely to increase, with all the environmental problems that will ensue. At the least, we must ensure that that does not contribute to global warming through increased emissions. The House knows that I have long advocated—partly through my work on the Select Committee on Environmental Audit—incentives for environmentally friendly road fuel gases. The Chairman of the Committee made a distinguished contribution to the debate earlier.
  The Government have responded to the need, not least in the most recent Budget, in which road fuel duty was cut by 40 per cent. In response, the liquefied petroleum gas industry is investing significantly in pumps, but so far mainly in urban areas. The various benefits of road fuel gas availability should be delivered to rural areas. The Scots have an initiative to encourage the installation of LPG pumps and tanks in rural areas in the form of the Scottish rural petrol stations grant scheme. The scheme should be extended to cover rural areas in England and Wales. Taiwan and Japan also subsidise the installation of LPG filling points for environmental reasons.
  In the United Kingdom we have used the tax system to incentivise a shift to environmental goods from environmental bads. Let us use the system creatively in the same way to help the countryside. Transport is now part of another Department and I hope that that will not mean that we lose sight of environmental considerations. We must remember the pledge of the previous Government to make such considerations central to policy making. I am concerned that the decisions on some of the proposed new road schemes, such as the Hastings by-pass, will not take a sufficiently long-term, integrated view.
  Departments that are too big can, of course, be unwieldy—I shall mention no names, of course—and changing situations require changing departmental boundaries. However, other means can and should be used to ensure that policy making continues to be joined up and take into account all the strands of truly proper development. As colleagues in all parties will agree, that involves having concern not only for producers and profit but-if I may, as a former English teacher, be excused a continuing alliteration—for people and planet, too.
  7 pm
  Norman Lamb: Like all the other new Members who have already spoken, I feel very honoured to have been elected as a Member of Parliament. I feel a deep sense of responsibility and gratitude to those who have shown trust in me. I also feel an additional honour,
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  in that I am something of a rare breed: a Liberal Democrat MP for Norfolk We have to go back to 1929 to find a previous Liberal MP in Norfolk, and back to 1918 to find the most recent one in North Norfolk. They held their seats for the first 18 years of that century, and I hope that we shall do likewise in this one, although I do not want to pursue the analogy with the previous century any further so far as Liberal fortunes are concerned.
  I know that it is customary to pay tribute to one's predecessor, but I wanted to do that in any event. David Prior was the Conservative Member for North Norfolk for four years. Despite that relatively short period, he built up a reputation for assiduous hard work on behalf of his constituents. He was on the liberal wing of the Conservative party. I think that, in modern Conservative parlance, he was a mod as opposed to a rocker. He was brave enough to initiate a debate in the previous Parliament on the reform of our drug laws, which was impressive for a new Member. I am therefore very happy to pay tribute to his contribution in this place.
  One of the great privileges of this job is to work with so many unsung heroes beavering away in their own local communities, often without much credit being given to the work that they do. I am thinking in particular of some of the wonderful wardens of sheltered housing schemes whom I have met, and of the people who keep voluntary community projects such as nurseries going in the North Norfolk area. I am also thinking of the carers who look after loved ones in their own homes, and of the many teachers working with a real passion for the benefit of the children in their schools.
  I want to pay particular tribute to the achievement of Hickling first school, Colby primary school and Fakenham high school, all of which achieved the honour of beacon status last week, and Cromer high school—also in my constituency —which achieved language college status last week. Those are great achievements for those schools.
  North Norfolk is a wonderful constituency to represent. I shall resist the temptation to give the House a tourist's guide to our wonderful coastline, but I shall just mention three villages: the village of Little Snoring, which is, inevitably, larger than the neighbouring village of Great Snoring, and the village of Sloley. One might get a false impression of the pace of life in North Norfolk from the names of those villages.
  I want to say a few words about the decline in rural services—in particular the network of rural sub-post offices. A real threat hangs over those businesses in rural areas, and it is not only a future threat. The threat of the loss of benefit payments through sub-post offices means that the value of those businesses is declining dramatically now. Any sub-postmaster or mistress who wants to retire or move on is finding it very difficult, if not impossible, to sell their business. This crisis must be addressed, and it must be a priority for the Government.
  The rural transport network, and especially bus services, have been decimated in constituencies such as North Norfolk. Some interesting initiatives now exist, such as the dial-a-ride scheme, which I thoroughly endorse. However, we need more investment in the rural networks and more integration between the services provided by rival companies and between bus and rail services.

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  It is environmentally nonsensical that, over the years, school transport should have declined dramatically, resulting in endless extra car journeys. It seems so much more sensible to allow children to travel to school by bus, particularly in a dispersed rural area such as North Norfolk. It is also wrong that students over the compulsory school leaving age have to pay for their transport to school, as that is a positive disincentive to children from poor families to carry on their education.
  I also want to mention the state of our health service. Constituents have come to see me who are having to wait a year for an appointment with a specialist about their hip, which might be causing them real pain throughout that whole period. That is unacceptable. It takes them a year to get on to the waiting list for the operation. People talk about concerns over creating a two-tier health service, but it is here already. Anyone with money can opt out of the health service here and now. Those on low incomes, particularly pensioners, are left having to wait an unacceptably long time for treatment.
  Finally, I want to mention the growing concern about the disengagement of young people from the political process. We have heard a lot about turnouts over the past few weeks, but the concern over young people's voting patterns is the greatest of all. We have a duty to make politics much more relevant and to behave in a way that will rebuild people's trust in the political process. It is incumbent on us to modernise the way in which we carry out our business, and to open this place up to young people. I admit to being excited at being here, and I hope that I can do my best to repay the trust that has been placed in me.
  7.8 pm
  Mr. Barry Gardiner: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). He gave a kind, generous speech in tribute to his predecessor and will clearly bring a gentle and reasoned voice to our debates. I spent many childhood holidays at Cromer zoo in his constituency and I wish him well in this House. [Laughter] I was not one of the exhibits, I hasten to add.
  It is a costly business to be returned as a Member of Parliament. Four weeks ago, I had three suits that fitted snugly and a new pair of shoes. In the past four weeks, I have lost more than a stone in weight, my suits all need altering and my visits to the house of 15,000 of my constituents have worn through enough shoe leather to keep all the cobblers in Brent, North extremely happy for the next four years.
  So I stand before the House today a man much diminished, but a politician with a hugely increased majority. I thank my constituents for the trust that they have placed in me, and I thank my wonderful colleagues and friends in my constituency party. Their amazing support, dedication and sheer hard work, not just over four weeks but over four years, have turned a 10,000 Conservative majority into a 10,000 Labour majority in that short space of time. There is no such thing as a safe seat. There are only seats that are worked, and seats that are not. In Brent, North, we certainly intend to go on working ours.
  I loved every minute of the campaign and, if she is listening, that includes the harangue that I received from one mother outside Byron Court school. As I said to my
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  campaign colleagues that afternoon, "I don't think that we were going to get her vote in the first place." What I love is that a campaign takes one as close as one can get to what people are really feeling and what they want done by us in government. Therefore, in rising to support the Queen's Speech, I bring to the debate not the think-tank theory of a policy unit but the raw concerns of my constituents from the doorsteps of Brent, North.
  I welcome the commitment in the Queen's Speech to strengthen the police's ability to fight crime. In Brent, we have a good story in that 31 new police recruits have been allocated to the area this year, bringing the force up to full strength for the first time in many years. We have been particularly successful in targeting burglary, which decreased by 16 per cent. last year as a result of a Government-funded Crimestoppers II initiative. However, violent crime in Brent has increased and we need the powers to bring it under control. Much of it is fuelled by drugs and turf wars between dealers and different gangs.
  I welcome the proposal to establish a criminal assets recovery agency to get at the proceeds of crime. Drugs are a business, and if one deprives that business of its profits, it will cease trading, just like any other business. Tackling drug crime will not only reduce the instance of violent crime, it will impact on street crime and domestic burglary as well. We know that so much of that crime is committed to obtain money for drugs. Drugs are the cancerous heart of the world of crime and we must ensure that we give the police all the resources that they need to defeat the drugs barons.
  I should also like the Government to consider legislating to double the maximum penalty for anyone dealing in drugs to children within half a mile of a school, as they have done in some cities in America. We must legislate to protect our children and deprive the dealer of the concentrated customer base that schools currently provide.
  Later, I shall be pressing the Government further about the need to include qat on the list of proscribed substances. Today, I shall simply say that it is all too clear to my constituents, particularly in Sudbury, that that drug is a serious social evil. It has been the cause of a serious arson attack as part of a turf war, and a crowd of young men chewing the drug in one particular area have intimidated and threatened ordinary passers-by, demanding money with menaces.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I must remind him that we are now debating the amendment to the Loyal Address and not the Queen's Speech in general. Although the amendment is termed fairly widely, he really must concentrate his remarks on those terms.
  Mr. Gardiner: I am focusing my remarks on that part of the amendment that focuses on world-class public services, and I believe that the public service that police provide is absolutely central to the needs of my constituents.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I judged that the hon. Gentleman was hanging on by a thread and have tried to strengthen his position.
  Mr. Gardiner: I take the admonishment in good part and shall try to observe your strictures.

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  I have placed the fight against crime and drugs as the first message from the doorstep because it is fundamentally a democratic right that our citizens should be free to live their lives without fear. The commitments of the Gracious Speech on police matters and combating crime are therefore particularly welcome to me.
  Another feature that will certainly be welcome in Brent, North is the commitment to reform our health system. We have benefited greatly from the Government's capital investment in our local hospital, Northwick Park, which is one of the 182 accident and emergency departments that has been entirely refurbished. With capacity doubled to 90,000 admissions annually and a separate children's A and E to separate children from the Friday night drunks in the main casualty, the facility is faultless.
  The best facility in the world, however, is no use unless it has the staffing and back-up to make it function properly. My constituents still wait far too long in casualty because of a lack of nurses and doctors and because the medical beds are four floors above in the petty empire of a different consultant. That is the type of obstacle to efficient health care that our Government must, and I trust will, sweep aside. Managers are often derided in the NHS, but the blame equally often lies in the stupid empire building of consultants who run their own departments to their own satisfaction, not to say their own convenience, and refuse to consider the needs of the hospital as a whole and to put the needs of the patient first.
  I am confident that we shall increase the number of nurses and doctors, as we have said in the Labour manifesto. I also trust that we shall be equally robust in reforming the structure of our NHS hospitals to break through the artificial logjams to in-patient care. My constituents have been pleased to see us deliver world-class buildings, but they will not be satisfied by anything less than a first-class service.
  I listened with interest to the mostly excellent maiden speech of the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell), who will clearly be an effective contributor to the House. Naturally I could not agree with him about his desire to see the national stadium relocated closer to his constituency, and I shall gently remind him on every future occasion that in his maiden speech he bemoaned the over-development in his constituency. I shall continue to assure him that the national stadium would definitely be an over-development too far for his constituents.
  The national stadium is at Wembley, and the national stadium must stay at Wembley. It is vital not only to the economic regeneration of all of north-west London, but to football itself. It is of course possible to build a stadium for less than £440 million—Cardiff, Paris and Sydney are all examples of excellent stadiums built for less. Sadly, however, they all make a loss, not a profit. The new national stadium at Wembley needs to generate revenue that the FA can feed into the grassroots of the game. To do so it needs to incorporate elements that will create that revenue.
  I welcome the recent news that Multiplex and ING are prepared in different ways to back the Wembley project to ensure that it is financially viable. I urge the Government and our new team at the Department for
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  Culture, Media and Sport to do all that they can to back Wembley as the home of football and of our new national stadium.
  Integral to that project is the transformation of the London underground and the transport infrastructure off the north circular. The public-private partnership proposals must not only deliver the promised £13 billion of investment, but the integrated system, with unified central control maintained in the public sector, that the Government have promised. I am confident that our Government can deliver that. I believe that it is vital not simply for the future of projects such as Wembley but for the future economic viability of many areas in the penumbra around London that we should do so.
  The transport infrastructure has been the subject of much of this debate and is of course integral to the success of cities such as London. London has problems with its rail transport infrastructure, but although people have talked about the need to renationalise, I do not believe that that is the answer. Instead, we must resolve the problems caused by the separation of track companies from rolling stock companies. Such problems have regularly been highlighted in the House, particularly by the Public Accounts Committee. That system was produced in the wrong way by the previous Government.
  A system must be introduced in which Railtrack and the operating companies are brought together in defined regional networks so that they can operate in an integrated manner, ending the divide that we have seen to date. Perhaps we should also make the inter-city network an entirely distinct structure. I believe that we must rejoin the track and rolling stock companies, and I hope that the Government will consider new models and new ways of delivering that to the public.
  7.18 pm
  Mr. Charles Hendry: It is a great honour and privilege to speak for the first time in the House as the Member for Wealden and especially as the successor to one of the most loved and respected Members of this place. Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith was in many ways a unique man. He had been a distinguished Minister with responsibility for pensions and for defence, and he had been a distinguished Select Committee Chairman. For many years, he had also been devoted to the North Atlantic Assembly in which he served for 20 years, including as one of its committee chairmen and, for the past five years, as its treasurer.
  Sir Geoffrey was a fine debater, devoted to Parliament and its ways. However, what people will remember most about him was that he was an extraordinarily gentle and decent man. I have never heard him say anything unpleasant about anybody in any party. That is a remarkable achievement in the world of politics. He will carry with him the best wishes of this House as he moves into his retirement.
  Sir Geoffrey was the most marvellous support to me in the year that I shadowed him as a prospective parliamentary candidate. We worked closely together over that time. He was an immensely diligent Member of Parliament, much loved within the constituency. He campaigned assiduously for local schools and hospitals, for the restoration of the rail link between Uckfield and Lewes, and for farming and rural communities. Those are all issues on which I would wish to continue his work.

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  I imagine that for many hon. Members the most immediate difference between Sir Geoffrey and I would be sartorial. He could still wear the suits he wore 50 years ago, and regularly did. When he campaigned—even when he was canvassing at the last election—he did so at a trot, managing to jog around the constituency at a rate that I found quite bewildering. When we stood beside each other—him at 77 and me at 42—people asked him why he was giving way for an older man. He still retained those wonderful good looks which people also remembered from his appearances many years ago on television.
  Many of my friends who were waiting up for the election results were concerned that Wealden was about the last constituency in England to declare. They were concerned that there might be a recount, and the following morning and the following week the local newspapers had headlines suggesting that the Wealden result was in jeopardy and that Labour was celebrating a swing. These referred to the fact that the count had taken so long, and it was with some trepidation that I reached for an excellent paper produced by the Library, which reassured me that Wealden had produced the third-largest Conservative majority in the country. Having spent most of my political life fighting in marginal constituencies, I can live with that degree of trepidation and jeopardy.
  Many things about Wealden are remarkable. It is a constituency that is only 40-odd miles from London, yet it contains some of the most unspoiled country and beautiful scenery that one could find. Although many people commute out of Wealden to Brighton, Gatwick and London, the constituency is characterised by areas such as Ashdown forest and the historical farms of the High Weald, and areas that are famous for characters such as Winnie the Pooh and Sherlock Holmes, great literary characters who have come to mean a great deal to the constituency.
  Wealden also has villages and towns which, in their own way, are extraordinarily special; towns such as Crowborough, Hailsham, Uckfield and Heathfield and a whole host of small villages that make it one of the most desirable places to live. While one should take great comfort from those factors, one should not begin to think that Wealden is not without its problems and genuine anxieties. It is an area that has had much good fortune, but there are still real concerns, the first of which is housing.
  The Government's plans—backed locally by the Liberal Democrats—to build tens of thousands of new houses in the greenbelt area are matters of profound concern. It is something that the overwhelming majority of people who live in Wealden would wish to resist. The problem is that we simply do not have the infrastructure locally to cope with those numbers of houses. We do not have the places in our schools or on the local doctors' waiting lists; nor do we have the facilities in our transport network.
  I believe it is paramount that decisions on new houses should be made locally by councillors who understand those situations, rather than remotely by Ministers. I do not believe that the previous Secretary of State ever tried to drive either of his two Jags down the narrow lanes of East Sussex, yet the decision was to be his about how many houses we should take. It is vital to an area such as Wealden that those decisions should be made locally.
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  The next issue of concern is policing. Rural policing has been in great decline and we view that with great anxiety. We have seen the numbers of police in the county fall over recent years, and the number of police on the beat has also fallen. I want those numbers to be restored, more police to be back on the beat and, crucially, our local police stations to be kept open all the time. When someone is apprehended in the night in Crowborough, it does not make sense that they should be transported by two officers to Crawley, because that takes those officers out of service in the community for three or four hours. I will campaign on behalf of my constituents to make sure that we keep those local stations open at weekends and overnight.
  There will be a wide welcome for the plans introduced by the now Conservative-controlled county council to reintroduce local community policemen, funded by the county council, so that there can be people in rural communities who work only in the areas where they live and who will not be taken away by a big crisis in Brighton or elsewhere. They will be there to look after the needs of their communities.
  The next issue is the future of those rural communities which we have seen gradually slide away. The nature of those villages remains, externally, as it has done for years, in terms of the character of the houses, the nature of pubs and the fact that we still have many butchers shops in the villages, although they are declining all the time. However, far too many village post offices have closed. Nationwide last year, more than 500 post offices closed in our smaller communities. That is a tremendous loss, not just to the pensioners who depend on them for drawing their pensions each week but to the many people for whom the post office is the life-blood of the local business community. I hope that measures will be introduced during this Parliament, and that the Government will be persuaded during the debate on the Queen's Speech, genuinely to support local village communities.
  At the nub of rural communities is farming. We have been incredibly fortunate in East Sussex, in that we have not had a single case of foot and mouth disease, but that does not mean that farming is not in crisis. One half of dairy farmers in the south-east have come out of dairy farming in the last two years. Their farm incomes have declined by 90 per cent. over the past five years. One of the consequences of foot and mouth will be that people who might otherwise have been able to stay in farming will feel that they simply cannot justify the huge disparity between the value of their farmhouse—which is in great demand from people wanting to move into the area—and the income that the farmland can now generate for them.
  This House must act urgently to try to make sure that our farmers enjoy a level playing field and are not facing unfair competition from overseas products that do not adhere to the same standards of animal hygiene and animal husbandry. We need good labelling so that consumers who wish to buy British food know that they are genuinely doing so, rather than buying food that may have been reared overseas and simply packaged and processed in this country.
  There is nothing in the Queen's Speech that suggests to me that the Government wish to act with regard to the countryside, apart from their knee-jerk reaction on

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  foxhunting. If we do not stand up for farming, the whole fabric of our countryside will be in jeopardy and will be changed for ever.
  For me, there could be no greater privilege than to represent the area where I was born, grew up and went for most of my schooling. To come from the area just north of Wealden and now to be the Member of Parliament for the area is something that, as a child, I could only have dreamed about. I know that there are many issues of concern to the constituency, issues about which I care passionately and for which I hope I can be a voice in this House for some time to come. Sir Geoffrey was here for 36 years and looked at the end of it as if he could do another 36 years and not notice the strain. He is a hard act to follow, but I shall do my best to be that voice for this constituency.
  7.28 pm
  Mr. Andrew Miller: I wish to concentrate on the final phrase in the amendment, which asks whether the House should have confidence in whether the Government can deliver world-class services. I believe that that is an important challenge to the Government in this period of delivery.
  Before doing so, however, I congratulate the three hon. Members whose maiden speeches I have heard: the hon. Members for Wealden (Mr. Hendry), for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and for North Down (Lady Hermon). It was a great pleasure to listen to them, and there was a common theme in all three speeches. It is a humbling experience to realise that so many thousands of people have put a cross against one's name, as that imposes a high degree of responsibility on each of us. I wish all three Members well in their careers.
  Can the Government make any real change to our constituents' quality of life? Some progress has undoubtedly been made, but the level of turnout showed that not enough has been done to engage swathes of people in our society. I have no doubt that public services need to be overhauled. The public will believe that we are only tinkering at the edges unless we roll up our sleeves during this Parliament and help change their lives and living conditions.
  We have talked about joined-up government for some time, but so far the change has been minimal from the point of view of thousands of people living at or near the poverty line in housing that no Member of this House would choose to inhabit. I would go further and say that very few in this House have ever experienced living in such housing at first hand.
  I joined the Labour party 32 years ago because of my dismay at the way in which the public and private sectors addressed the housing needs of decent people. Over those 32 years, I have been a council tenant, I have lived under private landlords who sent the heavies round to collect the rent and am now, fortunately, an owner-occupier living in an historic building. Therefore, I feel qualified to comment. Sadly, not enough has changed in all that time. I have asked myself why that is so, given some of the things that we have all seen in our constituencies. I have come to two conclusions.
  First, on the supply side, there are simply not enough houses in some constituencies. In some, as the hon. Member for Wealden said, the controversial point is
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  whether housing development takes place. In my constituency, the argument is not about the placement of houses but about the quality of accommodation. I give the Government credit for some of the imaginative ways they have looked at the problem over the past four years and intend to do so in the future, as outlined in the Queen's Speech.
  My second conclusion is talked about but seldom addressed—namely, that the very machinery of government fails to meet the needs of many people who are disengaging from the political process. I wonder how many colleagues went around rundown estates in their constituency during the election campaign, knowing in their hearts that we have failed to get to the core of the problems facing some areas. Those who voted said, "You're better than the other lot", but many said, "You're all the same. You don't actually make a real difference to our lives." The real problem lies here in London, where the machinery of government has failed to get to grips with the inertia in the system. Unless we genuinely deliver, on a joined-up basis, we will fail.
  Why does the process of evaluating the effectiveness of a local housing strategy look only at housing? Best value criteria should be based on the same systems that good cost-centre management apply in the private sector. The cost centre must be able to deliver to its targets but, in making decisions, it must also take into account the best interests of the business as a whole. That is how the private sector operates, but the system seems to be lacking in the Government machine. That is not a new comment—the problem has existed for generations. Not only is such a system lacking, but some public sector managers seem to be resisting it.
  I shall give a couple of examples. The first is a diversion from housing. Merseyside fire authority, which serves only one small part of my constituency, has concluded that under its best value rules, it should change the Heswall fire station in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) to day manning. Going ahead may be fine in terms of the Merseyside criteria, but it means additional expenditure for the Cheshire fire authority, which will have to fill the gap. That seems bad business planning on the part of the fire authority. In that example, my first cost-centre requirement is met but the second is entirely ignored.
  Let me return to housing. I want my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench to know that I am not hung up on ownership. There is only one principle as far as I am concerned—whether we can deliver decent housing and give citizens the dignity of a decent roof over their head each night. The provider is secondary.
  In my constituency, an estate called Parklands used to be full of post-war precast reinforced concrete houses that were falling apart. As a result of an imaginative partnerships between central and local government over a number of years, a massive amount of work has been done to restore the dignity of decent housing and that estate has been changed out of all recognition. The Government have failed to consider the benefits that that investment has had in reducing demands on the police and social services as well as educational pressures. That is what I mean about making sure that in assessing how one cost centre of government operates, one looks positively at a wider range of services.

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  One can compare that estate with areas of my constituency where no such investment has been made in the recent past. There has been a massive decline in turnout in such places. Not only has there been a better level of turnout in areas where people have been engaged and seen the effect of the Government's delivery, but there has been an improvement in terms of other areas of Government expenditure.
  The Government need to look carefully at those areas to ensure that the proposition contained in the amendment is killed off once and for all. The Opposition's premise is false, but Ministers need to make sure that they get to grips with the machinery of government and look at the needs of people on a diverse basis—not as a single cost centre. If they consider matters in that way, we will have success during the part of this Administration's time that concentrates on delivery.
  7.38 pm
  Miss Anne McIntosh: I am grateful to have been called to participate in this debate, and delighted to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller). I am pleased that the debate has been of such a high standard.
  I am delighted to have been returned for a second term to represent Vale of York. I might not be No. 3 like my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Mr. Hendry), but I am one of the dirty dozen. I had one of the 12 best results for the Conservatives, with an increased majority and a larger share of the vote. I take this opportunity to thank those who voted for me, and I shall continue to represent those who did not to the best of my ability over the next parliamentary term.
  I would like to place before the House my interests in this area. I am a member of the public policy committee of the RAC Foundation and, with my brother, a co-owner of a smallholding in Teesdale in the north of England. I hope that that qualifies me to speak. In addition, I represent a largely rural, but partly urban constituency.
  I welcome the Secretary of State to her new responsibilities in the Department. The jury is still out as to whether the Government were right to create a new Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I regret the absence of farming in the title and I lament the split of responsibilities—environment and planning have been separated, which could lead to great difficulties for the present Administration. It is not merely a case of changing the brass plate and the Department's title. What we really need, and what was lacking in the previous Government, is the necessary political direction in particular in the midst of the farming crisis, to which I will return.
  As I said, we had a successful campaign and I confirm that campaigning is fun. One reason why we did so well is that our local pledges were relevant to the electorate in Vale of York. My first pledge was to obtain a fair deal for farmers and the countryside. My second was to support local pensioners. My third was better standards in schools and hospitals. My fourth was to boost enterprise and services in rural areas, such as transport and rural post offices, and my fifth was to obtain more police to fight rural and street crime.
  I am disappointed that farming is not the Government's first pledge. In the past two years in particular there has been an unprecedented crisis in farming. Incomes have
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  fallen to their lowest levels, the number of jobs lost and people leaving farming is unprecedented and those problems are compounded by foot and mouth disease. Farmers in Vale of York told me that they had never felt so humiliated or neglected as under the Labour Government in the previous Parliament.
  Farming and industry related to farming, including rural tourism, are the largest employers in Vale of York. I am delighted and relieved to say that as I speak, although the disease is all around us and presses on every frontier, as yet we have not had a direct outbreak of foot and mouth in Vale of York.
  The repercussions for farmers, for those living on the land and for connected industries such as tourism, are unprecedented. The Government must come up with some strategy for recovery in the countryside, not least on business rate relief. I live in Hambleton district and I am appalled. The Government have paid lip service to extending business rate relief to farms and rural businesses, but they must appreciate that district councils such as Hambleton—and, indeed, your district council of Uttlesford, Mr. Deputy Speaker—will already have committed their budgets for this year and are in receipt of no national funds to pay for that largesse. I ask the Government to reconsider and to make such funds available.
  I question the Government about why a public inquiry was so pressing after BSE but not equally pressing to investigate how foot and mouth disease started. Perhaps the Minister would like to respond in his reply. The Government have failed to make any reference to farming or the countryside in the Gracious Speech or to produce a strategic recovery programme. They have produced the 20-day standstill rule and, for the second time, I urge them not to implement it. It is most likely that foot and mouth disease emanated from meat that came from abroad. The Government should tackle the need to improve controls on meat and live animal imports. I hope that they will take the opportunity this evening to say that they will do so.
  I regret the pressure put on local authorities such as North Yorkshire county council by the Government during the recent general and county council elections to reopen footpaths. The priority must be to eradicate foot and mouth disease. As the Secretary of State said last week, we must prevent any contact between animals and human beings if the disease might spread. I regret the unprecedented and unwelcome pressure that the rural task force put on councils such as North Yorkshire to open footpaths, which is a measure that the Government may yet live to regret.
  At the heart of rural life and services are quality of life and the sustainability of the countryside. Rural post offices in Vale of York and elsewhere have been closing at an unprecedented rate. Those post offices offer a lifeline to rural communities. We can only keep rural sub-post offices by enabling them to retain the payment of benefits and pensions after 2003, as 40 per cent. of their income is derived from paying benefits across the counter.
  The Secretary of State promised extra police. I challenge her and her deputy who is to respond to the debate to explain who will pay for the extra police. Police numbers will be restored to the levels of 1 May 1997 only by the end of March 2002. Who will pay those salaries when the rural police grant expires after the first year? Answer came there none.

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  Fuel prices have also been at unprecedented levels. We have the most expensive fuel in Europe and yet we remain a major net producer. The on-costs to businesses, to mothers doing the school run, to pensioners and to the delivery of goods and services in rural areas must never be overlooked.
  The Government must deliver on their promises. They must improve journey times and the availability of public transport alternatives. Some 68 per cent. of the electorate are motorists and 20 million of us are car owners. I support the RAC call for a road watchdog to ensure that we speed up the introduction of quieter road surfaces, in particular the Sowerby bypass. I urge the Minister to consider that. We also need better quality road signs and street lighting.
  Local authority road maintenance funding should be ring-fenced for that sole purpose. I challenge the Minister who will respond to ensure that the detrunking programme that the Government will introduce from 2003 will attract additional funds to the local authorities that must implement it. I hope that we will receive an answer this evening.
  We must have better safety management. Railways must be put on the same basis as air traffic with independent rail safety investigations, as is the case for air disasters. I also submit a plea to the Minister to renew Great North Eastern Railway's franchise for the east coast rail route.
  In conclusion, I regret the absence of any reference in the Gracious Speech to agriculture and the countryside. I regret that my No. 1 pledge on a fair deal for farming and the countryside is not a pledge that the Government share and also that there are no proposals to assist farming, tourism or the rest of the rural economy to recover from foot and mouth disease. I fear that that bodes ill for the farming community, the countryside and the sustainability of our environment for future generations. I will not cease to remind the Government of their duty to my farmers.
  7.48 pm
  Mr. David Drew: It is always a great pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), even though I do not agree with a word that she says. I also pay tribute to the maiden speeches that we have heard today, which have been very good. Hon. Members have kept to the point and I hope that they enjoy this place and will get a warm feeling from their constituents, who are no doubt making a beeline towards their doors at this moment.
  I am fortunate to be able to speak in this part of the debate because it covers two of the areas in which I am most interested—those covered by the new Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and transport. I make no apology for focusing on the first subject covered in the amendment tabled by the official Opposition, but I will conclude by saying a little about transport. The Opposition amendment mentions those matters, but does not give a true reflection of what the Government did, nor of what they intend to do now that they have been re-elected with a massive majority.
  The Government achieved many good things in respect of the environment. That has not been reported fairly, and the Government have not received the credit that they
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  deserve. It is an example of what I call the law of reverse spin, which states that the less said about a matter, the more the Government have achieved. The Government stood steadfastly behind the climate change demands placed on all Governments in the western world. The stance taken by the new American President shames the developed countries. It behoves Labour Members and the Government to do something about what might be the biggest peril facing the world. The Government's efforts on the environment will affect other sectors, such as renewable energy, transport strategy and farming and food production.
  I could devote my speech to foot and mouth, and the matter has been referred to by several other hon. Members. The old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was not fondly regarded in many places, and its passing has not been mourned. The new Department is an exciting new hybrid, but I should like to pay tribute to the MAFF officials who worked so relentlessly in the most difficult circumstances when the outbreak was at its height. The temporary veterinary inspectors went out day after day to deal with people in heart-rending difficulty. They did so without reward, and they were given little support by the wider populace, who were reading the inaccurate and emotive headlines in the media. Those headlines did not portray what was really happening, although we know that the outbreak caused great difficulty.
  I welcome the announcement that there will be an inquiry into the foot and mouth outbreak. I am happy to include my name among those who support a full and public inquiry which, as well as looking at what happened in practice, should also examine the cause of the disease, and its transmission.
  After classical swine fever and bovine tuberculosis, the foot and mouth outbreak was one disease too many. We must learn from the mistakes that have been made in the practice of agriculture and in the funding mechanisms that are available. Those mechanisms cause people to do daft and illegal things, which is why I hope that we will get access to all the background information, including the intelligence reports that have been compiled. That information will enable us to know what caused this dreadful series of events.
  I hope that the upshot will be a movement towards establishing a food policy. I have spoken many times in the House about the need for such a policy, and I think that we are moving in that direction. A food policy would not just be about producers, processors and retailers, but about consumers too. It would make clear what consumers should be able to expect, and what they could put back into food production strategies. I hope that consumers can be encouraged to seek higher quality produce of more local origin, even though it might cost more.
  I have always said that some of our food is too cheap. I am a Co-operative as well as a Labour MP, and I believe that the best way to take the process of consumer involvement forward is through co-operation. I believe in the principles of cc-operation, and the food chain is an ideal arena in which they could be applied successfully and effectively.
  I am pleased that the new Department encompasses rural affairs, and I am sure that it will do so in more than name when it gets going. We need to debate the real rural issues that matter to people in rural Britain. That debate

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  goes far beyond foxhunting. I managed to secure an increased majority at the general election because I talked to local people about what mattered to them rather than about what other people think is important. I talked to my constituents about transport, schools, health and rural poverty—the issues that affect people's everyday lives. We will be missing a golden opportunity if we do not encourage the new Department to get stuck in and deliver what needs to be delivered.
  We must tackle the question of how to improve rural services, and work out how to keep shops and other services in place. I was at a meeting in North Nibley in my constituency last night, where villagers are threatened with losing both their shop and post office. It was good to see people in that community coming together to decide whether they could keep those premises open on a voluntary basis. Representatives of the Village Retail Services Association, the voluntary shop movement that has done so much sterling work around the country, were at the meeting. Although running a local post office on a voluntary basis represents a big commitment, we are beginning to see how village people can fight back to ensure that their services remain intact.
  Finally, I want to mention transport, the issue around which most of the problems in rural Britain are concentrated. If we can resolve the transport dilemma, much else will follow in train. We must ensure that good quality services are provided in the more deprived rural areas and encourage people of all dispositions to use public transport systems. The Government have done much for rural bus services, but more will have to be done. I support the extension of half-price bus passes to groups other than pensioners, and we must ensure that services are kept running and, in time, improved and made more widely available.
  In my constituency, Stagecoach is the dominant provider. I wish that we had more drivers and service administrators. We are putting so much money into those services that we are entitled to expect an improvement. We hear a lot about the public-private business relationship, but it is important that the private sector, as well as receiving the money, should be seen to deliver.
  The railways are at the core of the transport links that keep rural communities in communication with each other. I hope that the Government will put much more pressure on Railtrack. For about nine months, I have been trying to arrange a meeting with Railtrack officials. I want to get a local line in my area reopened and improved, but so far I have met with nothing but failure. I hope that the Government will begin to put pressure on Railtrack to deliver in rural Britain—as it should he delivering in the rest of the country.
  7.58 pm
  Mr. Gregory Campbell: I wish to begin by paying tribute to all those hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. I have listened with interest and some diligence to many of those speeches, and to the remarks made by other, more seasoned campaigners.
  It is customary for a new hon. Member to pay tribute in his maiden speech to his predecessor. My predecessor, Mr. William Ross, was a diligent Member of this House. For many generations, his family has lived and farmed in the East Londonderry constituency. Mi. Ross has done so himself for many years.
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  When I was growing up in one of the many small terraced houses in the Waterside area of Londonderry in Northern Ireland in the 1960s, I little realised that I, a product of a working-class Unionist family, would one day be elected to this, the mother of Parliaments.
  Like so many of my community, my social conditions were poor, on a par with those of many in other parts of Northern Ireland and in the rest of the United Kingdom. We enjoyed none of the benefits of the so-called Unionist ascendency. Outside toilets and a lack of bathroom facilities were the rule, not the exception. Our job prospects were bleak. I started work as a shop assistant in 1969. At that time, there were those who started to campaign for what they termed civil rights. Among them were Members past and present of this House. Not only did they make a number of demands but they accused my community of refusing those demands, even though we were in a similar socio-economic plight.
  Some ask why we did not join in the campaign to have those demands met. Those who say that do not understand that, from the outset, the campaign was a republican one. It had slogans such as, "Smash the Orange state." The campaign quickly turned violent. Those Members of Parliament who supported it have their own consciences to search for the part that they played in encouraging protest, violence and subsequently murder. They condemned it, but they pocketed the political gains that the violence brought for their community.
  The problem in recent years has been that attempts to establish a political system in Northern Ireland have as their genesis the wrong foundation. If Her Majesty's Government continually begin from the starting point that nationalists are always the aggrieved party, they will always get it wrong. That is what is wrong with the present Belfast agreement.
  Decommissioning of illegal arms is essential, and it must be begun and completed. Proper accountable democracy in the Assembly must be established. There has to be a Northern Ireland-Republic of Ireland liaison with which Unionists as well as nationalists are comfortable. I do not see how any of that is possible within the present framework, but the fundamentals of the approach to solving the problem must be right.
  My community is angry, disillusioned, discriminated against and marginalised, not only since the Belfast agreement but for decades before. The 1998 agreement only made matters worse. I am here to work for the revitalisation of that community. In most strata of society in Northern Ireland, Unionists feel that their cultural outlook has been ignored. The Northern Ireland of today is a place where Unionists feel their second-class citizenship acutely. The advantages that nationalists enjoy are considerable. I want to work for a society that all our people feel comfortable in and with.
  There are Unionist towns across Northern Ireland, such as Limavady, Kilkeel and Desertmartin, where nationalist parades can and do take place on a traditional basis without any Unionist objection or protest. I want to see that reciprocated for the Orange Order in places such as Garvaghy road in Portadown.
  The charge is often made that Unionists are against change. That charge is made by those who seek to further the fallacy that Northern Ireland is a cold house for Catholics. That is utter nonsense. The acceptance of that premise has done untold harm in the past 30 years. Only

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  when there is a realisation that the Unionist community needs to see its grievances addressed will there be the possibility of widespread acceptance of institutions that can accommodate Unionists. We want to see change. We want change such as—
  Madam Deputy Speaker(Sylvia Heal): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but his speech is going rather wide of the amendment on the Order Paper for today, which relates to the environment, rural affairs and transport.
  Mr. Campbell: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall endeavour to return to that as quickly as I can.
  Of course we want to see change. The part of Northern Ireland that I represent is disadvantaged. The rural areas and the urban populations have been considerably disadvantaged. I want to work with all hon. Members in the House to tackle the problems faced by both urban and rural communities.
  Future generations in Northern Ireland want to have the same advantages that certain sections of our community have enjoyed for generations. We want to see change in Northern Ireland that will allow the promotion of our community's cultural background in the same way as the nationalist community has had its cultural background promoted and financed.
  I want the beautiful north coast in my constituency to be enjoyed by all citizens and visitors from across the globe in true peace and prosperity. The beautiful Roe valley, the wonderful beaches of Castlerock, Downhill and the premier resorts of Portrush and Portstewart make the constituency one of the most beautiful and stunning parts not only of Northern Ireland but of the entire United Kingdom.
  In conclusion, I want to see the Government strive for a system of government to which every democrat can give allegiance and support, and in which genuine equality and freedom is accorded to all citizens of my beloved Province.
  8.7 pm
  Mr. Russell Brown: I congratulate the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) on his maiden speech and all other hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. Like the hon. Gentleman, I come from a working-class background. In the past four years, I have listened to him and many of his colleagues in this place, and I have to say that my experiences are fundamentally different from theirs in Northern Ireland. I can only hope and pray that, ultimately, we shall see in Northern Ireland a lasting peace from which all the people of Northern Ireland will benefit.
  I am delighted to speak in this debate on the Queen's Speech. I wish to talk about foot and mouth disease and its impact in my area. In Dumfries and the neighbouring constituency of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, 24 per cent. of GDP is attributed to agriculture. The foot and mouth disease outbreak of the past two or three months has had a real impact on the area. People who believe that they had no real connection with farming soon discovered differently.
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  Much of the debate in recent weeks and months has centred around agriculture and the impact of the disease on farmers, but others have been seriously affected. Some businesses closed down almost overnight. Those included agricultural contractors and people involved in tourism, which we have grown to realise is closely connected with farming. So foot and mouth paints an extremely bleak picture.
  If there is any comfort at all for the people in my area and the neighbouring constituency, it is down to the fact that the disease was handled somewhat better there than in other parts of the country; but there is little consolation for those who are hit hardest. There is a variety of different views on the way in which the situation was handled because, let us not forget, some farmers lost generations of work—burned before their very eyes as the disease hit hard. We are talking about pedigree livestock; bloodlines that could be traced back to the 1850s were lost, never to be recovered. It was extremely hard for these people, but some of them have been quick to come back and I compliment those who were working on the ground, trying to deal with the crisis. I echo some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who spoke about the temporary veterinary inspectors who worked hard and with so much dedication to lessen the impact on households and families.
  Hindsight is a magnificent thing, and I have never seen as many experts come out of the woodwork as I have in recent weeks and months. Suddenly, everyone had the magic answer of vaccination, which they said should have been used from day one; but obviously, people had different agendas. No one was offering any other real alternative, and I firmly believe that the cull policy was the best way to proceed. That policy is still being carried out on the English side of the border.
  The issue started with cross-party consensus, but regrettably, became an election issue. Only two days before polling day, in my area, stories were being spread that vets and slaughtermen were returning on 8 and 9 June to carry out further culling. There was no truth in that. Although the vets did return to my area, it was to carry out the next steps—part of a process of healing and moving forward—of blood testing and placing sentinel cattle in some of our fields Thus in Dumfries, and in Dumfries and Galloway, we have moved forward significantly.
  The prospect of an inquiry has been raised. An inquiry was held in 1967, but regrettably, little was done from that time onwards, which is why, in 2001, we were left somewhat wanting. We should remember that. In 2001, an unprecedented 2000 animal transportation movements, involving 1.3 million sheep, led to a rapid spread of the disease. Therefore, we need an inquiry, but we also need a follow-up to it—we must consider how we would deal with foot and mouth if it ever arose again, and we must examine procedure; every three, four or five years. The inquiry must find out how the outbreak started. I am on public record as saying that, if criminal proceedings have to be brought against any person, or any group of people, we should not be afraid to bring them. We should highlight what was done well and should not be afraid to acknowledge where we got things wrong.
  We need explanations for cases that suddenly arose some 30 miles from the nearest previous case. The inquiry should examine traffic movements and vehicle

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  movements, and the potential for the spread that arose from those. It should consider human movements—people working uncleanly and causing spread.
  One of my local newspapers printed a letter from a chap inquiring about mushroom sheep—sheep that had not been there in the evening but had appeared the next morning. Lo and behold, some two or three days later in another part of his neighbourhood, the same thing happened. I am almost convinced, although I cannot be sure, that I witnessed similar happenings. Sheep would suddenly appear in fields where previously there had been nothing. It beggars belief that, throughout this difficult period, people may well have been carrying out illegal livestock movements. Of course there has been rumour and gossip, and the inquiry must get to the bottom of some of that, too.
  Is there a role for vaccination? Should vaccine ever be used in the future? We need extensive research and development to ascertain whether it is a possibility.
  Foot and mouth never really was an election issue. People's real concerns in rural constituencies are the same as they are in cities and urban areas: they are about the national health service and children's education. The amendment before us talks about "world-class public services". Earlier this year, the Leader of the Opposition appeared at a fund-raising event in my constituency and spoke about policing in the area. He said that he wanted to return police numbers to the figures that stood in May 1997 and crime to 1997 levels. I have news for him: crime has fallen by 5 per cent. The number of uniformed police officers has risen by 42, and the number of civilian staff by 29. I do not think that people in my constituency would want to see a return to the May 1997 figures.
  People's real concerns also include transport, and the Tory theory behind bus deregulation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, Stagecoach is a major player in my area. I am not convinced, despite all the money that the Government and our local authority have ploughed into public transport, that we are getting the transport provision that we need and deserve.
  People are also concerned about affordable housing. Let us never forget that, to many people, affordable housing means an affordable rent.
  Let me sum up by saying that some people should not return to farming. I do wonder that there is a healthy situation in my area, where 24 per cent. of GDP is connected to farming. I do not believe that that is healthy. We need to provide support to farmers and communities to ensure that we have a vibrant rural economy. That can happen only when people sit down and discuss the issue as whole rural communities, rather than individual groups within communities.
  8.17 pm
  Mr. David Heath: It would be invidious to mention all the hon. Members who have made excellent maiden speeches this evening. We have seen the capabilities of the new intake of Members of Parliament in the most remarkable way this evening, and I give credit to all of them—hut particularly my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), whom I very much welcome to the Liberal Democrat Benches.
  The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) was absolutely right in saying that, to rural areas such as those which he and I represent, what matters in this Parliament
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  is that the Government should start to deliver in the key areas of social policy. We have been waiting too long for them to do so. Education, health, policing, public transport and the public services on which we depend are also the key issues in other parts of the country.
  Overlaying that is the crisis caused by foot and mouth disease, and we in Somerset feel much the same way as the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). The world has looked aside and the media spotlight is elsewhere; they are no longer interested in foot and mouth. However, there happen to be cases in our area, and those outbreaks are just as important to our agriculture industry and our other businesses as were those in other parts of the country.
  The caravan has moved on and we feel forgotten. That cannot be right, which is why the amendment tabled by the Conservative Opposition correctly says that it is remarkable that the Queen's Speech does not address the most pressing issues in rural areas: first, how to effect a recovery in our agriculture industry; and, secondly, and perhaps even more important, how to effect a recovery in all the other businesses that have been affected not only by foot and mouth but by the long-term slowdown in so many of our rural industries and the impact of that on the economy.
  I am deeply disappointed that there is no legislation in the Queen's Speech to address that. Furthermore, there is no measure to put into effect the promises made in the rural White Paper and no intention to lead with a recovery plan that will put cash into businesses that desperately need it to put them back on the road to recovery.
  It is a paradox of debates on the Gracious Speech that we often discuss not what is included but what has not been included. I have little problem with many Bills in the Queen's Speech and some address issues with which I have sympathy, but I do not find what I want in respect of the core areas of delivery and improved public services. The proposed education Bill is so far removed from the reality of what we need to improve education services in schools and university provision in Somerset as to be laughable.
  I welcome the appointment of the new Secretary of State for Education and Skills. She and I have shared many Adjournment debates late in the night, talking about the problems of Somerset education, and she has always shown that she understands the issues. However, I have to tell her that a Bill that deals principally with 57 new varieties of school and labels that will categorise pupils and put them into the various educational establishments without improving any of them—they will be irrelevant in many rural areas, which have monopoly suppliers such as a single secondary school providing an option for an area—is not what we are looking for.
  We are looking for reforms of local government finance, and we have been waiting for them for so long. We want a measure that will put right the gross inequities in standard spending assessments whereby a child in Somerset receives £1,500 a year less than a child in a leafy London suburb. That is what we want from the Government, but we do not have it. Yet again, we wait for those necessary reforms.
  The system does not provide the new school buildings or the extra teachers that we need and it is making admission policies more difficult. Other hon. Members will know that policies that are intended to be good—

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  I applaud them in terms of class sizes—mean that more pupils are unable to attend a school on their doorstep, so they have to travel a considerable distance to an alternative school.
  In the health service, the systems are being messed about, there are no promises of real delivery in the acute services that we need and constituents of mine still have to wait 18 months to get into the Royal United in Bath or into Yeovil general hospital for a simple orthopaedic operation. That is not good enough, and the Government must start to deliver on their promises.
  We must begin to address primary care issues. My general practitioners in Somerset are in desperate straits, wondering how on earth they will manage. They are being asked to do more and more with less and less, only to find that the bureaucracy is overwhelming them. That cannot be right either.
  We desperately need to address issues of long-term care. Only last week, an elderly persons' home in a neighbouring constituency but on the border of mine, was closed, affecting many of my constituents. People rang my office in tears because their relatives were being told at a week's notice that the home was to close and that they would have to decamp we know not where. We must get long-term care right. We do not have the correct funding or structure to provide long-term nursing or personal care, and that should be a priority for the Government in this Session.
  Hon. Members also mentioned housing. We have not got that right. I am still greatly concerned that overstretched social housing in rural areas cannot cope with the people who want to move because their living conditions are grossly unsuitable or their family circumstances have changed. They are stuck. The only way for them to put a roof over their head is to move far away from their friends and relatives—possibly to accommodation that might be unsuitable—simply because the housing stock does not provide what is needed.
  Those are important issues. On an additional note, I am concerned about the need to reform this place to make it more relevant to our constituents' needs. That idea has pervaded all discussions about the Queen's Speech. People have talked about the Government holding Parliament in contempt. That has been the case at times, and it continues to be so. However, ways of remedying that lie in our hands as Members of the House. We, too, often hold the House in contempt. Members are often not here to listen to debates. Prima donnas waltz in to give their speeches and do not have the courtesy to wait for the next speech before going on to their next engagement. We have also failed to address the problems of Select Committees. We need to consider who serves on them and what powers they have.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is roaming wide of the debate.
  Mr. Heath: If we want proper public services, as mentioned in the amendment, we need parliamentary structures that hold the Government to account to maintain them. We do not have those. Our structures lack the spontaneity to enable us to do that. We talk about things that are outside our control, but we often fail to
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  talk about things that are under our control. We talk about the need to ratify treaties without appreciating the fact that that power is not within our grasp. The House can only deal with legislation that follows from a treaty obligation; the responsibility for ratification lies elsewhere.
  The House has to take its responsibilities more seriously. We must make the Executive understand that, unless the House is seen as relevant and is able to hold them to account for providing the services that our constituents need, we are failing in our duties. The public will not respect the House for that and will show their displeasure in the ballot box, as they did at the general election.
  8.27 pm
  Mr. Mark Todd: South Derbyshire had eight foot and mouth cases earlier this year. Restrictions have only recently been lifted. Indeed, the footpath that runs across my property has only just opened to walkers. The outbreak had a profound impact on the rural economy and the life style in a large part of my constituency.
  The outbreak clearly exposed the extremely poor preparation that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had in place to deal with such a disaster. It would not be reasonable to retort that it could hardly have predicted a disaster on that scale, because we had experienced foot and mouth before. Although a substantial report was written about the last outbreak, the Ministry was, sadly, unprepared for the process that lay ahead. It showed a poor initial grasp of the scale of the crisis and did not bring to bear all the resources that could have been available to control it early enough. Members of the Select Committee on Agriculture in the previous Parliament had the opportunity to question scientific advisers on the management of the disease and their advice about it. I was surprised at the time that elapsed before the key scientific minds who could forecast the path of the disease were engaged in the task.
  There are clearly some substantial issues to address and I welcome the fact that there will be a full inquiry into the origins of the outbreak and its handling. I shall want to see what can be learned, and, to be fair, where the criticism should be directed.
  One small silver lining was that my constituency received a visit from the Prime Minister. Three farmers in my area, the Archer family—there are Archer family farms in South Derbyshire as well as on the radio programme—the Salts and the Smiths, all had the opportunity to express their views about the way in which the disease had been handled. They complimented the Ministry on some aspects of its handling of the matter locally, as well as handling out some brickbats regarding delayed payments and later, after the outbreak, confusions that had arisen in relation to blood tests, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) referred. Such tests were a necessary part of clearing the disease from our area but were handled slowly, with several mistakes being made.
  In many ways the exercise was a test of how public services work in extremis, which brings me to public services in general and how they may be improved—matters which are questioned in the Opposition's amendment. The focus of the Queen's Speech was correctly on the delivery of public service commitments,

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  and that was the focus of the message given to me by my constituents in South Derbyshire during the election campaign. They expect to see more commitments and they expect them to be delivered more quickly. My task in this Parliament is essentially to help to ensure that that comes about.
  Listening to the Queen's Speech and examining in more detail some of the tasks that lie ahead, I had some doubts about how easy some of those changes would be. With regard to NHS reforms, we must recognise that centrally set targets and government by directive have rightly been questioned as the correct way to deliver improvements. They have been shown to be inefficient and demotivating to key workers within that core service.
  I regularly meet health service professionals who, while recognising the extra resources which they are starting to see reach front-line services, bitterly resent being told precisely how to spend money and being set targets which they do not regard as the most relevant for their area. We must allow greater discretion for quality services to be established in a local area on the basis of the judgment of local management.
  Peeling away some of the layers of NHS management appears to be necessary, but we must recognise that the long drawn-out processes that usually follow understandably absorb far too much of the time and energy of many key managers. That means that the deconstruction of regional health authorities and the health authorities that currently continue to manage many of the financial issues in the health service, and the transfer of those tasks to primary care groups and then to primary care trusts, is a process that will naturally absorb a great deal of energy which perhaps could be devoted to improving public services rather more rapidly. One must also question whether transferring complex negotiations and the management of complex services to primary care trusts, which are, as yet, nascent bodies of limited experience in delivering such key decisions, is a task that will be achieved without significant error and delay.
  We need robust processes that will transfer responsibilities rapidly, but we must also be aware that one of the goals is to make savings. Most of those working in the health service are cynical about the savings it is claimed can be made from the reduction of large bureaucracies.
  My experience of working in the private sector for a large public company suggests that all large bureaucracies tend to behave like primitive organisms: when a limb is severed at one point, a replacement grows elsewhere in the organism, sometimes at rather greater cost and inefficiency. Flatter management, while a laudable goal, cannot be achieved painlessly or without extremely skilled management. Given that it does not appear that such experience can be found within many of the public service bodies and Ministries that will be m managing the process, one has to voice some concern about that change.
  We must re-engineer the way in which we deliver our services. Some useful innovations have already been made, for example, the ONE service in delivering benefits and employment support. However, many parts of our public services continue to operate within the confines of byzantine procedures. We have repeatedly failed to integrate the use of information technology into modern public service. When I visited a hospital just outside my area, I was shown software that was it was claimed, on
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  the leading edge; but five years ago in my own business, I would have regarded it as the most basic of database tools. That gives some measure of how slowly IT has been absorbed into a key public service. I noted the gentle reproof from our e-envoy regarding using high-level targets for public access to IT instead of focusing on the big issue of transforming key public services through the use of IT.
  In education, while commending the development of specialist schools, I would argue that we need to strengthen networks between local schools. To give a local example, I cannot understand why in Swadlincote, a town in my constituency with three secondary comprehensives but only one sixth form, allowing competitive specialties would be harmful.
  To return to the putative subject of today's debate—the establishment of the new Department—we must review the top management of our public service. The new Department must break the cracked mould of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: it will be alarming if the new adopts the culture and leadership of the old. Our rural economy needs new strategies based on markets, customers, quality and environment, not on the legacy of the previous Ministry.
  8.37 pm
  David Burnside: It is appropriate for me to participate in the debate on rural communities and transport in the context of the Queen's Speech. I want all those who have not yet done so to travel into Ulster, because it is more likely than not that they would fly into the international airport in my constituency, which lies at the heart of Ulster. They can take the airline of their choice because there is such a good selection of them—I prefer British Airways, which still does a fair job, even though it is not quite the airline it was when Lord King and I were running it.
  I shall stop the aircraft 30,000 ft up and take a look around my constituency, because it is an attractive place, as is the whole Province. It is a big rural constituency with considerable industry and commerce, which lies 10 miles from Belfast lough. To the west at Toome, the River Bann—a great salmon river—runs out of Lough Neagh, where most of the eels that are eaten in Europe come from. The area is an untapped tourist attraction, but it is totally underdeveloped, so I intend to work on that one for the community of South Antrim and, indeed, for all of Northern Ireland.
  Move eastward, through Randalstown and Antrim to Ballyclare, and turn south to Mossley, one of two big local government areas. Our local government headquarters are in Mossley Mill: local councillors did not, as they sometimes do, knock down the old and build a new and disgusting office block; instead, they took an old 19th-century mill and turned it into the headquarters of Newtownabbey council. That is something that I like.
  Move further south and, on the fringes of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) is the legendary Dundrod circuit. Dundrod, with the mountain course on the Isle of Man are two of the great road circuits in the history of autosport, now road motor cycling.
  Beside Dundrod is Nutt's Corner, which is in my constituency, where there is a small race track, which I hope, in co-operation with Members of the Assembly,

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  we will develop as a centre for motor sport excellence in Northern Ireland. I would like it to be named the Joey Dunlop memorial circuit since Joey Dunlop came from my home town of Ballymoney in County Antrim. Up with Mike Hailwood, he is the greatest motor cycle road racer of all time. He died in Estonia last year.
  I turn to my predecessors. I thank the Rev. William McCrea for looking after the interests of South Antrim in the eight months since he defeated me at the by-election; I won at the general election. I thank him for his service, as I am sure the House does. Willie still holds many public positions in Mid-Ulster, including in the local council. He has stood for many constituencies. I do not know where he will pop up next, but no doubt he will.
  I go further back. I have known the past four hon. Members for South Antrim, including Sir Knox Cunningham. I met him at a small meeting in Ormeau park in the early 1970s—it was small by Ulster standards: about 100,000 people were in the park. He was a big man, as all the Cunningham family were, and are. A boxing champion at Cambridge and an impressive man on the platform, he had presence.
  Sir Knox was succeeded by someone who older hon. Members should know well: Jim Molyneaux, who is in the other place now. For many years, Jim represented the old big constituency, which we still call—we are a bit old fashioned—the imperial constituency of South Antrim. He is a great parliamentarian. When the constituency was split because of increased representation, Jim went to Lagan Valley and Clifford Forsythe succeeded him.
  Clifford was the quiet man of the Ulster Unionist party. He was well known in the House and highly respected. He was a great footballer in the 1950s. He played for Linfield at Windsor Park and for Derry City at the Brandywell. In modern terminology, that would be called parity of esteem. He served South Antrim very well. Unfortunately, he died—it surprised us all—at the age of 70, leaving a widow, Lillian.
  I have many things to say about the big issues in Ulster: the agreement and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I will bide my time. It is a great honour to make a maiden speech. I am not really a career politician. I tried to win the by-election, when we failed, but we won the seat back against the trend at the general election.
  I will be a Member of Parliament who represents the local issues in my constituency. In the Chamber, I will try to represent, with my colleagues in the Ulster Unionist party, the needs of Northern Ireland. We are not Protestant Sinn Fein. We are the Ulster Unionist party and we will regain and strengthen our position as the leaders of Ulster Unionism.
  I will also speak on and debate subjects in the House that affect the whole of the United Kingdom because I am a Unionist. There are Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen, Ulstermen, Irishmen—they choose the term depending where they are—but we are all Unionists and the unity of the kingdom means a great deal to me.
  8.44 pm
  Ian Stewart: Let me first explain that my normally robust Salford voice is somewhat weaker this evening, as I carried out my duties last night as the
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  manager and chief cheerleader of the House of Commons tug-of-war team, which achieved a magnificent victory over the House of Lords team for the first time ever.
  I congratulate the hon. Members for South Antrim (David Burnside), for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) and for Wealden (Mr. Hendry) on their maiden speeches, which they have made while I have been in the Chamber. They articulated their concerns and their vision for their constituencies with clarity. That bodes well for their advocacy on behalf of their constituents in the future.
  I wish to confine my comments to transport. I was very pleased to serve on the Committee that considered the Transport Act 2000, under which concessionary fares for the elderly were introduced nationwide. In my area, the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority amended its travel concession scheme, with effect from 1 April 2001. Following wide consultation, the authority has introduced a new scheme whereby concessionaires will pay the flat-rate fare or a half fare, depending on whichever is cheapest for the journey. Therefore, the concessionary fare paid will be reduced for many local journeys.
  From 1 April, the flat concessionary bus fare has been 40p, and the flat fare for the Ring-and-Ride accessible transport service and Metrolink have been 45p off peak. From 20 May this year, the flat-fare concession for off-peak journeys on local trains has been 45p. I commend the Government for their speedy action to ensure that men and women qualify for concessionary fares at the age of 60. I also commend the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority for its innovative and effective policies.
  The Strategic Rail Authority was established under the Transport Act 2000, so I wish to say in passing that I hope that the authority will, when deciding which company should run the new trans-Pennine express franchise, heed the words to me of one of the new Under-Secretaries of State, who said that the authority must:
  "be satisfied that the successful bidder has the vision to bring about a step change in quality and the capacity to deliver, whilst offering better value for money".
  I hope that the SRA also gives due weight to the views of the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority on that matter.
  There have been a number of public transport improvements in my constituency, Eccles, in the past few years, including the Metrolink extension and new quality bus corridors. The Greater Manchester passenger transport authority has planned further improvements for the local public transport network. I have been working closely with the authority on those improvements, and I shall do whatever I can as a Member of Parliament to support and advance the authority's work.
  People want affordable and reliable public transport—and, of course, they want it to be safe. The conclusions of the Cullen report on track and signal maintenance and on the need for effective training and induction programmes for drivers must be heeded.
  I want to refer briefly to bus services. The Greater Manchester passenger transport authority is concerned about bus service provision. In recent years in some areas, there has been a reduction in the level of service and an increasing tendency to withdraw services from areas and estates designated as suffering from anti-social behaviour. That is a problem in my constituency, where some estates

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  have had their bus services withdrawn. I accept, however, that buses have been stoned on some occasions on one estate. I do not expect drivers to be put at risk of injury, but bus companies should not delete services without consultation with local communities or relevant agencies. We must all work together to find a solution. It is not a transport problem with social implications; it is a social problem with transport implications.
  If social inclusion is a national aim, bus companies have their responsibilities. Labour legislation introduced quality bus partnerships and other important measures, but we must be flexible and consider other measures that may be necessary to deliver quality bus services for old and young alike.
  The Opposition like to paint themselves as the motorists' friend, but Labour is investing in both roads and the local environment. Labour has enabled the Highways Agency to improve the safety and the environment of families in my constituency, who have lived with noise and accidents on the M602 for too long. Changes to regulations introduce i by the Labour Government mean that work can be done on more sites that are seriously affected by noise. for example, work is well under way to erect a noise barrier where the motorway crosses barrier lane in the village of Winton, and it should be completed in July.
  There is a debate to be had on the quality and substance of protection on motorways that is afforded by barriers. Should the barriers be made of current materials or should they be made of concrete? The debate should take place because there are pros and cons. Current materials allow cars and other vehicles to go through the barriers. In the Parrin lane area in my constituency, for example, over the past two years cars have gone off the motorway and fallen on the road below on three occasions. There has been danger to life and limb.
  In policy terms, should the Government decide to use concrete barriers, which would force cars and other vehicles back on to the motorway? There is no easy answer to such issues and there needs to be further debate in the House.
  I first raised the issue of the Cadishead Way bypass in my village of Cadishead and Irlam in my maiden speech in 1997, and I have raised it regularly with different Ministers since then. Transport Ministers had quite a high turnover in the previous Parliament, and a number received promotion. I hope that I shall shortly be meeting the newly appointed Minister for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar). I hope that he will be the last Minister for Transport that I have to meet on the matter.
  The Tories failed to deliver a Cadishead Way bypass after 18 years of government. Labour is committed to improving our transport infrastructure and is putting up the money to make a real difference. Last year, the Government's 10-year transport plan promised a £180 billion package of public and private investment. We are investing in rail, local transport and roads.
  I am very pleased that Salford council and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities have given the Cadishead Way bypass a high priority in their new transport development plan. Perhaps this year its time has come. If not, I shall he boring the House again this time next year.
  8.54 pm
  Mr. Alistair Carmichael: I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech. I tend to the view that representing a constituency such as Orkney and Shetland, I can probably lay a better claim than many hon. Members, if not most, that mine is truly a rural constituency, and one that by virtue of its geography gives rise to more transport issues than can really be properly addressed in a 10-minute speech. There will, of course, be future debates in which those issues can be raised, and I give the House fair warning that I fully intend to do so.
  It is traditional in this House to pay tribute to one's predecessor. It occurs to me, having observed the debate on the Queen's Speech over the past few days, that this is perhaps a tradition which it is open to some hon. Members to observe through gritted teeth and with their fingers crossed behind their back. I consider myself particularly fortunate to have had two Liberal predecessors—which makes me unique as a Liberal MP in this House—to whom I can pay fulsome and handsome tribute.
  The late Lord Grimond of Firth, or Jo Grimond, as he was better known in the House and the constituency, served as the Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland between 1950 and 1983. He was leader of the Liberal party for 11 of those years, and the fact that he remains a substantial figure, regarded in the communities of Orkney and Shetland with great respect and affection, is an eloquent tribute to the many great statesmanlike qualities that he possessed.
  I am acutely aware that Jo Grimond joined a parliamentary party of five Liberal Members in this House, and that it is my privilege to be a member of a parliamentary party of 52. It was Jo Grimond who really started the long, slow haul back for Liberalism in Scotland. Of course, that was not an event but a process, and in 1983 the mantle of that process was handed on to my immediate predecessor, Jim Wallace.
  Jim Wallace served the constituency of Orkney and Shetland with remarkable diligence and distinction for the past 18 years. I consider myself particularly fortunate still to have readily available to me his active participation and counsel, as he remains the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Orkney, as well as being its Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice.
  When Jo Grimond made his maiden speech in the House, he described our constituency of Orkney and Shetland as
  "two little worlds of their own, far away between this country and Norway, very different from each other even in their own land and their own economic affairs, but certainly very different from things down here." —[Official Report, 10 March 1950; Vol. 472, c. 626.]
  That is as true today as it was in 1950.
  Our staple industries remain farming and fishing, and they face many of the difficulties that are born well beyond Orkney and Shetland. Again, there will no doubt be future occasions when I shall be able to discuss those difficulties in the House. More recently, we have seen a much greater dependence on the oil industry, with the substantial oil terminal facilities at Sullom Voe and at Flotta. In recent years, we have also seen the growth of aquaculture in the constituency.
  Many hon. Members have no doubt enjoyed holidays in either Orkney or Shetland. They will be aware of the warmth of the welcome that the people offer, and the

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  spectacularly, sometimes breathtakingly, beautiful scenery that our islands have to offer. I urge those hon. Members who have not yet availed themselves of the opportunity of visiting my constituency to do so as soon as possible. I ask them not to be put off by air fares that might take them to the other side of the world, should they be inclined to go there.
  I also ask hon. Members not to be put off by the fact that planes travelling to and from Orkney and Shetland have a nasty habit of "going technical"—as the ground staff have to put it—suspiciously often when only three or four passengers are booked to travel on them. Hon. Members should also not be put off by the fact that when they get there, they will be charged an extra lop to 15p a litre of petrol compared to the cost on the mainland. I assure hon. Members that these are all mere distractions that we shall resolve in time, and that it is worth taking the trouble to get there.
  I approach this speech today with an acute sense of my part in a long history of radical Liberal tradition from Orkney and Shetland. In the 19th century, we suffered, like so many parts of the highlands and islands, at the hands of landlordism—landlords who exercised draconian powers from a great distance with no consideration for the needs or wishes of the local communities. For many people, that caused tremendous hardship and suffering that ended only with Gladstone's Crofting Act 1886, which introduced security of tenure and shifted the balance from favouring the landlord to favouring local people.
  As we enter the 21st century, there seems to be a clamant need for a new Crofting Act, but this time a Crofting Act of the sea bed. Hon. Members who are students of history will find disturbing echoes of 19th-century landlordism in the Crown Estate Commission's treatment of the sea bed and the surrounding communities who rely on it. The words "remote, imperious, unresponsive and having no regard for islanders' wishes" spring to mind.
  It is expected that, this year alone, the Crown Estate Commission will take £1 million from the fish farming industry in Shetland alone. Fish farmers in my constituency and elsewhere face a levy that is based, uniquely, not on area but on production. It has made the difference between a business breaking even and a business going into the red. It is a payment for which no service is given in return.
  Another example of such unfairness is the project currently being promoted by the Shetland Islands council charitable trust to lay a fibre optic cable from Shetland through Orkney to the Scottish mainland. Such a cable would allow my constituents proper access to the electronic communications that the constituents of other hon. Members undoubtedly take for granted and would immensely benefit my constituency. Hon. Members can therefore imagine our frustration at discovering that our operating costs of £100,000 annually are likely to be increased by no less than another £64,000 annually, simply for the privilege of laying the cable on the sea bed. There is something profoundly obnoxious and objectionable about a system that allows the extraction of money from island communities for the right to use the sea bed. Although we, with our need for piers and harbours, cannot exist without that sea bed, it is of no use to anyone else.
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  In the general election campaign there was a great deal of talk about stealth taxes, but I believe that the Crown Estate Commission's levies and rents are the oldest and most obnoxious form of stealth tax. They are a relic of our feudal past and the time has come for them to go.
  It is my privilege to represent in the House a constituency that is independently minded and deeply self-reliant. I have not been sent here to ask for any special favours, and I am not here to beg for any handouts; I am here merely to ask that my constituents be allowed the same opportunities to develop the potential of their communities that are given to other hon. Members and their constituents in the rest of the country. It is a case that is based on simple fairness and equality of opportunity. It is my devout hope that any case so based will always be well received.
  9.4 pm
  Mr. Hilton Dawson: May I say what a pleasure it is to follow the elegant maiden speech by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael)? He has a long line of illustrious predecessors to live up to, but everything that he said, and the way in which he said it, indicates that he too will make a very significant mark in this place.
  It was good to hear about the delights of Orkney and Shetland and South Antrim. Every speech I make in this place tends to be travelogue about Lancaster and Wyre, which is the most glorious constituency in the land. However, it is good to know that if I did not have an imminent date with a hot Greek beach very early in August, I would have two such excellent alternatives for holidays. Orkney and Shetland and South Antrim will have to go down for future breaks.
  It is a particular pleasure to speak in this debate because Lancaster and Wyre is a very rural constituency—the 44th most rural in the country, according to the Library. I am the first Labour Member of Parliament ever to be re-elected for any part of the constituency where the boundaries have changed considerably, certainly not to Labour's advantage, over recent decades. It is good to be back representing such a rural constituency.
  Let us not beat about the bush. Our rural areas and particularly our agriculture industry have faced the hardest of hard times in recent years. The Government came in in 1997 with the appalling legacy of BSE. Since then, farmers have had desperate times; they have seen very low prices, huge falls in prices and difficult times. Now we have the dreadful occurrence of foot and mouth disease.
  My constituency has had two cases of foot and mouth disease, which have been devastating for those concerned and their neighbours but the whole area has suffered from the restrictions that have been put in place. At the moment, the area lives in what can only be described as fear, given the proximity of foot and mouth in the Ribble valley. No human being who has come into contact with people involved in framing in recent years could fail to be moved by the distress of that community. It is a strong community, but it is facing appalling times.
  In that context, how did a Labour Member come to be re-elected in a constituency where Labour has not been strong in the past and where that rural community has faced such difficult times? It is instructive that the rural area that I represent has benefited from the Government's

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  investment in education and village schools. Kirkland and Catterall school in my constituency received £500,000 only a few months before the election to deal with major repairs and redevelopment that had originally been plotted in 1976. In 1997, that school finally got the money.
  There is also the horrendous problem of the moss roads in my constituency—roads built across the marsh, which have been neglected for years and are in danger of being closed, cutting off rural communities. Under the Government's investment in highways, we now have a three-year, £4 million plan to reconstruct and redevelop those roads, relinking rural communities and rural businesses.
  We also have the Garstang Super 8, the future of rural public transport—flexible and accessible. A minibus based in Garstang, it covers the rural area to the east and west in a figure of eight and supplies an excellent service six days a week to villages that had been completely denuded of public transport during the 18 years of the previous Government.
  During the Government's first term, there was a lot of scaremongering from the Opposition about the future of parish councils. My opponent at the general election told people that they were about to be at abolished. That is not going to happen—instead, the role of parish councils will be strengthened in terms of planning and developing, and in terms of transport improvement, finance and support.
  Pilling, in my constituency, is one of the largest villages in England. Local people have developed the Pilling appraisal—their own planning document which, as well as being an interesting and powerful record of what Pilling is like in 2001, will be an important tool for planning in the future.
  We have great hopes for the future in Lancaster and Wyre. Myerscough college is one of the major agricultural colleges in the country. The area has also seen the development of farmers markets, co-operatives and farm shops, with people selling produce over the internet. The future of quality produce is very good.
  We have the possibility of developing sports facilities in Over Wyre as a result of the Government's neighbourhood programme. We also have the possibility of developing the facilities of Garstang as a market town. Important initiatives are coming from the north-west region, such as regional planning guidance and rural development programmes. However there are still real difficulties in farming. Only yesterday I was at Claughton Green farm, talking to Mr. Alf Noblett, one of my constituents, and some of his colleagues. It is instructive that they are not asking for more money from the Government. They recognise that the Government have made a huge investment in farming over the past four years. However, I would second their wish that we should be more robust about the future of British farming, the quality of British produce, some of the strictures from Europe and regulations on imports. They want us to be particularly robust in relation to supermarkets and dairy companies. I do not believe that British farmers and the farmers of Lancaster and Wyre get a fair deal. It is essential that the Government stand up for them.
  Lancaster is a great, historic city with a wonderful economic future, but it is bedevilled by transport problems. It needs a sustainable integrated transport plan. We need substantial investment in a bypass, park-and-ride schemes, public transport, a range of facilities to improve safety in
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  home zones, and many other measures to reduce car parking. We need to take a radical approach to enhance the city of Lancaster and its advantages of art, culture, history and economic development with the safe, sustainable, clean and green transport system that it deserves.
  9.14 pm
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin: For an institution that is meant to be held lower and lower in public esteem, tonight has been remarkable for the number of speeches by people who have been prepared to take ever lengthier steps to attain office in this House.
  I pay tribute first to my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan), who ably made his maiden speech. He gracefully paid tribute both to his Scottish National party predecessor and to Ian Lang, who is now my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Lang. My hon. Friend described his constituency as "Scotland in miniature". I know that part of the kingdom well, having often visited relations and cousins there. From his personal form and substance, I think that he will be representing Scotland at large from the Conservative Benches. Clearly, he has much to contribute and I commend his confidence that he is the advance party for many more Conservative Members from that great nation of Scotland.
  We heard many other maiden speeches, for example from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn), with her pleasant toothy smile. Her self-deprecating humour belied the seriousness of purpose with which she approached the subject of adoption. We look forward to hearing more from her.
  The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) also made a maiden speech, as did the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor), who brings to the House an authentic voice that is a challenge to us tired old clapped-out professional politicians—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I notice that that remark got the most authentic cheers from the Liberal Democrats. We look forward to hearing more about what the hon. Gentleman represents. He is a lesson to us all.
  We also heard maiden speeches from the hon. Members for Angus (Mr. Weir), for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael). There was a spate of speeches from the Province of Northern Ireland—from the hon. Members for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell), for South Antrim (David Burnside) and for North Down (Lady Hermon).
  We had extra, sub-maiden speeches from other hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) is best remembered for the advice that he took about seconding the Loyal Address himself, when he was told that it was always proposed by some clapped-out old has-been and seconded by some oily young man on the make. He did not tell us which category he now fits into.
  I regret missing the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Mr. Hendry), but I gather that he was among many hon. Members who mentioned foot and mouth disease. It is incumbent on the Secretary of State, who opened the debate but is not in her place—
  The Minister for Transport (Mr. John Spellar): Come on.
  Mr. Jenkin: I know the reason why and I certainly do not denigrate the right hon. Lady for that. I ask the

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  hon. Gentleman to forgive me if he misunderstood me. However, I hope that she will take on board the fact that the hon. Members for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) and my hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) and for Wealden all raised concerns about the effects of foot and mouth on farming and the rural economy.
  It is not satisfactory for the Government to continue to dismiss the demands for a proper public inquiry into why it happened and how it was dealt with. It is not sufficient to explain that because the Conservatives did not clamour for an inquiry into BSE, there should be no inquiry into foot and mouth. That is the worst sort of tit-for-tat politics, which does this place no good.
  I had hoped to begin the debate by welcoming the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions to his new post. The papers were quick to report last week that, unlike his predecessor, he does not drive two Jaguars—in fact, he does not drive at all, as he does not have a driving licence. We have gone from two Jags to a man who travels on two feet. Personally, I favour two wheels, but I look forward to debating with the new Secretary of State when he has the courage to appear at the Dispatch Box.
  Instead, I welcome the new Minister for Transport. It is a pleasure to see him. I owe him a great debt as he arranged my pair—not that it has been much use in recent years. He comes from the Ministry of Defence, where he was Minister of State for the Armed Forces. I fear that after a few weeks in his new post he will hanker for the halcyon days in the Ministry of Defence, which will seem like a charmed life compared with the mess that he inherits in this Department.
  In a pre-election audit of the Government's record, Anatole Kaletsky in The Times gave the Government nought out of 10 for transport and his was not the only voice to attack their record. In January, the Prime Minister's environmental adviser said:
  "I think it is fair to say we really aren't moving forward in transport policies; we are probably moving backwards."
  The normally pro-Labour commentator Polly Toynbee wrote:
  "What the people who voted Labour for the first time in 1997 cared most about was better public services. Expectations had been raised, only to be dashed when nothing much happened or, as with transport, things evidently got worse."
  The normally obedient Lobby fodder raised dissenting voices. The hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) said in January:
  "The bit where I am probably most disappointed is like the rest of the country—transport. I think we needed to address that early."
  The hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) said in March:
  "I think that if there is to be a second term of Labour Government, we have to get public transport right. I think we have been given the benefit of the doubt over the railways so far but I don't think that will be the case in the second term."
  The Minister would do well to heed those words. That is the problem facing him as he gets to grips with his new portfolio.
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  The Government have been given a second chance. They said that they needed more time, but now they must prove that they are worth their second chance. They must face the obligations that fall on them, and there can be no more excuses.
  The amendment makes reference to the fact that specific measures to improve transport are noticeable by their absence from the Gracious Speech. It also states that the Prime Minister promised, before the general election, that Labour was committed to creating "world-class public services". I wonder whether the fact that transport was downgraded in the reshuffle reflects the Government's anxiety about their ability to deliver on transport.
  Labour's first four years do not inspire much confidence. As the Minister is new to his job, perhaps I can remind him of the Government's record. Few people would be brave enough to say that the Government made much progress towards a world-class transport system in their first term. In 1997, a litre of petrol cost about 59p, and it costs 80p now. The amount of tax taken from road users has increased by £9 billion over the past four years.
  What the travelling public get for that extra tax? Annual investment in roads is down. It touched the 1997 level of £1.4 billion in only one of the past four years. Between 1992 and 1997, the Conservative Government averaged investment of £1.78 billion a year. None of our major competitors invests so little in roads as Britain. Britain now has the worst traffic jams in Europe, and our roads are in their worst condition since the mid-1970s.
  Labour's roads policy has hardly been consistent. The Government were elected in 1997 on a wave of anti-roads sentiment. The Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State, who was then responsible for transport, gleefully slashed more than 100 schemes and bypasses from the national roads programme in England and Wales. By the end of the previous Parliament, the Labour Government were trumpeting their intention to deliver 100 new bypasses as part of their 10-year transport plan.
  I notice that the hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill), a Transport Minister in the previous Government, is standing behind the Speaker's Chair, smiling sheepishly. Well may he do so.
  Labour's roads policy is a conundrum. Urgent schemes such as the A3 at Hindhead were scrapped, but they are now back in the programme. Before there are too many cheers, I should tell the House that its construction is not now due to start until 2007, which is after the expiry of this Parliament. Is that because the Government have wasted their first four years in office?.
  There is similar chaos in the policy on motorway widening schemes. When they were first elected, the Government dubbed such investment "motorway madness", and scrapped all such schemes. As the system ground to a halt, business cried out for investment. When the Confederation of British Industry complains about the costs of congestion, it is champing not for cuts in the roads programme but for increased investment in it.
  The 10-year transport plan was launched with proposals for increases in capacity on motorways such as the M1 and M6. That means that the Government wasted their first four years.
  Andrew Bennett: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that his speech is a pretty poor

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  recycling of his election speech and that the country has passed judgment on that? Would it not be far better to move on and come up with something positive?
  Mr. Jenkin: I do not think that 2 million fewer votes for the Labour party was much of a positive endorsement.
  Why does the Minister not simply answer the questions? What specific widening schemes and by-passes are outlined in the transport plan? When will they commence and when will they be completed? The Government cannot say because they have so few firm plans, even after four years in government.
  The chaos in policy on the roads is all the more obvious on the railways. The Government allowed public support for the railways to decline from £2 billion in 1996–97 to a mere £1.5 billion last year. At the start of the last Parliament, it was reported that the Prime Minister told his colleagues, just days after the 1997 election:
  "the railways are not a priority."
  The House can hardly complain that the Government failed to deliver on that promise.
  The Government inherited a railway industry that had reversed the decline in passenger numbers and rail freight, and doubled annual investment. Moreover, the figures show that punctuality and reliability had improved. The industry was poised for what Ministers themselves claimed would be a "railway renaissance". Today, the industry's morale and financial confidence is in a state of collapse, and it is crying out for additional Government support. The solution is that the Government be positive about what has every potential to be a dynamic, exciting and growing industry.
  Let us hope that we have seen the last of a Secretary of State behaving like a spoilt child, stamping all over his train set in a tantrum every time something goes wrong. What industry could possibly function under the constant political barrage from Ministers and regulators to which the railway industry has been subjected? The last thing that the industry needs is for Labour to start giving in to its left-wing friends in the unions and the Liberal Democrats who long for renationalisation of the railways.
  It is all about the politics of blame In the comments of the hon. Members for Bath (Mr. Foster) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), the old left's insatiable appetite for the politics of blames lives on. What has all that blame achieved? The Government should end the policy of blaming and shaming the rail industry. They should promote a positive and favourable climate for the rail industry. They should help it make the changes that are needed instead of criticising from the sidelines, and should promote the financial confidence of the industry instead of gloating over its demise.
  The Government have made a grave and irresponsible error in allowing the debate about rail safety to become a vehicle for political point scoring. I commend the first part of the Cullen inquiry into Paddington to the House. It is brutal in its analysis. It pulls no punches and provides no comfort for those who want to blame safety failures on privatisation. Lord Cullen's criticisms go far wider than Railtrack. He lists failures of procedures, training, communication and culture. That includes the railway inspectorate and the Health and Safety Executive, and goes back far beyond the date of privatisation.
  The track layout and signalling was designed and laid out before privatisation. It was approved by the HSE and the railway inspectorate, which had not been privatized
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  Let the debate be free of political prejudice. Civil aviation is a private, competitive, fragmented, profit-driven industry yet no air accident has for decades led to the ideological dispute that we have seen since Paddington. Part II of the Cullen report will offer structural and methodological reforms of rail safety that are likely to take much from aviation. So I welcome the one mention of rail in the Gracious Speech—the Government's commitment to implement Cullen's recommendations.
  Mr. Spellar: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the privatisation of the rail industry was well handled by the previous Tory Government?
  Mr. Jenkin: I am happy to quote the words of the former Transport Minister, the hon. Member for Streatham, who talked about dramatic improvements in customer focus, an explosion of innovation and the growth of investment, and I am very happy to quote the former Secretary of State, who made it absolutely clear that he was not going to turn the clock back. I suggest that the Minister start explaining that to his Back Benchers and to the trade unions; otherwise, the industry will continue to go down the plughole and he will have to take responsibility for that.
  Only when this debate is free from political prejudice can Labour hope that the money allocated for the railway in the 10-year plan will be well spent. Can the Minister otherwise explain, if he is listening, how it will be possible to raise the £35 billion of private money outlined in the 10-year plan while Railtrack's share price dives out of the FTSE 100?
  I have just one central question for the Minister about railways. What are the Government going to do? It is no longer a string and sealing-wax operation to get them through the general election; the rail recovery plan was just that. We can no longer have a Minister sitting in Railtrack house once a week, trying to keep the trains running on time. It is time for the Government to have a strategy for rail, and that is obviously what they do not have.
  Let us consider tonight's Evening Standard: "New crisis on railways as industry chief says he will quit". That headline refers to the Government's own appointed director of the Strategic Rail Authority. The article says:
  "Sir Alistair used his announcement at a rail industry conference in London to attack the Government for hindering his efforts by not providing sufficient funding. He said the 'Whitehall machine made a serious mess"
  That is an indictment not from someone whom a Conservative Government appointed, but from someone whom this Government appointed to help with the future of the railway.
  But nothing more dramatically demonstrates Labour's transport failure than the failure of transport in London. The Conservatives completed the Victoria line and the docklands light railway. We initiated the Jubilee line extension, the docklands light railway extension, the Heathrow express, Thameslink 2000 and the Croydon tramlink, but what has Labour done in its first four years?.
  How many projects did Labour start, let alone complete, in its first four years? Can I tell the House? Not one. While the Conservatives put new trains on the

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  Central and Northern lines, refurbished many others and completely renewed the Central line, what has Labour done for the tube? How many new trains under Labour? Not one. How many refurbished trains under Labour? Not one. Not a single line upgrade, not a single refurbished train. The tube is the crowning failure of Labour's transport policy.
  What will happen in this Parliament? Perhaps the Minister would like to tell the House. Four years were wasted on the failed public-private partnership. It was due originally in March 1999, and then it was meant to be signed in April 2000, and then in April 2001, and now in September 2001. but industry sources now say that it will not be completed until April 2002. So when, if ever, will the PPP be completed?.
  The future of Mr. Bob Kiley is now at stake. First he was denigrated by the Government in a briefing war. Then he was appointed and put in charge of the negotiations with the contractors for the PPP. Now he is the victim of off-the-record briefings from the Government about his failure to complete those negotiations. What is his future, and what was the outcome of his meeting with Ministers last week?.
  Does the Minister accept that the PPP that he has inherited is widely regarded across academic circles, business, industry and the transport industries as botched, and will he work with Transport for London to deliver a sensible plan for a modern underground, instead of against the elected representatives of Londoners, whom the Government themselves put in place to carry out the function of running the underground? What will the Government do about the rising level of strikes, not just on the underground, but on public transport as a whole? Will the Minister take a tougher line with the militants than his RMT-sponsored forebears?.
  We do not shrink from congratulating the Government on their fresh majority. I congratulate them—[Interruption.] Show some grace. I congratulate them all the more on the silent contrition with which they greeted their victory. Their embarrassed silence spoke volumes. Labour knows that it failed to deliver. Its first term was blessed with opportunities rarely, if ever, enjoyed by a new Administration, not least a golden economic inheritance, a massive mandate from the electorate and the continuing good will of the electors.
  The Government wasted their first term, however, squandering the opportunities that they were given four years ago. Though they have been given a second chance, they have a lesser mandate and the public are less trustful than before. All politicians must be concerned at the low turnout at the election. The ruthless raising of expectations followed by an abject failure to deliver has created a new despair about the process of politics in our nation. Transport is one of Labour's great failures. The Government have promised to make it a great success; we shall hold them to that promise.
  9.36 pm
  The Minister for Transport (Mr. John Spellar): Rather than make ungracious comments such as those of the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), I wish to convey to the House the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural
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  Affairs. As Members will be only too well aware from her introductory speech, she has a serious problem with her throat and, quite properly, has left to take medication. I am sure that the House will understand.
  The hon. Member for North Essex kindly referred to my previous incarnation as a Defence Minister. Indeed, I was an Opposition defence spokesman for two years, so I spent six years with the brief. As I said to the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen conference, I am coming to terms with meeting people in uniform who do not salute me. There are other differences. One is that I am never short of free advice on how to handle the portfolio.
  The debate has been interesting, not just in terms of the subject, but because we have heard some excellent contributions from almost a tide of new Members. However, new Members should always be cautious about those who offer them congratulations on their speeches. No doubt they will have notes of various shades of effusiveness put in their pigeonholes, including, "The greatest speech since Bevan, Lloyd George or Churchill." Delete where necessary.
  Indeed, in the current climate, Conservative Members who make maiden speeches will definitely receive a flood of such notes. Given the track record of the hon. Member for North Essex, he probably sends notes before Members have made their speeches, so that they receive them on time.
  We heard a good range of contributions and I took a slight hint from the hon. Gentleman regarding the future of the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan), who made an excellent contribution about his constituency. He may be promoted to shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, a post for which he is almost uniquely qualified on the Tory Benches.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) referred to her predecessor, Bill Michie, who is well remembered by those of us in the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union group as the chairman. Inevitably, the combination of his name and the trade meant that he was known as Metal Michie. Another welcome addition to the AEEU ranks—my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann)—was head of research for the engineers when I was with the electricians. He drew attention to the unique qualities of his predecessor and provided many interesting details of his constituency. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) drew us into the subject of the debate by mentioning rural transport, which was also welcome.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) also contributed to the debate. Although it is extremely good to lave that constituency back in the Labour column, it is with a touch of sadness that we must acknowledge that of our long-standing colleague, Cledwyn Hughes, did not live long enough to see that.
  Then we had the retreads. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) followed the great tradition of Sutton Coldfield MPs by denying that he has anything to do with Birmingham He was equally in denial about the fact that a Conservative Government put them there in the first place when they tried to gerrymander the boundaries to win control of Birmingham and other cities in the metropolitan authorities. The hon. Member for Wealden (Mr. Hendry) rightly referred to his predecessor,

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  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith, who made a considerable contribution to the House, especially as a stalwart of defence debates.
  The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) and for South Antrim (David Burnside) spoke strongly and passionately on the interests of their constituents. Although I was not present, my colleagues told me about the fine and well-judged maiden speech by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). She was the first woman to be elected from Northern Ireland in 30 years and will bring a rational and considered contribution to the problems of Northern Ireland and to our debates.
  I do not have enough time to go into detail on the maiden speeches of the hon. Members for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) and for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) mentioned several capital investment programmes. My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy was uncertain whether that was a bid for Government funds or an announcement of how Shetland district council will be spending the great pot of money that it has in its own right.
  Some hon. Members in this combined debate on the environment and rural affairs dealt with rural matters. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) talked at considerable length about foot and mouth problems. He made some valid points and my colleagues at the relevant Department will want to take them up. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) also made observations on foot and mouth.
  The hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) mentioned footpaths and drew our attention to the success of her campaign on the basis of her local pledges, which highlighted the difference between that and the success—or otherwise—of the Conservatives' national pledges. Her colleagues are in her debt.
  The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) gave the usual talk about the relevance of Westminster, which will be enormously improved when he and his colleagues turn up on a more regular basis.
  There were limited speeches on transport. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) rightly drew attention to the considerable worries of commuters in his constituency, where I began my political career as a local councillor.
  I was worried to hear about the difficulties that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) encountered in arranging meetings with Railtrack. He and other hon. Members will know that in my previous incarnation as Defence Minister, I operated an open-door policy. Subject to the constraints imposed by the legalities of planning matters, I am more than keen to continue that arrangement, and I want relevant agencies and officials to do the same. I hope that he will provide me with details so that we can improve matters.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) mentioned school transport. We have invested money to draw up plans for schools, hospitals and industry so that we improve transport patterns. We look forward to working with hon. Members and local authorities to achieve that. My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) rightly drew attention to safety on public transport and the need to protect people from anti-social behaviour so that they feel safe. No matter what the
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  authorities do to improve transport or how much money is invested, we need to have a deterrent in place so that people do not feel at risk when they use public transport.
  Last but not least, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) rightly stressed that passengers must be at the centre of policy and come first. That has to be the focus of all travel authorities when they provide a service. They must bear in mind the expectations of the average person waiting for a train, bus, light railway or tram.
  I come now to the broader transport issues. The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) will not want to hear this, but I want to remind him of our inheritance. It has been said many times, but it bears repeating, that many of the transport problems that we are experiencing today are the result of decades of under-investment and 18 Tory years of a boom-bust economy, and the impact of that on public investment.
  We are now suffering from the results of an ill-thought-out, rushed privatisation of the railways, which split the industry into a hundred separate parts with no sense of direction or co-ordination. I understood that, to try to clear the ground, the hon. Gentleman had conceded that the privatisation had not been particularly well handled, but I notice that he did not take the opportunity to do so tonight. No one will trust the Opposition on the railways until they can see that, in order to put money into their coffers before the 1997 general election, they botched the privatisation, for which the industry and passengers are suffering.
  We are also still living with a legacy of bus deregulation and privatisation, which again led to fragmentation and ignored the need for investment and partnership to provide quality public transport. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) demonstrated yet again that the Opposition have selective and convenient amnesia in that regard.
  Miss McIntosh: Mindful of the fact that the Minister is new to his position, I congratulate him on his appointment. If privatisation was such a failure, why was a record number of passengers and freight carried on the railways after privatisation?
  Mr. Spellar: That was under a Labour Government. My point is that the industry's fragmented nature contained the seeds of its problems. It would have been easier to have developed the industry had there been a better structure. That is not just the view of Labour Members; it is the view of most people in the industry. Even the hon. Member for North Essex has conceded as much previously. Conservative Members need to examine that. It does not mean that the whole structure must be turned over, but we need to consider how to develop that structure. We do not want another two years of turmoil and disruption. We need to work with the structure, but we could be doing a lot better had we not had that inheritance.
  Mr. Jenkin: I think that we can put the debate on to a more positive footing. It is notable that the hon. Gentleman has not explained how he will put the matter on to a more positive footing. The Government have been in office for four years and he does not have a clue what to do.
  Mr. Spellar: That is not right and I shall come to it later.

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  Those sorts of problems cannot be turned around overnight, or in four years. That is why, in the previous Parliament, we set our sights on the longer term through our 10-year plan for transport. In this Parliament, we shall deliver on the ground.
  In the past four years, as we heard earlier from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, we have begun to deliver change. The M60 Manchester orbital motorway has been completed; 17 new railway stations have been opened and more than 2,000 stations improved; 30,000 new buses have been registered; there have been new or extended light rail lines in Croydon, Manchester and London Docklands; we have had more than 1,800 new or enhanced rural bus services in England; and public transport use overall was up by 7 per cent. by 1997 and 2000. That shows the balanced approach of our programme.
  During 2000, road traffic increased by only 0.4 per cent. on the previous year—a much lower rate than previous years and certainly lower than during previous years of comparable sustained industrial growth. That is only the beginning. We shall continue to deliver during the next five and 10 years. We are delivering solutions that will improve the lives of all sections of the community. By that I mean more and better public transport—trains, buses and light rail systems, with light rail having been proven to achieve modal shift from the car. We shall also deliver less congested and better maintained roads and better information for all road users—better not only for motorists, who are important, but for bus users, pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists.
  Local highway authorities now have local cycling and walking strategies. We are working with them and the voluntary and commercial sectors to ensure that pedestrians can move around in far greater safety, to deal with problems of graffiti-ridden and somewhat smelly underpasses, and to make sure that pedestrians and cars are not in conflict. That will be good for vehicle users and for pedestrians. By creating the right conditions for walking, we encourage people to adopt a healthier life style. We must use available planning powers and encourage highway authorities to take advantage of them—[Interruption.] Many Conservative-controlled local councils are examining those issues, but we do not expect a similarly mature approach from some Tory Back Benchers.
  An area that has been mentioned, but unfortunately not developed sufficiently, is rural transport, which is extremely important to the maintenance, preservation and regeneration of rural economies and societies. We are committed to sustained long-term investment to improve local transport in urban, suburban and rural areas. The 10-year plan for transport envisages a £59 billion investment in local transport of which £19.3 billion is public capital—a doubling in real terms of the figure for the previous decade. The local transport capital settlement announced in December provided an £8.4 billion package for the next five years. Every region in England will benefit from that investment in integrated and public transport schemes and in local roads.
  Mr. Evans: Does the Minister recognise that in rural areas the car is a necessity, not a luxury? Will he guarantee that the next Budget will not clobber the motorist with higher taxation on fuel?
  Mr. Spellar: What cheek—it was the Conservatives who introduced the automatic fuel duty escalator and the Labour Government who stopped it. In the last Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced a package of measures that will benefit motorists in rural areas, including the reduction in duty on low-sulphur fuels, a freeze on vehicle excise duty until next year and an increase in the small car threshold for VED on cars. The latter measure should benefit those who live in rural areas who have a slightly larger car for travelling longer distances. We have done all that, so the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) does not have to ask for such measures.
  The White Paper "Our countryside: the future" published last November sets out our vision for rural areas and explains how we intend to promote, improve and extend public transport. We recognise that people living in rural areas are often less well served by public transport and can suffer disadvantage in accessing employment, services and shops. That is why we have targeted more resources to improve transport for all in rural areas. In addition to the boost in capital spending, we are investing £239 million over the next three years in rural transport services—an increases of 54 per cent. on 1998 to 2001.
  Schemes that we introduced in 1998 to support rural bus services have proved a success. The bus subsidy grant has supported more than 1,800 new or improved routes in England carrying 16 million passenger journeys a year—[Interruption] Some Conservative Members might not be interested, but their constituents certainly are. More than 150 innovative schemes, including demand-responsive and community bus projects, have been approved under the rural bus challenge. We are expanding those schemes still further. Our measures will increase and improve rural bus services and contribute to achieving the target in the 10-year plan of increasing the number of rural households within about a 10-minute walk of a bus service that is hourly or better.
  That must be seen in the broader context of roads policy. We recognise that roads are a key element of the country's transport system and will continue to be so. More than 90 percent. of passenger journeys are made by road and almost two thirds of freight traffic travels by road. That is why our 10-year plan provides for investment of £59 billion in roads.
  That does not mean that we are embarking on a massive, environmentally damaging programme of new road building. We remain committed to the principles for protecting the environment set out in "A New Deal for Transport". In particular, there remains a strong presumption against new or expanded transport infrastructure that would adversely affect environmentally sensitive areas, such as sites of special scientific interest. However, we recognise that there will be cases where the overriding public interest will allow such development to proceed.
  In fact, some 70 per cent. of planned spending on roads will be directed to maintaining and making better use of existing roads, which we know is of importance to drivers. That includes provision of £31 billion by 2004 for

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  maintenance of local roads to halt the deterioration in their condition and to eliminate the backlog of maintenance that has built up because of serious under-investment under the Conservative Government in the mid-1990s. Our investment will contribute to road safety and to ensuring that we meet our target to reduce by 40 per cent. the number of people killed or seriously injured. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), will pay particular attention to that.
  Miss McIntosh: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Spellar: We have taken the hon. Lady's point about the Al(M).[Interruption.]
  We recognise the role that business, particularly the construction industry, will have in ensuring delivery of an integrated transport system. One of the big opportunities that the plan presents to the construction industry and other industries is the opportunity of jobs. With that comes the challenge of addressing—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. On both sides of the Chamber, there is far too much noise. The Minister is entitled to a hearing.
  Mr. Spellar: With that comes the challenge of addressing the associated skills shortages and the ageing of the work force. The Government will work with industry, trade unions and others to ensure that the skilled work force required are available.
  We shall be deeply concerned with the rail industry, too. Rail safety is at the heart of our policies on revitalising the railways. They are safe, but we must never be complacent. It is a matter of continual improvement. We have asked the Health and Safety Commission to ensure that the Cullen report recommendations are acted upon and to report to us in six months.
  The complexities of railway operation mean that we should expect not a sudden transformation, but a steady improvement in punctuality. When the Secretary of State and I met the key players in the rail industry last week, we made it clear that we would work together to achieve a steady improvement in performance over the next few years. After safety, performance will be the top priority for Britain's railways.
  We are committed to delivering the increases in passenger rail use, bus use and rail freight that were outlined in the 10-year plan, and to ensuring that transport makes its proper contribution to meeting Government targets on air quality and reducing greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions.
  By 2005, what will that mean? It will mean completion of 25 trunk road improvement schemes under the targeted programme of improvements, including the Al(M); 100 smaller schemes tackling congestion and safety problems; a traffic control centre giving up-to-date information about traffic condition is on the strategic network; the first phase of modernisation of the west coast main line, enabling trains to travel at 125 mph; new rolling stock for the inter-city west coast service; new light rail lines in Nottingham and Sunderland; and more than 80 projects supported under the urban bus challenge.
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  Our drive is to ensure that the system works—that the projects work. A lot of money has gone into transport. Under the 10-year plan, there is a lot more to come. We must ensure delivery steadily and relentlessly. At the election—it has been reiterated tonight—the public got it right. They knew that neither the Tories nor the Liberal Democrats had the ideas, commitment or realism to achieve that. We have, we can and we will.
  Amendment proposed, at the end of the Question, to add:
  "But humbly regret that the Gracious Speech makes no reference to agriculture and the countryside, contains no proposals to assist farming, tourism and the rest of the rural economy to recover from foot and mouth disease, does not include any commitment to establish an independent public inquiry into the origins and handling of the epidemic, and does not explain how the new Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, from whose title agriculture is regrettably excluded, will protect the countryside and the environment without changes in planning policy to prevent excessive development on greenfield sites, to the detriment of balanced development of the inner cities; regret that specific measures to improve transport are notable by their absence from the Gracious Speech; and have no confidence that the Government will achieve the world-class public services that they promised prior to the general election."
  Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 33 (Calling of amendments at end of debate), That the amendment be made: —
  The House divided: Ayes 198, Noes 331.

  Division No. 1]

  [9.59 pm

  AYES

  Allan, Richard

  Chope, Christopher

  Amess, David

  Clappison, James

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Collins, Tim

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Conway, Derek

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Bacon, Richard

  Cotter, Brian

  Baker, Norman

  Cran, James

  Baldry, Tony

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Barker, Greg

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Baron, John

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  Barrett, John

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  Beggs, Roy

  Donaldson, Jeffrey M

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Bellingham, Henry

  Doughty, Sue

  Bercow, John

  Duncan, Alan

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Blunt, Crispin

  Duncan, Peter

  Boswell, Tim

  Evans, Nigel

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Fabricant, Michael

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Fallon, Michael

  Brady, Graham

  Field, Mark (Cities of London)

  Brake, Tom

  Flook, Adrian

  Brazier, Julian

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Breed, Colin

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Fox, Dr Liam

  Burnett, John

  Francois, Mark

  Burns, Simon

  Gale, Roger

  Burnside, David

  Garnier, Edward

  Burstow, Paul

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  Burt, Alistair

  Gibb, Nick

  Butterfill, John

  Gidley, Sandra

  Cable, Dr Vincent

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Calton, Patsy

  Goodman, Paul

  Cameron, David

  Gray, James

  Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

  Grayling, Chris

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies(NEFife)

  Green, Damian (Ashford)

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Greenway, John

  Cash, William

  Grieve, Dominic

  Chidgey, David

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  609

  Hammond, Philip

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Harris, Dr Evan (Oxford W)

  Rendel, David

  Hawkins, Nick

  Robathan, Andrew

  Hayes, John

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham)

  Heald, Oliver

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Heath, David

  Robinson, Iris (Strangford)

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Hendry, Charles

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Hermon, Lady

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Hoban, Mark

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Sanders, Adrian

  Holmes, Paul

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Horam, John

  Selous, Andrew

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Shepherd, Richard

  Hunter, Andrew

  Simmonds, Mark

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Jenkin, Bernard

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

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Soames, Nicholas

  Keetch, Paul

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Knight, Rt Hon Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Spring, Richard

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Steen, Anthony

  Lamb, Norman

  Streeter, Gary

  Lansley, Andrew

  Stunell, Andrew

  Laws, David

  Swayne, Desmond

  Leigh, Edward

  Swire, Hugo

  Letwin, Oliver

  Syms, Robert

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Liddell—Grainger, Ian

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Lidington, David

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Taylor, Dr Richard (Wyre F)

  Loughton, Tim

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Thurso, John

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Tonge, Dr Jenny

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Tredinnick, David

  Malins.Humfrew

  Trend, Michael

  Mates, Michael

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Tyler, Paul

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Tyrie, Andrew

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Viggers, Peter

  Mercer, Patrick

  Walter, Robert

  Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

  Waterson, Nigel

  Moore, Michael

  Watkinson, Angela

  Moss, Malcolm

  Webb, Steve

  Murrison, Dr Andrew

  Whittingdale, John

  Norman, Archie

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Oaten, Mark

  Wiggin, Bill

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Williams, Roger (Brecon)

  Öpik, Lembit

  Willis, Phil

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Page, Richard

  Yeo, Tim

  Paice, James

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Paterson, Owen

  Younger-Ross, Richard

  Pickles, Eric

  Prisk, Mark

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Pugh, Dr John

  Mr. Peter Luff and

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Mr. John Randall.

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Bailey, Adrian

  Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

  Baird, Vera

  Ainger, Nick

  Banks, Tony

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Barnes, Harry

  Allen, Graham

  Barron, Kevin

  Anderson, Rt Hon Donald(Swansea E)

  Battle, John

  Bayley, Hugh

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Beard, Nigel

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Bell, Stuart

  Austin, John

  Benn, Hilary

  610

  Bennett, Andrew

  Ennis, Jeff

  Benton, Joe

  Farrelly, Paul

  Berry, Roger

  Field, Rt Hon Frank (Birkenhead)

  Betts, Clive

  Fisher, Mark

  Blackman, Liz

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Loma

  Blizzard, Bob

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Blunkett, Rt Hon David

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Francis, Dr Hywel

  Borrow, David

  Galloway, George

  Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

  Gardiner, Barry

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Gilroy, Linda

  Brennan, Kevin

  Godsiff, Roger

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Goggins, Paul

  Brown, Rt Hon Nicholas(Newcastle E & Wallsend)

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Grogan, John

  Browne, Desmond

  Hain, Peter

  Bryant, Chris

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Burgon, Colin

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  Bumham, Andy

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Hanson, David

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Havard, Dai

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Healey, John

  Caplin, Ivor

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Casale, Roger

  Hendrick, Mark

  Caton, Martin

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Cawsey, Ian

  Heppell, John

  Challen, Colin

  Hesford, Stephen

  Chaytor, David

  Hewitt, Rt Hon Ms Patricia

  Clapham, Michael

  Heyes, David

  Clark, Dr Lynda

  Hill, Keith

  (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Hodge, Margaret

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich. S)

  Hoey, Kate

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Clelland, David

  Hope, Phil

  Clwyd, Ann

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Coaker, Vernon

  Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

  Colman, Tony

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Connarty, Michael

  Howells, Dr Kim

  Cooper, Yvette

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

  Corston, Jean

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Cousins, Jim

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Cranston, Ross

  Hurst, Alan

  Crausby, David

  Hutton, John

  Cruddas, Jon

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Illsley, Erie

  Cummings, John

  Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

  Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

  Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead)

  Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Jamieson, David

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Jenkins, Brian

  David, Wayne

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Davidson, Ian

  Johnson, Miss Melanie(Welwyn Hatfield)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon Z)

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Dawson, Hilton

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  Denham, Rt Hon John

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Dobbin, Jim

  Jowell, Rt Hon Tessa

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  Joyce, Eric

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Doran, Frank

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Dowd, Jim

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Drew, David

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Drown, Ms Julia

  Kelly, Ruth

  Edwards, Huw

  Khabra, Piara S

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Kidney, David

  611

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Miller, Andrew

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Moran, Margaret

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Morgan, Julie

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Motley, Elliot

  Lammy, David

  Morris, Rt Hon Estelle

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Mountford, Kali

  Laxton, Bob

  Mudie, George

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Mullin, Chris

  Lepper, David

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Leslie, Christopher

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Levitt, Tom

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Norris, Dan

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Linton, Martin

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Love, Andrew

  Olner, Bill

  Lucas, Ian

  O'Neill, Martin

  Luke, Iain

  Organ, Diana

  Lyons, John

  Owen, Albert

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  McCabe, Stephen

  Perham, Linda

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian

  Picking, Anne

  MacDonald, Calum

  Pickthall, Colin

  McFall, John

  Pike, Peter

  McIsaac, Shona

  Plaskitt, James

  McKechin, Ann

  Pond, Chris

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Pound, Stephen

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Powell, Sir Raymond

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  McWalter, Tony

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  McWilliam, John

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Purchase, Ken

  Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

  Purnell, James

  Mann, John

  Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

  Marris, Rob

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Rammell, Bill

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Rapson, Syd

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Raynsford, Rt Hon Nick

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Martlew, Eric

  Robertson, John

  Merron, Gillian

  (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  612

  Rooney, Terry

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Ross, Emie

  Tipping, Paddy

  Ruane, Chris

  Todd, Mark

  Ruddock, Joan

  Touhig, Don

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Trickett, Jon

  Salter, Martin

  Turner, Dennis (Wolvem'ton SE)

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Sawford, Phil

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Tynan, Bill

  Sheerman, Barry

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Sheridan, Jim

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Simon, Siôn

  Wareing, Robert N

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Watson, Tom

  Skinner, Dennis

  Watts, David

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  White, Brian

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  (Swansea W)

  Soley, Clive

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Southworth, Helen

  Wills, Michael

  Spellar, John

  Wilson, Brian

  Squire Rachel

  Winnick, David

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Wood, Mike

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Woodward, Shaun

  Stevenson, George

  Woolas, Phil

  Stewart, David (Inverness E)

  Worthington, Tony

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Stringer, Graham

  Wyatt, Derek

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Tami, Mark

  Mrs. Anne McGuire and

  Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

  Mr. Ian Pearson.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Main Question again proposed.
  It being after Ten o 'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  Speed Limits
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Angela Smith.]
  10.16 pm
  Mr. Tony McWalter rose—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. An Adjournment debate has started. Could hon. Members please leave the Chamber quietly?
  Mr. McWalter: I am grateful to the House—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We must have quiet in the Chamber.
  Mr. McWalter: I am grateful to the House for providing me with an opportunity to broach the subject of speed limit policy and, with it, the philosophy of risk which our current speeding policies incorporate.
  Most people agree that current speeding law is not in a good state. Speed limits are widely disregarded, and there is widespread sympathy for those caught infringing that law, which, according to an official Government document, is breached by almost all members of the British population at one time or another. One response to a law that is widely disregarded is authoritarianism, or the imposition of the will of the Government on those who are governed. However, we do not live in authoritarian times, and when a law is to be applied, it is a better and more durable solution for those to whom the law is to be applied to accept that it is a good law and worth honouring. The Kantian view of the law is that the people should embrace it as something that they themselves would have wanted to make.
  Is there a way of persuading motorists to accept that there should be much stricter enforcement of speed limits? I believe that there is. My angle is to suggest that many roads need to be reclaimed by non-motoring users, although roads that are devoted explicitly to motorists could have a higher limit in relation to which there would be strict compliance. My theme is that information technology offers opportunities that previous generations did not have. I anticipate that such a policy, even if it did not lower average speed—as I believe it would, should or could—would result in speed being used more appropriately.
  I am therefore approaching the debate from the perspective not only of safety but of motoring being an enjoyable although admittedly dangerous pastime. I feel that if we could break motorists' habit of disrespecting all limits, we could achieve greater compliance with limits which had as their object the reclamation of streets for playing children, when the limit could be as low as five miles per hour; of country lanes for cyclists and equestrians, when the limit could be perhaps 45 mph but with bespoke limits at hazards; and of roads through villages, with a speed limit of 20 mph.
  My quid pro quo for that is something that will probably meet with alarm in some quarters: a much higher limit on motorways when conditions permit, and a higher limit again for those who are advanced drivers or riders.
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  I am asking for consideration to be given to strict compliance zones m monitored by computerised cameras, and for those speed limit signs to be indicated by a double red ring. The disc with two red rings would show the motorist that he should not exceed that speed, that his movements are likely to be monitored and that infringement will generate a prosecution. Of course we already have the requirement to halt at some junctions but my approach generalises that idea.
  At the moment, we are sleepwalking into an era of much greater monitoring of traffic, but without the radical rethinking that needs to be done. On the A414 dual carriageway in my constituency, for instance, hidden cameras are being installed by a road which even local pensioners regard as negotiable at more than 40 mph. If we ask motorists to obey limits that they do not understand and do not respect, and if we then multiply by a factor of 10 the number of prosecutions for speeding—as is beginning to happen in some areas—our administration of the law will be anything but Kantian in the sense of our having a law of which motorists themselves would approve. Laws that people do not respect are not embraced but resisted.
  I want higher motorway limits under appropriate conditions and I want reclamation of country lanes and roads and residential areas for use by non-motorists. I expect that many computer models and statisticians will say that reclamation would of course lower fatalities on the roads but that those higher limits would raise them. I am not sure that there are any computer models that would assess how much safer it might be if we replaced a culture in which speed limits are ignored virtually universally with a culture in which 95 per cent. of motorists thought it right to comply with the limits because they perceived them to be intelligently worked out and a reasonable compromise between their desire to enjoy their motoring and their responsibility to those who use roads not for motoring.
  What should that higher limit be? With modern vehicles and dry conditions, and where there is close monitoring of motorists' behaviour, I am suggesting that 100 mph would be an appropriate limit. Furthermore, I think that the Government should have as an aspiration a higher limit—say even 120 mph—but only for those who have passed an advanced motorists' or riders' test, and then only when the technology exists to ensure that the vehicle has been adapted to transmit messages to receptors that clear it for such speeds in the appropriate conditions. This builds in the idea that those who have demonstrated proficiency and thoughtfulness can be entrusted to use a larger range of speeds responsibly.
  Of course, if such changes were introduced without any amendments to the existing system—as I believe was suggested in the Conservative manifesto—the results would be utterly unacceptable. Being tailgated at 70 mph is frightening and there is also very little enforcement of the general guideline that says that motorists ought to be able to stop in the distance that they see to be clear. The prospect of being tailgated at 100 mph rather than 70 mph is horrific, so if we have a new contract with the motorist, strict enforcement is essential. The penalties for behaviour such as tailgating must be harsh; in the worst cases, such behaviour is nothing short of attempted murder.
  I think most drivers would welcome strict enforcement, which should ultimately take the form of an intelligent speed adaptation—speed limiters in the vehicle linked to

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  the global positioning system—in return for increased motoring freedom and for greater protection from death-engendering irresponsibility. I note that the Government are interested in intelligent speed adaptation, but that they have not come round to the view that an ISA vehicle can slow down if it approaches another vehicle at the wrong speed. That feature of ISA suggests that it makes possible safer faster speeds.
  Once we have clear speed limitation—initially through digital cameras, but later through more sophisticated devices—we put ourselves in a position to reclaim the streets and the country lanes. Of course, I welcome the Government's home zones initiative, but it is just a three-year pilot which only began last year. Something more radical is needed to change motorists' attitudes.
  The children who are denied the chance to play in rat-run streets in my constituency, such as Masons road in Adeyfield, which are primarily residential, and the horse riders and cyclists who would like to use in safety the cut between the villages of Nettleden and Great Gaddesden, would welcome a system in which it was recognised that roads are for all of us and not merely for motorists. I noticed in the Minister's speech in the previous debate that whenever the subject of roads was mentioned, it was entirely in terms of the benefits to motorists. I submit that we could get the motorist who has bought a sports car or a fast motor cycle to embrace such a policy and use speed only when it is appropriate.
  The problem is that successive Governments have developed speed policies that have more to do with statistics than with psychology; they have more to do with a middle-aged emphasis on caution than with any carefully reasoned policy about producing a law that would be obeyed by at least 95 per cent. of the population. We have motorways with a 70 mph limit, to which, on a clear road at night, virtually no car conforms. The occasional exception might be the motorist like me—I was not sure at what stage we were going to end tonight—struggling back from Westminster at 2 am in a 1.2 litre Vauxhall Corsa. A speeding policy that is not respected generally—even if it is respected by people like me under those circumstances—brings the law into disrepute.
  I believe that this has major consequences away from the motorways as well. On my journey here today, I travelled along a winding country lane where, in many places, there is not room for two cars to pass. Cars regularly travel along that road at 60 mph, with the potential for a head-on collision at 120 mph. Country lanes are dominated by cars, large vans and other dangerous vehicles, and those who wish to proceed at a gentler pace are subject to what one can only describe as a death-threatening attack.
  Enforcement policy does not extend to country lanes, so the chances of being fined for speeding in a country lane is negligible. Indeed, the Government document says that the limit is complied with. I am not surprised—it is ludicrously high. Sometimes, when there is a fatal accident, the tracks show the speed of the vehicle that killed the horse rider, cyclist or pedestrian, but that is information which it might hate been better to have earlier.
  I note that the Government paper on this subject argued in favour of lowering speed limits in most circumstances, although it was remarkably blasé about the 30 mph urban limit, which I believe should be generally lower, and the
  616
  60 mph limit on rural roads, which, as I have indicated, should be a lot lower. A claim was made that some lower vehicle speeds could contribute to global warming targets—although not the lowering of 30 mph to 20 mph. That aim is obviously laudable, but I question its rationality.
  Someone visiting her mum in a rural area 130 miles away might drive for an hour on a clear motorway at 70 mph and then along narrow country lanes at 60 mph. If we had a universal limit of 30 mph, that would make a major contribution to global warming. However, the five-hour journey that separated her from her mum would mean that she would visit her mum a great deal less frequently. That brings home the fact that our current social arrangements have presuppositions about speed and journey times built into them.
  In my view, if that person is to visit her mum and get there in something like two hours, I would like her to do it more safely. She could do it by cutting her speed in the country lane by X miles per hour and increasing her speed on the motorway by X miles per hour. With 54 per cent. of road deaths occurring on rural roads and 4 per cent. on motorways, it is clear that there are many values of X which would make that journey safer. Of course, if a higher speed were used inappropriately, the balance of argument would not be nearly as strong. The Government paper said:
  "speed policy involves difficult decisions on trade-offs".
  However, the advantages of targeted increases in speed limits as a trade-off were given no consideration.
  As a youth in the days before general speed limits I must confess to having been a rocker on a fast motor cycle—[Interruption.] Yes, I had hair as well. Doing that was dangerous, but it was also enjoyable—some people might say that it was enjoyable because it was dangerous.
  The role of the state is to prevent people from doing things that endanger others who have not assented to be part of the dangerous pursuit. I want us radically to rethink our speed limit policy in that light. We need a policy that at least 95 per cent. of motorists think is reasonable. For instance, in my constituency, hidden cameras have been introduced on a dual carriageway, but when the limit seems to be too low that sort of measure receives little public support.
  There is a consistent thread through what I have said, which echoes the Government's agenda. People have the right to use their motor vehicles for enjoyment and I am aware that that includes driving and riding fast. With rights come responsibilities, however, and we must have in place effective monitoring systems so that those who wish to avail themselves of such rights but do not wish to act responsibly can have the right withheld.
  I have also said that roads do not belong to motorists. Some roads do; others are multi-functional. Increasingly, we should make it clear that on many roads the motorist is an interloper whose first law of behaviour should be to show consideration for others.
  Our policies on speeding need radical revision. Our attitudes to roads and motorists need revision. Using modern technology and a new policy that emphasises the interplay between rights and responsibilities, we can aspire to reclaim the streets and yet we can get the motorist—passionately, perhaps—to help in that task.
  10.32 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Mr. David Jamieson): First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) on his success in securing this debate so early in this Parliament on a matter that is clearly of such importance to us. I also pay tribute to his record on the subject. I congratulate him too on being the first Member to draw me to the Dispatch Box in my new role—rent as I am from the Trappist silence of the Whips Office.
  I also thank my hon. Friend for the way in which he has delivered this debate and raised the subject in such a measured manner. Clearly, he has a deep understanding of the subject—that may have been gleaned either from his days as a rocker on a motor cycle, or more possibly, from his three years in the 1960s as a lorry driver.
  I do not want to oversimplify my hon. Friend's speech, but I think that he was trying to tell us that, as a pay-off for lower speed limits on certain roads, we might be able to consider higher limits on others. Often, in our youth we are guided by our hearts and sometimes we seek exhilaration. As a formidable academic and a thoughtful, philosophical man, he will know that, just as we need to be ruled by our hearts, we also need often to engage our brains. I will briefly describe the wider context of the Government's road safety policy and then I will try to answer, in a general way, the important questions that my hon. Friend raised.
  The Government consider road safety to be a priority. It affects everyone and plays a fundamental role in our society—in health, environment and education. I very much subscribe to my hon. Friend's view that the roads belong not only to the motorists but to pedestrians, in particular, children and elderly pedestrians—the groups that are most often injured on our roads.
  During the previous Parliament, we published a road safety strategy to underpin our goal for 2010 to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 40 per cent. overall and, in the case of children, by 50 per cent.
  The strategy will also help to achieve the Government's overall target to cut accidents from all causes, and to improve our child road safety record. In addition, it will contribute to wider environmental objectives by cutting carbon dioxide and other emissions and reducing noise.
  The strategy will help to build stronger communities, and it will form part of measures to regenerate urban areas and marginalised communities. It will reclaim for our children streets such as Masons road, which my hon. Friend mentioned in his speech. The strategy will also tackle road crime such as dangerous driving, and thus play a key role in the wider crime reduction agenda.
  Given the subject of this debate, I shall now concentrate on speed and speed limits. Vehicle speed is a serious issue which touches us all, whether we are travelling in a vehicle, living beside a road, or engaged in other activities such as walking or cycling. Speed limits are the focus of most people's attention. My Department issues guidance, but it is the local highway authority, which in most cases is the local authority, that is responsible for setting speed limits on roads. Those highway authorities have the power to set limits between 20 mph and 70 mph, depending on the nature and function of the road.
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  I note my hon. Friend's comments about the speed limits in his area. If he has not already done so, he may wish to contact Hertfordshire county council to discuss the matter further in the context of some of the roads that he mentioned earlier.
  Speed limits are important, but there is a common misconception that road safety could be improved simply by changing limits. That was the thrust of much of my hon. Friend's speech. Too often, however, people call for lower limits when what they want is lower vehicle speeds. Sadly, lower limits alone have little effect on the speed of traffic. Indeed, in many cases it is not the speed limit that is the problem but the fact that motorists are driving faster than they should.
  If unchecked, that can result in pressure at a local level to impose lower limits where they are not needed. The risk is that that could divert resources from initiatives that would be beneficial. Moreover, the imposition of lower limits could place an unrealistic burden on the police, and bring the system into disrepute with motorists.
  Clearly, if we are to have an effective speed management policy we will need to ensure that the discussion is about achieving appropriate vehicle speeds rather than simply about what the signs beside the road say. It is also essential that speeding drivers begin to think about the road conditions and the risks that they pose, especially to pedestrians, when they drive in bad weather, near schools, or on high streets or other roads with many pedestrians.
  In the countries that take road safety seriously, vehicle speed is considered the biggest problem. Research has indicated that excessive and inappropriate vehicle speed is a major contributory factor in about one third of all serious accidents. In human terms, that equated to 1,100 deaths and 12,600 serious injuries last year alone. There is also evidence that higher speeds on any given road are associated with more accidents and greater injury severity—a relationship that holds for all drivers, and not only for the less experienced ones.
  If speed limits are raised, vehicle speeds tend to increase. Conversely if no other work is undertaken, a lower speed limit tends to result in very little reduction in vehicle speeds. So, if we are serious about reducing deaths and injuries on our roads that result from speed, we need to adopt measures that complement—or even mitigate the need for—changes in the speed limit. That means education, engineering and, as a last resort, enforcement.
  Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Department's conference in Bristol to mark the launch of its road safety guide to good practice. I commend that publication to all local authorities, and anyone with an interest in the subject. It contains comprehensive guidance on dealing with the issue of speed management, to help local practitioners.
  In urban areas, there is a high level of public acceptance of the 30 mph speed limit. Sadly, although most people think that the limit is right, they drive faster than that when they are in their cars. That leads to the conclusion that the 30 mph limit is generally correct, but that action is needed to ensure that vehicle speeds do not rise.
  Speed management is the combination of engineering measures, such as road humps, traffic calming, road markings to change the nature and appearance of the road and, of course, enforcement—all of which are very effective. Where the most vulnerable, such as children,

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  are at risk, speed research has shown that 20 mph zones are excellent at reducing the likelihood and severity of accidents. These are areas where traffic calming measures are used to ensure that vehicle speeds are kept below that limit. Our policy is to encourage greater use of those zones.
  Our home zones initiative will also be beneficial, as it aims to improve the quality of life in residential streets. In home zones, local authorities can design streets as places for people, not just for traffic—the road space is shared between drivers of motor vehicles and other road users. Home zones allow the wider needs of residents, including people who walk and cycle and children, to be accommodated, especially the needs of those on Masons road in my hon. Friend's constituency. Although home zones are not road safety schemes per se, if properly designed, they can make a contribution to overall road safety objectives. The Prime Minister announced in April that a £30 million challenge fund for home zones in England would be created.
  In rural areas the problem is different. Few people exceed the speed limit. As my hon. Friend said, the speed limits appear to be set unnaturally high. Generally, the road safety problem in rural areas is people misjudging overtaking manoeuvres and driving well within the speed limit, but at speeds which are too fast to negotiate the junctions and bends.
  We have left the national speed limit unchanged, but our policy is to encourage local authorities to adopt a targeted approach to gain appropriate. vehicle speeds on all rural roads, with lower speed limits where they are necessary. Work is well under way to deliver those initiatives. Only today, my officials met with representatives from the professional organisations and interest groups to discuss how best to make them a reality.
  As my hon. Friend will know, evidence of such initiatives is already common in Hertfordshire, where his constituency is located. The local council is particularly active in speed management, having recently formed a new strategic road casualty reduction partnership, which includes the constabulary, the magistrates court, the Crown Prosecution Service, the health authorities and the Government office of the east. Their role is to review and update the council's speed management strategy to protect local villages and safeguard the most vulnerable through the safer routes to school project and the home zones.
  Local transport plans provide the basis for allocating to local authorities the transport capital resources that they need to deliver their plans. Hertfordshire's allocation is
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  £22.5 million, and I am sure that that will ensure that the work can go ahead in the way that my hon. Friend would like.
  My hon. Friend touched on the issue of motorways. They are our safest roads, because they are of a consistent and high standard. The vehicles travelling on them in different directions are segregated and the most vulnerable road users are prohibited. There are strong views on the motorway speed limit of 70 mph. It is not practical to enforce it everywhere, so there is pressure to raise it to 80 mph, or even as my hon. Friend said, to 100 mph or 120 mph, although I am not sure that that can be achieved in his 1.2 litre Vauxhall Corsa. However, many professional organisations, including the Association of Chief Police Officers, do not support that argument.
  When considering what limit is appropriate, we obviously need to look at safety. However, there are other issues. My hon. Friend is a mathematician, and I am sure that he will have an O-level in physics or chemistry tucked away in his academic armoury. He will know that, as vehicles increase in speed, the amount of emissions that they put out per mile also increases substantially. So typically, emissions are at their lowest when a vehicle is travelling at around 50 mph, but increase sharply at higher speeds. Emissions rise on average by 30 to 35 per cent. between 70 mph and 80 mph. We also have to consider emissions of nitrous oxide. Tyre noise is yet another issue. It is a major concern for many people who live near roads and have to suffer the noise of transmission and that of tyres. Clearly, these issues are a factor in any decisions on speed limits.
  This month, my Department published statistics showing the number of people killed and injured on our roads in the year 2000. I am glad to say that the downward trend is continuing. Nevertheless, the reality is that 3,409 people were killed and more than 300,000 people were injured—38,000 of them seriously—on our roads. As someone who is new to this policy area, I find it remarkable that some people consider that to be unavoidable. Behind those cold statistics are individuals, their families and friends, all of whom are directly affected. The public rightly demand high levels of safety in other modes of transport and I, for one, believe that we should strive for the same standards on our roads.
  As I have explained, speed management is a key area if we are to make our roads safe. I am confident that the policies that we have adopted will deliver real benefits for all road users and I again thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

PRIME MINISTER

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the Special Advisers with executive responsibilities under the Civil Service Order in Council; and if he will make a statement. [763]

  The Prime Minister
  Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell have executive powers under article 3(3) of the Civil Service Order in Council.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has to amend the terms and conditions of employment for Special Advisers; and if he will make a statement. [301]

  The Prime Minister
  In its response to the Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Government committed themselves to a new Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and a revised Model Contract. The new Code and Contract apply to all appointments of Special Advisers made after the election. Both documents will be published shortly.

TRANSPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS

  Green Belt
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what measures he is proposing to take to ensure that green belt areas are not used for further housing developments; and if he will make a statement. [36]

  Ms Keeble
  Planning Policy Guidance note 2—Green Belts—already recommends that local authorities' development plans should include a strict presumption against inappropriate development in the green belt. This includes most types of housebuilding.

  Floodplains
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how long PPG 25 has been out for consultation; and when definitive planning guidance on floodplain development is to be published. [806]

  Ms Keeble
  The initial draft of PPG 25 was published in April 2000. Following the autumn floods and the examination by the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, a revised draft was published in February 2001. The final PPG is expected to be published in July.

  Gibraltar
  Andrew Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when he will introduce legislation to extend the European franchise to the people of Gibraltar. [422]

  Mr. Jamieson
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The UK is committed to fulfilling its obligation to give effect to the Matthews judgment. We will do everything in our power to ensure that Gibraltarians can vote in the next European Parliamentary elections in 2004.

  SRB-funded Housing
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what the target was for SRB-funded housing units between 1997 and 2001; and what outputs were achieved for SRB-funded housing units in this period. [831]

  Ms Keeble
  Between April 1997 and March 2000, the number of dwellings completed or improved with support from the Single Regeneration Budget was 115,343 forecast and 152,753 achieved.

  Output figures for 2000–01 will be collected centrally towards the end of 2001. Forecast and actual figures are total outputs from SRB schemes—that is, they include outputs from all funding sources. Forecast outputs may change as we agree and update delivery plans with partnerships each year.

  Departmental Title Change Costs
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the expenditure incurred in introducing the title of his Department. [395]

  Dr. Whitehead
  My Department's costs have been very low as it makes extensive use of electronic templates, keeps low stocks of stationery and generally uses out of date stationery for purposes such as internal photocopying and notepads.

  Costs incurred so far amount to £25,250, for changes to the logo templates, building signage, website and stationery for the central Department. This figure includes VAT. There may be some further minimal expenditure on building signs.

DEFENCE

  MOD Police Agency
  Dr. Palmer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what Key Targets have been set for the Ministry of Defence Police Agency for the financial year 2001–02. [1166]

  Dr. Moonie
  The following Key Targets have been set for the Ministry of Defence Police Agency:

  Key Target 1

  To achieve at least 60 per cent. patrol activity from those officers devoted to patrolling.

  Key Target 2

  To achieve a crime solving rate of at least 38 per cent.
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  Key Target 3

  By 31 March 2002, to have developed a methodology, and associated targets, for measuring the MDPs contribution to security measures at those Defence establishments where it has a presence.

  Key Target 4

  By 31 March 2002, to produce a methodology to assess the quality and consistency of service delivery to customers of the Area Policing Teams and establish a baseline figure, which can inform the setting of targets in future years.

  Key Target 5

  To extend the efficiency index in respect of the business areas of Firearms, Marine Policing and Dog Handling, previously piloted in one OCU, to the remainder of the Force, setting baseline figures for future years of improvement.

  Key Target 6

  By 31 March 2002, to have implemented a Force Diversity Strategy, and within the overall recruitment to the Force to have recruited 20 per cent. women and 3 per cent. from minority ethnic communities.

  Key Target 7

  (a) In England and Wales to submit at least 95 per cent. of prosecution files to the CPS within the timescales set out in the Manual of Guidance.

  (b) Submission of 80 per cent. of all Scottish crime/prosecution files to the Procurator Fiscal within a maximum of eight weeks of the offence being reported.

  (c) To match and if possible exceed the average performance of Home Department Forces for the Proportion of Prosecution files rated by the CPS as 'sufficient to proceed' or better.

  Defence Diversification Agency
  Dr. Palmer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what decision has been taken on the future of the Defence Diversification Agency following the recent period of consultation. [1167]

  Dr. Moonie
  We have been greatly encouraged by the response to the consultation on the future of the Defence Diversification Agency (DDA) and were particularly pleased by the many words of encouragement and support for the agency and its work. We continue to support a strong UK defence industry and recognise fully the significant role it plays in our wider industrial base. It was for these reasons we set up the DDA with three key aims: to extend technology and expertise within the defence sector to civilian use; to foster partnerships and joint development programmes, recognising that the civil sector has much of potential benefit to defence; and to inform and assist the defence industry's own diversification planning.

  We intend that the DDA should continue to be a highly effective technology broker and achieve its aims in support of our overall defence diversification strategy. We believe that to do this successfully, the DDA must remain part of the defence community. But it cannot remain as part of the Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA) as now because of the planned public-private partnership. MOD's strategy of putting an increasing proportion of its research work outside of QinetiQ (as the new company will be known) and the Defence Scientific and Technology Laboratory (Dstl; the retained part of DERA) means that DDA would, in the longer term, be poorly
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  placed if wholly located in either. There is also the need to ensure commercial confidentiality and fairness to all defence research suppliers.

  We have decided to bring the DDA into the Ministry of Defence head office. Existing DDA technology development managers will be transferred in their current locations to QinetiQ and Dstl. This recognises that QinetiQ and Dstl will remain our major suppliers of defence research for some time and, importantly, this option commanded the highest level of support from the DDA staff themselves. It will also have the benefit of allowing us to retain DDA's existing regional structure and thus ensuring that the existing close links are maintained with both the defence technology base and local business communities.

  Once we have experience of how the DDA will operate in practice under the new structure, we will proceed with determining the appropriate composition and terms of reference for the Defence Diversification Council.

  Overseas Recruitment
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the overseas recruitment missions that have taken place over the last six months and which are planned over the next year, indicating in each case(a) the country (i) visited and (ii) to be visited, (b) the number of overseas nationals (i) recruited and (ii) expected to be recruited and (c) the cost of the mission; and if he will make a statement. [228]

  Mr. Ingram
  Recruits to the UK armed forces must be British or Commonwealth citizens or Republic of Ireland nationals. Overseas recruitment missions are limited to those locations where numbers of expected applicants justify the effort.

  A visit to St. Helena, which has generated some 40 applicants in each of the last two years, is currently taking place. Costs are not yet available.

  An Army visit is being planned for later in the year to St. Lucia, from where 1,400 applications have been received. The cost of the visit is estimated at around £100,000.

  No other recruiting visits have taken place in the last six months or are currently planned in the next 12 months.

  World Cup 2006 Bid
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what requests were received by his Department regarding the use of Ministry of Defence vehicles during the bid to host the 2006 World Cup; [130]

  (2) what use was made, and at what cost to public funds, of Ministry of Defence vehicles during the bid to host the 2006 World Cup. [129]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: In mid-1999, the Ministry of Defence received a request from the FA World Cup 2006 Campaign Manager for the use of 32 (The Royal) Squadron aircraft to transport members of the FIFA Inspection Delegation Team for World Cup 2006 to various football grounds and airfields during their inspection of facilities, scheduled for October 1999.
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  Between 22 October 1999 and 25 October 1999, members of the FIFA Inspection Delegation Team for World Cup 2006 used aircraft of 32 (The Royal) Squadron for approximately 19 hours at a cost of £22,957.

  Similarly, between 24 April 2000 and 10 June 2000, members of the FIFA Executive Committee used aircraft of 32 (The Royal) Squadron for approximately 17 hours at a cost of £60,879.

  In each case, the costs were initially met by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which was subsequently reimbursed in full by the Football Association Campaign Team. There was therefore no cost incurred by public funds, save minimal invoicing and administrative costs.

TREASURY

  Independent Insurance Company
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what discussions his Department has had with the Financial Services Authority during the past year about the publication of negative levels of cash flow and rising profits at Independent Insurance Company; [403]

  (2) what discussions the Financial Services Authority has had with KPMG about (a) their role as external auditors of Independent Insurance Company and (b) their assessment of the adequacy of Independent Insurance Company's reserves; [402]

  (3) if he will make a statement on the Serious Fraud Office's investigation into the Independent Insurance Company; [401]

  (4) what regulations he proposes to instigate through the Financial Services Authority to ensure that all claims against an insurance company are properly entered into the company's accounting system; [420]

  (5) on what dates officials from the Financial Services Authority met Mr. Michael Bright in his capacity as chief executive of Independent Insurance Company during the past 12 months; and what matters were discussed. [404]

  Ruth Kelly
  I understand that, following a referral on 18 June 2001 by the Financial Services Authority, the Director of the Serious Fraud Office has decided to investigate the affairs of the Independent Insurance Company Ltd.

  It would be inappropriate for me to comment while there is an investigation in progress.

  Company Cars
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent representations he has received on the taxation of company cars; and what recent assessment he has made of the impact of taxation on company car use.[31]

  Mr. Boateng
  The new CO2 emissions-based system of company car tax comes into effect from April 2002. It has been the subject of extensive consultation since proposals were first announced in Budget 1999. The Inland Revenue has received few recent representations.
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  The new system will provide an incentive to use cleaner cars. Extensive evaluation is planned through analysis of Inland Revenue data and by surveys of employers and employees.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Gambling Legislation
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans she has to reform gambling legislation; and if she will make a statement. [781]

  Mr. Caborn
  The Government announced an Independent Review of the law on gambling on 8 December 1999,Official Report, column 534W, and the Review Body's term of reference on 16 February 2000, Official Report, column 537W. We expect to receive its report shortly. We will give it careful consideration before deciding what changes to make to the legislation.

  We will also take account of this report when we consider how to progress the regulatory reform proposals for modernising the methods of payment in gaming machines which were set out in a Home Office consultation paper in March 2001, and the proposals for changes to the law on bingo clubs which were considered in the last session by the Deregulation Committees of both Houses.

  Playing Fields
  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will publish the most up to date figures available on the number of playing fields sold by public bodies since 1 May 1997. [229]

  Mr. Caborn
  Information on the number of playing fields sold by public bodies since 1 May 1997 is not available. Sport England does, however, monitor the number of planning applications concerning playing fields in their role as statutory consultee.

  The amendment to Section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act in October 1998, which was brought in to halt the previous Administration's policy of forcing schools to sell off playing fields, has introduced powers that require all state schools to seek consent for the sale of playing fields from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. In making her decision my right hon. Friend will take into account a number of criteria including consultation with the community and user groups, whether the proceeds will be used for education or used to enhance or improve sports provision, and whether the remaining playing fields fully meet the needs for local schools and the community. My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Education and Employment gave approval for the sale of 26.4 acres of school playing fields in England in 1998; 111.2 acres in 1999; and 60.9 acres in 2000. In many cases such approval will only involve the sale of part of a playing field (which will not affect the sporting use), or even no sale at all, as it is reused for another sporting use.

  Sport England
  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she expects to appoint a new chief executive to Sport England. [231]

  Mr. Caborn
  It is for the Sport England Council to appoint its Chief Executive, subject to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's approval. I hope the process will be carried out speedily but the Council's overriding priority is to find the right person for the job.

  Space for Sports and Arts Initiative
  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she expects to announce how schools can access the £750 million New Opportunities Fund budget under the Space for Sport and Arts Initiative. [230]

  Mr. Caborn
  Details of the application process for the £130 million Space for Sports and Arts initiative, which is jointly funded by DfES, DCMS, Sport England, the Arts Council for England and the New Opportunities Fund, were announced last autumn.

  The New Opportunities Fund is currently consulting on how best to deliver its third round of funding initiatives, including the remainder of the £750.75 million PE and sport in schools initiative. A consultation document, "Delivering New Opportunities", is available from the Fund and organisations have until 3 September 2001 to submit comments.

  The Fund expects to launch the PE and sport in schools initiative by the end of the 2001 calendar year and details of the application process will be announced at the launch.

  Horse Racing
  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she expects to meet the Chairman of the British Horseracing Board to discuss the proposed abolition of the Horserace Betting Levy Board. [232]

  Mr. Caborn
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I expect to hold an early meeting with the Chairman of the British Horseracing Board so that he can brief us on the issues currently facing the racing industry.

  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she expects to bring forward legislation for the privatisation of the Horserace Totalisation Board. [233]

  Mr. Caborn
  It remains the Government's intention to bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows.

  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans she has to meet the Chairman of the Horserace Totaliser Board to discuss the proposed privatisation of the Tote. [234]

  Mr. Caborn
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I expect to hold an early meeting with Peter Jones, Chairman of the Tote, so that he can brief us on all of the current issues affecting the business.

  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she expects to bring forward legislation to abolish the Horserace Betting Levy Board. [235]
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  Mr. Caborn
  It remains our intention to bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows. In the meantime we will continue to work closely with the Levy Board, the British Horseracing Board and the representatives of the betting industry to make the transition to fully commercial arrangements as smooth as it can be.

  Lottery Funding
  Andy Burnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what measures she is taking to target Lottery funding to where it is most needed. [1264]

  Tessa Jowell
  I will be announcing details of a new initiative on Wednesday 27 June 2001.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Civil Service
  Joan Ryan
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what research the Cabinet Office has undertaken to measure progress in recognising and improving diversity in the civil service.[1223]

  Mr. Leslie
  I have today published two reports., one on the Civil Service Diversity Survey and the other a research report on "Equality in performance review in the Civil Service".

  The diversity survey was conducted across the service to measure staff perception and experiences of working in the civil service in order to track progress on meeting objectives on civil service modernisation, diversity and equal opportunities. The research on equality in performance review was undertaken across six Departments, following an earlier research study on differences in performance markings between groups of staff.

  The diversity survey identified the civil service as a good employer, with high ambitions as part of the civil service reform programme. The equality in performance review research suggests small but statistically significant differences in performance appraisal box markings between ethnic minority and white staff, disabled and able-bodied staff and men and women, and the research suggests underlying causes for this. These projects demonstrate the commitment of the civil service to continue to make progress to becoming truly diverse.

  I have placed copies of both reports in the Libraries of both Houses.

  Advertising
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the advertising campaigns conducted by the Cabinet Office between 14 May and 8 June which were publicly funded. [396]

  Mr. Leslie
  Other than recruitment advertising conducted in the course of normal business, no advertising campaigns were conducted by the Cabinet Office between 14 May and 8 June 2001.

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the special advisers who(a) resigned and (b) remained in post in the period 8 May to 8 June inclusive. [764]

  Mr. Leslie
  I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) on 25 June 2001,Official Report, column 39W.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) if he will publish the names of special advisers indicating(a) the Department to which they are attached, (b) if they are paid or unpaid, (c) their date of appointment and (d) if they are political or expert special advisers; [766]

  (2) what the current pay bands are for special advisers; and if he will list, broken down by Department, the number of special advisers who are in each pay band. [765]

  Mr. Leslie
  The detailed information requested is not yet available. Ministers are currently in the process of appointing their special advisers. In accordance with the Ministerial Code, all appointments must be approved by the Prime Minister.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the total amount of severance pay, net of any repayments, was for special advisers who have(a) been reappointed and (b) not been reappointed following the general election; and if he will make a statement. [769]

  Mr. Leslie
  I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) on 25 June 2001,Official Report, column 40W.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Competition Law
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what reforms to the Competition Commission she is proposing following the High Court ruling on the Interbrew and Bass merger; and if she will place a copy of the ruling in the Library. [752]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The High Court's judgment on the case did not find fault with the reasoning or the proportionality of the remedy which the Commission recommended. The judgment held, however, that the Commission did not give Interbrew the opportunity to comment on one point in the Commission's reasoning on remedies. The Commission is carefully considering the judgment.

  Government Regulation
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make it her policy to conduct an audit of the total cost of Government regulations to business and publish its findings. [742]

  Nigel Griffiths
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: International organisations and companies regularly carry out surveys of the regulatory environment in this and other countries.

  Among such surveys are the OECD Economic Outlook published in December 1999, The Economist Intelligence Unit Global Country Forecast, published in April, the CBI
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  report "Creating a Europe that Works: A Study in Labour Market Flexibility", published in October 1999 and the GrowthPlus and Arthur Andersen report in January 2001.

  Nuclear Power Stations
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment her Department has made of the economic case for new nuclear power stations. [741]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The Department continues to monitor developments in nuclear technology and the economics of new nuclear build as it does with other generation technologies. It is for generators to bring forward proposals for new power stations.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations her Department has made to the review being undertaken of the case for the Sellafield MOX plant; and if she will place copies of them in the Library. [753]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: My Department made no representations to the public consultation on BNFL's revised economic case for the Sellafield MOX plant although at their request A. D. Little, the independent consultants engaged to review the economic case for the plant, spoke to some of my officials in the course of carrying out their work. The public consultation documents detail that my Department endorsed BNFL's new assessment of the MOX market.

  EU Information and Consultation Directive
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will place in the Library a regulatory impact assessment of the EU Information and Consultation Directive as agreed at the Employment and Social Policy Council on 11 June. [300]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The DTI prepared a regulatory impact assessment on the Commission's original proposal. A copy was attached to EM 13099/98 submitted by the DTI on 15 January 1999. The directive has yet to be finally agreed as it now goes to the European Parliament for Second Reading. A revised regulatory impact assessment will be prepared when the Government consult in due course on the implementation of the directive in the UK.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what sanctions firms would face for breaching the provisions of the EU Information and Consultation Directive. [298]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The directive requires member states to determine the provisions for enforcement of the obligations. The Government will consult fully in due course on the implementation of the directive, including sanctions.

  Post Office
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list those companies which have(a) applied to PostComm for a licence to operate postal services in competition with Royal Mail and (b) held discussions with the regulator about possible licence applications. [296]
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  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The issue of postal licences is a matter for the Postal Services Commission (known as PostComm).

  In addition to the licence granted to Consignia on 26 March, on 21 June 2001 PostComm announced that it had issued two interim licences to TNT (UK) and one to G3 Worldwide Mail (UK).

  All licence proposals from PostComm are subject to a public consultation process. I understand that PostComm does not disclose information on licence applications or potential applications in advance of launching a public consultation.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on progress to implement the Universal Bank. [294]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: Universal Banking Services are scheduled to come on stream in advance of the transfer of benefit payments to ACT in 2003. Consignia are working with their clients, potential suppliers and the banks towards this end.

  Euro
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations have been received by the Assistant Director of her Department's Economics and Statistics Directorate concerning the exchange rate at which the UK could join the euro. [840]

  Ms Hewitt
  My Department regularly receives published material from analysts on a range of subjects.

  Correspondence
  David Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when she will reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Walsall, North of 30 April regarding a constituent. [846]

  Ms Hewitt
  I understand that my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy replied to this letter on 19 June.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  Rural Schools and Colleges
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many schools and colleges in rural areas have closed in each of the last five years. [64]

  Mr. Timms
  The table shows the number of schools in rural areas approved for closure in each of the last five years.

  Number

  1997

  4

  1998

  5

  1999

  2

  2000

  2

  2001

  0

  Although a number of governing bodies of further education colleges in rural areas have been dissolved, in
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  each case the educational provision has continued by arrangement with another institution in the further or higher education sector.

  Student Discount Card
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what arrangements her Department has made for the issue of a student's discount card; and on what terms. [10]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Following a competitive procurement process, on 8 May 2001 the Department announced that Capita is the preferred bidder to develop and deliver the Connexions Card through a public-private partnership.

  The aim of the Connexions Card is to encourage wider participation and attainment. It will offer substantial discounts and other benefits to young people aged 16–19 who are in learning. It will use smart card technology to record their attendance, which will earn 'reward points'. These will be redeemable for discounts on goods and services on the High Street, on public transport and at leisure facilities.

  Vocational GCSE Courses
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what additional resources will be made available to schools which decide to offer vocational GCSE courses. [931]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The Department will fund an extensive programme of support for schools and colleges, planned to begin in autumn 2001. Vocational GCSEs will build on the best of existing Part One GNVQs. The support programme will help all those offering the new qualification to prepare for its introduction. This will include staff training and support materials. In addition, a general programme aimed at increasing work related learning opportunities at Key Stage 4, with funding of £38 million, will be made available in 2002–04.

  Key Stage Three
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if funding for the new Key Stage Three strategy will be paid directly to schools. [844]

  Mr. Timms
  In 2001–02 £85 million has been allocated through the Standards Fund programme to support the implementation of the first phase of the Key Stage Three National Strategy. £60 million of this will be directly delegated to schools to access training and professional development of teachers. £25 million will be used by local education authorities to support their schools' implementation of the Strategy.

  Departmental Title Change Costs
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the expenditure incurred in introducing the title of her Department. [394]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The total expenditure incurred to date in introducing the title of the Department for Education and Skills is approximately £6,997.

  This refers to changing external signage, website and e-mail registration and some limited stationery, to reflect the Department's new title.

  AS Level Examinations
  Mr. Lilley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will establish an independent inquiry into how the new system of AS level examinations was introduced this year and the lessons for the future. [771]

  Mr. Timms
  The fundamental principles of the advanced level reforms are based on extensive consultations and rigorous development. The Secretary of State has asked the Qualification; and Curriculum Authority to review the new qualifications. An interim report is due by the middle of July.

HEALTH

  Mental Health Services
  Mr. Randall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the provision of mental health services in London. [496]

  Jacqui Smith
  In London and, indeed, elsewhere in the country, we have embarked on a radical programme of modernisation to improve access to effective treatment and care, reduce unfair variation, raise standards and provide quicker and more convenient mental health services.

  Beta Interferon
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to receive the NICE report on beta interferon. [497]

  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects the decision by NICE on the availability of beta interferon for multiple sclerosis sufferers. [490]

  Mr. Hutton
  I refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) earlier today,Official Report, column 507.

  GPs
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement regarding early retirements and resignations by general practitioners. [498]

  Mr. Hutton
  We intend to announce further initiatives following the Primary Care Workforce Review

  General practitioners do an immensely valuable job under great pressure. Their work is very demanding and some early retirements and resignations are inevitable. However, the retention of experienced and skilled GPs is crucial to the successful delivery of a modernised NHS. In April, we therefore announced a £135 million package of measures to help recruitment and retention of GPs and nurses.

  Mr. Heath
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to improve the recruitment and retention of general practitioners. [500]

  Mr. Hutton
  Recruitment and retention of experienced and skilled general practitioners is crucial to successful delivery of the NHS Plan and to a modernised NHS.
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  We have announced a package of measures, including financial incentives and plans to enhance the career opportunities open to established GPs, to help improve the recruitment and retention of new and experienced GPs.

  Heart Disease
  Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to tackle heart disease. [499]

  Yvette Cooper
  Coronary heart disease is one of our key priority areas for action. The National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease sets standards for prevention, treatment and care. We are making available significant extra investment in programmes to prevent heart disease and services for treatment and care.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will fund the provision of the Cardionetics CNET 2000 heart monitor in all general practitioners' surgeries. [512]

  Yvette Cooper
  The National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease was published on 6 March 2000 setting out national standards for the provision of services for coronary heart disease. We have provided substantial increased funding for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heart disease and by 2003 we will be investing an extra £230 million a year in heart services. An additional £120 million of capital funding has also been provided over the two years to 2002. It is a matter for health authorities and primary care trusts working with their local networks of cardiac care to commission services including equipment using the best available evidence to meet the NSF. At this time there is insufficient data to recommend the widespread use of Cadionetics CNET 2000 in primary care.

  The Department will continue to monitor all research.

  Strokes
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he proposes to make treatment of strokes an additional priority for the NHS. [502]

  Mr. Hutton
  The National Service Framework for Older People, published in March, confirmed the high priority given to the reduction of stroke in the population and effective treatment and rehabilitation of those who have had a stroke. Based on evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness it describes a service model for integrated stroke services and sets milestones for every general hospital which cares for older people with stroke to have made plans by April 2002 to introduce a specialist stroke service from 2004.

  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on stroke services.[515]

  Jacqui Smith
  Stroke has a major impact on people's lives and affects thousands of people every year. It is essential that we provide better services for those people who have had a stroke, that is why there are key proposals within the National Service Framework (NSF) for Older People published on 27 March 2001.

  It spells out what good clinical care is; how to prevent stroke and what forms relevant treatment, care and rehabilitation for those who have had a stroke.

  Maternity Services
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action he is taking to improve maternity services.[503]

  Yvette Cooper
  We are improving maternity services through the development of a major new National Service Framework for Children, including maternity services to set national standards of care. We are also investing an additional £100 million to improve and modernise maternity facilities and have set up a Maternity and Neonatal Workforce Working Group to make recommendations on work force issues and best models for the configuration of maternity services.

  NHS (Private Finance)
  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent studies his Department has commissioned, undertaken and reviewed concerning the use of private finance within the NHS.[504]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Department of Health reviews all PFI projects through the Business Case approval system. To be approved, the Business Case must clearly demonstrate that, overall, the private finance option is better value for money when compared to the publicly funded alternative, the Public Sector Comparator (PSC), and that it provides improved facilities for the NHS. NHS Trusts are required to monitor performance throughout the lifetime of the PFI contract.

  Because of PFI, six major new hospitals have opened and another 17 are under construction, representing capital investment in the NHS of over £2 billion.

  Cancer Services
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to improve cancer services. [506]

  Yvette Cooper
  We are investing additional funding in priority areas. £280 million is available for improvements to cancer services this year, rising to £570 million by 2003–04, and we are reforming the way in which cancer care is delivered through the implementation of the NHS Cancer Plan.

  Junior Doctors' Hours
  Dr. Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the average hours worked by junior doctors in the NHS.[R] [507]

  Mr. Hutton
  We are working hard to bring junior doctors' hours down without damaging patient care so that doctors are safe, healthy and able to give their best to the NHS.

  At 30 September 2000, 62 per cent. of junior doctors satisfied the New Deal hours and rest requirements of working no more than 56 hours a week on average.

  Data showing the position at 31 March 2001 will be published shortly.

  Haemophilia Services
  Paddy Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he plans to meet the Haemophilia Society to discuss service improvements.[510]
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  Yvette Cooper
  There are no plans for such a meeting, nor have the Haemophilia Society requested one. However, departmental officials are meeting members of the Haemophilia Alliance, which includes the Haemophilia Society, on Friday 13 July to discuss the Alliance's draft National Service Specification for Haemophilia and Related Conditions.

  Health Professions Council
  Sir Robert Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he intends to implement the order that will create the Health Professions Council. [511]

  Mr. Hutton
  We published the draft order to create the Health Professions Council on 2 April 2001. The statutory consultation period ends on 1 July 2001. We shall then finalise the order talking account of issues raised during consultation and, subject to the legislative timetable and the approval of Parliament, we expect the order to be made by the end of December 2001. The Health Professions Council, which already exists in shadow form, will be formally established from 1 April 2002.

  Operating Department Practitioners
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made on introducing a registration scheme for operating department practitioners. [513]

  Mr. Hutton
  A registration scheme for operating department practitioners has been in effect since 6 April 2000.

  Waiting Lists
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what priority measures he has set in place to help reduce hospital waiting lists. [514]

  Mr. Hutton
  In managing waiting lists, we expect the National Health Service to treat patients according to their clinical priority and need. We have issued very clear guidance to the NHS on access to secondary care services. The first line of this guidance stated that:"clinical priority must be the main determinant of when patients are seen as outpatients or admitted as inpatients".

  We have repeatedly made it clear that those patients who are in greatest need continue to be treated first.

  Ambulances
  Derek Twigg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the introduction of in-cab mapping systems in ambulances.[516]

  Ms Blears
  We recognise that satellite navigation equipment for ambulance vehicles can help crews to pinpoint addresses and speed up response times, particularly to life threatening emergencies. We have, therefore, made £3.4 million available for emergency ambulance services to equip all of their front line vehicles with in-cab mapping systems by March 2002 at the latest.
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  This investment will help ambulance services to meet their target to respond to 75 per cent of category A calls within eight minutes.

  Health Visitors
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent investigation his Department has made into disparities across health authorities in the provision of health visitors per 100 children under the age of five years. [517]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Department has not made any recent comparative investigations across health authorities into the provision of health visitors based on the number of children under five years of age. Local health improvement programmes include an assessment of the health needs of local populations, and the funding of primary care group investment plans is aligned with priorities identified by the local health improvement plan. It is the responsibility of local health providers to plan their own staffing requirements to meet local need accordingly. Primary care groups and trusts have huge potential to improve people's health and prevent illness, which includes providing appropriate health visiting services.

  Hospices
  Mr. Fabian Hamilton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has for the future funding of hospices. [519]

  Yvette Cooper
  The NHS Cancer Plan set out our commitment to increase National Health Service investment in specialist palliative care by £50 million by 2004. Health authority allocations in 2001–02 included a total of £255 million to support the first year of local implementation of the NHS Cancer Plan. Priorities for this year include the development of costed strategic plans for palliative care.

  Cancer networks are currently developing detailed service delivery plans, which will identify current position and set out action plans for further development across all services including palliative care. These will be completed by the autumn.

  Matters relating to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are for the devolved Administrations.

  Minor Injuries Unit (Camborne)
  Ms Atherton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has for a minor injuries unit in the Redruth Camborne area. [501]

  Ms Blears
  It is the responsibility of the local health community to plan local services. I understand that West of Cornwall Primary Care Trust are developing plans to create a minor injuries unit at Redruth and Camborne Community Hospital.

  Dementia Care
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate his Department has made of the availability of home-based and residential-based specialist dementia care services. [508]
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  Jacqui Smith
  The Audit Commission report "Forget Me Not" published in January 2000 found that the availability of support to people with dementia both at home and in residential care was variable. The National Service Framework for Older People, published in March, has addressed many of these concerns. The NSF has set out clear standards and service models to improve access to and improve the quality of mental health services for older people.

  Primary Care
  Judy Mallaber
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to improve primary care services. [509]

  Mr. Hutton
  We have provided PCT/Gs with £100 million to develop and invest in new ways of working that further improve the range and quality of services delivered to patients. In addition we have committed substantial further resources in the years ahead to extend and improve access to primary care services. We have created Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) as organisations that bring together the skills and talents of general practice and community professionals to secure and provide responsive high quality services to their population.

  Nursing Care
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will announce the details of the arrangements to provide free nursing care to elderly people in residential and nursing homes. [518]

  Jacqui Smith
  Detailed draft guidance on how we plan to implement free nursing care will be issued for consultation shortly.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he intends to reply to the letters to him dated 8 May from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, with regard to Mr. R. McMorris. [343]

  Ms Blears
  A reply to my right hon. Friend's letter dated 8 May was sent on 25 June.

  Residential and Nursing Care
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will set out his plans for costs limiting expenditure on the provision of free nursing care as provided for in the Health and Social Care Act 2001. [180]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: Detailed draft guidance on how we plan to implement free nursing care will be issued for consultation shortly.

  NHS (Surrey)
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people were waiting for treatment at East Surrey Hospital, together with the average length of waiting time in(a) May 1997 and (b) May 2001. [146]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: East Surrey Healthcare and Crawley Horsham National Health Service Trusts merged in 1998–99 to form the Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust. As waiting times data are collected on

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  an aggregated trust basis only and not on a hospital basis, data are not available for East Surrey Hospital. The information for these trusts are given in the table.

  Trust

  Total inpatient waiting list

  Average (median) waiting times (months)

  June 19971

  East Surrey Healthcare

  4,801

  3.49

  Crawley Horsham

  4,262

  5.21

  Combined data

  9,063

  4.32

  April 2001

  Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust

  8,377

  5.07

  1 Monthly returns have only been collected since March 1998

  Note:

  East Surrey Healthcare and Crawley Horsham merged to form one trust (Surrey and Sussex Healthcare) in 1998–99.

  Data for the two trusts East Surrey Healthcare and Crawley Horsham for June 1997 have been combined in order to provide comparable data.

  Source:

  KH07 quarterly return/monthly waiting times returns

  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the state of negotiations between Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust and a private nursing home provider concerning the future of Oxted Hospital. [144]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: Negotiations are still ongoing between Surrey and Sussex Healthcare National Health Service Trust and a preferred private sector provider. An announcement will be made by the trust following the outcome of these negotiations.

  Waiting Times
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list his Department's targets with respect to(a) average and (b) maximum waiting times for (i) in-patient appointments, (ii) in-patient treatment, (iii) out-patient appointments and (iv) out-patient treatment. [389]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: As part of the National Health Service Plan, the NHS is working towards reducing the current maximum in-patient wait of 18 months to 15 months by March 2002 and reducing the out-patient wait of over six months by March 2002. These targets are part of a staged reduction in waiting times, with in-patient waiting times continuing to fall from 18, to 15, to 12, nine then ultimately six months by 2005. The maximum out-patient waiting time will fall to three months by 2005.

  No targets exist for average waiting times; however, as the NHS Plan targets are implemented, all patients will benefit from shorter waiting times, provided that the Government can recruit the extra staff, and the NHS makes the necessary reforms.

  Mixed-sex Wards
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will specify the target date for the ending of(a) mixed-sex wards and (b) Nightingale wards. [434]
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  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: Our policy is to eliminate mixed-sex accommodation in 95 per cent. of health authorities by the end of 2002. The vast majority of National Health Service trusts are on target to achieve our objectives by the target date.

  We are also committed to eliminating Nightingale wards for all older people. £120 million was announced in the Budget, and this will be used over three years to achieve our aims by March 2004.

  NHS Vacancies
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many GP posts are vacant; and how many have been vacant for more than three months. [378]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: This information is not available in the form requested. Available information is contained in the Department of Health publication—"General Practitioner Recruitment, Retention and Vacancy Survey 2000 for England and Wales". Copies, are available in the Library or alternatively at www.doh.gov.uk/stats/gprrvsurvey.htm.

  Special Advisers
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the special advisers in his Department, together with their date of appointment and their responsibilities; which of them are authorised to speak to the media; and if he will make a statement. [436]

  Mr. Milburn
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: I have appointed Professor Paul Corrigan and Darren Murphy as special advisers. Areas of responsibility have yet to be finalised. In its response to the Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Government committed themselves to a new Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and a revised Model Contract. The new Code and Contract apply to all appointments of special advisers made after the Election.

  Severalls Hospital, Colchester
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made in the sale of the former Severalls hospital at Colchester; and if he will make a statement. [227]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The sale of the first phase of the parcels of land in Colchester, near to the Severalls hospital, has been completed. Further phases are currently being marketed as part of a proposed public-private partnership to achieve the National Health Service Plan's objective of a one-off sale of surplus property to help fund the NHS modernisation programme.

  Officials are continuing to work closely with the local planning authority regarding the development proposals for the site.

  Arthritis
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he plans to allow new drugs to be used in the treatment of arthritis. [779]

  Mr. Hutton
  Infliximab (Remicade) and etanercept (Enbrel) are currently being appraised by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). Until NICE has
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  completed its appraisal, National Health Service bodies have been advised to use their existing arrangements to determine local policies based on the publicly available evidence. NICE expects to issue guidance in October 2001 unless there are appeals against its determination.

  Care Home Standards
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what estimate he has made of the amount of space required to transfer a patient from a bed, couch or trolley, allowing manoeuvres, to an assisted bath under Standard 21.3 of his "National Minimum Standards for Care Homes"; [383]

  (2) what estimate he has made of the costs of implementing Standard 22.2 of the "National Minimum Standards for Care Homes"; and how many homes currently without a passenger lift will have to install one. [384]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: National Minimum Standards will ensure that care provision is fit for purpose and meets the assessed needs of residents.

  Where residents cannot walk to an assisted bath, sufficient space must be provided to allow safe and manageable transfer from any means used to transport residents to the bath.

  The need for provision of particular facilities such as passenger lifts and the costs associated with their installation will vary from home to home.

  It will be for the National Care Standards Commission to decide, in the particular circumstances of each home, whether the home conforms to all the standards necessary to meet the assessed needs of the residents.

  Wythenshawe Hospital
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will announce his decision on the future of the transplant unit at Wythenshawe hospital. [845]

  Mr. Hutton
  We will issue a document soon setting out our proposals for the future of the National Cardiothoracic Transplant Service including the transplant unit at Wythenshawe hospital in Manchester. The final decision on the siting of the four national units will be made in the light of comments received and in time for the necessary changes to be completed by April 2002.

  Liquid-based Cytology
  Sandra Gidley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health who will hold the annual budget for liquid-based cytology consumables in England and Wales referred to in paragraph 14 of NICE's appraisal of liquid-based cytology. [303]

  Yvette Cooper
  Three pilot sites have now begun using liquid-based cytology (LBC) techniques as part of the National Health Service cervical screening programme in England, as recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). The United Kingdom National Screening Committee, which advises Ministers on all aspects of screening policy, is sponsoring the pilot. The LBC arm of the pilot will report in early 2002, and will be reappraised by NICE in May 2002.
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  If recommended by NICE, LBC will be rolled out across the NHS cervical screening programme over two to three years. Details of the funding mechanisms will be determined nearer the time in the light of NICE recommendations and the experience of the pilot.

  Health Service (Wales)
  Hywel Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what discussions he has had with the National Assembly concerning the use of private management in the health service in Wales. [485]

  Mr. Milburn
  None.

  NHS/Local Government Liaison
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what priority will be given in the NHS Plan to improving links with local government in environmental health, housing and transport. [489]

  Ms Blears
  The NHS Plan builds on the Government's existing major programme to improve public health, address health inequalities and tackle the deep-rooted causes of ill health, including environmental factors. The NHS plan recognises that the role of the NHS, working in partnership across the community, is to prevent as well as treat sickness and ill health.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Veterinary Practices
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many veterinary practices there were in the UK on(a) 1 May 1997, (b) 1 May 1998, (c) 1 May 1999, (d) 1 May 2000 and (e) 1 May 2001; and what estimate she has made of the number of veterinary practices that will be operating on 1 May 2002. [345]

  Mr. Morley
  I am informed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) that the number of veterinary practices registered with them on the dates specified were as follows:

  As at 1 May

  Number

  1997

  2,042

  1998

  2,077

  1999

  2,123

  2000

  2,174

  2001

  2,312

  They further inform me that veterinary practices are not under any obligation to register with the RCVS, so it is possible that these figures do not represent the true number of practices in the UK.

  The RCVS is unable to estimate the number of veterinary practices that will be operating on 1 May 2002.

  Livestock Movements
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations
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  she has received concerning the 20-day standstill rule; what proposals she has to change it; and if she will make a statement. [32]

  Mr. Morley
  We have received a very large number of representations from a wide range of organisations. These responses are being taken into account in considering a range of issues surrounding the movement of livestock both during, and after, the current foot and mouth disease outbreak. An announcement on our conclusions will be made in due course.

  Pick-your-own Businesses
  Mr. Curry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will issue guidance on the operation of pick-your-own businesses in areas affected by foot and mouth disease outbreaks. [265]

  Mr. Morley
  Pick-your-own businesses that fall within an infected area and are in close proximity to livestock will be affected by the foot and mouth restrictions. A veterinary risk assessment is being prepared as a matter of urgency and will be placed on the Department's website http://www.defra.gov.uk/.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Departmental Title Change Costs
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list the expenditure incurred in introducing the title of his Department. [393]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To date, the net expenditure incurred in introducing the title of the new Department is approximately £7,200.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Visas
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which of his Ministers has responsibility for visa applications. [253]

  Mr. Straw
  My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw).

  US-Russian Relations
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the implications for UK foreign policy of the recent meeting between President Bush and President Putin; and if he intends to raise the issue of human rights abuses in Chechnya with them. [735]

  Peter Hain
  We welcome the dialogue between Presidents Bush and Putin at their Summit in Ljubljana on 16 June. A constructive US/Russia relationship is important for a range of international issues. The UK will continue to pursue a policy of critical engagement with Russia—President Bush's approach confirmed that open discussion combined with frank talking on areas of difference can yield results. We will continue to raise our concerns about human rights abuses in Chechnya at every appropriate meeting with Russia.
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  Sino-US Relations
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's position regarding(a) Sino-US relations and (b) Sino-Taiwanese relations. [255]

  Mr. MacShane
  We believe it is important that the US and China maintain a constructive dialogue. The US and China have strong trade and economic links which should be enhanced by Chinese accession to the World Trade Organisation. We monitor developments across the Taiwan Straits closely. We believe that the future of Taiwan is a matter for the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits to decide among themselves. We look to both sides to pursue a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question through negotiation.

  Overseas Visits
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to visit(a) Sierra Leone, (b) China and (c) Zimbabwe. [256]

  Mr. Straw
  I am currently considering proposals for visits to a number of countries. The House will be informed when decisions have been made.

  Arms Trade
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the House of Lords will be responsible for arms trade to(a) Indonesia and (b) Sierra Leone. [736]

  Mr. Straw
  Individual Ministers handle export licence issues in respect of the countries within their geographical area of responsibility. The Minister responsible for Indonesia is my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw). The Minister responsible for Sierra Leone is Baroness Amos. My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter also has additional responsibility within the FCO for overall policy on arms export licensing.

  Tibet
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has had made to the Chinese Government about human rights abuses in Tibet. [252]

  Mr. MacShane
  The British Government remain deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Tibet. It is a focus of our human rights engagement with the Chinese authorities both at ministerial level and through the regular UK/China and EU/China human rights dialogues. We use these dialogues to raise a wide range of concerns including key issues such as the freedom of religion, expression and association, the harsh treatment of dissidents and the erosion of Tibetan culture and traditional practices. We also raise individual cases of concern including that of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Dalai Lama's choice as the 11th Panchen Lama.

  We continue to urge the Chinese authorities to enter into a sustained dialogue with the Dalai Lama on a political solution for Tibet.

  Departmental Responsibilities
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the areas of responsibility that have(a) been transferred from his Department to other Departments and (b) been transferred to his Department from other Departments since 8 June. [257]

  Mr. Straw
  The information is as follows:

  (a)None.

  (b)None.

  Ministerial Responsibilities
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the responsibilities of each Minister in his Department. [258]

  Mr. Straw
  Responsibilities among FGO Ministers are as follows:

  Peter Hain: European Union, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, United Nations, Environment.

  Baroness Symons: British Trade Policy and Promotion, North America, Britain Abroad Task Force.

  Ben Bradshaw: Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, South East Asia, International Security, Drugs and Counter-terrorism. Visas.

  Denis MacShane: South-East Europe. Latin America, North East Asia and the Pacific, Public Diplomacy, Cultural Relations, Central Administration and Resources.

  Baroness Amos: Africa, Commonwealth, Caribbean, Overseas Territories, Consular issues, Personnel.

  Taiwan
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations Her Majesty's Government have made to(a) the World Health Organisation, (b) the United Nations and (c) the European Union in support of Taiwan's appeal to be granted observer status to the World Health Organisation; and if he will make a statement. [352]

  Peter Hain
  HMG have not made any representations to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations or the European Union on this matter. I understand that the Director General of the WHO has discretion to confer observer status on a non-state entity where its participation would be non-controversial. The Director General has not done so to date but it remains open to the Taiwanese to continue to pursue this.

  National Economic Security
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he takes to ensure that the responsibility placed on MI6 to protect the economic well-being of the country is not discharged in such a way as to(a) benefit big business at the expense of small business and (b) undermine the rights of pressure groups and individuals to pursue peacefully their political ends. [220]

  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The Secret Intelligence Service carries out its functions under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 under my authority. I take my responsibilities in this respect very seriously. Any powers exercised by the Secretary of State under the Intelligence Services Act 1994, or under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 are scrutinised by
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  independent judicial commissioners who make Annual Reports to Parliament. The finance, administration and policy of the security and intelligence services, including the Secret Intelligence Service, is overseen by the Intelligence and Security Committee. I would draw attention to the committee's Annual Report for 1996 (presented to Parliament in February 1997, Cm 3574) in which the committee
  "came to the overall conclusion that intelligence work in support of economic well-being is an important, valuable and, on the evidence we have taken, properly conducted area of the Agencies' activities".

  Scottish Executive
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the Government's policy is on the Scottish Executive's commitment to direct access to the European Court of Justice included in the Political Declaration of the Constitutional Regions signed on 28 May. [437]

  Peter Hain
  We welcome all contributions to the debate on the Future of Europe.

  In signing the Declaration, the Scottish Executive did not commit itself to a proposal to give regional governments direct access to the European Court of Justice. Instead, it supported the joint views of the co-signatories that consideration should be given to this topic, along with others, in the broad debate on the Future of Europe.

  Final decisions will be taken by member states at the next Intergovernmental Conference in 2004. The Scottish Executive will, of course, be involved in formulating the UK position.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions have been held between Her Majesty's Government and the Scottish Executive concerning direct Scottish Executive access to the European Court of Justice. [438]

  Peter Hain
  HMG work closely and in co-operation with the Scottish Executive on all EU policy issues in line with the Memorandum of Understanding and the concordats on International Relations and European Union Policy Issues.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Work Permits
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many work permits were issued(a) last year and (b) in the period since 1 January; and if he will make a statement. [947]

  Angela Eagle
  In the 2000 calendar year, a total of 102,174 work permit applications were approved. Between 1 January and 31 May this year, 56,118 work permit applications were approved.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many work permits have been issued(a) under the fast track scheme for shortage occupations since the introduction of this scheme and (b)for shortage occupations expressed as a proportion of the total; and if he will make a statement. [949]
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  Angela Eagle
  Information is not available in the form requested. Between 1 October 1999 and 31 May 2001, the number of approvals made in respect of skills shortage work permit applications was 44,413. This figure represents 25 per cent. of the total number of work permit approvals made during the same period.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the Government's plans to introduce a green card scheme to govern the entry of workers into the UK. [954]

  Angela Eagle
  The United Kingdom has longstanding work permit arrangements that enable employers to recruit people from overseas. The system has recently undergone a comprehensive and successful review to ensure that it responds quickly and effectively to labour market needs.

  This Government propose further to develop the work permit system in order to ensure that it continues to serve the overall needs of the economy as part of a coherent migration policy.

  No decisions have been taken yet on the precise nature of any changes.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many work permits have been issued to IT professionals in(a) the last year and (b) in the latest period for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [948]

  Angela Eagle
  In the 2000 calendar year, 18,259 work permit applications were approved in respect of information technology professionals. Between 1 January and 31 May this year, 10,700 approvals have been granted for that category of worker. Like most developed countries, the United Kingdom continues to experience a shortage of some skills within the information technology sector. The United Kingdom work permit system has the flexibility to respond quickly to emerging shortages.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the issuing of work permits for seasonal agricultural employment. [950]

  Angela Eagle
  The United Kingdom has a long-standing Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Scheme which enables non-European Economic Area students between the ages of 18 and 25 who are in full-time education to enter the United Kingdom to do seasonal agricultural work. The annual quota was raised in 2000 from 10,000 to 15,200.

  There are no present plans to issue work permits for agricultural workers. However, we will wish to consider the place of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Scheme in the context of any proposed changes to the work permit system.

  Religious Discrimination
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the Government's policy on tackling religious discrimination. [951]

  Angela Eagle
  The Government are tackling religious discrimination in a number of ways, taking account of the two research reports on religious discrimination published earlier this year and responses to them.
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  The Government are committed to implementing the Article 13 European Community Employment Directive outlawing discrimination in employment and training on grounds that include religion by 2 December 2003. The Government will consult on this and related good practice guidance in due course.

  The Census Act 1921 was amended to include a question on religious identity in this year's census. This will provide central and local government with reliable data on our faith communities, which will help inform the planning and delivery of services sensitive to the needs of faith communities. The Human Rights Act 1998 also provides protection against religious discrimination.

  But legislation alone is not enough, as the research participants recognised. They favoured a comprehensive approach in which education, training and a greater effort to teach more in schools about the diversity of faith would all play an important part. We are looking at how best to do this.

  The research reports will help not only to inform policy, but to raise awareness of people's experience of religious discrimination, and of the sensitive and sometimes complex issues involved within the options for tackling it.

  Equal Treatment
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the incorporation into UK law of EU Directive 2000/43/EC on the principle of equal treatment on the grounds of race or ethnic origin. [953]

  Angela Eagle
  The Directive was agreed unanimously at the European Social Affairs Council on 6 June 2000, and was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 19 July 2000. We are working to implement the Directive by 2003. Implementation will require a number of mainly technical amendments to the Race Relations Act 1976.

  Corporate Killing
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to introduce an offence of corporate killing; and if he will make a statement. [51]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  The Government remain committed to the introduction of an offence of corporate killing. We will honour our manifesto commitment to reform the law to make provisions against corporate manslaughter. We intend to publish final proposals for the reform of the law on involuntary manslaughter as soon as we have completed consideration of the responses to the consultation exercise.

  We are determined to bring forward clear and workable legislation that will hold undertakings to account for serious wrongdoing and will legislate when parliamentary time allows.

  Suicides (Winchester Prison)
  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list(a) suicide rates for each of the last five years at Winchester prison and (b) the national prison average for the same period. [250]
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  Beverley Hughes
  The rates and numbers of self-inflicted prisoner deaths at Winchester prison and establishments in England and Wales as a whole, are set out in the table. The Prison Service's new suicide prevention strategy targets prisoners most at risk in the types of prisons, mostly locals, where the risk of suicides is highest. There is an early focus on pilots in five establishments—including Winchester—with a range of changes that include physical improvements to reception and induction areas and more first night support centres and safe cells.

  The number and rates of self-inflicted deaths for Winchester prison and all establishments in England and Wales between 1 January 1997 and 21 June 2001

  Winchester prison

  England and Wales

  Year

  Number

  Rate per 100,000

  Number

  Rate per 100,000

  1997

  2

  349

  68

  111

  1998

  5

  710

  82

  125

  1999

  2

  406

  91

  140

  2000

  4

  984

  81

  125

  2001

  2

  1383

  29

  —

  1 Rate based on average year population up to 31 May 2001

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average time taken for asylum applicants to receive an initial decision on their asylum application is; and if he will make a statement. [175]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: Information is not available for the whole of 2000. However, the most recent available data based on the period October to December 2000 show that the average time taken for asylum applicants to, receive an initial decision on their asylum applications is 14 months. Average times for 1991 to 1999 (based on the period January to December) ranged between, 16 and 35 months.

  Immigration Officers
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average annual cost is of employing an immigration officer; and if he will make a statement. [176]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 26 May 2001]: The current pay range for Immigration Officers (IO) is:

  £

  National

  16,936–21,381

  London and Gatwick

  16,365–21,820

  Immigration Officers also receive shift disturbance allowance at 16.5 per cent. of salary and London Weighting dependent on location, Other allowances, e.g. for languages, are payable on an individual basis. The Immigration Service also incurs both Employers National Insurance Contributions and Superannuation costs. Additional pay-related costs include overtime, premium payments for weekend and public holiday working.

  During the financial year 2000–01, the average annual pay related cost for Immigration Officers was £32,370, comprising £28,500 pay and allowances (including
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  shift disturbance allowance, National Insurance and Superannuation, £872 overtime and £2,996 premia payments).

  As the number of Immigration Officers employed increases in line with agreed recruitment, average costs will fall reflecting lower salaries for junior staff and reduced average overtime and premia payments.

  Ministerial Responsibilities
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the responsibilities of each Minister in his Department. [290]

  Mr. Blunkett
  [holding answer 25 June 2001]: The responsibilities of Home Office Ministers are as follows:

  John Denham: Minister of State for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety. Minister for Children and Young People.

  Bob Ainsworth: Parliamentary Under-Secretary responsible for anti-drugs co-ordination and organised crime and support to Minister of State for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety.

  The right hon. Keith Bradley: Minister of State for Criminal Justice, Sentencing and Law Reform.

  Beverley Hughes: Parliamentary Under-Secretary responsible for Community and Custodial Provision and support to Minister of State for Criminal Justice, Sentencing and Law Reform.

  Jeff Rooker: Minister of State for Citizenship and Immigration.

  Angela Eagle: Parliamentary Under-Secretary responsible for community and race equality. Also Minister for Europe and support to Minister of State for Citizenship and Immigration.

  As Home Secretary, I have overall responsibility for the work of the Home Office and particular responsibility for policy on security, terrorism, expenditure issues and family policies. I also chair the Civil Contingencies Committee.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Land Registry
  Derek Twigg
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he will publish the report of the Quinquennial Review of Her Majesty's Land Registry. [1103]

  Mr. Wills
  My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has today published the Report on the Quinquennial Review of HM Land Registry. HM Land Registry is a Government Department established in 1862 for which the Lord Chancellor is the responsible Minister. In 1990 it was launched as an executive agency and granted Trading Fund status in 1993.

  I would like to thank the reviewer, Andrew Edwards CB, for conducting such a thorough review and for his most comprehensive Report. The Review has found that public confidence in land and property ownership depends on HM Land Registry's ability to guarantee title and to deliver its services impartially. For these reasons the Review finds that HM Land Registry should remain in the public sector as a Government Department, an executive agency and a trading fund; while continuing the significant amount of work in partnership with the private sector that it currently undertakes. The Government accept the Review's conclusions on HM Land Registry's

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  continued public sector status and the Lord Chancellor has now asked officials to take forward the review of HM Land Registry's Framework Document.

  I note that the Review makes wide-ranging proposals for the enhancement of the Land Register and for improvement in the operation of the property market in England and Wales. It also provides a timely contribution to the debate on the future of e-conveyancing and land registration services. While some of the recommendations are consistent with programmes of reform already under way, others are more radical and wide-ranging. The Lord Chancellor has therefore asked officials from his Department and HM Land Registry to examine the recommendations carefully with officials from other interested Government Departments. Together with colleagues, we will wish to assess the more wide-ranging and radical proposals, including, in particular, their implications for, and impact on, other Government
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  initiatives, before reaching conclusions on the best way forward in this important area. The Lord Chancellor intends to publish in the autumn a plan for taking forward the wider recommendation contained in the Report once this more detailed consideration has been completed.

  Copies of the Report and a summary of its recommendations have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  European Convention on Human Rights
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on the Government's policy toward Protocol 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights. [952]

  Mr. Wills
  The Government have no present plans to sign and ratify Protocol 12, but will monitor its interpretation by the European Court of Human Rights.

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

Baroness Greenfield
Susan Adele Greenfield, CBE, having been created Baroness Greenfield, of Ot Moor in the County of Oxfordshire, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Lord Jenkin of Roding and the Lord Stone of Blackheath.

Lord Best
Richard Stuart Best, Esquire, OBE, having been created Baron Best, of Godmanstone in the County of Dorset, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Jenkin of Roding and the Lord Filkin.
Several Lords—Took the Oath or Affirmed.

The English Tourism Council
2.51 p.m.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieuasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will now give the English Tourism Council the leadership role foreseen in their Tourism For Tomorrow strategy and restore its marketing functions with appropriate funding as originally exercised by the English Tourist Board.
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, the English Tourism Council has a focused remit that allows it to provide leadership to the industry. The ETC retains a strategic policy overview of marketing, carries out relevant research, and advises on best practice. It is the British Tourist Authority's job to market abroad and that of the regional tourist boards and the industry itself to do so within England. There are no plans to change the ETC's remit, and a recent three-year funding agreement sets out clear responsibilities for the ETC to deliver against demanding targets.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu: My Lords, in warmly welcoming the Minister to her first visit to the Dispatch Box on behalf of tourism, and in declaring an interest, perhaps I may ask whether she is aware of the deep concern and disillusionment felt by many in the tourism industry that, in spite of the current crisis, there was no mention of tourism in any of the announcements from Downing Street. There was no mention of who would do what, of which ministry tourism would come under or of which Ministers
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would be involved in the running of tourism in the country. Surely a Minister of State should have been appointed to make quite sure that joined-up government was effective.
Does the Minister also accept the strong view in the industry that the structural changes introduced by the previous government—namely, the subsuming of the English Tourist Board and the establishment of the English Tourism Council with no powers—were a grave error, and that flawed legislation made it incapable of reacting authoritatively at the time of the foot and mouth crisis? Is it not clear that a new review is needed to ensure that things go better in the future?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the noble Lord has posed a number of questions. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is responsible for tourism and for the tourist industry. Responsibility remains within that department. My honourable friend Kim Howells is Minister for Tourism. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that the industry is in capable hands.
It is not true that the remit of the English Tourism Council is unduly restricted. The council has an important strategic role to play in examining ways in which we can develop our tourist industry, which is an important one, as everyone is fully aware. So far as concerns the recent foot and mouth crisis, the Government have put additional money into the marketing of tourism in Britain and abroad.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, the Minister describes accurately the situation today. Might one be forgiven for thinking that with the bodies that she has described acting in the way that they do the tourist industry could be facing a gap in its promotional efficacy? All this is against a background over a number of years of a tourism deficit. More people are going abroad to spend money than are coming to Britain. There are structural problems for the industry. To put it at its simplest, transport and good quality, cheap hotels are needed. Can that be done given the present set-up? Would it not be better to allow the English Tourism Council greater responsibility and greater funding in order to deal with these basic problems?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I accept the importance of joined-up thinking and a joined-up system to ensure that we get as many people as possible to visit the UK. However, I remind the noble Viscount that Britain remains fifth in the world in terms of the number of international tourist visits. But, of course, we need to do more to get people within England to visit the many marvellous tourist spots in this country.
It is important to retain clear boundaries between the responsibilities of the different organisations; otherwise, there will be nothing but confusion and muddle. It is for the BTA to market tourism abroad; it is for the regional tourist boards and for the industry itself to market tourism around the country.

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I accept that in the particular case of foot and mouth disease it was necessary to do something more. The English Tourism Council was given extra funding to do just that.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, will my noble friend acknowledge that the ETC has added considerably to the value of the work of the regional tourist boards in promoting domestic tourism, especially through its thematic programmes? I refer, for example, to sports tourism and country house tourism. But is it not time that this country started taking tourism seriously as an industry? Ought we not to implement the Government's Tourism for Tomorrow strategy in full today?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the Government do take the tourism industry extremely seriously. It is a major contributor to our economy. I agree with my noble friend that the ETC is doing an excellent job in carrying out the necessary research. It is also doing a very good job in attempting to raise standards in the industry; that is the key to encouraging more people to come to this country. Together with the AA and the RAC, there is now a joint quality standards scheme for all serviced accommodation. I believe that the scheme is working well.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the Scottish tourist industry is allowed to spend £14 million on marketing in the domestic market and the Welsh tourist industry £9 million? The Minister has reinforced the point regarding the strategic role of the English Tourism Council. However, the English Tourism Council is not allowed to spend any money on the direct marketing of English tourism in England. What is now happening, for example, is that there are advertisements in Manchester by the Scottish Tourist Board encouraging people to go fell or highland walking in Scotland, but there is no advertising for walking in the Lake District, although that is the area that has been so badly hit as a result of foot and mouth disease.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, it is a matter for the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Assembly to decide what they want to spend on marketing their own tourism. I can confirm the sums mentioned by the noble Baroness. I readily accept that the Lake District is one of the areas hardest hit by foot and mouth disease. It is up to the regional tourist board in that area to try to get tourism back on track as soon as the situation improves. It has been allocated extra government money via the English Tourism Council to do just that.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, in replying to my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, the Minister spoke of three-year funding for the ETC. Will she advise the House when that funding started; and is it three years rolling, or three years finite?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the ETC was set up in 1999 and funding began at that time. I cannot give the exact basis on which the funding will move forward, but I shall be happy to write to the noble Lord.

Announcements of Government Policy
2.59 p.m.
Lord Blakerasked Her Majesty's Government:
What importance they attach to the principle that statements of government policy should be made first to Parliament.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston): My Lords, the Ministerial Code makes it clear that when Parliament is in Session Ministers will want to bear in mind the desire of Parliament that the most important announcements should be made in the first instance to Parliament.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that only two days before the Queen's Speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer made an important new statement of policy on competition and taxation? He made it apparently at a press conference, when he could surely have waited just two or three days to make it in Parliament. Has it occurred to the Government that there may be some connection between the habitual undermining of Parliament by the Government and the fact that in the recent general election voter turn-out fell by 12 percentage points?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I do not make that connection. The number of oral statements made by this Government to Parliament in 1999–2000 was 76. Five years before that in 1994–95, during the noble Lord's party's administration, the figure was only 16 oral statements.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell the House that Ministers are aware of the wish of Parliament to hear statements first in our joint Chambers? It is the duty of government to come to Parliament. The undermining and sidelining of Parliament in ministerial statements is not a sin wholly confined to the previous administration, but, my goodness, it has been practised very badly over the past four years. Can the noble Lord now give us some assurance that there will be a real effort to make a change in this new Parliament?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I should have thought that the passion of my noble friend Lord Shore might have been mediated a little by the comparisons that I made between practice today and practice in the past—perhaps the practice when he was in government. However, I assure noble Lords that we

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shall certainly make every attempt to bring important announcements to Parliament, but we do not wish to impose overly much on parliamentary time.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, how many of the oral statements to which the noble Lord referred were preceded by statements by Ministers outside Parliament?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I cannot give that figure. However, the disparity between the figures that I mentioned surely underlines the commitment of this Government to report to Parliament.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, did the Minister hear the programme last night on BBC Radio 4 on this very subject? The programme, chaired by Mr Charlie Whelan, concluded that the persistent bypassing of Parliament by this Government was a major cause of the undermining of the reputation of both Houses.
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I did not have the opportunity to hear that programme. I am always interested in journalists' comments on these matters. I shall certainly bear that point in mind but I shall also study the figures. I repeat that the figures show a commitment to reporting to Parliament by this Government that is far greater than was the case in the past.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, has my noble friend any figures to indicate on how many occasions government statements were made in the other place but were declined in this House by the Official Opposition?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I do not have the appropriate figures to illuminate our discussion. In February of this year in another place Mr Eric Forth and Mrs Angela Browning complained that Ministers took up time with non-essential statements. They considered that Ministers should ask permission of the Speaker to make such statements in order to cut down the number of statements made to the House by government Ministers.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, in order that the House, or certainly the Cross-Benches, might have something to look forward to, can the Minister give the House any indication of when there may be an end to these comparisons with the increasingly distant past?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, that assurance can be given when the stream of questioning is diverted from its present course.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, on behalf of the Opposition I welcome the noble Lord's appointment as Cabinet enforcer. When statements are made outside Parliament I invite him, on behalf of all in this House, to take it upon himself to write to the relevant Secretaries of State to point out that fact and to make
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sure that the complaint has been well understood. Further, will he confirm that the splendid convention that has been built up over many years—namely, that of the Prime Minister making statements after European summits—will continue and that they will be repeated by his noble and learned friend the Leader of the House?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his kind regards. I advise noble Lords to make such approaches themselves rather than my taking that responsibility on my shoulders, as the noble Lord suggested. If there was an implicit reference in his question to Gothenburg, I should say that my right honourable friend explained in another place that Parliament was not sitting at the time of that summit and therefore it was not possible to make a statement. However, the Prime Minister has been diligent in reporting back to the House on these matters. I am sure that that tradition will continue.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider the example he set when he held his previous post? He was very helpful indeed, but it seems that he has made a lamentable departure from the standard he then set.
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, if that is the case I apologise. I shall certainly try to measure up to the high standards that the noble Lord sets.

Cricket Matches: Crowd Management
3.7 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Lord Faulkner of Worcester asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether in view of recent incidents of disorder at international cricket matches they will introduce fresh crowd control measures to combat the problem.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the Minister of Sport and the Home Office Minister with responsibility in this area will meet tomorrow with the England and Wales Cricket Board to discuss a range of crowd management issues at cricket matches. The Government will assist the cricketing authorities to identify what needs to be done to minimise the potential for further crowd problems.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. The damage that recent incidents have done to the good name of cricket cannot be over-estimated. I am sure that my noble friend will agree with the Australian captain that unless these incidents stop, someone will be killed before long and that that is absolutely unacceptable. Does he recall that the introduction of the Football (Offences) Act 1991 largely eliminated the throwing of missiles, fireworks and other items on to the field of play and the invasion of football pitches after what was in effect a decade of disorder in football? Is my noble friend

215
aware that there is now considerable support for the extension of that legislation to cricket and that the measures that the Government and the football authorities have taken over the years to combat disorder at football matches could now usefully be applied to cricket matches, particularly Test matches and one-day matches?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it goes without saying that the football hooligan-related legislation has played an important part in changing the atmosphere at football matches over many years. The important point for the authorities, particularly the cricket authorities, to consider, working with government, is what other measures of crowd management can be undertaken without recourse to legislation. Clearly, issues such as ticketing, safety policy, the rehearsing of contingency plans, improved training of stewards, entry controls and post-match celebration controls need to be tackled. I very much doubt whether legislation will be helpful in that regard.
Earl Russell: My Lords, does the Minister agree that without being unduly metaphorical one might describe authority over cricket as a devolved jurisdiction? Does he further agree that it gives him, as it does me, the mildest degree of unease that this question is addressed in the first instance to Her Majesty's Government and not to the cricket authorities?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it is right and proper that Her Majesty's Government consider these matters. Any serious crowd disturbance or public disorder is clearly of national importance and concern, in particular when it takes place at a cricket match which is widely viewed.
The cricket authorities and those who own and operate the grounds have a responsibility. That is why the meeting to which I referred has been set up. No doubt those discussions will bear fruit and will be helpful in tackling the problem.
Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth: My Lords, as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board I can assure your Lordships that we take the recent disturbances at our international cricket grounds very seriously indeed. We are responsible for the safety of our players, umpires and spectators. But we have to bear in mind the traditions of people watching cricket in this country. It would be very sad indeed, would it not, if we stopped people going on to the grounds at county matches where mums and dads watch with their children?
This is a very sad new dimension in international cricket. I ask the Government to work closely with us when considering how we can ensure that the scenes of the past weeks are never seen again in cricket grounds in this country.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I entirely endorse the noble Lord's earlier sentiments. It is for those reasons that an urgent meeting has been set up
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for tomorrow. No doubt many issues will be considered afresh following the recent disturbances. Like the noble Lord, I find them worrying. We need to deal with them firmly. Clearly, the priority must be for those who operate and control grounds to work closely with their own staff and the police to ensure that such disturbances do not recur. I am sure that the issues I listed will be discussed urgently at that meeting.
Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, part of the recent trouble concerned fireworks. The Minister will recall that in the Criminal Justice and Police Act we extended the fixed penalty system to include the offence of throwing fireworks in a thoroughfare. Will the Government consider extending the provision to include throwing fireworks in a public place such as a cricket ground or elsewhere? That is one somewhat specific aspect of the recent problems.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, that seems an eminently sensible suggestion. No doubt it will be one of the issues which will be discussed at the forthcoming meetings on this important matter.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on responding with caution to the request for further legislation. We had 15 criminal justice measures during the Government's previous term. I suggest that we spend a good deal more time implementing the laws we already have. The man who threw a can of beer was breaking an existing law. Criminal damage breaks existing law. I recommend to the Government and the authorities that we consider the Justices of the Peace Act 1361. Breaches of the peace can be and traditionally are dealt with by magistrates in an effective, simple and economical way.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am not surprised by the noble Lord's congratulations on this matter. I shall endeavour to play the straight bat that I attempt to play as number 11 batsman in my cricket team. The approach that we have adopted—it relies on the existing range of criminal penalties—seems to me right. No doubt our discussions with the cricket authorities will take a careful course, considering the powers that exist and how they can best be adapted to the current situation.

Scottish MPs at Westminster: Number
3.14 p.m.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch asked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have to reduce the number of Scottish Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom Parliament.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government's plans on this matter were set out in the Scotland Act. There is no longer a minimum number of Scottish MPs. At its next review, the Boundary Commission for Scotland will apply the electoral

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quota for England which will lead to a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament representing Scottish seats.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that before devolution Scotland was overrepresented in terms of the number of MPs per head of population but that this has been especially so since devolution. Will the noble Lord say something about the timescale—the definitive point at which a decision will be taken to reduce the number, and the procedures which will have to be undertaken to give effect to the provisions of primary legislation?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, on the noble Baroness's first point, that is exactly why we made the changes in the Scotland Act. I understand that they were acceptable to all parties.
On the second point, it is for the Boundary Commission to decide when it starts its review. It has four years from 2002 to 2006 to complete the review. I understand it to be likely that it will announce shortly when it will start. How long the review takes depends on the number of representations received and the amount of disagreement. Afterwards, the Secretary of State is required to implement the review by order, with or without modification, as soon as may be.
Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, by reducing the number of Westminster MPs, will there not be a knock-on effect? Will there not also be a reduction in the number of Members of the Scottish Parliament? Will the Boundary Commission be able to complete its work in order for that reduction to take place before the next M SP elections?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, on my noble friend's last point, I think that it is unlikely. The next Scottish elections are in 2003. The Boundary Commission for Scotland would have to act very quickly if there were to be any effect on those elections, based on the implication of a change in the number of MSPs as a result of the Boundary Commission's recommendations for the Westminster Parliament. I recall that this was a matter of some debate and controversy during the passage of the Scotland Act. There was disagreement on the matter.
We are open-minded about the knock-on effect. We shall listen to any representations which the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive may wish to make.
Lord Steel of Aikwood: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the view across parties in the Scottish Parliament is that the Scotland Act should be amended so that the numbers in the Scottish Parliament are not reduced in consequence of a reduction at Westminster? That is a universal view. That is how the Scottish Parliament works. I hope that the Government will listen to that view.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have just said that the Government will listen to that view. I repeat it.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, there seems to be a great deal of uncertainty at the heart of government policy on this matter. The noble Lord said that he would listen before the noble Lord, Lord Steel, gave the unequivocal view of the Scottish Parliament. First, when will the Government be able to give a response to the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, and those in the Scottish Parliament whose livelihoods and careers depend on this decision? Secondly, if there is a reduction in the number of constituencies in Scotland, what effect will that have on the list system? Is it not right that that will have to be reduced as well?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I yield to no one in my respect for the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. But the Scottish Parliament itself will have to express its views to government. I imagine that it will wish to do so when the Boundary Commission for Scotland has reported.
On the noble Lord's final point, the Scotland Act provides that the ratio between first-past-the-post MSPs and other MSPs is to be constant whatever the total number in the Scottish Parliament.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, apart from overrepresentation, is there not a strong case for purely English issues which would be devolved in other jurisdictions to be considered in the first place by the English Members of another place?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord raises the long-standing West Lothian question. I can only repeat what the Government have always said. It is our view that all Members of the House of Commons should be equal and that there should be no discrimination. In fact, there is very little England-only business in the Westminster Parliament. Most business, even on devolved matters, has financial consequences for Scotland.
Lord Lang of Monkton: My Lords, if I understood the Minister correctly, the implication of his Answer to the initial Question was that two general elections could be fought before the issue is properly addressed. Does he not agree that that is unacceptable and inappropriate? Many of us thought that the Scotland Act should have embodied provisions to address the issue at the outset. Can the noble Lord do anything to hasten the Boundary Commission so that the issue can be resolved before the next general election?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Boundary Commission's responsibilities are set out in the 1986 Act, which was the responsibility of a Conservative government. It is specifically an independent organisation. The chairman is the Speaker and the actual chairman who presides at meetings is appointed by the Court of Session. We have not been responsible for those appointments. The independence of the Boundary Commission is a very important aspect of the representation of the people of this country. It would be unwelcome for political pressure to be put on the Boundary Commission for Scotland to speed up or slow down its activities.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, although they do not want to take over the responsibilities of the Boundary Commission, does the Minister agree that the Government are responsible for the Scotland Act, which is the subject of the Question?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not see that it is the subject of the Question on the Order Paper, which is about reducing the number of Scottish Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom Parliament. That was set out in the Scotland Act and we said that we would apply the same criteria in Scotland as in England. That seems to have achieved universal agreement in this House this afternoon. The detail of how it is achieved is genuinely and properly a matter for the independent Boundary Commission for Scotland.

Business of the House: Standing Order 40
3.22 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order 40 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Monday next to allow the Motion standing in the name of the Lord Privy Seal to be taken before the International Development Bill.—(Lord Williams of Mostyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform: Select Committee European Union: Select Committee House of Lords Offices: Select Committee Procedure of the House: Select Committee Statutory Instruments: Select Committee Stem Cell Research: Select Committee Deputy Chairmen of Committees
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff): My Lords, I beg to move the Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to report whether the provisions of any Bill inappropriately delegate legislative power, or whether they subject the exercise oflegislative power to an inappropriate degree of parliamentary scrutiny; to
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report on documents laid before Parliament under Section 3(3) of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 and on draft orders laid under Section 1(4) of that Act; to report on documents laid before Parliament under Section 1(1) of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 and on draft orders laid under Section 6(1) of that Act; and to perform, in respect of such documents and orders, and of subordinate provisions laid under Section 4 of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, the functions performed in respect of other instruments by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments;
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be named of the committee:

L. Alexander of Weedon (Chairman),

B. Carnegy of Lour,

L. Desai,

L. Goodhart,

L. Hogg of Cumbernauld,

L. Prys-Davies,

L. Tombs,

L. Waddington,

L. Wigoder;

That the committee have power to appoint sub-committees;
That the committee and any sub-committee have power to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;
That the committee have power to co-opt any Lord for the purpose of serving on the committee or a sub-committee;
That the committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the minutes of evidence taken before the committee or any sub-committee shall, if the committee think fit, be printed and delivered out.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider European Union documents and other matters relating to the European Union.
That the expression "European Union documents" shall include the following documents:
(i) Any proposal under the Community treaties for legislation by the Council or the Council acting jointly with the European Parliament;
(ii) Any document which is published for submission to the European Council, the Council or the European Central Bank;
(iii) Any proposal for a common strategy, a joint action or a common position under Title V (provisions on a common foreign and security policy) of the Treaty on European Union which is prepared for submission to the Council or to the European Council;
(iv) Any proposal for a common position, framework decision, decision or a convention under Title VI (provisions on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters) of the Treaty on European Union which is prepared for submission to the Council;
(v) Any document (not falling within (ii), (iii) or (iv) above) which is published by one Union institution for or with a view to submission to another Union institution and which does not relate exclusively to consideration of any proposal for legislation;
(vi) Any other document relating to European Union matters deposited in the House by a Minister of the Crown.
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be named of the committee:

B. Billingham,

V. Bledisloe,

L. Brabazon of Tara (Chairman),

L. Brennan,

L. Brooke of Alverthorpe,

V. Brookeborough,

L. Grenfell,

B. Harris of Richmond,

L. Jopling,

L. Lamont of Lerwick,

B. O'Cathain,

B. Park of Monmouth,

L. Scott of Foscote,

E. Selborne,

B. Stern,

L. Tomlinson

L. Wallace of Saltaire,

L. Williams of Elvel,

L. Williamson of Horton;

That the committee have power to appoint sub-committees and to refer to such sub-committees any of the matters within the terms of reference of the committee; that the committee have power to appoint the chairmen of sub-committees, but that such sub-committees have power to appoint their own chairman for the purpose of particular inquiries; that two be the quorum of such sub-committees;
That the committee have power to co-opt any Lord for the purpose of serving on a sub-committee;
That the committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the committee and any sub-committee have power to adjourn from place to place;
That the committee have leave to report from time to time;
That the reports of the Select Committee from time to time shall be printed, notwithstanding any adjournment of the House.
Moved, That the Select Committee on the House of Lords Offices be appointed and that, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords together with the Chairman of Committees be named of the committee:

B. Blatch,

L. Brabazon of Tara,

V. Bridgeman,

L. Carter,

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L. Chalfont,

L. Colwyn,

L. Craig of Radley,

L. Dean of Harptree,

L. Elton,

L. Faulkner of Worcester,

L. Gilbert,

B. Harris of Richmond,

L. Henley,

B. Hilton of Eggardon,

L. Irvine of Lairg (Lord Chancellor),

L. Laming,

L. Lloyd of Berwick,

B. Oppenheim-Barnes,

Bp. Portsmouth,

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn,

L. Rodgers of Quarry Bank,

L. Roper,

L. Shutt of Greetland,

L. Strathclyde,

B. Symons of Vernham Dean,

L. Tomlinson,

L. Williams of Mostyn (Lord Privy Seal).

Moved, That the Select Committee on Procedure of the House be appointed and that, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords together with the Chairman of Committees be named of the committee:

V. Allenby of Megiddo,

B. Blatch,

V. Bledisloe,

L. Brabazon of Tara,

E. Caithness,

L. Carter,

L. Clarke of Hampstead,

L. Cope of Berkeley,

L. Craig of Radley,

L. Crickhowell,

L. Gladwin of Clee,

L. Goodhart,

B. Goudie,

B. Hanham,

L. Haskel,

L. Henley,

L. Irvine of Lairg (Lord Chancellor),

L. Judd,

L. Kimball,

L. Mancroft,

B. Rendell of Babergh,

L. Rodgers of Quarry Bank,

L. Roper,

V. Simon,

L. Strathclyde,

B. Symons of Vernham Dean,

L. Trefgarne,

L. Waddington,

L. Williams of Mostyn (Lord Privy Seal).

Moved, pursuant to Standing Order 73 and the resolution of the House of 16th December 1997, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be appointed to join with a committee of the Commons as the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments:

L. Brougham and Vaux,

L. Greenway,

L. Hardy of Wath,

L. Lea of Crondall,

L. Skelmersdale,

L. Thomas of Gresford,

L. Vivian.

Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report on the issues connected with human cloning and stem cell research arising from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001;
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be named of the committee;

E. Carnarvon,

B. Cumberlege,

L. Dahrendorf,

L. Donoughue,

B. McIntosh of Hudnall,

B. Northover,

B. O'Neill of Bengarve,

Bp. Oxford (Chairman),

B. Perry of Southwark,

B. Platt of Writtle,

B. Warwick of Undercliffe;

That the committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the committee have power to adjourn from place to place;
That the minutes of evidence taken before the Stem Cell Research Committee in the last Session of Parliament be referred to the committee.
Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be appointed as the panel of Lords to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session:

V. Allenby of Megiddo,

L. Ampthill,

L. Boston of Faversham,

L. Brougham and Vaux,

L. Carter,

B. Cox,

L. Dean of Harptree,

L. Elton,

L. Geddes,

L. Henley,

B. Hooper,

B. Lockwood,

L. Lyell,

L. McColl of Dulwich,

C. Mar,

L. Murton of Lindisfarne,

B. Nicol,

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V. Oxfuird,

B. Serota,

V. Simon,

L. Skelmersdale,

B. Turner of Camden.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
3.23 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved on Wednesday last by the Lord Archer of Sandwell—namely, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament".
The Minister of State, Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, in the general election, the electorate re-endorsed this Government's mandate in unambiguous terms. That mandate came with some clear messages—above all, clear and definite instructions to improve public services. We must act on those instructions urgently. The measures taken by this Government to deliver a strong and stable economy provide the platform for delivery. The importance of preserving that platform informs all our policies.
The urgency of the delivery message is underlined by the significant drop in turn-out between the 1997 and 2001 elections. The low turn-out in deprived areas speaks of a section of our community losing hope and losing their belief that the political system will deliver for them. The low turn-out underlines the message that delivery is an urgent matter.
The parent, the pupil, the relative, the patient and the victim of crime must all get better service. The service is for them, not for the providers. Standards must go up. That is a task for which we shall be held to account by the electorate.
Reform is hard work. It needs consistency and a willingness to explain and drive through the necessary changes. It requires constant focus. Above all, it requires leadership. It is the Government's obligation to provide that leadership, to identify the priorities and deliver them. The gracious Speech is the first major opportunity in this Parliament to do so.
Before the 1997 election, the priority for an incoming Labour Government was education. That remains our priority. Over the past four years, the Government have already delivered real improvements, including fewer primary pupils in classes of more than 30, a big improvement in literacy

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and numeracy for 11 year-olds and more teachers in schools than in any year since 1984. We now have the highest educational standards ever achieved in our primary schools. Our priority is to bring about a similar revolution in secondary schools.
The education Bill is an integral part of our commitment, with the emphasis on creating a more diverse system. We have many good secondary schools and many excellent teachers, but standards in our secondary schools are not what they should be. Not enough progress is being made at key stage 3—ages 11 to 14—and in some cases pupils are falling back. That is not acceptable.
To transform standards, the Bill will promote diversity by expanding the city academy programme, bringing more faith schools into the maintained sector and creating a new designation of advanced specialist schools. It will also introduce fixed-term standards contracts to enable private, voluntary and faith organisations to support the management of schools. It will tailor educational provision more closely to individual talents and aspirations so that high-quality options, including vocational provision, are available. The Bill will increase freedom to innovate, particularly in schools that are well led and managed, and reduce the constraints on head teachers and governors. It will refine accountability at school and local education authority level, for example by building on the success of intervention in under-performing local education authorities.
We are focusing on what works, not on artificial distinctions between public and private sectors. Where the private sector has expertise that can help schools improve, we have a responsibility to use it. Some may not take readily to our agenda for change, but the organisation of services—and education is no exception—has to be focused on the user, not the provider.
None of that can be achieved without the hard work of teachers. We see our reforms as a partnership. That is why we have committed ourselves to a programme of teacher recruitment. By 2006, we will employ an extra 10,000 teachers. Teacher numbers are now rising to their highest level since 1984. Through recruitment and the greater freedoms that our legislative programme will bring, we aim to arrest the decline in our secondary school standards.
Transport is another area in which we must deliver. We have set out our 10-year plan and we remain committed to delivering it. However, there are also immediate priorities, prime among which is greater rail safety. Last week the Health and Safety Commission published the first part of Lord Cullen's public inquiry report into the Ladbroke Grove train crash. The Secretary of State has asked the Health and Safety Commission to ensure that the recommendations are acted on and to report to him within six months. The Government will legislate where necessary to implement the report and will publish a wide-ranging safety Bill that will cover rail safety.
We have already taken steps to improve rail safety, including the installation of train protection systems across the network by the end of 2003 and the removal
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of all slam-door trains by the end of 2004. The safety Bill will continue that work. It will cover transport and the workplace. We aim for a 10 per cent cut in deaths and major injuries at work by 2010 and will make transport operators and employers more responsible for the safety of workers and the travelling public. The Bill will also cover travel by rail, air and sea and on the roads.
We shall introduce a travel concessions eligibility Bill to equalise at 60 the age at which men and women become entitled to travel concessions. That will benefit a further 1 million men.
The new Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs aims to help achieve our vision of a living, working countryside with a fair deal on services and jobs and a diverse and successful economy within a protected and enhanced environment. The new department is formed against the background of the continuing foot and mouth disease outbreak, with its devastating effect on farming communities and the wider rural economy. We will ease restrictions on the movement of livestock where we can, but the greatest help that we can give is to defeat the outbreak.
Foot and mouth disease has had a wide impact on the rural economy, including tourism and other non-farm businesses, even in areas with few cases. That issue has been central to the Rural Task Force remit. However, we also need to help affected businesses by deferring tax, by rate relief and by extending credit. The Government are also directly supporting businesses via regional development agencies and by fast-tracking rural regeneration measures.
The Government are committed to ensuring that people in rural areas have a fair deal in relation to the services and jobs that they need, a diverse and successful economy and a protected and enhanced environment. The rural White Paper published last November set out the Government's vision. Ensuring the successful implementation of the measures and commitments made in the White Paper represents a major focus for the whole Government and particularly for the new department.
The vision set out in that rural White Paper includes: helping people in rural areas to have access to key services close at hand, either in villages or nearby market towns, served by good quality public transport; modernising services in rural areas and using new technology to widen access; helping people in rural areas who are marginalised or on low incomes to gain greater access to affordable homes, as well as tackling the causes of social exclusion in the countryside; supporting farmers and rural businesses in exploiting new opportunities, and making the countryside an economic as well as an environmental asset with a particular focus on market towns; making local government in the countryside more responsive to local people and their needs; giving more power to local communities and to parishes so that they can provide services directly and are accepted as the voice of their community; and maintaining strong protection for the countryside.

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Our policies for successful cities will target development on brownfield sites, provide stronger safeguards for its wildlife and open up access to all. Ensuring that central government is more attuned to rural issues will ensure that all major government policies are assessed for their impact on rural people when they are drawn up.
Next year the European Commission will table proposals for common agricultural policy reform. We shall push for a shift away from direct payment towards measures beneficial to the rural economy and the environment. EU enlargement should add momentum to the drive for reform.
Last year the Countryside and Rights of Way Act gave greater access to open country and registered common land, with proper protection for the rights of owners. During the coming year, we shall propose various regulations required to implement fully the rights of way provisions. The economic impact of the closure of the rights of way network has demonstrated clearly the importance to the countryside of recreation. In their manifesto the Government made a commitment to give the other place an early opportunity to express their view on fox hunting. It is too soon to say how and when the matter will come before your Lordships' House.
We face the continuing challenge of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions have already been cut significantly. They fell by approximately 14.5 per cent between 1990 and 1999. The Government continue to play a leading role in international negotiations and believe that a deal is possible at the resumed negotiations in Bonn in July. Our climate change programme will cut our emissions by 23 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010—significantly beyond our Kyoto target.
By bringing these subject areas together at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we hope to deliver real improvement in our environment, in our countryside and in our rural communities.
Housing is another area where delivery is a priority. We now have a coherent and comprehensive housing policy—the first for 23 years. The aim is to deliver a decent home for everyone. We are far from meeting that goal. We have committed ourselves to eradicating the inadequate standards of housing stock in the social sector by 2010, with a one-third reduction in inadequate social housing by 2004. The spending review last year provided enough resources to meet that one-third target. We must now deliver.
Members of this House will know all too well the consequences of failing to address poor housing. There is a clear link between deprivation, social exclusion and the riots that have scarred Bradford, Oldham and, most recently, Burnley. Poor estates are the breeding ground for the politics of extremism.
Homelessness also impacts directly upon the life chances of those affected. People in the front line of homelessness must have all the powers that they need to tackle it. Therefore, we are reintroducing the
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homelessness part of the Homes Bill from the previous Session. That Bill will increase the power of local authorities to deal with people who become homeless. It will also widen the net of those people who have priority needs when they are homeless.
We also wish to improve the lot of leaseholders. The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill will reform radically the leasehold system. For the first time, leaseholders of flats will be able to take over the management of their block without first having to prove fault on the part of the manager or pay any premium. It will become easier for leaseholders to exercise their existing right to buy the freehold of their homes.
We also intend to modernise the land registration process, which is currently complex and outdated. The Land Registration Bill is the outcome of several years' work by the Law Commission and Her Majesty's Land Registry. It will replace the Land Registration Act 1925. The new Bill will allow the Land Registry to move from a largely paper-based system to an all-electronic one. It will establish a more accurate register which will give buyers fuller information about rights and responsibilities. It will improve the security of property rights and will provide better protection for the owners of registered land against the claims of squatters.
Leadership requires the identification of priorities for this Session. One will be to boost the role of women in public life. Although 51 per cent of the United Kingdom population are women, only one in five MPs at Westminster and one in four councillors in England is a woman. In order to help towards a more equal society, we shall bring forward legislation to allow political parties greater freedom in the selection of candidates for public office.
This parliamentary Session is about ensuring delivery, about making the public services work for the people who use them, about raising standards, and about doing so urgently. The gracious Speech lays down a programme for delivery around which we can all unite.
3.37 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, to the Dispatch Box in his new guise as the Minister with responsibility for housing and planning and in his old guise as the Minister responsible for the Dome, about which he may be relieved to know that I plan to say nothing at all today.
I also place on record a warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, who has been appointed as a Minister with responsibility for education and skills. To date, the contributions of the noble Baroness in this House have been very impressive, and I know that she holds an abiding interest in education. I and my noble friends congratulate her most warmly.

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I mean no personal criticism of the noble Baroness when I comment that the government business managers have not reflected the Government's priority of "education, education, education" by the absence of a Front-Bench spokesman on education—a subject about which the gracious Speech had much to say. However, they have fielded a Minister for agriculture and rural affairs, about which the gracious Speech had precious little to say.
Once again, it is a privilege to be involved in the debates on the gracious Speech. The quality of debate and the expertise and knowledge which are brought to bear by Members of this House continue to be impressive. Certainly, looking down today's list of speakers from all sides of the House, this debate will be no exception. My only concern—I express it not for the first time—is that with the amalgam of subjects that are to be covered within the normal time constraints which operate by convention in this House, it is not possible to do justice to the many relevant topics of interest under those headings. However, we shall give it our best shot.
My noble friend Lady Byford and other noble friends will address issues relating to the environment, local and regional government, farming and rural affairs. My noble friend Lady Byford will also, as time allows, respond to some of the points raised in the debate. For the past four years my noble friend has worked tirelessly and with great expertise from these Benches in support of food, agriculture and rural communities. We look forward to hearing from her later today.
Environmental issues range much wider than pollution and areas of special scientific interest. Indeed, some of us are perplexed by the departmental changes as they relate to the environment. For example, what exactly is the role for the Deputy Prime Minister, the pugilistic Mr Prescott, on global warming and climate change issues? Will he be supported by officials and a secretariat in addition to those in the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs? Will the Minister explain why the environment is the responsibility of that department and why it was removed from the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions? Does the Minister agree that planning and housing and even policy for the regions are closely linked with environmental issues? However, no Minister from that department appears to have any responsibility for those issues. There is considerable confusion about who, and which department, is responsible for what. We look forward to clarification on that issue in the Minister's reply.
It is a depressing fact—I am not the only person who heard Labour Party members make this claim—that calculations were made before the election by the Labour Party to determine whether the rural vote was essential to a Labour victory. The conclusion was that it was not. It came as no surprise that there was little comfort for farming and rural communities in the gracious Speech. The countryside was in crisis before the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. During the preceding couple of years, agricultural incomes had
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fallen to unprecedented levels. The outbreak of foot and mouth disease was therefore the last straw. It has driven many in the agricultural industry to a state of despair. For some, the situation has been so grave that they have been driven to suicide. The Government's handling of the foot and mouth crisis has been a contributory factor.
The tourist industry has been severely affected by the foot and mouth epidemic. That was not helped by the fact that Ministers placed the blame or the press. The sight of our Prime Minister wandering about the countryside in canary yellow protective clothing for photo shoots went a long way towards letting the world know that the countryside was not safe.
As we speak, the crisis in the countryside deepens. Against that background, the only government response in the gracious Speech was the introduction of another Bill to ban hunting. Apart from raising questions about the Government's priorities—they propose to devote yet more parliamentary time to such a Bill—the message to a significant minority of people who are concerned with country sports is that they and their interests are dispensable. So much for the protection of minorities and the freedom of the individual. Countryfolk be on your guard: it is hunting today and shooting tomorrow.
As I have said, the foot and mouth crisis has been devastating for livestock farming communities. The Government's handling of the crisis left much to be desired. There has been widespread confusion about the supply and/or lack of information and data about foot and mouth from the department. Nothing less than a full, independent and public—preferably judicial—inquiry is urgently called for. We on these Benches call on the Government to act without delay. After all, when the Government were in opposition they were hardly reticent about calling for such inquiries. My right honourable friend the former Prime Minister, John Major, readily agreed to set up independent inquiries into BSE and the supply of arms to Iraq. When there were concerns about standards in public life, independent bodies were established and the Conservative Party lived with the consequences. It is true that we paid the price. Why cannot the Government take the same honourable path and introduce an independent inquiry without delay?
I have more comforting words for the Government on their education policies. I welcome the Government's rejection of egalitarian policies in favour of introducing more choice, diversity and selection into the system. I also welcome the greater participation of third parties, including the private sector, in the establishment of new schools and the running of failing schools. The announcement that there are to be many more Church and faith schools will also be widely supported.
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. The Government would therefore expect me to support the planned expansion of specialist schools and city technology colleges, which are now called city academies. City technology colleges were established by the previous Conservative government against

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implacable opposition from the Labour Party. Such were the lengths to which the Labour Party would go, at national as well as local level, that local authority schools were forbidden to co-operate with or play sport against city technology colleges.
On a visit that I made to Teesside as a Minister responsible for education, and following a visit to a local authority secondary school, I was told that I could not be given a lift by a local authority officer to Macmillan City Technology College because of its policy of non-co-operation. How things have changed. Specialist schools and academies are to flourish within a state and privately funded sector. For that courageous change of heart, we rejoice.
The extension of vocational options for less academic students, which builds on the vocational qualifications that were introduced by the previous Conservative government, is also welcome. I agree with the comment on the Government's proposals made by Professor Anthony O'Hear, that bête noire of the Labour Party, who wrote in the Daily Mail yesterday:
"For the sake of all our academic and non-academic children the Government is to be congratulated on its common sense".
Providing more professional freedom and autonomy to schools, which involves building on the grant-maintained model, also appears to be a promising proposition. If that proposal is genuine, it would receive our support.
My welcome for all of those policies is nevertheless tempered by my concern about the way in which they will be delivered—or even if they will be delivered—in such a way that matches the Government's rhetoric. There are serious and urgent problems that need to be tackled without delay. For example, what is to be done about children who have been out of school for many months because of a shortage of school places? What is to be done about the teacher shortage crisis which is causing great anxiety among heads, governors and parents? What is to be done about the number of temporary supply teachers who are employed in our schools and about the fact that far too many teachers are teaching subjects for which they were not trained? I know that many heads and teachers, some of whom I met only this week, despair of hearing Ministers saying, yet again, that there is no crisis.
What is to be done about the unprecedented levels of funding that are being held back by the Department for Education and Skills to pay for massive increases in central and agency staffing and for a plethora of ill-thought-through initiatives which the department appears to announce on a weekly basis? All those considerations dissipate funding to local authorities and the core funding of schools is in turn reduced. Whatever the Government claim to be spending on education, the reality at school level—that is the real world—is very different. My noble friend Lady Byford will give a detailed example of the Government's unfair funding of education.
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Many schools and sixth-form students are in despair about the way in which AS-levels have been introduced and their juxtaposition with other 16-plus qualifications. Only today, and without any consultation, the Government announced a graduate ceremonial exodus from secondary schools. Whatever does that mean?
It is not therefore surprising to witness schools such as the Oratory, which is attended by the Prime Minister's children, planning to ignore the Government's advice on AS-levels. Increasing numbers of schools are turning to the international and technological baccalaureate.
To return to the proposed reforms for education, to which I have extended a welcome, I warn the Government that if they are serious about reducing bureaucracy, about involving the private and voluntary sectors and about freeing up professional heads and teachers to do what they do best, much of the straitjacket of the School Standards and Framework Act will need to be repealed. The Government's appetite for bureaucratic central control and intervention will have to be curbed. Unless that is done in conjunction with their new agenda for change, the proposal will not receive our support. Organisation and development plans, organisation committees and adjudicators, and intervention by learning and skills councils should have no place whatsoever if schools are to be truly and professionally free and accountable to parents through the inspectorate.
I wish to pose some questions to the Minister. I do not expect answers to them today but I hope that he will be good enough to write to me after this debate. The Government have already experimented through education action zones with private sector involvement. Could we have a full evaluation of private sector investment and the degree to which it has been of benefit to children? There continues to be concern about a response to the Bett report on conditions of service and salary levels in higher education. Will the Government accept that the predominant source of funding for higher education is from the Treasury and therefore any capacity to accept the recommendations of the report is a matter for the Government; and, if so, what action is being taken?
In the proposed expanded role of further education colleges in the education of 14 to 16 year-olds, can the Government give an assurance that further education colleges will be adequately funded and equipped for the purpose and that the parent schools will not be disadvantaged financially?
Responsibility for the disabled appears to be fragmented across government departments—the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions. As an aside, I must say that that is a state socialist title if ever there was one. And yet no Minister in any department appears to have responsibility for the disabled. Why is it that the Government are so reluctant to appoint a Minister with responsibility for co-ordinating services for people with disabilities?

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Is it not true that the announcement on extending vocational options for 14 year-olds was not only made months ago but was legislated for in the School Standards and Framework Act? If that is true, why was there a specific mention of it in the gracious Speech? Is any involvement of the private sector in the Government's new plans to be accepted only on a nonprofit-making basis? Will the new city academies enjoy at least the same freedom and autonomy as the city technology colleges, if not more? And what further legislation is required to introduce them? Will they be dependent upon local authority approval before being established?
The Government were paid a handsome compliment by the electorate on 7th June, and on that we warmly congratulate them. The people took the Government at their word and expectations are running very high. Among the many other pledges, Mr Blair personally promised on behalf of the Government that if re-elected, public services would be of world class; that funding problems in the public services would be addressed; that staffing levels in education, health, the police and other public services would rise to record levels; that further and higher education, with government support, would expand; that public and private partnerships would be the answer to improving health and education services. And finally he said, "Judge us on our results". I repeat that expectations are running very high.
The Government may just pause for a moment to reflect on what appeared to be a landslide victory and consider its underlying fragility. The Government were returned to office with the lowest percentage vote of all their predecessors. Even more disturbingly, over 40 per cent of the electorate did not vote at all and the disquiet within the Labour Party inside and outside Parliament is simmering away below the surface.
The people are watching and waiting with great anticipation and expectation. We on these Benches will continue to champion the cause of all people, including those in our rural communities. We can promise support for many of the education reforms but we shall be vigilant and will not be taken for granted if we find that the devil is, as is so often the case, in the detail or in the omission.
On past record, the quality of legislation and the government's contempt for the democratic process throughout the last Parliament was disturbing and I hope will not be repeated. One thing I am certain about is that the quality and diligence of scrutiny from all Benches within this House will serve Parliament and the people well. I regard it a privilege to play my part.
3.54 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his introduction to this wide-ranging debate and congratulate him on his appointment.
Looking, as he did, for the thread through today's subjects, I, too, concentrated on the fact that the election focused on the delivery of public services and that, since then, attention has turned to the low turnout at the election. In my mind, those are clearly linked
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because if people believe, as so often they tell us on the doorstep, that politicians are all the same and that "They do not listen to us", then electors will not use the ballot box to talk to us.
The modernisation of the democratic process is not something to be boxed away under the label "constitutional affairs". It is something that I am sure we shall all keep well to the forefront of our minds.
The Liberal Democrats entitled their manifesto Freedom Justice Honesty. Freedom is another side of the coin to the delivery of public services: freedom because the more effective are the services for the consumer—or, as I would prefer to call him, the citizen—the freer is that individual. There is then a debate to be had about whether a prescribed model (prescribed by the Treasury—although note what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said) is likely to deliver better services than a variety of models appropriate to a variety of circumstances. We shall return to the debate about PFIs and PPPs and, no doubt, other acronyms, but I shall say that it is probably not the case that one model fits all and flailing around for a quick and superficially attractive option is not useful.
The cost of public services is not to be measured only in pounds and pence. There is often an environmental cost. I am disappointed that that appears to feature so little in the Government's thinking. My noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer will speak further on that and the new Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. But on the question of structure, I simply add that it is perhaps a pity that a way seems not to have been found to continue to work at the structured link between the environment and transport for more than four years, because they are so closely intertwined.
The new department for which the Minister speaks has "local government" in its title and we welcome the recognition of the importance of local government, even though it was not a subject for the gracious Speech, or, at any rate, not directly. One of the indirect references—education—will be dealt with at greater length by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford. I simply say that we must not lose sight of the need to support our local education authorities, which are part of local government, and their role in improving individual schools in the context of their widely differing communities—communities which local authorities know best.
An issue which, at local level, very much affects the delivery of public services—not within the department, although I raise it today—is in relation to what is perhaps a detail, but a very costly detail; namely, the unfunded pension schemes in the police and fire services. I have heard that the issue has come to the top of the in-tray of the new Secretary of State and if the noble Lord responding can give us any assurances that that is a subject which will be tackled, that would be much welcomed.
Although there is to be no local government legislation, at least that we know of, we shall see a White Paper on local government finance. I hope,

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although I doubt, that it will propose more freedom for local authorities to raise their own revenue. That is an issue also for the regional agenda.
From these Benches, we much look forward to progressing devolution and not just to Scotland and Wales, to which, according to the Queen's Speech, the Government maintain their commitment. That is not a code which I have been able to decipher.
We have heard about the Deputy Prime Minister's role in taking forward devolution to the regions, but the fact is that the issue now seems to have been split between the Cabinet Office, the new Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and the DTI, and for those of us outside, it looks as though the DTI is winning the argument.
But regionalism is about far more than the regional development agencies, important as regeneration is. I hope that the Minister can explain to your Lordships today how all that will work and, indeed, when we can expect a White Paper on regional government.
I mentioned local government finance, and, of course, the issue of borrowing to fund capital investment is an issue for local authorities, as it is to fund public services generally. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw will speak about transport and I know will today make some very acerbic comments and constructive suggestions about our railway services. Today time is too short to debate the replication of the fragmentation of our railways in London Underground, on which the Government appear to be set. They have not begun to win the argument in the minds of Londoners.
Perhaps the Minister can put my mind to rest in relation to another issue by telling me that it is purely rumour-mongering. In the past few days, there have been reports about the Government's proposals for extra runway capacity at London's airports. I recall that four years ago, at the start of the previous Parliament, there was a general acceptance of the need for an overall airport/aviation policy, but that there was a difficulty in dealing with that until there had been a decision on terminal 5. I hope that the Government will accept that we need an overall policy and that they will not be diverted into dealing with runway capacity in isolation as it is a major issue.
T5 was perhaps one of the most difficult examples of the planning system serving us rather badly in relation to large infrastructure projects. In the past few days I have noted that a statement has come from the Treasury, no less, about the planning system, indicating that,
"There is potential to make planning decisions speedier, to reduce the uncertainty and risk … and to introduce greater flexibility and diversity".
That is an interesting statement. I do not want to condemn it from the start, but it is not immediately obvious to me how greater flexibility and less uncertainty lie easily together.
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I believe that regional strategies for sustainable development, fully tested in public debate and formal examination, can be an excellent basis for the planning framework. That subject was not in the gracious Speech, but it was raised by the Chancellor and it would be helpful to noble Lords on these Benches to hear what the Government have in mind.
Local government is the context for concessionary fares on which we shall soon be presented with a Bill. We welcome such a Bill, although it is a pity that the Government have had to be pushed into equalising the arrangements by the European Court. I hope that the Bill will provide an opportunity to review the existing concessionary fares arrangements, how well they are or are not working, the detail about the boundaries between the schemes and the bureaucracy that appears to have been engendered.
On the last day of the previous Parliament I said to my noble friend Lady Maddock—who will speak later on housing and homelessness—that the first line of my speech today would be on homelessness. In fact it is almost the last, but it is no less important for that. I have never understood why the Government, who were critical of Conservative policy, did not proceed early in the previous Parliament to deal with the issues in the Homes Bill which fell at the end of that Parliament. I welcome what the Minister has said today about reintroducing such provisions.
The problems are not diminishing and it is appropriate to put them on the record. In the first quarter of this year local authorities have accepted over 30,000 as being unintentionally homeless and in priority need, which is a 10 per cent increase on the corresponding quarter last year. The total number of households in temporary accommodation now exceeds 75,000, which means 75,000 families. That is a rise of more than 16 per cent on the same quarter last year. Almost 11,000 households are in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That figure is up by 24 per cent, almost a quarter on the same quarter last year.
Tackling homelessness and providing decent housing—I realise that I am repeating the terminology used by the Minister—are fundamental to the freedom of the individual and to the provision of public services. London is facing a jobs' crisis, and it is not alone. It cannot accommodate the people who are needed to make the city function.
In the past couple of days I have received letters from Londoners asking me, as a member of the Greater London Authority, what I can suggest to help them. One correspondent said:

"I am a public sector worker and have had unending problems with finding somewhere to live.

"I am stuck living in a room…moving after 6 months again and again, and not being able to develop my life for this reason…

"The Government is not going to give me a huge pay rise so I am never going to be able to afford my own flat…

"Can you assist me in any way sorting this mess out?"

Another correspondent writes about having purchased through a shared ownership scheme a 50 per cent share in a house in 199 She now asks

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whether there are any options for moving on. She says that their home is now "just too small" because they have two small children.
"I earn £19,000 working full time…my partner…looks after the children during the day and earns £8,500 working part-time. We have 50% share of a £130,000 home",
and she says that it is simply the legislation of shared ownership that stops the housing association helping people in their situation. She continues:
"We are ordinary people earning an ordinary wage, but simply unable to own an ordinary home".
How does the Minister suggest that I respond to that?
My final point is about freedom, equality, local government and education. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, must be extremely sad that the abolition of Section 28, which he espoused with such passion, is not in the Government's programme. Noble Lords on these Benches want to know when we shall see that subject raised again.
It is often said that taxes are the price of a civilised society and how we support that society is a mark of our determination to be civilised. When the Government show that they have the political will to achieve real—I stress the word "real"—and sustainable improvement in public services noble Lords on these Benches will help them achieve the means.
4.7 p.m.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, it is with great sadness that I rise to take part in the debate on the gracious Speech as now that Her Majesty's Government have said they intend to proceed with stage two of the reform of your Lordships' House I fear that for me it will probably be my last opportunity to take part in such a debate. It has been a very great privilege to sit and vote in your Lordships' House and to serve over the years on several of its committees. I have to say that I shall greatly miss my parliamentary life, my parliamentary friends and the truly wonderful, helpful and friendly staff throughout the Palace of Westminster.
I must, as always, declare an interest as someone who tries to farm, albeit on the verge of bankruptcy due to the dire crisis in British agriculture, and being president of the British Association of Bio Fuels.
I too heartily congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his challenging new role at the recently created DEFRA. He has the power, the chance and the opportunity to change the face and fortune of British agriculture for ever and I wish him well. He knows that I and many others of your Lordships will keep him up against the ropes only because many of us feel passionately about the environment and the countryside.
The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, said on Wednesday:
"We on these Benches are a little disturbed by the failure of the gracious Speech to say anything very concrete about the plight of rural Britain … Rural Britain has been through a terrible period, one which has brought many families to the edge of despair and to the experience of great need. It would have been better if the Government had chosen to try to find ways to heal some of the wounds that the rural areas have sustained. Given the Prime
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Minister's performance in the area of foot and mouth, I do not doubt the Government's sincere intention to do so. However, if may say so, it is a little insensitive that the gracious Speech has nothing to say on this front".—[Official Report. 20/6/01: col. 20.]
I am afraid that I think her words were far too polite. It was a gross insult to the rural population that agriculture once again got no mention. I do not understand the complete lack of sensitivity which meant that the only reference to anything remotely connected to the environment was the idiotic idea, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, to reintroduce a Bill to ban hunting with dogs. It is worth reminding your Lordships that another place voted for an outright ban in almost the same numbers as your Lordships voted not to have an outright: ban. There must be a lesson to be learnt here. Despite the apathetic turn-out at the election, most people believe that politicians should not be discussing the welfare of foxes. Only last week, I nearly ran over a fox looking wonderfully fit and healthy with a limp baby rabbit in his mouth. This nicely illustrated that famous slogan, "Hunting is natural, even foxes do it".
I dread to think how many times in the last Parliament the words, "Farming is in the worst depression in living memory", were spoken. I alone am guilty of six such utterances. Talking to a well known and respected agricultural journalist after the gracious Speech, I said, "I can't believe that agriculture was not mentioned". His reply was, "I can't believe you were surprised. This Government does not care". I believe that Her Majesty's Government must show that they do care by bringing forward measures at once to secure the future of British agriculture. One thing that is essential to life and health is good food, and it comes from our farms.
Our farmers produce two-thirds of all food consumed by their town brethren. Furthermore, our food is produced to standards which are commonly not met abroad. I refer particularly to organic food imports, most of which probably would not meet the standards set for UK production but which are nevertheless sold here as organic to the unsuspecting public. Little of the pig meat imported is likely to meet our welfare standards and there is no doubt that the dreaded foot and mouth tragedy was imported to our land which had been free of this terrible disease for more than 30 years.
Food is fundamental to our well-being and our very existence. A nation neglects to feed itself at its peril. "Don't criticise farmers with your mouth full" was a slogan often seen in car windows and as we are all living longer with the opportunity of the most varied diet ever, our food cannot be that bad.
Critics of British agriculture say that it is just another industry like coal. That is to show a foolish misunderstanding of the real world. It simply is not true, and it must not be forgotten that fanners were encouraged to grow more, were given grants to drain the wetlands and were told to borrow the shortfall, which is why UK farm borrowing is now at a staggering £7.8 billion.

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Coal is just one form of energy. There are others such as gas, nuclear power and of course bio power—bio fuels—to which, as your Lordships would expect, I shall return in a moment. There is, however, no alternative to food. It is produced by a host of small businesses using their own capital. Currently, many are doing so under enormous difficulties. My plea is that DEFRA loads no more red tape on to those who grow our food; that it cuts out much of the present interference; and that it works for a climate where producers get a fair return for fair production against fair competition.
Ministers are hamstrung by the demands of the Brussels bureaucracy. The FMD outbreak showed just how dangerous this is. When the first outbreak was discovered, how did the former Minister react? He trotted off to Brussels to ask what he was allowed to do. What he should have done immediately was to listen to the world experts on the disease, who just happen to be British and available in London. He should also have reached for the Northumberland report, an excellent textbook on how to cope, prepared after the last outbreak.
My plea is that DEFRA officials, who surely must recall that they are our servants and not our masters, will quickly learn to consult with those having real knowledge of the countryside and farming. I look to them to remotivate local advisory panels and to develop policies capable of maintaining and improving the flow of good food from our farms to our meal tables. Downing Street and DEFRA might at least consider whether it would be in the national interest to withdraw from the common agricultural policy altogether and substitute policies more in line with the real needs of this United Kingdom.
Not all our farmland is now needed for food, thanks to increased productivity and changing tastes. Fuel from our fields is now a real possibility. In his Budget, the Chancellor went some way to recognising this, but, sadly, he did not go far enough. This may have been because of what I can describe only as appallingly outdated briefings from, I believe, one case officer in the old DETR and bias from the old MAFF.
Biodiesel and bio ethanol cut greenhouse gases substantially. They also substantially cut tailpipe emissions, whatever a civil servant may wish to think. When oilseeds are grown as an alternative to surplus wheat, emissions from the farming operations are actually cut. Biofuels are also biodegradable, recycle carbon and are safe and easy to use without engine modification. They are also the only transport fuels available with any degree of sustainability.
Her Majesty's Government are rightly committed to cutting greenhouse gases and here is such a logical way to do it. I do not understand why they do not grasp the opportunity. At least 5 per cent of our road transport fuel could come from our own farmland within five years. What good news this would be for the environment and for rural regeneration. All that is needed is to give these biofuels the same tax treatment already given to the gas fuels, LPG and CNG; in other
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words, a duty rate of around 5p per litre. Biofuels are far better on environmental grounds than fossil fuels and on balance are also better than the gas fuels. And we must not forget that North Sea oil will not last for ever. I was horrified to read in the newspapers that there is more talk about nuclear fuels.
The capital and the know-how is ready and waiting to start large-scale production given duty parity with gas.
Sugar beet was introduced as a new crop here in the 1920s, another time of terrible rural depression. The crop did much to improve farmers' ability to feed our nation. Introducing biofuels now, through tax equality with gas that I advocate, would do much to refuel the nation as well as furnish farmers with a new and most useful function as fuel producers.
Will DEFRA please support biofuels for road transport and clearly indicate this support to the Chancellor? If not, will the department please give sound scientific reasons for any lack of support of this proposal, but, please, not less than accurate opinions which the other place had to put up with when this matter was last debated on 24th April?
In conclusion, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, knows how I feel about biofuels. Surely it must make sense to grow fuel for vehicles which are environmentally friendly, especially with farming being in such dire straits. All my spring oilseed rape goes from Scotland to Austria and Germany and is converted into road fuel. I often ask why. I beg, with all my heart, for this new Government to take on board the environmental aspects of what I have said today. Whereas Turnip Townsend was a household name in the 1740s, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, could be known as "Biofuels Whitty". That would indeed give this nation a wonderful name for a truly great politician.
Something must be done and it makes such agricultural, environmental and financial sense. Farming is in crisis and here is a way out. I urge Her Majesty's Government to seize it, and to do so now before it is too late.
4.20 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Blackburn: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate on the gracious Speech and I commend the Government for the high priority they intend to give in this Session to reform of secondary education, with their commitment to diversity of provision. As chairman of the Church of England Board of Education, it gives me great pleasure to say that. I should also like to add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, and to say how much we look forward to working with her.
I must apologise to the House that, owing to a longstanding commitment in my diocese very early tomorrow morning, I may not be in my place when the debate ends.

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Clearly, truancy statistics, violence against teachers and the number of disillusioned young people, prove, if proof were necessary, that secondary education in our country needs attention, fresh ideas and new initiatives. Clearly, the Churches and the other faith communities wish to play a part in that process. In the past there have been occasions when those responsible in the Church of England for matters of education policy, have found themselves sitting, as we may say, in a rather uncomfortable pew. Thirty years ago, when I was director of education for the diocese of Durham, a significant group within the Labour Party promoted the abolition of Church schools altogether. Happily, the policy was never pursued to conclusion. I am reminded of the remarks made in this House last week by the Leader of the House, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, about sinners turning to repentance.
Ninety-five years ago the then Liberal government espoused a policy to withdraw public funds from Church schools. People came by train in their thousands from the north-west of England to resist that. But resistance to that policy in this House defeated it and the matter was not raised again.
So, although threatened with extinction at the beginning of the 20th century, at the beginning of the 21st century Church schools are a significant part of the maintained system of education in England and Wales. To the surprise and I suppose the discomfort of some, their popularity with parents is growing and the Churches simply cannot meet all the demands made on them for places. As your Lordships know, one-third of all schools in England and Wales are Church schools. That is a significant proportion. Church of England schools make up one-quarter of all primary schools in England with 750,000 pupils.
They are not without their critics. Church of England schools are described by some as divisive and as serving a single-faith community, to use the modern parlance. We do not see them as serving a narrow or sectarian purpose. They are simply not intended for one-faith community among many. Indeed, I could talk today about many Church of England schools in east Lancashire where I serve, that are the one and only meeting point for the different ethnic minority groups within the local community. That is a sad reflection on society, but it illustrates an important contribution that Church schools can make to mutual understanding and respect in those communities. In my growing experience parents from other faith communities fee] secure in Church schools because they know that religious faith there is respected and the name of God honoured.
In such communities this puts very great pressure on admissions to Anglican secondary schools. Only one-twentieth of all secondary schools are Church of England, serving only about 150,000 pupils. Many of those schools now have to turn away large numbers of potential pupils. In the past five years the average number of applicants per 100 places for Church of England secondary schools has risen from about 140 to 160. I am told that there is a school not vey far from here which had 700 applications for 130 places. I can
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tell your Lordships that each year I receive letters from sad and sometimes quite angry parents who cannot get their children admitted to Church of England schools, and that in a diocese where such schools number above average. It is little wonder that in practice some of our secondary schools can serve only the local Anglican community. That means that the traditional goal of a Christian education being offered for all in the community, of Christian faith, of another faith or of no faith, simply cannot be realised without the creation of more places in Church of England secondary schools.
As your Lordships will know, the place and nature of Church of England secondary schools and proposals for their future development have been the main theme of a review recently undertaken under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, whom I am happy to see in his place. I want to thank him publicly for the report he and his working party have produced. He approached the task with his characteristic energy, great skill and enthusiasm. The report was published about 10 days ago. It says much about the character of a Church school, how it can be true to itself and thus better serve the community. The report reminds the Churches of their traditional commitment to encourage young people and others to regard teaching as a vocation, but more than that, as a profession of vital importance for the future of our society. The report challenges the Church with the target of creating 100 more secondary schools within the next eight years. That is some target, but I am reliably informed that negotiations are already in hand for about 20, and not for schools in the leafy suburbs but in the heart of some of our more deprived urban communities in cities and towns.
So it is that I warmly welcome the Government's stated intention to promote diversity with higher standards, particularly in secondary schools. A more diverse system will allow for more specialist schools, more Church schools and schools for particular faith communities in this country. In this the Government are doing no more than responding to clear parental demand.
The gracious Speech also suggests that a more diverse system will serve to promote higher standards. I would not claim for a moment that all Church of England high schools achieve higher standards than community schools. That would be arrant nonsense. But repeated statistics show that Church schools often do very well. At their best they provide an education which has clear and coherent values based on the Christian gospel, where children and young people are respected and valued for themselves, and in which their spiritual and moral development can go hand in hand with achieving the highest possible educational standards. Motivation, which often conies from a diversity of opportunity, must be important and is one of the reasons for the things which are achieved in Church schools.
There is surely a connection between common purpose in any organisation and successful outcomes. I am surprised that that is not more readily accepted even by our critics. Church schools often have the

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advantage of a strong community rooted locally in the Church, as well as supportive parents who feel a strong link with that particular school.
I should like to make two other points. I look forward to hearing more of the Government's proposals about fixed term contracts under which an external private or voluntary sector sponsor might take the responsibility for a weak or so-called failing school. I am also interested in how that option might help a successful school work with a private or voluntary sector partner. The Church of England might see itself as such a voluntary sector provider. It has been just that since the National Society was founded in 1811 to establish schools in England and Wales.
But our recent experience would suggest that we should not underestimate—nor should the Government—the high levels of commitment required by staff, governors and local community to change the character of a school, especially where it is facing multiple challenges. We shall look carefully at the instruments for change that the Government are willing to allow a voluntary sector sponsor to wield.
Finally, the gracious Speech promised that an education Bill would give greater freedom for successful head teachers and governors. I shall be very interested to know what that means in practice, not just because we are concerned to safeguard the religious character of Church schools, but also because we recognise, as I have said repeatedly in your Lordships' House, that there are many successful teachers and governors in schools that do not appear to be judged among the most successful schools by tables. No one should doubt the importance of higher standards and I certainly do not. The Government deserve recognition for the improvement in standards achieved in many primary schools during the past four years. But in that the primary gratitude is owed to the head teachers and teachers of the schools encouraged by the Government.
Higher and higher levels of prescription do not of themselves promote higher standards; they may serve the opposite purpose. Teachers deserve to have much expected of them by society, but at the same time they deserve freedom as respected professionals in their own field to develop the highest achievements of those they teach. Motivation will play a significant part in that. My hope is that any new legislation will ensure that all of that is achieved.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am very glad to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn. I live close to him in his diocese and greatly admire the work that he has done. He can rely on my support in his endeavours if he believes that that may be helpful.
I shall also deal with matters that I believe are very important to our locality. When I heard the gracious Speech I was mightily relieved that the Government appeared to have abandoned their preposterous plan
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to break up England into regions. That relief was short-lived. On Thursday, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor repeated the threat in the 1997 manifesto that in certain circumstances provision would be made for directly elected regional government. And the Leader of the House told us the same day that in due course there would be a White Paper. I read with great care the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol on 21st June; I remain surprised that five Church of England bishops have involved themselves in this matter. Perhaps unbeknown to me the Synod has slipped through the following addendum to the Creed:
"I believe in the Balkanisation of England, another layer or two of local government, a multiplication of councillors and a Europe of the regions".
I have been told nothing about it.
Seriously, I believe that the bishops seek to counter political disenchantment among the electorate as evidenced by the low turn-out at the last election. Their efforts and the support for regional government voiced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, do not appear to be well directed when one looks at the regions about which we speak. They are almost entirely artificial creations invented for the purposes of the regional development agencies Act, with one part often sharing no common problems with another, and, with the possible exception of the North East, reflecting no community of interest or regional loyalty. What is the community of interest between the people of Cornwall and the citizens of Bath? Is it seriously said that the farmers of the Solway share a common regional loyalty with the people of Merseyside? Quite plainly, they do not.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol talked about bringing decision-making closer to the people. For the most part, when power is devolved, not to existing local authorities but to regional bodies, it will not mean giving power to local people but taking it from them. For most of England it will not bring government closer to the people but precisely the reverse. I certainly do not want decisions about northeast Lancashire taken in Merseyside or Manchester. Undoubtedly, what will happen, and is beginning to happen, is that as the regional bodies, which, incidentally, are already setting up separate offices in Brussels, look more and more to Brussels for direction and funding, so our Parliament at Westminster will be sidelined and our national government downgraded. Far from countering public disenchantment with the political process, we shall have added to it and done our best to destroy the simple and transparent system of democratic accountability, until recently proudly acclaimed, whereby the man in the street is linked by his councillor or MP direct to government, local or national, which he knows is responsible for the decisions that affect his life. I commend to the House some words of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth:
"Fragmenting power, far from empowering the people, leaves them uncertain as to whom to hold responsible for public policy".

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I have just one question for the Minister who is to reply; it is of the utmost importance to the people of my locality. Labour's manifesto for the recent general election stated:
"In 1997 we said that provision should be made for directly elected regional government to go ahead in regions where people decided in a referendum to support it and"—
I emphasise—
"where predominantly unitary local government is established".
The right reverend Prelate will support me when I say that in the North West there are 24 non-unitary and 18 unitary authorities. Can the Government assure me that the North West is not a region,
"where predominantly unitary local government is established",
and, therefore, is not threatened with regional government? If the Minister can give me that assurance I shall go away tonight a reasonably happy man.
I have already said it is most important that the man in the street should know who is responsible for the decisions that affect him and whom to approach about them and that there should be a straightforward system of accountability. Since the 1970s Parliament and government have surrendered the right to decide in all kinds of areas what is best for our own people, often in regard to matters which do not have the slightest bearing on our relations with other countries and/or the requirements of a single market. I give one glaring example. Within days of the last general election the Government, because of their folly in accepting the social chapter, were forced to agree a measure which months before they told us they opposed in principle, not least because it made a mockery of the doctrine of subsidiarity. The measure to which I refer forces companies which operate only in this country, not internationally, to set up a system of compulsory consultation with worker representatives on every aspect of their activities and future plans, in effect forcing on us the continental system of works councils, the full absurdity of which I saw some years ago. In, I believe, 1981, with the Department of Employment, I visited the works council for the Paris transport undertaking. I discovered that not a single member of that council had ever done a day's work for the undertaking; every one had been parachuted in from outside by the union. Is that the kind of system we want forced upon us in this country? That is a fairly typical example of how, bit by bit, our ability to govern ourselves and our local and national democracy has been eroded.
Step after step has been taken on the basis that in isolation each of them is insufficiently grave to make too much of a fuss about and imperil our wish to be good members of the club or to be treated as a sticking point. And down the slippery slope we have slithered. At the moment, the issue of the euro is supposed to have been kicked into touch. When we come back to consider it we should not simply assess the possible economic benefit but bear in mind the slippery slope to which I have referred. Abandoning the pound and embracing the euro would mean surrendering control of the levers of economic power necessary to run a
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currency. It would be another major reduction in our ability to control our own affairs, bringing us that much nearer the complete economic, military and political integration which it now appears. from files newly released at the Public Record Office, a defeatist Foreign Office, which never foresaw the Thatcher revolution, set as its aim long ago before we even joined the Common Market.
Those who say that they want us to embrace the single currency but are not in favour of a European government should answer a simple question. If they are in favour of this giant step towards a European government—which they say they do not want—what step would they consider a step too far? We are entitled to an answer. It is time to say what is the sticking point. There is a lot to be said for it being something that everyone can understand, such as the pound. It is our currency and something that has always been a symbol of nationhood.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I must first declare my membership, until the end of this week, of the Strategic Rail Authority and the Commission for Integrated Transport. What I say is not necessarily, or indeed probably, their policy. I am speaking on my own behalf.
I welcome what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said in his introduction about the attention that the Government intend to give to transport safety. We on these Benches shall be looking for a comprehensive Bill on transport safety which expects the same standards to apply both to the railways and road transport. We still await the measures that were promised when 44-tonne lorries were introduced and a proper review of safety in road haulage. I remind the House that far more people are killed and injured in accidents involving heavy lorries than in railway accidents. I also caution against taking a lead from various self-interested parties, such as the Health and Safety Executive, which is more concerned with defending its awful record and building up its organisation even further. It employs far more people than the old Railway Inspectorate did. The report of Lord Cullen's inquiry shows that the Health and Safety Executive believes that it has insufficient resources and is overwhelmed with work. We shall be looking for proposals that will improve safety and which do not simply feed a largely ineffective bureaucracy.
The rush to embrace new systems of railway safety such as advanced train protection should have in mind the fact that no system that can be bought meets the standards of advanced train protection. To set an early date for its implementation before the system is available is making a rod to beat people with.
It was reported in the media last week that the new Secretary of State had ruled out big changes in the structure of the railway. However, he and the Government are seeking speedy delivery of better services. From my background as a professional railwayman, and as a result of recent conversations

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with many others in the industry, I can tell the Secretary of State that he will not experience better services. He will be very fortunate if there is any overall improvement by the next election. Things may indeed get worse.
Railway privatisation was postulated on a number of false premises; first, that there was scope for efficiency gains of up to 20 per cent in the industry; secondly, that legally binding contracts between parties would reduce costs and improve services; and, thirdly, that many competing operators would emerge under open access agreements, which in their turn would require a strong, independent regulator both to force Railtrack to behave efficiently and to see fair play between the competing parties.
The efficiency gains were largely not available. Under strict government controls, British Rail was both lean and hungry and had not enjoyed the monopoly that enabled other nationalised utilities to raise prices and employ administrators and larger work forces than were necessary. The availability of a cheap new energy source—natural gas—and rapid advances in technology underpinned the improving performance in the energy and telecommunications industries. The only real success of railway privatisation has been the opening of rolling stock procurement to a competitive leasing market, which is a course of action that British Rail had unsuccessfully tried to persuade the former Conservative government to allow. However, the success began and largely ended there. Although many more people are using the railways than in the early 1990s, this expansion has largely arisen from a prolonged period of economic growth and increasing congestion on the roads. Some train operating companies, including the freight operators, have invested and improved the service that they offer users, but unless structural changes are made in the industry, the potential benefits of a modern railway will not be widely available in Britain.
The structure of our railways is fragmented and confrontational. It lacks the fundamental cooperation necessary to upgrade infrastructure and introduce new rolling stock in a timely and economical manner. We also lack the trained engineers to carry out the work. For example, the signal engineering industry has lost 850 engineers—one third of its personnel—in the past three years. That is a direct consequence of Railtrack cutting back on investment plans to boost short-term profits. That is a reckless, shortsighted and totally wrong decision. It will in consequence be incredibly difficult to meet tight time-scales to improve rail safety and upgrade the track.
At the heart of the problem is Railtrack, the owner of the infrastructure assets. It has neither the financial muscle nor the engineering competence equal to the task. Its procurement policies are unlikely to encourage others to share that burden. Railtrack seeks both to avoid risks and cushion itself with huge contingency allowances. If Railtrack is not equal to the task, we on these Benches firmly believe that the custody of the national infrastructure assets should be transferred on a long lease to the public interest. We
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believe that, ideally, the new franchises, none of which has been finally signed, should be redrawn and consolidated so that the principal operator becomes responsible for the operation, management and renewal of the infrastructure. We believe that only by bringing those responsible for the infrastructure within the same tent as those running the trains will efficient delivery be ensured.
There are problems with that approach. It would be impossible to transfer the existing infrastructure, with all its faults, or the costs of meeting new safety requirements to the train operators. An indemnity against those costs would have to be defined and provided. There also remains the issue of protecting the rights of secondary users, including freight operators.
The Strategic Rail Authority may have made some mistakes. These probably include not having been prescriptive at the outset about the vision of the railway that it sought to buy. It should return to that task and put more emphasis on the case for a new trunk railway between London, the Midlands and the North. That would stop the impossible task of trying to accommodate a mixture of very high speed passenger trains, local commuter and regional services and the increasingly exacting demands of logistics companies on the present narrow and restricted main lines. In defence of the SRA, in its short life it has had to live with the impact of the regulatory review of Railtrack's track access prices and the consequences of the Hatfield accident when attention has been focused elsewhere.
I urge the Government to ensure that the upcoming strategy document really is a blueprint of the kind of railway that is needed to meet expectations.
However we view the future of the railway, it is quite obvious that a large part of the finance will have to come from the public purse. Because the cost of capital is such a vital ingredient of the eventual cost, it is important that public money is directed to those parts of projects which entail the greatest risk.
In managing this finance it is clear to many of us that one public agency—the Strategic Rail Authority—should be the public procurer and set the terms and conditions attaching to new, more inclusive franchises. There is no separate role for an independent Rail Regulator. If the SRA sets the terms on which franchises are let and is the sponsor on behalf of government of investment in new infrastructure, why should it defer automatically to another public sector person, the Rail Regulator, on matters of risk allocation, hand-over terms and enforcement? We are talking largely about public procurement of public services. There is a need to license operators and to fix track access charges, but those roles could better be encompassed by an economic regulator and a safety regulator accommodated within the Strategic Rail Authority, as they are within the Civil Aviation Authority. We would commend that model to the Government.
The penalty regime within the railway, where the value of delays to trains is soon set to rise substantially, is an expensive, divisive and largely ineffective way of

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enhancing performance. It absorbs a lot of energy and resources. In a more vertically integrated railway, and one which is increasingly replacing its old and unreliable rolling stock, it requires very concentrated effort to deal with the endemic weaknesses and delays caused by a failing infrastructure. The performance regime makes arranging the necessary interruptions to normal service while work is undertaken very expensive. It adds to costs and often prolongs the time needed to execute the work.
So in the spirit of constructive opposition, we make two appeals to the Government. First, the forthcoming re-issue of the objectives, instructions and guidance, both to the Rail Regulator and the Strategic Rail Authority, presents an opportunity to set out the Government's intentions prior to any necessary legislation. The Government should move as quickly as possible to subsume the necessary powers of the Rail Regulator within the Strategic Rail Authority. Secondly, the Government should accept that Railtrack in its present state cannot be a large-scale source of finance for the development of the railway. Press reports last week said that the banks would support a £3 billion bond issue by Railtrack but linked that to a number of conditions. Those were that a review of the structure of the railway is ruled out by the new Secretary of State and that the Rail Regulator uses his powers to maintain at least a single A credit rating. In short, the banks are saying that they will put up the money if there is a government guarantee that Railtrack will not be allowed to default. Any such undertakings given without a fundamental review of structure would be a misuse of public funds and would be hotly contested on these Benches.
In any case, the company does not have the basic engineering competence to maintain and improve the network. We urge the Government to negotiate for a transfer of its infrastructure assets on a long leasehold to the Strategic Rail Authority with the intention of bringing together the train operators and infrastructure contractors into a close relationship within each franchise. Where freight companies are the preponderant user, they should have the same option. To make this change acceptable to Railtrack without renationalisation, Railtrack should be offered a role as a property company, always ensuring that train operation and the needs of rail users are of paramount importance and providing as now that a proportion of profits from property activities continues to be covenanted back to the railway.
I know of only a tiny proportion of professional railway people who believe that a safe, efficient and affordable railway can be provided unless the responsibility for the track and trains is brought together under one vertically integrated leadership. This fundamental issue must be tackled quickly by an incoming government intent on delivery. That can be achieved relatively easily if the Government make it clear to Railtrack that there is an honourable, profitable future for the business as a property company, leaving open also the opportunity to it of investing in future railway development. The SRA should become the focus of more comprehensive
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franchises for the regulation of the industry and the channel of public funds. Development of the network should be through the medium of special purpose investment companies with public and private partners, including the train operators, and should be brought together by the SRA.
The condition of our railways is very serious. The present privatised companies set up under the 1993 Act will not deliver and the problems will grow to haunt the Government. The Bill promised in the gracious Speech to deal with railway safety must extend to embrace other structural alterations. There will be wholehearted co-operation from these Benches in developing proposals to achieve those ends.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Plumb: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his opening statement. I should have liked to have heard a little more about agriculture and the environment. However, we look forward to the response of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I congratulate him on his appointment and I promise to play my part in keeping him extremely busy over the next few months. I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who has done a tremendous job over the past few months, particularly on foot and mouth disease. I know that there are many in the country who recognise and respect the efforts that she put in. Those efforts are appreciated by all of us.
Like my noble friend Lord Palmer and other noble Lords, I was disappointed and concerned that there was no reference in the gracious Speech to the enormous problems in rural areas. Nevertheless, to link together education, the environment and agriculture is appropriate—education because people need to understand a little more about rural affairs and certainly about the food that they consume. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—the new DEFRA—is said by some to mean deaf to rural areas. I sincerely hope that that will not be the case. I say clearly to the Minister that one letter is missing from DEFRA. I do not mind whether it is A or F—A for agriculture or F for farming. It is disappointing for all of us that that is not included in this extremely important area.
I hope that the noble Lord can give an assurance that agriculture will maintain or improve its place in the pecking order as it did with MAFF, that he will concentrate on trying to restore order out of chaos following the devastation caused by foot and mouth disease and following a disastrous two years in farming. There was a 63 per cent fall in farm incomes over the life of the previous Parliament and 51,000 people have left the land over the past two years. Many of the farms they have left will not be restocked. The people will not return.
The talk now is not so much about agriculture but about its role under DEFRA. Eradicating foot and mouth disease is an obvious priority, but stopping it coming in again should be an even greater priority for the Government and for the House. We now realise that a cheap food policy is extremely expensive to the taxpayer.

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The other aims to which I shall refer are: promoting sustainable and diverse farming and food industries; promoting a better environment; creating a thriving rural economy; maintaining the diversity and abundance of the wildlife resources in the countryside; and creating a countryside for all to enjoy. We do not need to remind ourselves that the stewardship of the countryside is in the hands of those who make their living from it. They can help the Minister to achieve his aims if they are given the right resources and encouragement, as well as the correct policies for fair competition.
When the Minister has succeeded in those five aims, I note that his responsibilities also range from fox hunting to climate change. The Minister can leave the matter of fox hunting to this House. We shall resolve it for him. Climate change might take a little longer. Those responsibilities are followed by water management, to coastal defence, which are huge issues. But I hope that the role of animals in food production will not be forgotten under the weight of all those responsibilities. It is an important role in order to ensure that the consumer can enjoy high quality food from—the Minister himself said this the other day—"plough to platter".
Many questions will need to be debated. I shall touch briefly on them. Why cannot British agriculture be competitive at world prices? In this country we bear a huge bureaucratic burden that is designed to ensure the high standards of production to which we have grown accustomed. I hope that the Minister will accept that we can compete only so long as we do not have to compete with substandard imports and burdensome red tape.
Is the food produced in the United Kingdom safe? Food scares have been all too frequent: BSE, swine fever, E. coli, salmonella, foot and mouth disease and so forth. Furthermore, it is regularly reported that our fields are drenched with a cocktail of poisonous chemicals. That sits oddly alongside the fact that the average age in this country continues to climb. Her Majesty sends out more centenary greetings year by year. I never give any credit to the medical profession for that; it is due to the good quality food that our people consume.
It is also odd to note that the amateur gardener can go to any garden centre, buy the same chemicals and then use them having undergone none of the rigorous training or met the strict controls rightly imposed on farmers. That seems to be extremely strange. It ignores completely the fact that we have a competent Food Standards Agency which monitors food safety and security.
Why not turn to organic production? There is a growing interest and incentive for organic production which I applaud. However, a niche market depends on getting a price premium which is already reducing. The Food Standards Agency has stated clearly that there is no basis for the claims of safety or health benefits over traditionally produced food.
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That leads us to the next question: what role is there for science and biotechnology? The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, quite rightly has hammered this point home over many months when we have debated agriculture in this House. I hope that the Minister will support the need for further trials and investigations to be undertaken in the wake of BSE and the public concerns about genetic modification. To put a virtual stop on the work of developing biotechnology via a moratorium would be totally illogical and a folly. It would ignore the great potential that exists to improve human health and the environment, as well as developing products such as bio-fuels. The illogicality of the arguments against further development, in particular against research into genetic modification, is illustrated by the fact that insulin used to treat diabetes has been genetically modified for many years, as has the production of rennet for making cheese. So the research must continue.
Finally, I turn to the common agricultural policy and the World Trade Organisation. I could spend the next hour or two talking about these issues, but I shall point out only that the WTO has become as important as the CAP. It has become important as we move towards the wider world in terms of our market and globalisation. There cannot be a single policy or one simple answer that would suit the geography, climate and environment of the United Kingdom, let alone the rest of Europe. The hills and uplands, the areas of outstanding natural or manmade beauty cannot continue to be farmed under present market prices without support. There are good reasons to contemplate changes in support mechanisms as we turn towards more land-based rather than production-based support, including environmental care and biodiversity.
Environmental care does not just happen, it has to be paid for. Agriculture is and should be about more than simply producing food, but it faces a major handicap by having to compete with the substandard and low-cost imports that I mentioned earlier. I am certainly not opposed to making trade arrangements and reaching agreements, so long as they are fair and competitive. I hope that the Minister will accept the responsibility for using the mechanism to achieve parity in the currency market once our exports have been restored to a more normal pattern.
I hope that the Minister will support our collective aim; namely, to improve the position of British agriculture in Europe and to put the industry at the forefront of a civilised and acceptable progress. I believe that the potential is great and I hope that, before too long, the Minister will consider holding a full debate on these issues and on the policies that concern us for the future.
5.7 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, I wish to make a short contribution to our debate today on the subject of the environment and the pollution of the marine environment caused by shipping and offshore installations. Noble Lords may remember that in February 1996 the vessel the "Sea Empress" sought to

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take the overland route into Milford Haven harbour. It was an unfortunate decision which caused a great deal of pollution. That degree of pollution was much enhanced by the fact that the ship shuttled in a basin just off Milford Haven for no less than six days, resting on a rock whenever she became tired.
That situation became the subject of a marine accident investigation board report which was highly critical of the way in which the operation had been conducted. Following that report, I was asked to head a review team whose essential terms of reference included the following:
"To consider and advise, as appropriate, how the National Contingency Plan for Marine Pollution from Shipping and Offshore Installations should properly reflect the balance of public interest in the conduct of marine salvage operations in which there is a risk of marine pollution and where the use of intervention powers"—
those are, of course, governmental intervention powers—
"may be appropriate.
"To provide specific advice on the adequacy, or otherwise, of the intervention powers currently available to the Secretary of State".
In March 1999 we produced a report which contained some 26 recommendations, all but one of which were either expressly or implicitly accepted by the Government. The core recommendation, from which all else stemmed, was that where the country is faced with a major pollution incident it must be viewed in the same way as a military or naval battle. No battle was ever won by a committee. The previous practice on such occasions had been to form a committee and seek to reach a consensus. In the case of Milford Haven, that took six days.
The man whose office we suggested should take charge of such an operation needed to be served by a skilled staff. Beyond that, he needed to be given freedom of action. We made it quite clear that he must be free of all ministerial and other interference; that he was to be on his own as long as the operation was in progress. The only power of Ministers while it was in progress should be either to sack him or back him. I confess that I was somewhat surprised to find that that recommendation was unconditionally accepted. There has been at least one subsequent incident where the Civil Service persuaded the Minister not even to go and look in case it was thought that he had some responsibility.
That scheme has now been in operation for approximately 18 months; it is working extremely well. Two or three major incidents and quite a number of minor or potential incidents have been headed off. But—and this is the point—none of the changes and the setting up of the whole new scheme involved statutory assistance.
I turn now to my excuse for joining the debate. There remain two problems which can be solved only by primary legislation. They are small problems in compass but they are of considerable importance. The first is that the man or woman in control needs to be able to direct riparian owners of wharves, jetties and piers to allow a damaged ship to moor to them. There
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has been at least one case. A damaged ship off the Isle of Wight wanted to get into the approaches to Southampton harbour, I think to moor—I hope I do not defame anyone unjustly—at the Fawley refinery. But Fawley said, "Not in our back yard", and was entitled to do so. That kind of situation cannot be allowed to continue.
The second, much more wide-ranging, problem is that we were asked to consider what we should do about offshore installations. The only real powers to deal with a situation are contained in the Merchant Shipping Act, and they do not allow for being used where there is a problem with an offshore installation unless a ship has run into it. Even then it would be necessary that the ship was the producer of the pollution rather than the offshore installation.
We have made it clear—and the Government have agreed—that there ought to be one supremo to control these operations, whether they involve a ship, a ship and an offshore installation or an offshore installation alone. Just to complicate matters, a few offshore installations are in fact ships in the sense that they float and are merely moored to the ocean floor. One man ought to control operations. He will of course require very different skilled advice according to whether or not an offshore installation is involved. The DTI has considerable powers for dealing with that aspect, but they are not sufficient. Those powers are, of course, concerned with the technical and safety aspects of running installations.
The change which is required is a very simple, very short one: it is to provide that in the Act "ship" includes offshore installations. Thereafter the whole thing works perfectly all right. I might have expected that one or other of the departments would have produced a one clause Bill. I do not criticise them at all; that is not the way in which Parliament works. Departments get slots from a legislative committee, and some departments get one only once every three years, or something of that kind. Certainly the transport department has not got a slot for this year and I am not sure whether the DTI has either. So, unless someone else does something, we shall have to wait until the 2002–03 Session.
That is not good enough. I therefore propose—this is my real reason for getting to my feet today—to seek the leave of this House, I hope before the Summer Recess, to introduce a one clause Bill to deal with both these matters. I have not added up the number of words involved, but it is certainly well under 100. I hope that the Bill will pass through this House without a problem. But there will be a problem in the other place. Although it has a purely public interest purpose, it will be a Private Member's Bill, and those Members of the other place who have managed to get a place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills will not want to take up a Bill such as this; it will have no kudos, no glamour, no attraction whatever for them. I hope—and this is my plea—that after the Bill passes through this House, as I have no doubt it will, the Government will take a deep breath when it gets to the other place and allocate five minutes for it to pass through that House.
5.16 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I hope that it will not upset my noble friends on the Front Bench too much if I begin by offering a little sympathy for the view expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, at the beginning of her speech about the range of subjects we are being asked to debate today. Education, environment and agriculture cover an extraordinarily wide range. They seem to have little in common, other than the fact that each word begins with a vowel. While I have no doubt about the versatility of my noble friend Lord Whitty and his ability to field every ball that comes his way, I think we might perhaps do better in future to have a succession of individual debates covering each subject. Perhaps that is something that the usual channels may wish to consider for another year.
I shall speak about transport. In doing so, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who spoke on the subject a few moments ago, and I precede my noble friend Lord Berkeley, who I know intends to return to the issue.
I welcome the two announcements contained in the gracious Speech which are relevant here and which were referred to by my noble and learned friend in his opening speech. The first is the commitment to publish legislation to take forward the recommendations of the inquiry of the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, into rail safety. I shall say more about that in a moment. It is good news. I had not heard before, but it will also be a part of wider legislation covering safety in the work place.
The second announcement is the Government's decision to make the age entitlement for concessionary travel the same for men and women at the age of 60. That will be something for me to look forward to in five years time.
It was surprising that transport did not feature more prominently in the general election campaign. The Conservative Party, as I recall, spent a day portraying itself as the "motorist's friend", promising a 6p a litre reduction in petrol duty and an increase in speed limits on motorways.
There was some discussion about the building of roads through our countryside, but I think that the general view now is that building roads everywhere will not work as a solution to transport problems. If we carry on building roads and do nothing else, the congestion will just keep growing. One academic has worked out that we would have to build a road from London to Edinburgh 250 lanes wide to cater for all the traffic if present trends continue.
So the priority for the next four years will not be to build more roads, or to make the cost of motoring cheaper, or to sit back and allow the proportion and volume of freight travelling by road to grow greater and greater. When it comes to road building, the days of "predict and provide" are over and will never return.
For a start, we need to make road safety a greater priority. We have some of the safest roads in Europe, but that still means more than 3,000 people killed on
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them every year. We also have one of the highest levels of child road casualties; 13 children are killed or injured on our roads every day. Everything has to be done to ensure that the new targets to cut the death toll are met. We must press on with encouraging local councils to set up safe routes to schools for children.
As speeding is such a major cause of accidents, the police must have the powers and funds to set up more speed cameras, and councils the powers and the money to cut speed limits on dangerous roads.
I believe that the Government's approach on these matters is in accord with the public mood. People accept that our transport system cannot be only car or lorry-based. But they expect that if people are to be persuaded to leave their cars at home and to take public transport, those rail, bus, underground and, increasingly, tramway systems have to be of a standard that makes their usage a pleasant, safe and affordable alternative. Progress in many of these areas over the past four years has been good, and I particularly welcome the growth of the light rail and tramway systems in a number of our conurbations. But the same is not true of our railways. I desperately wish that it were. When this Government came to power in 1997, they inherited a fragmented, divided railway, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said earlier.
The Public Accounts Committee in another place, chaired by Conservative Party leadership candidate, David Davis, concluded in August last year:
"Railtrack's licence at privatisation contained serious shortcomings because of haste in privatising Railtrack and. as a result, passengers have seen poorer track quality, weak contracts between Railtrack and train operators, and possibly unjustified performance bonuses to Railtrack. We are concerned that this haste contributed to serious deficiencies in the subsequent regulatory regime".
That report came out just two months before the Hatfield crash, and well before the recent announcements from Railtrack of a huge dividend for shareholders, and Mr Gerald Corbett's not ungenerous pay-off arrangements which were concluded the other day.
Scarcely has a day passed since the Hatfield crash when there has not been some critical press comment in relation to Railtrack's performance. The pieces that appeared last week following the publication of Lord Cullen's report on the Ladbroke Grove crash give a flavour of the degree of public concern that exists in regard to rail safety and the management of the privatised railway.
Let us take, for example, the Guardian leader last Wednesday:
"It has become difficult to see how the earning of high dividends for shareholders is compatible with providing a safe, efficient railway free of dependence on public funds.
"British Rail, so often the butt of comedians' jokes, was far from perfect. It, too, suffered serious rail accidents and had to battle on, deprived of the necessary investment to run a successful railway as they do in France.
"But at least there was a culture of public service which has been undermined by the dash-for-profit mentality of its new owners who have found, as have other privatised utilities, that cutting experienced staff can be a false economy".

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My worry is that in relation to transport policy the Government may find themselves "derailed" during the lifetime of this Parliament for reasons that are not of their making. For example, I urge my noble friends to read the "Informed Sources" column in the July issue of Modern Railways, written by one of the most respected and authoritative commentators in this area, Roger Ford. He points out that the cost per mile of railway upgrade and modernisation projects has risen by between 2.4 and three times since Railtrack took over from British Rail. He says that the cost of the Euston to Manchester and Great Northern schemes of 1966 and 1976 worked out at £4.9 million per route mile, at the year 2000 price levels. Heathrow Express cost £5.6 million per mile in 1993. The West Coast main line, as let by BR in 1996, was calculated at £6 million per mile.
Now, Railtrack is finding that the West Coast upgrade is costing it £15.75 million per mile—almost the same price as the French railways paid to build an entirely new TGV line into Marseilles, involving the most sophisticated and expensive engineering works. There are other examples: the resignalling project at Leeds—which was the subject of a short debate in this House before the election—was launched at a cost of £100 million. It was approved by Railtrack at £150 million and actually cost £240 million—a factor of 2.4 times on the original BR estimate.
The truth is that the privatised railway is much more complicated to run and to manage. The contractual relationships mean that each part has to make a profit, operators have to be compensated for disruption to services, the gangs spend less time in possession of track, and have to work to new safety rules. All these have inflated the cost per mile by a factor of three. So, according to Mr Ford, the railway investment assumptions in the 10-year transport plan should be divided by two if you are an optimist, and by three if you are a pessimist or a realist.
I am also concerned about what is happening on the rail freight side. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Berkeley will have more to say on this subject later. I have been talking to Consignia, which most of us have known until recently as the Post Office. It is still the railway's largest single freight customer. And so it should be: the overnight delivery of mail by rail should be quicker than by road; it should be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than by air. But Consignia is being pressed by its regulator for improved quality of service and lower prices. It is now a government-owned plc and is required to operate at a profit.
Over the past year, Consignia has suffered appalling delays as a result of the Hatfield accident and its aftermath, which have led to increased costs and lost business. Last week, it announced a total review of its entire road, rail and air networks. The company assures me that it has art open mind—but it has certainly thrown down a challenge to the railway. If the railway cannot respond with a guarantee of faster, more reliable services at competitive prices, the traffic will switch to road and to air.
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So my concern is that, although many good things are happening in the field of transport—the one-third growth in passengers over the past six years and the 40 per cent growth in freight are good examples—there are many worries and uncertainties.
The Government have done their best to put the industry back together again with the Strategic Rail Authority and have introduced tougher regulation to protect the passenger. As the railway industry is now a private/public sector partnership, an independent economic regulator is essential in order to get private money flowing into the railways.
It is not sensible to do what some commentators and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, have proposed; namely, to merge the Rail Regulator with the SRA. That is because we must protect and promote investment; and that requires the independent economic regulator to act as referee in these public/private partnerships. Tough and effective regulation provides the best chance of putting right the weaknesses in the system, and the regulator is increasing the accountability of Railtrack as regards the public interest. He must be allowed to press on with that.
At a conference being held today, the train operators are asking for a stronger lead from the Strategic Rail Authority, and they are talking about amalgamating companies into larger regional units, vertically integrated, so that they are responsible for their own track and signalling. If those of your Lordships with long memories think that that sounds like the recreation of the big four regional companies that were set up in 1923 and existed until the time of post-war nationalisation, you would not be far wrong.
The backlog of investment—particularly serious during the privatisation process and in the years before that—coupled with the growth in demand, have produced a set of problems which will take time to resolve. It will be years rather than months before they are resolved.
We cannot afford another collective nervous breakdown—that was Sir Alastair Morton's phrase of the sort that paralysed the railway after Hatfield. My worry is that the fragmentation of the industry will make it so much harder to deliver the improvements on time and on budget. If the targets are missed, or if some other disaster strikes the railway, I fear that the public's patience will run out, and they will challenge the industry's structure and ownership.
I know that Ministers have no desire to add burdens of ownership and control of the railways to the responsibilities that they already have as guardians of the public interest. But I am afraid that if we have not made a substantial difference by the time this Parliament ends, we shall all be held to account by the voters, regardless of who owns the industry.
5.29 p.m.
Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in his place. There is much that the Government have to answer for at the end of the debate. I am pleased also to see the noble

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Baroness, Lady Byford, in her place. The noble Baroness has done much to fly the flag of agriculture in the past year or so in this House.
I want to concentrate on the future. But, first, the Government must face criticism of their handling of matters in the past four years, and particularly in the past four months. The present recession in farming is the worst in living memory—and that was before the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Farmers are calling for, and expect, a lead. Yet there was no mention of agriculture and the environment in the gracious Speech. Everyone in the farming industry I have met in the past week has been appalled at that situation. Farmers were totally omitted from the gracious Speech, except as regards the continuing confrontation over hunting. Farmers have been left to pick up the pieces after the passing of the countryside Act. We expect an even more draconian Scottish land reform Bill to be introduced.
Ministers have declined to say that there will be a full public inquiry into foot and mouth disease. However, farmers and others will demand one. We want to know how it started, why it spread so rapidly and why the Government were so slow to react. I declare my interest as a farmer who had all his fit sheep slaughtered in April. Some 600,000 more livestock were slaughtered in Dumfries and Galloway. The Government must not and should not hide behind the statement that they must wait until foot and mouth disease is eradicated before they conduct a public inquiry. They were happy to hold an inquiry into BSE when it was prevalent in this country, as indeed it still is.
I refer to an extremely important issue in connection with imports. On 5th March I asked a supplementary question about meat imports from countries outside the European Union where foot and mouth disease is endemic. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, replied on behalf of the Department of Health. It took many phone calls to get a reply to my letter of 6th March in which I complained about his Answer. I finally received a reply to that letter on 6th June, the day before the general election. The gist of the letter, which I have before me, is that imported meat is subject to strict controls and that meat is imported only from countries with health and hygiene standards that are on a par with our own. Further, meat is imported only from named meat plants. The letter referred to countries, or parts of countries, from which meat had recently been banned, such as Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Swaziland and Uruguay. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that the Government have followed up all the instances of endemic disease in foreign countries with regard to banning imports into this country.
Who has checked imported meat and issued veterinary certificates? Is that the responsibility of the Department of Health, local authorities or Customs and Excise? Who is responsible for those procedures? I do not think that the Government have the matter adequately covered at the present time. Indeed, they seem to accept that the present outbreak was caused by
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imported meat. How did that meat enter the country if the Government insist that all the necessary controls were in place?
The Minister in the Scottish Parliament responsible for agriculture will comment today on the future of farming. I hope that he and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, have some good news. Farming must be profitable. If it is not, how can farmers promote the environment and the habitat that we all want to see in the countryside? How can the rural economy prosper if nearly all farmers are making a loss? That applies to tourism and all the ancillary industries attached to agriculture.
Academics and Ministers keep saying that the CAP will be reformed. However, it is absolutely clear that a reform of the CAP will result in farmers receiving less from it. It is said that farmers should diversify, but diversification schemes need to be profitable and they require an injection of capital and expertise. All those factors are lacking in farming today.
The president of the Scottish National Farmers' Union, Jim Walker, has done a magnificent job throughout the foot and mouth crisis. I attended a meeting at which he spoke in Dumfries a fortnight ago. He gave an extremely gloomy forecast of the future of the sheep sector. The Government are not helping at the present time. Cuts have been imposed in the less favoured area payments. They have decreased from a figure of 90 per cent to 50 per cent to nil. That is not a good situation for hill farmers.
New rules have been introduced as regards the beef special premium and the 90-head total. That constitutes another cut in income. The modulation of stocking density also constitutes a problem for farmers. A rule has been introduced with regard to keeping heifers on a farm which also constitutes a handicap. The sheep annual premium is down this year to £8.7. That is pathetic and the farmers' union has said so. The Government are talking about a 20-day standstill for any livestock being brought onto a farm. That is absolutely ludicrous. One cannot believe that any civil servant or Minister understands what they are doing with regard to a 20-day standstill. Farming will cease to exist if that measure is introduced. Of course we need to be careful as regards bringing stock on to farms but a standstill would make the position impossible.
Do the Government realise that in six to eight weeks' time the hill lamb sales would have started? Those are absolutely vital to hill farming. At the moment, rightly, there are no livestock movements, no auction marts and no market. What will happen to the tens of thousands of hill lambs throughout the United Kingdom? Have the Government a plan or advice? Can they help us? There is a deathly silence from the ministries.
Does the Minister realise that last year Scotland exported £228 million worth of sheepmeat from both live and dead stock? That has all stopped. Where will farmers earn that money this year? Those exports are just not possible at the present time. But if some help is not given to farming the whole of the hill landscape

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will deteriorate. We want information. Every farmer is asking why we cannot get information out of the Government. The worst thing of all is the lack of genuine information. When can we start to restock? Why does the situation appear to change almost every day with every fresh telephone call one makes? Why does no one answer the telephone? I have tried to get a response on umpteen occasions but I speak to an answering machine and no one ever rings back.
When will blood testing be carried out, or is it the Government's policy to carry out blood testing? Can we be given an authoritative statement on tax on compensation? The accountants are waiting for such a statement. In any case "compensation" is not the right word to use because it is not a case of compensation. I refer to what the Government paid us when our stock were compulsorily slaughtered. The money paid is not adequate compensation for lost income over the years to come.
I hope that the Minister is getting the message. I was glad to note that the Secretary of State travelled as far as Yorkshire yesterday and may have learned something from the farming community there. The rural recovery at the moment is non-existent. Farming and tourism are at a standstill. The Government talk about the importance of the environment. I refer to the environment almost in brackets as it does not form an important part of my speech. I am concerned at comments that we must beautify the countryside, and yet the Government are hell bent on allowing more windfarrns, telecommunications masts and pylons to be constructed. I am aware that those plans were slightly modified in March, but that is an extremely small step in the direction of trying to prevent the proliferation of these dreadful eyesores on almost every hilltop between my home in the Borders and Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Government have adopted a pathetic attitude towards those obstructions in the countryside.
It is important now to have a speedy recovery and for the Government to give a lead and some help. What we and the farmers want to hear is how the Government will help this essential industry both for the sake of the whole rural economy and the countryside which we all love and wish to see improved. I believe that the Government should address the situation in far greater depth than their comments in the gracious Speech provide. I hope that tonight the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will start to give us some helpful advice.
5.39 p.m.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, when he referred to the difficulties of having a debate on such disparate subjects as education, environment and agriculture. On the same occasion last year a number of noble Lords emphasised the point. From these Benches my noble friend Lady Sharp and I were quite vigorous on the subject. We asked the usual channels to do something about it. I do not know how long it
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takes the usual channels to listen to the grass roots. Now that they have 18 months before this occasion arises again perhaps they may do something.
I was glad to note the re-affirmation in the gracious Speech that the Government regard,
"tackling climate change and making a reality of sustainable development"
a priority. I also welcome the announcement yesterday that there is to be a wide-ranging energy review in which the climate change issue is bound to be a major consideration. This is a subject on which I spoke in the equivalent debate last year. I come back to it again because I remain concerned that the Government will not achieve their climate change objectives unless there are major policy changes.
Let me start with the objectives. The Government have committed themselves to reducing carbon emissions by 20 per cent compared with 1990 by the year 2010. An essential part of that is to increase the amount of electricity generated by renewable sources to 10 per cent by that date, with a similar objective for combined heat and power.
In its substantial report issued in June last year, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution expressed doubts about whether the Government's objectives for 2010 could be achieved without further action being taken and was particularly concerned about the position after 2010 when it considered that as a minimum a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions should be achieved by 2050 in view of the increasing problems arising from climate change. I must say that I share the concern of the Royal Commission on both counts.
The trouble is that in the shorter term. in the period up to 2010, the Government have, as a result of a number of measures, made the achievement of the specific targets for renewables and CHF' much more difficult. Instead of the 10 per cent objective by 2010 the present trends seem to indicate that we would be lucky to achieve half that figure by that date.
Let me deal with some of the obstacles. While energy produced from renewables escapes the climate change levy, this is only partly true in the case of CHP. These schemes, which produce both heat and electricity and therefore achieve much greater efficiency in the conversion of primary energy than electricity-only schemes such as power stations, are tailored to meet customers' heat requirements. At certain times they produce more electricity than those customers require. They must therefore export the electricity to the grid. When that happens it attracts the levy. The effect of this unreal distinction is that many CHP schemes have now been put on hold.
A more serious impediment affecting both renewables and CHP schemes arises from the introduction on 27th March of the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA). Under the balancing mechanism of those arrangements a substantial penalty is levied on electricity generators which cannot precisely estimate how much they are likely to supply to their customers and to cover those supplies by contract. Any shortfall or oversupply bears a

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substantial financial penalty. But by their very nature these schemes cannot precisely forecast how much electricity they will produce. The most telling example applies to wind farms, which cannot make forecasts because they cannot tell in advance what will be the effect of the wind. A number of suggestions have been made about how this difficulty might be overcome but so far Ofgem, the regulatory body, has not agreed to make any change. However, it has been asked by the Government to conduct a review into the first two months of the impact of the balancing mechanism of NETA on smaller generators such as renewables and CHP. In addition, an independent inquiry has been launched in which a number of Peers, including myself, will be involved.
A related issue is the development of embedded generation. This is small-scale generation which links into the local electricity network rather than the national grid. There is an increasing trend towards smaller-scale electricity generation which has many environmental and economic advantages, especially when based on combined heat and power systems. The ultimate form of embedded generation is microgeneration which can take generation down to the scale required for domestic premises. Much work is being done on this—and here I declare an interest. Because I believe that this is an important future trend contributing to the more efficient use of energy, I have recently taken the initiative of forming a company under the name of Micropower which is supported by five of the largest groups interested in this sector. In taking this initiative I believe that I am responding to the challenge posed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer about innovation and the formation of new small companies. For microgeneration to succeed a suitable regulatory framework is needed and recommendations for that were made in the recent embedded generation report. I understand that the Government will shortly consider this report in depth.
The problems associated with meeting the climate change targets in the year up to 2010 are overshadowed by the difficulties likely to arise after that date. There will then be the withdrawal of further nuclear plant, and their replacement is a matter which requires urgent consideration. This will no doubt be a priority in the newly announced energy review. In this situation it is obvious that renewables and CHP should be further developed and there could also be a role for my old industry, the coal industry, so long as clean coal technology is successfully developed. It is important that agreement should be reached very quickly on the construction of a clean coal technology demonstration plant of the capacity of about 400 or 500 megawatts. Such a plant would require three years to build and could then be used to demonstrate the contribution that this technology could make in the period after 2010.
The Government have announced that one of their key objectives in this Parliament will be the delivery of policy objectives, especially in education, health, law and order and transport. There is a strong case for adding the environment to this list. The technology for
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reducing carbon emissions, which is the main issue within the environmental sector, is well proven. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, referred earlier to the contribution which could be made by biofuel. New technologies such as microgeneration are being vigorously developed. What is needed is a regulatory and fiscal framework which will encourage such developments and not hinder them. I hope that the new energy review will deal with this issue.
5.49 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Bradford: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate not as an expert in any of the subjects under discussion but as a general practitioner, a pastor, whose diocese contains what the press call the Settle rectangle where foot and mouth disease has been rampant; and a diocese which takes education very seriously indeed.
Perhaps I may first comment on education. We are grateful for the encouragement given to Church schools. We are also extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for his report. I look forward to hearing him when he next speaks.
I join my Church brother, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn, in saying that it is a fiction to project Church of England schools as sectarian. The diocese of Bradford has 60 primary schools, a number of which have more than 90 per cent Muslim pupils. None of our schools is sectarian. They are community schools in which we encourage young people of all backgrounds and of all faiths and none to come together and learn in an environment that is motivated by Christian principles and Christian practice.
The problem is greater with senior schools. The diocese of Bradford—unnoticed, as usual—has led the Church of England by creating two new senior schools in the past couple of years, Immanuel Community College and Bradford Cathedral Community College. One of the problems in Bradford is that when there is violence, it is almost always between teenagers and youngsters with different racial backgrounds who have little or no contact in their normal daily life.
Our problem is to try to get schools at a senior level in which youngsters of all races can continue to meet, get to know each other and, hopefully, build up some trust. That is very difficult. I should welcome comment from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on whether the Government will take the problem seriously. Nobody wants contrived ways of making schools have a certain mix, but parents of older children tend to vote with their feet. Whether we like it or not, in many schools the pupils come almost exclusively from one background. I read recently that someone in London had suggested setting up schools that were entirely for black people. I hope that that idea will be thrown out. We need the reverse. That kind of sectarianism—if I can call it that—is very damaging.
There have been many criticisms flying around—and I am sure that there are more to come—on issues relating to agriculture, rural life and foot and mouth. I shall pay tribute to some of the good things that I have observed in our part of North Yorkshire. The

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mutual support given by farmers to each other has been astonishing and very moving. As someone who earns his living as a pastor, I am full of admiration for the way in which they have cared for each other. I am most impressed by the help that the Farm Crisis Network has given to farmers in great distress. The latest figures that I have for the ARC fund at Stoneleigh show that more than £6.15 million has been contributed by Church people throughout the country towards the relief of those in need. I also pay tribute to the outstanding care given by two of my clergy when a young man committed suicide because he thought that he was responsible for the spread of foot and mouth in his area. He left behind a partner and two children.
All the clergy in the parishes have given outstanding care. Unlike people in national office, they live, work and share the lives of people day in, day out, come rain or shine. I have been proud of the clergy in the diocese and the standard of pastoral care that they have offered, although I have to admit that one of them took it slightly too far. A young incumbent, spotting a farmer's wife in some distress trying to round up some sheep, vaulted a five-bar gate to help her, only to discover that he had entered a field that had been declared contaminated and he could no longer visit any other farms in the area. The age of chivalry is not dead, but sometimes valour exceeds discretion.
I have spoken to 80 farmers by telephone and written to another 220-odd. That is the number in the diocese of Bradford. Most of them have spoken very kindly of many of the people who have been carrying out the culling. It must be an awful job. They have spoken very appreciatively of the sensitivity, care and compassion shown by most, if not all, of those involved. They have also spoken very warmly of the Army. I pay public tribute to the soldiers, who are doing a very difficult job for which they were not trained—and doing it with distinction. Among all this, there is something very good.
The presiding member of the Mother's Union in the diocese of Bradford—an organisation that is not mentioned often in your Lordships' House—is a farmer's wife who is involved in practical farming. On behalf of the Mother's Union, she has been in contact with every affected family in the diocese with prayer cards and support. That local activity shows the tremendous support of local people for all those who are suffering so badly.
Many people I have spoken to would echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, about a lack of sensitivity. Whether or not Her Majesty's Government have been insensitive and uncaring—perhaps I am not in a position to judge—that is the perception. Almost all those whom I have spoken to have said that all the straws in the wind point in that direction. It has been noted several times this afternoon that there is no mention of agriculture in the gracious Speech. That is just another example of that attitude. The lack of interest from all political parties before the election was so stunning that we sent out a press release to point out the fact. The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the BBC picked it up.
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I appreciate that there are many things on people's minds before a general election, but to show no interest in a place such as North Yorkshire during that time was unfortunate. The Secretary of State's visit yesterday was very welcome. I hope that she and others will come regularly, but I am reminded of the Prime Minister's visit to Yorkshire to encourage tourism. He went to York, which is a very fine city and I very much like going there, but the people of Settle and Skipton were not impressed. If he had gone to Skipton on market day I could have promised him a very interesting time. He would certainly have made an impact. I still hope that he might come and do that.
Mr Brown came to Settle before the election, when the issue was still his responsibility. He spoke to MAFF officials and I think that he spoke to the Army, but I do not think that he spoke to more than one or two people in the farming and rural community.
That is noticed and taken on board. Unfair or not, the perception is that agriculture and the people involved in it are expendable and do not matter. In such an environment, accusation and counter-accusation fly all over the place. There are suggestions that it is all a mafia-type plot from Brussels or that the Government intend to get rid of all farmers. I do not believe that for a moment, but it shows that this is not an academic problem or a question of figures on pieces of paper. We are talking about people and their whole lives. Many of them had pedigree herds built up over generations. Dairy farmers have told me that there is no longer anything to get up for in the morning. Their lives have been completely changed.
Whether we like it or not, the rural community is being changed. The issue affects all of us. We are not just talking about jobs. The whole nature of the community is being changed. I am surprised that that has not been noted. In 1971, I was the vicar of a country parish in Northumberland next to Ashington, which was a huge mining town. During the miner's dispute, I saw families split in two, with father and son not speaking to each other, and people chopping down telegraph poles to have something to burn. The issue was about more than jobs—it was the disintegration of a community.
We need to have an assurance from Her Majesty's Government—I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will give this—that there is a realisation that we are talking about whole communities and their future. I appeal to the noble Lord to say that he will offer hope—I emphasise the word "hope".
I cannot for the life of me understand why there cannot be an independent inquiry. It may involve legal issues; it may take a long time. But the people to whom I have been talking say that, if there is no inquiry, there must be a cover-up. I do not make that deduction, but one can understand why people do. We must have people in government who are prepared to put up their hands and say, "We made a mistake"; farmers must be prepared to say that bad practices and bad farming took place and that we must get rid of them. In other words, we must have honesty, all the cards must be put on the table, and we must resolve together to place things on a much better footing.

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At this point, I put in a particular plea for the Church. Alas, I am aware that when the Secretary of State went to Yorkshire yesterday she did not meet anyone from the Church. The clergy and the laity of the Church have been at the very heart of this matter, day in and day out, offering the type of pastoral care and support that other people cannot. We have the Craven Trust, which was formed in my house and has one of my archdeacons at its heart. It raises money for rural projects. The Dales Recovery Appeal has now been formed. It has £1 million for those who will not be compensated, such as people who run rural bed and breakfast accommodation and village shops.
I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government will forgive a little piece of impertinence if I say that, in addition to whatever else they provide, perhaps they will match pound for pound the money raised by the Dales Recovery Appeal. I do not see any animation, so perhaps I am a man who lives constantly in the world of hope.
I end with one word. The future is absolutely crucial. Farmer after farmer and shopkeeper after shopkeeper say, "We do not know what is happening; we do not know where we are going. Nobody will tell us. Please will you come often to these places that are affected? Please will you give people a vision of what you are aiming for after you have consulted them?"
I reflect on the word "minister". I am a minister—a minister of the Church—and therefore I am a servant. As a Bishop, the first thing that one must do is listen. I hope very much that those who share the title "Minister" will also listen, produce a vision for the future and give our people some hope.
6.2 p.m.
Lord Dearing: My Lords, two right reverend Prelates have referred to a recent report in which I had a hand. One of them encouraged me to say more about it. Having listened to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn summarise the contents of 98 closely-typed pages in as many words, I shall hold my peace and congratulate the House on having received such a brilliant summary in so few words.
I shall simply add one or two points—one perhaps to the Church. In its manifesto the Labour Party says that it would like more Church schools where the local people want them. The noble Baroness, Lady Blotch, said this afternoon on behalf of her party that she would welcome more Church schools. I recall from consultation that the Liberal-Democrat Party has good will towards Church schools. More and more parents are saying that they would like to be able to send their children to a Church school. I hope that the Church will welcome this opening of the doors from society to more Church schools.
Having said that, I want to summarise what, for me, is the proper position of the Church in relation to schools. I quote the words of Lord Runcie when he was Archbishop of Canterbury. I do so in order to demonstrate that the Church does not seek to be exclusive but inclusive. He said that Church schools
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should nourish those of the faith, encourage those of other faiths and challenge those of no faith. That is an inclusive approach.
I move on to one or two other issues. The Government said through the gracious Speech that they propose to engage in educational reform through an education Bill. They propose to promote diversity and improve standards, especially in secondary schools. I believe that we all welcome that intention warmly. I certainly do. However, there is always some risk. If one aims to improve standards through setting a target in terms of the number or percentage of pupils who reach level "x", those who have no chance of reaching level "x" may not receive the attention that they need because the school is so committed to responding to the request expressed on behalf of society through those targets.
I have spoken before about the scandal that exists in our land whereby, in the words of the Moser report, one-fifth of our adults cannot find a plumber in Yellow Pages because they cannot read well enough. In terms of numeracy, the report states that the problem is even greater. I hope very much that, in improving standards, the Government show the commitment to those young people that they do to raising standards as a whole. Indeed, an even greater commitment is required because we are in danger of producing a fragmented society in which a large number of people cannot participate effectively. The danger is that people will say, "No, we are not players", and an anti-culture to society will come about which will be highly dangerous to us all.
In April the Government published a consultative document on funding community action. If I added up the numbers correctly—probably I did not but the result is near enough—they are envisaging spending £340 million over a period of three years in order to promote community action. I saw with gladness that the document was not the work of only one department; it was the work of several departments coming together. Good, I thought. I also thought to myself that we shall never solve the problem of that 20 per cent of the population if we see it entirely as an educational problem.
Of course, the teachers can and will do more, but we shall never crack the problem unless we see it also as a social problem whose solution requires the active involvement of local communities at grass roots level—that is, neighbours. When the consultation period is completed, I hope very much that, given the difficulty of getting through to people who are not good readers and who do not listen very much to the statements of Ministers, the Government will promote the opportunity with the vigour with which "Sid" was used to promote the sale of British Gas.
We need to promote the idea to Sid and to Mary Jane—ordinary, disadvantaged people—on a great scale in order to persuade them to become involved in action at a local level and to view, in particular, the school as a centre of community. I have referred previously to the success that the country of Cumbria is having with community renewal and in bringing

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communities back together through education and through the use of information technology in schools. I believe that 70 or 80 such initiatives are now in existence. Other communities have their own initiatives. These are community initiatives and I believe that they provide a vehicle through which we can reach 'parents.
Perhaps I may say that £70 million is identified for the relief of child poverty. Who knows better the signals of child poverty than the class teacher in a primary school? I remember a head teacher who always looked to see whether the children's feet were dry, whether they had decent shoes and whether they had eaten breakfast. Teachers know such things and, through schools, we can sponsor community action with that funding. That is my first request to the Government: promote us to "Sid" so that we may see the schools as centres of community action opportunity.
In her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, referred to a development that I had not heard of. I have since read about it as best I can in a few brief moments. It involved the Government's announcement today of a new award. The relevant passage in the announcement, which is headed, "Editors Notes", stated:
"The new award would recognise a package of qualifications achieved by young people by the time they reach 19 which would demonstrate both breadth and depth".
I want to pick up that point. As much as 45 years ago, the Crowther committee commented on the peculiarity of education in England and Wales, in contradistinction to the rest of Western Europe and North America. It stated that after the age of 16 we focused on two or three subjects to the exclusion of breadth. Years later that point was picked up by the Schools Council and the Higginson committee. Lord Walton's National Commission on Education picked it up, and the wretched Dearing report, which was produced for the previous government, urged that one but not the only route to be encouraged involved marrying depth of study with breadth. I am obviously cheered by the proposal. We should never try to compress a child's aspirations to the one mould that we think is right. Young people are immense in their diversity. We need to encourage depth with breadth because admissions tutors and universities are looking only for depth in their subject. For goodness' sake, let us also encourage those who have a clear vision of where they want to be and the talent to go for it.
Finally, and perhaps with some impertinence, I want to put two points to the Government. Much needs to be done in secondary education but one will make most progress by choosing those few things that matter and by staying with them, rather than by pursuing a plethora of brilliant initiatives that are obviously right. For goodness' sake, schools are little places, and in that regard we should concentrate.
Finally, I wish the new Secretary of State and her team, which includes the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, great success in their task. Their success will be the success of us all.
6.12 p.m.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as a small farmer and property owner, as chairman of a company that is involved with regeneration in the rural and urban economy, as a director of a major food company and as the president of the Combined Heat and Power Association. I have nothing to do with education whatsoever but that did not stop me from enjoying the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing.
For many years I was in the cheesemaking business. One of the fascinating things about making cheese is that all cheeses start from one ingredient—milk. With the addition of a little bacteria and some rennet, one can create every known cheese, although there is also the added ingredient of the skill of the cheesemaker. There is one great enemy in cheesemaking; we call it a bacteriophage. It is an anti-phage that builds up in the dairy after a long period of cheesemaking and kills the bacteria that one needs.
The rural farming economy also involves a simple process: one simply needs land and the skill of the farmer. We have suffered tremendously from a bacteriophage; namely, government interference, regulation and, above all, the CAP. All of my life, that has been the bacteriophage in the farming industry.
The CAP involves a process that is based on production. People are paid for production. If we pay people for production, they will produce—that is exactly what they will do. If we paid one side of this House more than the other, I know where every Member would sit. However, we do not appear to understand that simple fact. While we pay people for production, we ask from them the opposite—we ask for environmental care, for special processes and for high systems of care for one's production and we ask them to look after the consumer and to comply with regulations. That process has got to stop.
I have at various periods and for many years sat on Sub-Committee D of this House's European Union Committee. That sub-committee is responsible for agriculture, food and farming. Whenever we have investigated the matter, we have always come to the conclusion and written in our reports that the CAP is faulty and should not continue. However, it has done so year on year.
I suggest a different approach that supports and encourages what I shall call a middle way in farming. It involves a less intensive system of farming. We could encourage that by stopping paying for production and by starting to pay for the products that people really want; namely, quality of food, consistency of quality, certainty about the system of production and the supply of environmental products, which have already been referred to. We should pay people for realising those aims. If they do not want to produce them—if they prefer to use the standard system, which involves accepting market prices, and if they are highly efficient at doing so—we should, by all means, let the associated system prevail. However, unless we change our whole system, we shall slowly destroy or work against the interests of the consumer and those of the

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farmer, which will cost increasing amounts of money. As has already been said, everybody would be worse off as a result of the tremendous amount of money that has been pumped into agriculture.
We need to scrap the existing system completely and start again. We need to place agriculture on a different footing. The UK should not say, by way of excuse, "That is not our decision; we have to bring all the countries in Europe together". Of course we have to do that before something finally happens, but we should produce our own policy, which should be based on a changing approach, and we should consistently market it in Europe and to our own consumers and agricultural industry. It is only when we create a whole new concept for our approach—it should be based strongly on academic knowledge, sound science and proper research—that we will win the argument. Increasing numbers of people throughout Europe are consumer driven and are pressing for such changes. We must avoid changing to a policy that is based not on sound science and academic research but on prejudice and emotion. Many of the policies to which the Government now listen have no sound basis in science. We must put those views out of our minds.
I do not accept that the organic system is a long-term approach. It is far too limiting and it is not financially sustainable—prices are already starting to fall in the marketplace and those with major investments in that area could run into difficulties. At the same time, I must say that I admire enormously those marketing people who can sell an inferior product at twice the price of similar products. If they can do that, good luck to them! However, organic farming is not a sustainable system and it is certainly not an alternative to our current approach, which is highly intensive and which is encouraged by our present financial system.
I welcome the fact that the new department will examine rural affairs as a whole. I have for some time felt that that is the right way forward. I strongly believe that we must examine the driving of the rural economy as a whole. As was mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford, all the indications are that the agricultural aspect of our rural economy is now in serious decline, and clearly the situation will steadily worsen. Our share of GDP is of the order of 1 per cent. The situation is becoming ridiculous—I read the other day that the sandwich industry in this country now involves as much money as the agricultural industry. Quite clearly, our role in the economy of the country is diminishing quickly and the numbers employed in it are falling fast. And the indications are that that will continue. But the importance of everything that is taking place in the rural economy in terms of its economic value is quite another matter. I hope that the new department will encourage that to a much greater degree.
What we must do, and what I hope the Minister's department will do, is to give much more support for alternative economic activities in our rural areas. Above all, that means a review of planning laws and, in my view, greenbelt policy. The system of planning
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laws in this country is the most appalling that anyone could ever possibly imagine. A system whereby so few people can stop something which will benefit so many people seems to me completely contrary to democracy. I thought that democracy was for the benefit of the majority. But that is not so in the planning system, where one person can cause problems and delays and holds back extremely important economic developments. I object to a system which requires that each proposal should have an environmental review but not an economic review.
When the noble and learned Lord opened the debate, he emphasised the economic role that the department now intends to play. That role cannot be played if every time you want to push something forward, there is another set of rules which holds you back from developing it. As other noble Lords have said, there have been hints in the press that the Government are going to look at the planning system. I do not agree at all with the present greenbelt policy which is, again, an elitist policy and is of no benefit either to the urban or rural areas. It moves into rural areas those activities which should be taking place on the edge of towns. It is natural for towns to grow and towns should grow. There are all the benefits of town life and the resources that exist within it for those who are going to live there. Those benefits should not be pushed out into isolated rural areas. That is no use to the people and no use to the area either.
The other issue that I want to emphasise is how the Government have reduced the research finance in the agricultural and horticultural industries. That is quite a serious matter which will have to be addressed if the Government wish to achieve their objectives. There is need for greater research, using new, efficient technology in agriculture, into biotechnology, genomics and the development of a second generation of transgenic crops. It is the next generation of those crops and developments which, over the next five or 10 years, will bring real benefits to consumers in both food quality and variety. It would be a very great mistake if the Government do not drive forward those issues in a very strong way.
We must understand that structural change will be inevitable. I cannot see how we can continue to see the small farms which currently exist. There will have to be changes. Uneconomic farms cannot be maintained. Looking into the future, one can see that some farms will be hobby farms, owned by people who want to be in the farming industry and who have resources from outside that industry. We shall probably see more open areas with non-farming activities taking place with access in those areas. I hope that there will be more rural park areas and certainly more forestry.
We shall end up with other areas throughout the country of highly efficient farming carried out on a very large scale. That will be necessary if we are to compete on a price basis with imported products. Those farms will obviously grow as the impact of enlargement makes great competition for our own industry. And as has already been mentioned by my

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noble friend Lord Plumb, the impact of the World Trade Organisation trade talks will impose many more problems on British agriculture as it operates today.
The Minister who opened the debate had an answer to virtually everybody's questions. That particular noble and learned Lord generally does. But investigation shows that in practice, those answers are not all feasible; that they work against one another. You cannot suit every economic opportunity while also embracing every environmental opportunity which holds back growth. The Government have to make a choice. In developing our rural economy, there will be winners and losers, The Government need to understand very clearly which way they really want to go. Do they want to drive forward an effective and viable rural economy, as they said they do, or do they want to put conservation, environmental matters and regulation at the heart of their policies? As the right reverend Prelate said, people want to know. People can plan and run businesses if they know the environment in which they are operating.
I conclude by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for referring, as he did, to combined heat and power and the energy situation and I endorse the comments that he made. I want to emphasise the point about microtechnology, which is now available in the combined heat and power industry. That means that within 10 years we can have, if we want it and if the right price can be obtained, virtually a CHP unit in a house which will drive the electricity, heat and even chilling facilities. It will be possible to make electricity available from your own house unit into the grid and an income can be obtained from that. That can happen if the system allows it and there is the right encouragement to make those things happen. That will be an enormous breakthrough and it will be possible to produce energy far more efficiently in terms of price than we do at present. That will make a tremendous contribution not only to the climate change situation but also to the wealth of the country as a result of a much more efficient system. I hope that the Government will listen to all the advice that they have been given today and take some action on it.
6.26 p.m.
Lord Dahrendorf: My Lords, this debate provides a welcome opportunity to go beyond Second Reading debates on specific legislation and to scrutinise the philosophy underlying government policy.
The noble Lord, Lord Wade of Chorlton, started by saying, I think, that he knows nothing about education but a great deal about farming. I know nothing about farming but, like other Lords, I am impressed by his plea for a new look at agriculture and the rural communities.
But my subject is education and I am essentially speaking about what the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, described as the first of his major points. The Government's story, as I understand it, is that in their first term they have concentrated on improvements in primary education, and they have done so with some success. Therefore, now, in their second term,
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secondary education can have pride of place. I shudder to think how many parliamentary terms will be needed until we get to education for the elderly, but that is not my point.
My point is rather that underlying that plan is a notion that every child should have an opportunity to advance through primary and secondary stages to a tertiary stage. The underlying idea is one of an educational career: progression along a wide avenue which leads for as many as possible to university degrees. The catchword is meritocracy. When the Prime Minister talked to journalists outside No. 10 after his re-election, he spoke of his dream of a society that is meritocratic. In an earlier speech he said:
"Opening up the economy and society to merit and talent is the radical second term agenda".
The terminology has since been taken up by a number of people, including the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, who seems to be against meritocracy, and the editorialist of The Times, who seems to be in favour of meritocracy.
I pondered those statements and then proceeded to reread the book published 43 years ago by a social scientist in his prime, who is now a distinguished Member of this House, although unfortunately not in his place this afternoon, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, Michael Young at the time. The book is called The Rise of the Meritocracy. It is a splendid work of the imagination. It describes, in 1958, British social history from the imagined perspective of 2034. In the words of Michael Young, it traces the decline of the hereditary or aristocratic principle, its replacement by age and experience, or the gerontocratic principle, and then general insistence on merit, defined as measured intelligence plus effort. That is the meritocratic principle. It sounds like a blueprint for the various stages of reform of the House of Lords.
For a while such meritocracy is universally accepted. After all, who would quarrel with merit in that sense? However, Michael Young's Utopia is of the Huxley/Orwell variety and not that of Thomas More or William Morris. It is a nightmare. Young wrote:
"Under the new dispensation the division between the classes has been sharper than it used to be under the old, the status of the upper classes higher and that of the lower classes lower".
He said that the historical waste of talent has at last been overcome; efficiency has now been squared with justice and order with humanity, which means,
"nothing less than a new stage in the ascent of man".
Except, of course, there are those who do not make it to the top. Michael Young said:
"Men after all are notable not for the equality but for the inequality of their endowment".
He said that that means,
"More and more was demanded of the skilled men, less and less of the unskilled, and finally there was no need for unskilled men at all".
So what do the meritocrats do about the unskilled who are no longer needed? In Young's Utopia some form a kind of "Pioneer Corps", as he called it. Their IQ may

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be low but they have muscles and are thus able to do the remaining manual work. However, that still leaves many behind. Young said:
"about a third of all adults were unemployable in the ordinary economy".
For them a forgotten type of work was rediscovered, personal service. A large Home Help Corps enlisted many of them to complete the almost platonic order of estates: meritocrats, pioneers and home helpers.
It would be tempting to follow Young's further predictions up to the eventual revolution. For example with the aid of rapid advances in what in 1958 Young called "biophysics", a Eugenics Institute was created to make intelligence hereditary and thus turn meritocracy into a new aristocracy, with large numbers permanently excluded—a job for your Lordships' stem cell committee!
I leave the fantasy world of the noble Lord and turn to reality, although that is not in all respects dissimilar. The meritocratic project underlying the Government's education policy has a number of serious flaws. Merit defined as measured intelligence plus effort is bound to lead to elaborate processes of assessment that come to dominate what should be the nurturing experience of education.
In that sense, meritocracy creates a social hierarchy that must seem inescapable, especially for those who fail to make it to the top. It creates exclusion rather than a remedy for it. By insisting on the one wide avenue to success, meritocracy runs into the dilemmas of the "social limits to growth". The fact that Britain leads the OECD league table of university graduates, with 36 per cent in 1999, should be a source of self-doubt rather than self-congratulation. What was until quite recently the best university system in Europe has been dissipated. It has produced a single-minded pursuit of academic degrees which leaves many behind, while putting others on the wrong track. It is no accident that in a meritocratic order of that kind many talents come to be seen as being of lower standing. Thus vocational training lags behind most others in Europe.
As a liberal, I want access and opportunities for all. If there has to be meritocracy, in the words of Mr Philip Collins in a recent article in Prospect on the subject, let it be based on a "high social floor", including good general education. But beyond that, what is needed above all is diversity. Perhaps there are the beginnings of such diversity, at least at the secondary level, in the legislation announced in the gracious Speech. More generally, there is not just one regal progression to educational success, let alone to a fulfilling life. Alternative routes at all stages of life are far more important than the straight path to a degree. Those in the Government who are responsible should perhaps take their noble colleague's book with them on their well-deserved summer holiday and return with a better idea than meritocracy.
6.37 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to
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follow the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf. He said he did not know much about agriculture but he certainly knows much about education. I was running up a hill, trying to keep apace with what he said. I do not intend this to be an aggressive comment, but it is a great pity that on subjects such as education, the environment and agriculture only two Labour Back-Benchers are in attendance.
I congratulate the party opposite—particularly those who are present—on having won the last election. Some of us would have wished it otherwise, but the fact is that they achieved a cracking result from their point of view. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his new responsibilities, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House who made a gracious remark when he said that he would be the servant of the House. He was right to say that and I hope that in the future we shall not have to remind him of that fact.
The only sad point is that the Government appear to be determined to get rid of the hereditary Peers, in relation to which I declare an interest. The Government appear to regard hereditary Peers as objectionable objects. We are very agreeable people when you get to know us. Fly-swatting appears to be a sport enjoyed by the Government.
I remind your Lordships of the gracious and courteous salutation that the Roman gladiators used to give before they were sent into the gladiatorial contest, which was a fight to the death. They said:
"Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutamus".
I am sure that all noble Lords will have no difficulty in translating that. But in case your Lordships have forgotten some of the Latin education that you absorbed when at school, it means:
"Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you".
We do not intend to die just yet.
I want to concentrate on agriculture and the countryside. I declare an interest in that agriculture and the countryside have always been part of my life. Over the past four years agriculture has been through the most calamitous period ever. Agricultural depressions have happened before, but on top of a depression we have had BSE, swine fever and now foot and mouth disease.
When such problems occur, those in charge must pick up the parcel, as it were, and run with it. The Government had to do so on those occasions. From time to time, we had running commentaries from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I pay great tribute to her for what she did not only in this House but in MAFF and for the countryside as a whole. She used to give us hideous figures relating to what had happened.
In April, she told us that there were 1,481 confirmed cases; more than 2 million animals had been slaughtered; and a further 475,000 had been slaughtered under the welfare slaughter scheme. I congratulate civil servants on finding the most bizarre names. If one were to be slaughtered, one would not regard it as a welfare objective! She also told us that there was a disposal backlog of 85,000 animals.

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The trouble is that one tends to get punch drunk on such figures and merely absorb them. But they are staggering and behind them lies a state of total misery and grief for those who owned the animals and live in the countryside. The noble Baroness told us that the scientific advice was to reduce the time between reporting the disease and slaughter to 24 hours. We are almost into July, but on 13th March the Minister said,
"We have it under control".
That was premature and inaccurate. Of course, the figures have become worse.
I believe that we went wrong at the beginning with the length of time between reporting the likelihood of the disease and disposal of the animals. The vets had to inspect them; samples had to be taken; the samples had to be analysed; and the result had to be reported to the farmer. Then one had to get people in to carry out the valuations, other people to slaughter the animals and more people to remove the carcasses. All that took time and meanwhile the animals were spewing out the disease.
As regards burning the carcasses, it took 16 sleepers and a quarter of a tonne of coal per sheep. I cannot understand that but apparently it was the case. And of course the carcinogens and the disease were wafted up into the air by the warm draught of the bonfire. Then we witnessed the unbelievable sight of young men careering around fields on motorbikes trying to kill terrified sheep with a rifle. I wonder whether the Government believe that that is a right and acceptable way for them or their agents to act.
Then we heard the astonishing story of the white calf called Phoenix who, when it was supposed to be dead, clambered out alive from under a pile of its dead friends. They tried to kill it a second time but that did not work either. Then the press weighed in and the outcry was so great that the Government decided to change the rules so that the animal could live. We had all those rules and all that expenditure to rid ourselves of foot and mouth and one pretty calf made the Prime Minister stand the rules on their head. I say "the Prime Minister" because when the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Brown, went into MAFF the next morning he did not know that the animal had been reprieved.
The hard fact is that if all those animals had to die in order to curtail foot and mouth, that animal should have died too. If it was all right to allow that calf to live, the others which were killed should have been allowed to live. If it was all right to allow one pretty calf to live, why was not the goat which used to live like a member of the family and sit on the hearth in front of the living room fire allowed to live too? No, he was killed.
Stacks of questions of that nature and non sequiturs must be answered. Some animals were slaughtered because the inspector got the grid reference wrong. Animals were slaughtered 100 miles from where the slaughterman was supposed to be. They are devastating thoughts and they were devastating mistakes.
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Then we had the decision not to change to vaccination. That is a technical and complicated problem. I was pleased that the Government did not do so because when I had the privilege of being in MAFF some 20 years ago I was persuaded that the slaughter/compensation policy was correct. There is an outbreak only once in 20 years and during that period it is cheaper than vaccinating. It keeps the nation's stock free of foot and mouth while vaccine lasts only for eight months. There are a number of different strains of the disease and if one vaccinates for one and another appears the vaccination is wasted.
In those days, those on the Continent were using vaccination while we were using the slaughter policy. Curiously, those on the Continent changed to using the slaughter policy while we were considering changing to a vaccination policy. At the time, I thought it was like saying to a soldier in the middle of a battle, "Run back home and get a different gun". You cannot do that; you must stay with the policy. I believe that that is right.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford made an impressive intervention in a debate on 4th April. He said:
"The pictures of the mass slaughter of animals have been extremely distressing for a range of people who in no way could be regarded as cranky or sentimental about animals".
He was right. He asked:
"Is there no alternative?…Animals, according to the creation story in the Book of Genesis, are there in part for the benefit of human beings. But they are also valuable in themselves, reflecting some aspect of the divine glory".—[Official Report, 4/4/01; col. 846.]
The right reverend Prelate made some fairly profound remarks and I have frequently wondered how right we are to go around killing animals and to do so on and on, even if it is for the wholly meritorious reason of keeping the disease under control. It was right not to change in the middle of the battle, but the whole question of slaughter should now be considered. As the right reverend Prelate asked: is there really no alternative?
The fashionable expression "naming and shaming" is used today. I hate it because I believe that most people do their best in life. There is something horribly sanctimonious about people who say, "We must find out who the wretched person is who has done this. We will point the finger at him and throw him out to the public as the person who has made all the mistakes". I believe that that is wrong. Most people do their best in life and Ministers and others who are landed with such problems do their best. But we must learn from our experiences and mistakes.
I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford when they said that they hoped the Government would set up a public inquiry. I do too. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will take the matter most seriously and to heart. A Select Committee inquiry will not do. Everyone, including Ministers at the time, must be able to give their views and their experiences. A public inquiry would permit that but a Select Committee inquiry would not. The Government set up an inquiry

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into BSE and this is a much bigger problem. After all, it has affected the whole countryside, not just the farmers, as well as towns people and people from overseas who wanted to come here on holiday and had to cancel. I repeat, it is not merely a question of trying to find someone to blame but of trying to learn from the past in order that our actions and reactions in the future may be better.
I, too, am amazed that the only thing Her Majesty's Government could think of putting in the Queen's Speech relating to agriculture and the countryside was the resurrection of the spectre of a ban on hunting. I could not have thought of a more insensitive act at such a sensitive time. That is yet another reason why everyone feels that Her Majesty's Government do not understand the countryside and do not care about it. That contrasts with what the Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard, the Queen's bodyguard, said yesterday. He said,
"We want to spread prosperity more widely. This is an opportunity to improve the lives of people in the country".
I hope that that applies to the countryside, too.
What have the Government done to show their dedication to agriculture and the countryside? They have disbanded the Ministry of Agriculture; they have vaporised it. All the Ministers have gone. The last Minister has been demoted to the Minister of Works. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has gone as have Miss Joyce Quin, Mr Spellar and Mr Meacher, who headed the Department of the Environment task force. All the Ministers have gone. As a final blow, Her Majesty's Government have ensured that the new department does not even contain the word "agriculture" in its title. One cannot be much more demeaning and humiliating than that. On top of that, there is no Minister responsible for food and farming in another place. The only Minister is the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who is very competent and charming. I am sure that his expertise will flow to another place, too. But the fact is that there is no Minister in another place for agriculture or food.
I hope that someone will take a grip and realise that agriculture and all that goes with it is the backbone of the countryside, whether the interests are wildlife, tourism, food production or ancillary employment. They all depend for success on thriving agriculture. It is not good enough to say that the CAP needs reform. We all know that. My noble friend Lord Wade referred to it. I liked his proposals about that policy. We all know that it has to be reformed, but that is long term because we have to persuade 15 other members to agree, which they will not because they have too much to lose.
Meanwhile, life has to go on. Agriculture and the countryside want to feel that they have a Government which cares. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford said, they need hope. They do. When estate agents value a property they take into account what is called "hope value". The countryside needs hope and the hope value also. I hope that the noble
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Lord, Lord Whitty, will be able show that the Government can give that and that he can also give that commitment.
6.52 p.m.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I too welcome the opportunity to participate in this somewhat strange debate where the subject matter oscillates between transport, energy, agriculture and education. I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, on her promotion to the ministerial Benches. I look forward a great deal to working with her and perhaps also sparring with her over the coming months.
From these Benches we welcome very much the main themes that have dominated the gracious Speech—the securing of improvements in the delivery and quality of public services in this country. From the Liberal Democrat point of view it is an issue that we have been stressing for at least two elections. We suspect that the Government may not find it so easy to achieve increases in the quality of services without also increasing public expenditure fairly substantially and perhaps also taxation.
When the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, was Prime Minister she emphasised very much the maxim "You can't get something for nothing". I believe that the great danger with emphasising private provision alongside public provision is that there is sometimes the belief that by providing finance privately one does not have to incur public expenditure as the other side of the equation and it kids the general public into thinking that one can actually get something for nothing.
One looks, for example, at the funding of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and the public finance initiative at a cost of £300 million straight but £900 million when funded through the private finance initiative over 30 years. In the long run such an initiative may well cost a great deal more. In the short run there is a gain because it is not part of the public sector borrowing requirement, but in the long run we may well pay more in terms of taxes, interest and profit margins.
I believe that concentration on the public sector borrowing requirement is a shibboleth and has led to failure over a long period of time to make a distinction in the public sector accounts between current and capital expenditure. That in itself has led to a disastrous rundown and neglect of our public sector infrastructure, not only of schools and hospitals but of the transport service and general public utilities. Our Victorian forebears knew that investment was worth while, that it lasted a long time and was worth making.
We now have to make good that lack of investment. I believe that the public sector has to take its share in making good that lack of investment. We should not kid ourselves that by bringing in the private sector as partners we can get something for nothing. We cannot. We shall either have to pay for it in terms of higher taxation now or in the future.

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I wish to devote most of my speech to education. Here the emphasis of the gracious Speech was on secondary education and extending its diversity in order to improve its standards; to extend the range of city academies and specialist schools; to allow for more faith-based schools and more fixed-term contracting out of educational services to the private sector.
The challenges to education in this country are considerable. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, stressed the high illiteracy figures that we face. One-fifth, which is 20 per cent of the population in this country, cannot, he said, read well enough to be able to look up plumbers in the Yellow Pages. As Estelle Morris, the new Secretary of State for Education, said last week, it is a frightening statistic. The OECD figures which were published only a short time ago exposed the United Kingdom as being near the bottom of the literacy league. However, it also showed that Britain was near the bottom of the spending league. It may be that the two are tied together.
The Government announced considerable increases in spending on education in their two spending reviews. Nevertheless, I believe that it is an indictment of their first term that, taking the four years as a whole, spending on education as a proportion of GDP at 4.6 per cent is lower than spending on education as a proportion of GDP during the five years of the Major administration between 1992 and 1997, when it was 5 per cent. It is a great indictment that a Government should come to the country in 1997 preaching "education, education, education" and putting it at the top of their prorities list only to end up during their first term spending on it a lower proportion of GDP. I am delighted that at long last some of that money is coming through and we are seeing it in some of our schools. But it has been far too slow. It has led to a serious crisis in recruitment. All the targets set by the Government for achievement both in primary and secondary education depend on there being teachers to meet those targets. If we cannot find them we shall not be able to meet those targets.
As regards secondary education, the main emphasis is on specialisation. As my noble friend Lord Dahrendorf indicated, as Liberal Democrats, by and large, the concept of diversity is one which we enjoy and endorse. However, we are somewhat weary of the concept of specialisation. A specialist school brings with it £500,000 in terms of extra funding over the first four years of specialist status. Only 46 per cent of schools are to enjoy that status. What about the other 54 per cent? What happens to them? Will they not enjoy specialist status? Liberal Democrats believe in diversity and pursuing specialisms in many senses, but at the same time every school, not just some, should be special.
Much has been made of the turn-round of a school in Guildford which I know fairly well. That school was called King's Manor but is now known as King's College. What happened there illustrates that resources and being made to feel special count for a great deal. It is too early to say how successful has been the experiment; the school opened in its new guise only
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last September and still has only 450 pupils, whereas its maximum will be about 900. The school benefited last year from county council and the Government combined spending well over £3 million and the fact that at the moment pupil/teacher ratios are extremely low and staffing is generous. It is clear, however, that the pupils of that school have benefited from the extra resources lavished upon them. They feel special, have responded to it and are far better motivated than before.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn in his excellent speech said that Church schools provided a clear and coherent value system. That has been developed as a result of the change from King's Manor to King's College. The new owners have given a clear and coherent value system to that school and the children feel special and have had much in the way of resources lavished upon them. Their expectations and those of their parents, which are so important, have been raised. Expectations are high but the pupils have begun to achieve them, which is extremely encouraging. The motivation is there and aspirations are rising, but that situation results from resources and leadership. One wants those two important qualities, which do not necessarily require privatisation—both can come through the public sector—to turn round the school.
Our other reservation about specialisation is that it comes much too early. The danger of specialising at 11 is that one must select at that age. I do not believe that at the age of 11 children know what they want to do. The week before last I benefited from a brief visit to Holland to look at secondary education in that country. The Dutch also have a great diversity of secondary schools. It was interesting to hear about that diversity and visit two of the schools. What came across to me was that for a long time Holland had had a clear and coherent stream of vocational education alongside academic education. That is something which many of the northern European countries—Germany and Scandinavia—have. Selection is not made at 11 but effectively at 14, when I believe a child knows its own capacities much better than at 11. At 14 a child with its parents and teachers selects the stream that it wants to go into, whether it be a high academic or higher or lower technical stream. I believe that if we are to select, it is far better to do it at 14 rather than 11. I am very wary of returning to something that is akin to the 11-plus.
I conclude by making one or two points about what I believe was omitted from the education agenda in the gracious Speech. I was extremely surprised that there was no mention in the gracious Speech of the teacher crisis, but my noble friend Lady Walmsley will, I believe, talk about that later. Above all, there was, surprisingly, no mention of either further or higher education. I believe that it is those sectors which present us with some of our trickiest problems today. The biggest problem is undoubtedly funding. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, referred to the failure to fund the Bett report and the problem of academic salaries. We currently face a major crisis in recruitment and retention among teachers in secondary schools, but unless something is done about academic salaries

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very quickly there will be an even bigger crisis in recruitment and retention in the universities. I hope that the Government have some plans to meet the funding requirements in this sector.
It is also somewhat perplexing that at a time when they aim to expand the numbers from the lower social classes entering higher education, the Government simultaneously pursue a policy which my honourable friend in another place, Mr Phil Willis, described as an abomination. I refer to students' tuition fees, the abolition of the maintenance grant system and the introduction of student loans. This system puts off precisely those students whom one tries to entice into the higher education system. I know that they do not have to pay fees and that some limited grants are available. Nevertheless, the perception of what they have to face puts off precisely those students. We on these Benches do not understand why the Government persist in pursuing that policy at the present time and advocate the adoption of the Cubie solution in Scotland.
Another problem that the Government must confront is the increasing blurring of the boundaries between further, higher and Internet education. At a time when one can undertake university courses via the Internet one must rapidly think how to merge or mix and match courses between the different sectors. I do not believe that the Government have faced up to that at all. Learn Direct is doing some valuable work, but we are far from having an accredited unit system which covers the whole of the higher and further education sector. We need to look at that and think about it.
The issues on which I have spoken—specialisation and what it means and the need for every school to be special, to develop a clear and coherent stream of vocational education and training, properly to fund our further and higher education sectors and to face up to the merging of those sectors—create many new challenges for the Government. The gracious Speech touches on only a very small part of that agenda, but I hope that during this Parliament the Government will face up to those challenges.
7.7 p.m.
Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on the gracious Speech and in particular to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. It reminds me of a time some years ago when we were both examiners in economics at the LSE and the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, was the director. I agree with a good deal of the observations of the noble Baroness, but I believe that our politics have slightly diverged since then.
I shall confine my relatively brief remarks to the subject of education. In so doing I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, on being made Minister in this field and wish her every success in carrying out her responsibilities.
Opening the debate, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, reminded us that the Government, in introducing another major education Bill in the first
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year of the new Parliament, were making secondary education a major priority. The objectives set by the Government are very clear: first, to achieve higher standards, by which I take it they want to see pupils doing well in tests, for example GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications; and, secondly, to increase the diversity of schools so that different schools can provide education for the differing needs of individual pupils. The means by which they have chosen to do that are new opportunities for school sponsorship, more options for tackling failing schools and greater freedom for successful heads, deputy heads and governors in the running of their schools. Clearly, in all this there is to be a greater role for the private and voluntary sectors.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that the problems of secondary education cannot be solved without resources, and I believe that that is very clear in relation to teachers' pay. But the fact that the Government come forward with a major education Bill is a recognition that the present system has failed, not simply because it is short of money. One complaint constantly made is that the present system is far too bureaucratic. Local education authorities have become far too involved in detailed decisions relating to individual schools. Inspections are a nightmare and there has been excessive intervention by the Department for Education and Employment. In the Government's Green Paper, which was issued in February, I counted no fewer than 51 new initiatives, many of which involved plans and targets, extending once again the tentacles of government into every school and classroom. The bureaucracy extends not only to management but also to the curriculum and teaching, for which I regret to say this side of the House bears some responsibility.
The present national curriculum restricts far too much the teacher's professional judgment as to what should be taught and how teachers should perform in the classroom. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Baker, was Secretary of State for Education, the Prime Minister said to me many times, "Brian, you and I don't know how to handle a classroom and what to do there, so we should not be prescriptive in legislation." I am only sorry that the legislation which emerged did not really have that stamped all over it.
The result of the bureaucracy is not simply a waste of money and resources. Far worse, it leads to inadequate standards of performance and low teacher morale. Heads and deputy heads find themselves ticking boxes, filling in forms and carrying out what is frankly clerical work. The over-prescriptiveness of the curriculum means that creativity is stifled in the classroom and the specialist judgment which teachers have learnt in their careers on matters such as the curriculum, exclusion of pupils and AS levels is being constantly undermined.
I welcome an education Bill which says that it will cut bureaucracy, give greater freedom to heads and governors and involve the private and voluntary sectors in the way ahead. It is to the Government's credit that they want to build a system that recognises our voluntary heritage, rather than having a national

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system in which central and local government have exclusive responsibility for education. They could have chosen that route.
I welcome the Government's reforms, but I have two comments to make. The first, which I hope will be proved wrong, is to express a certain reservation, if not scepticism, about some of the proposals. We shall have deregulation and greater freedom, but in the past four years the Government did not exactly bring an axe to bureaucracy. Over the years, they have curtailed the freedoms of grant-maintained schools, which were set up specifically to give heads, teachers and governing bodies greater freedoms. They have increased the powers of the local education authorities enormously and have strengthened the reach of the former Department for Education and Employment in the sheer number and volume of the circulars that have come from it. Not one of those 51 initiatives in the Green Paper reduced the administrative burdens of teachers. In fact, they added to them.
Already I notice in the press release on the gracious Speech from the new Department for Education and Skills that no fewer than four initiatives are mentioned, although the Government have been in office for only 12 days. The growth in bureaucracy is no accident. It is not as if somehow the Government intended to achieve higher standards, and suddenly an enormous amount of bureaucracy which they had not expected emerged. I believe that it has been at the heart of their policy for the past four years.
The Green Paper, which was published in February, contained a philosophy and a policy which said that school standards could be best raised by the Department for Education and Employment and the local education authorities taking more initiatives, giving greater direction to individual schools and having more responsibilities. The increase in plans, circulars, consultations and inspections was all part of a top down, centralised and interventionist policy to raise standards. The White Paper makes it clear that the Government think that they have achieved that in primary schools. They now tell us in the Green Paper that they will do the same in secondary schools.
Does the Government's emphasis on greater freedom mean that they have experienced some major conversion—a kind of Damascene event—to a wholly new approach to education that is much freer, less interventionist, less bureaucratic and less controlled? Or does the new rhetoric of freedom and deregulation apply only to a small number of what are obviously successful schools, while the rest of the secondary system is subject to as many directives and interventions as in the past? I sincerely hope that it is the former, but I fear it is the latter. I fear that the Prime Minister has said to himself, I have to have set targets and be seen to have clearly met them in four years' time before I can go back to the electorate". The experience of the past four years suggests that the only way in which to do that is to have a dirigiste system. I am prepared to give the Government the benefit of the doubt, and hope that a generous interpretation is the right one, but I have my concerns.
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The most difficult fact for the Government to accept is that greater freedom for schools, heads, deputy heads, leaders of years, and so on, means less power for LEAs and the Department for Education and Skills. We cannot reduce bureaucracy in our education system and give greater freedom to schools without simultaneously reducing the powers of government—local and central—to plan, consult, examine and inspect. That is a zero-sum game. More power to schools means less power to the Government. If the Government are serious in wanting to give greater freedom to schools, why not embark on the route of giving heads and governors the freedom to employ staff? Why not give them the freedom to set teachers' salaries? Why not give them the freedom to manage their own budgets? Why not give them the freedom to draw up their own admissions policy and implement it? Why not give them the freedom to set their own daily, weekly and term timetables? Why not give them the freedom to set their own standards of discipline, with the ultimate sanction of expelling students? If the Government were to seize the opportunity and the rhetoric of freeing schools became a reality, I believe that teachers, who are a major concern for any government involved in education reform, would not be dismayed by yet another education Bill. They would welcome such a Bill because it would lighten their load and allow them to devote more time to the profession that they thought they were going into when they became teachers.
My other comment is to welcome the Government's proposals to increase the diversity of schools, thereby extending choice for parents and pupils. I am not as depressed as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, about the issue of diversity. Ever since the experiment with CTCs, which is now 15 or 16 years old, plus what we have seen in America in various magnet schools, charter schools, and so on, I think that there is much evidence to say that diversity produces a certain culture and ethos in a school, which produces better results. The private sector can play an important role in providing support services for education, which would in no way undermine the nature of secondary schools. However, I need to be convinced that a private company, especially one which was quoted on the Stock Exchange and running publicly funded schools for a profit, would be a desirable innovation. Would there be too great a temptation just to teach for results, so that schools became a little like A-level crammers? What kind of ethos would schools like that have? What kind of communities would schools which might have their equity quoted on the Stock Exchange create in which the character of children was to be developed? What financial pressures might such a school suffer if government funding failed to keep pace with the costs of employing staff, such as is happening at present in private nursing homes, where, as a result, the stock of nursing homes is falling? Then, if that were the case, how would schools run for profit by companies respond to their profits being squeezed?
I need no convincing of the importance that private sector companies play in the market economy, but we need to be careful before proceeding down this route

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when it comes to the education of our children. That is why the voluntary sector has a critically important part to play. In that connection, I should like to echo the words of the two right reverend Prelates who spoke in support of the work of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, in producing a report for the Archbishop's Council. It is an outstanding piece of work. The noble Lord's proposal that the Church of England should consider increasing the number of secondary places by the equivalent of 100 schools over the next seven or eight years responds to the demand that is there. But there is more to it than that.
Part of the reason why parents of all faiths and of no faith like sending their children to such schools is the emphasis they place on educational attainment. They want their children to do well. They want them to succeed academically and vocationally. More than that, such schools—I speak from the experience of all of my children having gone to the parish Church of England primary school—place great emphasis on the development of the whole person, including providing, which is very prudent in this day and age, a reasoned basis for values and moral standards. Most Anglican schools aim to be inclusive in their admissions policy. In his outstanding speech, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford gave many wonderful examples of how the Anglican ethos of education is different from the Catholic or evangelical ethos. It is inclusive and not exclusive. The right reverend Prelate described how the schools are reaching out to the Muslim community and are attempting to create a community of reconciliation. I ask myself whether the Archbishop's Council and the Synod of the Church of England have enough courage—as we have heard, nothing comes free, and the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, do not come free either—to take up the noble Lord's proposals. Let us hope that they do.
At the end of the day, we may spend a great deal of time debating the structures of secondary education. Structures matter and the debate is important. But of even greater importance ultimately is the need to attract teachers who see their profession—namely, the development and instruction of children—as a vocation which is respected by society. It is for this reason that the Government must be supported and encouraged in their steps to increase diversity and give greater freedom to schools. Apart from anything else, that is a wonderful way of reaching out to the teaching profession, telling it how much we value what it is doing and attracting teachers today to educate our grandchildren tomorrow.
7.24 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, I want to speak briefly about one subject which was mentioned in the gracious Speech and one which was not and stay on the twin tracks of the environment and agriculture—another leap from one subject to another in this debate which requires great intellectual agility. The temptation to change the points and go along the parallel track of railway policy is a sore one which I
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find difficult to resist. I am grateful for the passion and expertise brought to that subject by the noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Faulkner. If it comes to choosing between them about the fate of the Rail Regulator, I think I am with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. As for the idea of bringing back the big four railway companies of 1923, I say "amen" to that.
I give a very warm welcome to the Government's commitment to the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which was set out so clearly in the gracious Speech, to tackling climate change and to making sustainable development a priority. It is good news indeed. Kyoto itself was, of course, only a beginning and it is essential that longer term planning continues and much more ambitious targets are set for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Even if the United States of America for the moment will not join in this process and enter into a similar commitment, the European nations must press on, setting a good example and making a significant contribution to the limitation of climate change.
We need to take to heart the advice of the Royal Commission published last year to put in place a programme which takes account of the legitimate needs and aspirations of the developing countries and works on the principle of contraction and convergence of greenhouse gas emissions. Contraction of emissions in the developed world would come about through clean power generation, through significant reductions in energy use, especially in car use and also in aircraft use—the taxing of poisonously polluting aircraft fuel, which for some unaccountable reason is free of taxation at the moment—much more sophisticated transport technology, infinitely more efficient energy saving housing, changed lifestyles and also bio-fuels. Why not bio-fuel from Lord bio-fuel Whitty? We hope that the Minister will support that policy. We need that contraction in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the developing countries and we need convergence between the energy-extravagant developed world and the energy-poor two-thirds world.
In particular, I long to see an intelligent and open debate initiated by the Government about the complex interaction and right relationship between three vital issues which all bear on one another: first, the need to protect creation; secondly, the need to address desperate issues of poverty and social injustice in the world; and, thirdly, as a corollary of that second concern, the need for appropriate and sustainable development. Will the Minister, whom we welcome most warmly in his new guise despite the enormous breadth and complexity of the issues with which he will have to deal, undertake to help this public debate forward in a well-informed and genuinely open way? This is a debate which is philosophical, ethical and technical, but it is a debate with which the public need to be encouraged to become engaged. Ecological good sense, social justice and sustainable development can—indeed, must—go hand in hand if the planet is to survive let alone enjoy increasing peace and happiness.
I add three brief further points about the environment. First, can we offer an initiative in giving help, advice and appropriate technology to those two

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vast and rapidly developing countries, India and China, where coal remains the main source of energy? The generating technology is in many places extremely dirty and its contribution to climate change is severely threatening. We have the technology. Can we urge it on those countries that their generating capacity may be made less damaging to the environment? Secondly, will the Minister give the House assurances that his new department, with its vast and unwieldy title and brief, will see environmental issues in a properly broad context? It was significant that six of the most important environmental agencies joined together to sign a letter sent to The Times during the election campaign to ask that responsibility for the natural environment should remain with the old DETR so that planning and transport implications would remain paramount and so that there would be no danger that environmental concerns would be seen as exclusively rural, or natural history or farm-related matters. Their voices were ignored in the reorganisation. The point they made remains important.
Lastly, noble Lords may like to know that the Bishops of the Church of England—all 110 of us—earlier this month devoted our annual in-service training for this year to an environmental seminar. We heard some excellent and extremely well-informed presentations which we hope and believe will lead to a sustained programme of environmental action in every diocese.
Perhaps I may now turn to the matter of agriculture. There was surprise and disappointment that last year's gracious Speech contained no reference to farming and offered no policies to help to solve the crisis which has overtaken the industry over the past three or four years. I think it is fair to say that there was disbelief that this most recent gracious Speech, following on from the devastating impact of foot and mouth disease, had nothing to say about rural affairs and the future of farming; nothing about short-term relief measures and, even more important, nothing about a long-term strategy. I understand the point that the gracious Speech is concerned with primary legislation. However, the final page of the speech contains many references to matters of general concern and aspiration. The point has been made by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, that we need a public inquiry into what has gone wrong. That, at least, could have been announced in the gracious Speech.
In terms of the immensely destructive and deeply tragic impact of foot and mouth disease, I want to echo what was said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford about his experience in Yorkshire and to pay tribute to the courage and the calmness of many farmers and their families through this terrible time; to the skill and the sensitivity with which many vets, slaughtermen and soldiers carried out their gruesome and unwelcome tasks; and to those within MAFF who worked immensely long hours to cope with an overwhelmingly difficult crisis. In particular I wish also to express my heartfelt thanks to the local clergy and congregations of our parish churches, especially to the agricultural chaplains and the rural stress counsellors who responded magnificently with a
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ministry of care and prayer. The Church of England has reason to be proud of what was done in many places in times of great need and distress.
Of course there were horror stories as well: muddle, incompetence, insensitivity and brutality. This whole saga has sadly revealed some very poor farmers who have given an otherwise honourable industry an undeservedly bad name in a few places. But what matters now is the future.
The rural White Paper published last November spoke bravely of the main task of farming as still being to produce the food that we eat. At the time it was not clear, and since then it has become increasingly unclear, how that desirable objective is to be achieved, how that aspiration is to be delivered: granted the impact of globalisation; granted the power of the World Trade Organisation; granted the likely need, if the European Union expands eastwards, to reduce significantly CAP support for western European farmers; granted the prospect of further transfers of resources from product subsidies to agri-environmental and rural development schemes. Granted all that, how is it going to be achieved? That is what we long to know and need to know.
Even before the foot and mouth outbreak, the transition from, for example, headage to area payments for hill farmers was looking very roblematical—environmentally excellent, but economically unsustainable at the present rates of payment. The export trade is vital if livestock farmers are to survive and it must be restarted as soon as possible. Only by doing that will family farms still exist in the hills, and only by doing that will the landscape be properly and environmentally managed. Short-term measures may need to include specific shepherding projects to reintroduce hefted sheep into the Lakes and even on the Long Mynd in my own diocese in Shropshire. Targeted relief is required to enable farmers to survive long enough to become reestablished. Some will need to leave the industry and a retirement scheme, long awaited and very badly needed, would be of great assistance.
We urgently need intelligent, imaginative, well-trained and versatile young farmers to come into the industry, young people who understand the demands of the market and the constraints of ecological concern; and, of course, the farming industry must get its own act together and speak with one voice, as well as practise the highest standards of food safety and animal welfare. Farmers must show that they can and will respond to the wishes of consumers and that they will co-operate with one another, something which in the past they have not done as much as they should. They must show that they themselves care as much about the countryside in which they work as anyone else in the community. But they need a level playing field, they need from the Government the enforcement of rigorous standards of control over food imports and an unambiguous labelling of food and its country of origin.

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I do not share the gloomy feelings expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, about our new ministerial team. I hope the best for the new Secretary of State in another place. Recently she said that:
"This new department will adopt a truly joined-up approach to all aspects of our environment, to ensure a high quality of life, vibrant and sustainable rural communities and a food chain that works together to meet the changing demands of consumers".
It sounds good; so did the Rural White Paper. We wait for the Government to deliver these desirable objectives.
7.37 p.m.
Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I do not envy the Minister his task of responding to the variety of issues that have been raised in today's debate, versatile though he is. I am going to add to his problems by speaking about sport in schools. I have no twin tracks, but I shall talk about level playing fields.
I have not wandered into the wrong debate by mistake, although I could be excused for doing so, because I want to relate sport in schools to the issue of raising standards in schools, a topic covered in the gracious Speech and one which will occupy much time over the coming months. I realise that sport and physical activity also relate to health and to the development of good citizenship, such as crime reduction and less drug abuse. Sport encourages respect for the self and others, teamwork and application, all of which are valuable aspects of education. But today I shall talk about standards in schools and how we need to ensure an entitlement to physical activity for young people. It matters not what kind of school they attend.
I am very concerned to keep sport for young people on the social and political agenda. I know that a number of noble Lords share that view, and that we have lost a champion with the sad death of Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge.
The intentions in the Government's plan for sport, published earlier this year, are admirable. As emphasised in the plan, sport is valuable for its own sake as well as being a tool for health, social and educational well-being. Sport is also about principles and values. It is good that government departments are acting in a collaborative way and that the public service agreements set for departments include a target of raising the average time spent in schools on sport and physical activity for 15 to 16 year-olds by next year. However, how this will be done presents a major challenge to schools and communities, in particular in the inner cities.
Before further discussing this challenge, I shall talk about the link between physical activity and standards in schools. Recent research from the University of Exeter indicates, as have other studies, that pupils who lead healthy lifestyles do better academically. It was found, in a survey of 1,400 children of secondary school age, that those who undertook physical activity three or four times a week did better on examination scores. One theory has it that active youngsters get
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more oxygen into their brains more often than their sedentary counterparts and that their brains were better able to take on and retain information. Perhaps there is a lesson in that for us all. Such studies should certainly make us think about what is going on in schools for children today, and I shall touch on that later.
To be optimistic, there is a clear recognition on the part of sports bodies and the Government that sport is important for everyone and that participation in physical activity of some kind must be encouraged in young people. Initiatives such as the Healthy School Standard and Sportsmark Gold are encouraging fitness and sporting ability. Local co-ordinators for sport, the UK Sports Institute and, in particular, an extra £750 million for school and community sports are encouraging developments. Many sports bodies have also agreed to plough back at least 5 per cent of their income to the development of sport in communities.
But there are problems which need addressing. Even with increased funding for sport, the UK is way down the European spending list. Norway spends £12 per head; Finland, Germany, Italy and France between £5 and £9 per head. The UK will spend £2 per head, most of that on adults, not children.
There is a lack of curriculum time for sport. Pupils doing A-levels in state schools do not have to do sport at all. It is intended that there should be an entitlement of two hours physical activity a week for all children. Figures from Sport England show that only one-third of children in school receive that at present. An article in the British Journal of Physical Education indicates that for 11 to 16 year-olds in schools, PE is the only regular exercise that they have.
Sport has to be in the curriculum for young people to guarantee access to physical activity of some kind and development of talent. Girls, and a current obsession with body image, require, I believe, special initiatives to encourage exercise. Yes, some young people will go to clubs outside school, but some have family commitments outside school; some parents cannot afford to pay for travel and fees for sport. Yet, while in school, children sit an average of 75 external tests designed to assess academic ability. Maybe they would fare better if they did a regular 75 minutes of physical activity.
A Times reader recently quoted a Russian proverb which states:
"You do not fatten a pig by constantly weighing it".
That is the only reference I shall make to agriculture today. We do not want fat children. It is already a serious problem and another reason for physical activity. What we do want, surely, are children who have the opportunity for a rounded education, and that should include the opportunity to do sport.
In the mock elections held recently in the primary school where I am a governor, all of the 10—yes, 10—political parties had better resourcing for PE as a key item in their manifestos. Children think that sport is important.

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Of course we want to raise standards in schools, but raising standards is not a one dimensional process. It is complex. It is related to young people's self-esteem and a sense of connectedness to systems. I agree with much—no, all—of what the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said. Certainly participation in sport and its link with skills, inclusiveness and academic achievement cannot be ignored.
In French schools, every Wednesday is devoted to sport. Children and young people are offered a wide variety of activities in order that they might find a sport they are interested in pursuing and maintaining. Academic standards of French children do not seem to have suffered. Community sports facilities in France are superb and well tended. I know a school in the north of England where school pupils are not allowed to use the local sports field for health and safety reasons.
The Central Council for Physical Recreation has recently issued its manifesto, Active Britain. This has several strands, including education. It calls for adequate resources and time for initial teacher training in physical education and sport, with particular emphasis on primary schools; it calls for club-school links and lifelong learning; it calls for continued vigilance about preserving playing fields and green spaces; it calls for adequate funding as being,
"fundamental to the success of a total sports policy".
It finally quotes Nelson Mandela, who said:
"Sport has the power to change the world, the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else can".
Tony Blair has talked about sport being,
"a key to the liberation of our young people's potential".
Indeed it is, and it can have a fundamental impact on schools. The commitment by the Government to promote greater opportunities for sport is very welcome. I know that initiatives are in place, but I worry about the place of sport in the curriculum; I worry about how we will fulfil and monitor targets set, such as those for 15 and 16 year-olds; I worry about funding and resourcing for sport and access for all young people, irrespective of financial status; and I worry about the lack of specialist teachers for PE in primary schools.
In future deliberations about education, health and social affairs, I hope that we will be vigilant about the place of sport in schools and the community. Access is key; resourcing is key. Sport is key to the function of society. Sport in schools is a foundation for that society and for young people, individually and collectively, to participate in it. Will the Minister assure me that sport will not fall off the agenda in schools?
7.46 p.m.
Lord Kimball: My Lords, we all have great sympathy with the noble Baroness and support what she has said about the standard of sport in schools.
As vice-president of the Countryside Alliance, I should like to add to what my noble friends Lord Plumb and Lord Ferrers have said about the noble
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Baroness, Lady Hayman. She really understood about foot and mouth disease. She was helpful and she was approachable. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will follow in her steps.
It will be very difficult. The Government have created an integrated department for rural issues. They have a rare opportunity to show that they plan to do something for the countryside rather than to do something to it. The Government could regain the trust and respect of the countryside.
It is not only because of foot and mouth disease that the agricultural industry has suffered its worst year since 1930. If we look at the fields today, it is quite obvious that the harvest will be extremely bad. Because of the wet winter, it will be some 30 per cent less than last year. Land which would normally be laid out to grass will go into set aside, and the result will be an overshooting of the basic area of set aside for which we get paid. The result of that will be a penalty. We need to negotiate with the European Union that that penalty should not be inflicted at the moment.
Leicestershire and Northamptonshire are no longer infected areas. We need further modification to the schemes for the movement of livestock. At the moment there are three schemes. There are schemes for occupational movement of under 0.5 kilometres and for local movement of 5 kilometres as the crow flies. Under those two schemes, the Government pay the veterinary bills. Under the third scheme— for long distance—the veterinary bills are not paid. Why is there a difference between those three schemes? Surely under all three schemes the veterinary bills should be paid. In non-infected areas—which now include Leicestershire and Northamptonshire—why cannot trading standards officers rather than vets issue the certificates for animals going for slaughter?
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford mentioned the very serious situation we will face going into the autumn: we will have an over supply of livestock coming onto the market because of our inability to export. An enormous number of animals, particularly small lambs, used to be exported but that possibility will not be available to us. We will also have another major problem with the cull ewes coming in from the hills. I hope that the Government will look carefully at the use of the private storage aid scheme which is part of the EU sheep regime. This would help to smooth out the marketing problems, particularly in relation to the young lambs that are coming forward.
I wonder whether anyone has considered the position as regards venison. What will happen in relation to farmed venison and the normal cull venison that will come forward during the autumn. It was pointed out in today's edition of the Daily Telegraph that for the past two months Holland has been free of foot and mouth. Why has not the same happened in Scotland'? We are very lucky; in Scotland almost a month has passed without a further case of foot and mouth. Surely in a month's time the venison market ought to be freed from restrictions. After all, Scotland is now another part of the world; it is not the same as England—unfortunately! A lifting of restrictions would also greatly help with the export of small lambs.

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I conclude by asking the noble Lord whether he will look into the setting up of a proper inquiry—like the Northumberland inquiry—to establish the origin of the foot and mouth epidemic. I also put in a special plea for the proper control of imports into this country.
7.51 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, we have heard a detailed and expert speech from the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, on the present state of the farming industry. I propose to go a little further into the background, not having suffered from, and therefore not having had the opportunities that the noble Lord has had to learn from, the effects of the present situation.
First, as most of us are making our first speeches after the general election, perhaps I may say how nice it is to be back with all my colleagues—most of them feeling that they have done rather well out of the election. The Conservatives may not be feeling that quite so much as some of the others, but they have all the adrenaline of having to do something about it in the course of the next two or three months. They will no doubt be reasonably happy after that.
The Green Party, which I am still the only person to represent at Westminster—although not, of course, in the European Parliament or in the Scottish Parliament—did rather well in the election. No one may have noticed it very much, but we doubled our vote up and down the country. We saved 10 deposits where previously we had not saved one at a general election. To save a deposit in this kind of voting system is very much the same as to ensure that one could have elected representatives in a reformed electoral system. I also point out to those who did not notice it that in one constituency we beat the Liberal Democrats into fourth place. That is a first, but it will not be a last.
I am about to address the position of agriculture—although as has been said time and again, the gracious Speech said nothing at all about the agricultural industry or rural society. What I am about to say is what I personally believe. It is also what the Green Party believes and it is very much in this instance what the Small and Family Farms Alliance believes, as indicated in a paper that is being produced by its indomitable and hard-working vice-chairman, Pippa Woods.
The dictum has gone forth that farmers should be paid to look after the countryside rather than to produce food. Many arguments are set out as to why this is desirable. No explanation has yet been given as to what it actually means in practice on the farm. The right reverend Prelate made a comment along those lines.
Farmers would like answers to some of the basic questions that arise from this policy. Among them are these. By what means will the countryside be cared for? Is it to be cultivated and grazed; or have conservationists invented a new way of maintaining an attractive landscape full of biodiversity? What size of
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farm, and how many working farmers does the nation need or want? Is the nation happy to eat mainly imported food?
The historical way of caring for land has been to farm it. Some 6 per cent is afforested. It has been cultivated to produce crops which are consumed either directly by people or grazed by animals which, in turn, feed humans. This activity has produced the traditional variety of colour and texture in fields which is an attractive and unique feature of many parts of Britain. It has also, until comparatively recent times, produced plenty of biodiversity.
Unfortunately, food production has never been very profitable, except during wars. Most foods can be produced more cheaply in some other part of the world, and the availability of cheap imported food has always held down the prices that farmers receive for their home grown produce.
The poor financial return from farming has led to a steady outflow of people from the land. Smaller farms have been amalgamated into larger ones. The process is nothing new, but it has accelerated alarmingly recently as profitability has fallen to zero and below. More foreign food has become available, and food retailing has become concentrated in a few large supermarket chains which are able to drive hard bargains with individual farmers.
Many farmers have given up; indeed, a number have committed suicide. But the more determined have been doing their best to survive on the very small margins that remain. Some have expanded greatly and thoroughly embraced modern technology, substituting machinery, chemicals and IT for human labour. Even this does not always ensure profitability and even those with the largest farms have been happy to receive the subsidies which have been vital to keep those with average sized farms solvent.
The first reaction to reduced profitability is to intensify and to try to produce more—the "perverse supply response" now recognised by the RSPB. But eventually there is a quitting point when farmers can no longer cope as prices fall steadily. If farmers can no longer afford to produce food, how are they to manage the land to produce the desired environment?
While there is no obvious demarcation line between those who have large and small farms, the great disparity between those who count their acres and animals by the thousand and what used to be the average farmer with 100 to 200 acres greatly complicates policy-making.
The average size of farm influences many things in the locality. Smaller farms are more likely to keep stock and have smaller fields, making for a more interesting landscape with greater biodiversity. They are also likely to have smaller incomes and thus an incentive to provide B&B for tourists. Ten farms of 200 acres will employ more labour and are likely to provide more trade for local businesses of all kinds than one 2,000-acre enterprise.
At the time of the last CAP reform there was serious talk of progressively reducing the rate of subsidy for production over a certain level. This was called

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modulation, but is a totally different concept from MAFF's reduction of all payments by 4½ per cent—sometimes called modulation or "recycling"—most of the money being put to activities other than food production. In the event, it was decided that, whatever the obvious and ethical advantages of such a policy, it would be,
"detrimental to UK Agriculture PLC".
If farmers are to be rewarded solely, or even mainly, for conservation of the countryside, the issue will have to be faced: how many farmers should there be, and what should be their level of reward? If there are to be no food-related subsidies, and if the WTO forces us to accept whatever food anyone cares to send us, it must be faced that food production will not be a profitable activity and will be largely abandoned. A two-tier market could well evolve with ordinary, imported food for the masses (including schools, the services and hospitals) and high-quality, home produced food for the fastidious. The fastidious will also, of course, have to be reasonably well off as the price differential between food produced abroad by giant international corporations without regulations and that produced at home to our high standards will probably be considerable.
Economists are not concerned about food security; there is plenty of food available world-wide, they say. Ordinary citizens are not so sure. It occurs to us that many things could happen to interrupt supplies from overseas, such as war, climatic disasters or pestilence. We have had plenty of opportunity to see what might happen in the latter case. People also worry about methods of production. The WTO is already trying to force us to accept hormone treated meat and milk. Some countries pay their workers very poor wages and do not recognise environmental restraints; others have little regard for animal welfare.
Economists may be happy to eat food produced in ways that are illegal in Britain, or perhaps they have faith that the proposed European food authority will somehow ensure that only high-quality food is imported. Most ordinary people would prefer to rely on British regulations to control the way their food is produced. But will they be able to afford home produced food if its producers receive no subsidy? How many consumers will be able to resist the temptation to buy the imported product with a much lower price tag?
Clearly the present regime is totally daft. The WTO ensures that imported food bought at the "world market price" keeps our farmgate prices below the fair cost of production. Government (British and European Union together) step in with a CAP regime which provides just enough subsidy to keep farming just alive; traders and retailers are sufficiently well organised to ensure that they receive by far the largest share of the money consumers pay for food. And the countryside is not being universally well cared for—farmers have no spare time or money for that work.
Everyone wants the CAP reformed, but it is the WTO which will govern farming. Should we not reform that first? Until 1995 farming was not much
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controlled by GATT rules. Then came the WTO and its Agreement on Agriculture and also the resolution to tighten the rules progressively. This is called liberalising trade. Do we really need this Agreement on Agriculture? It is supposed to be beneficial to developing countries, is it not? However, they tend to be getting poorer, not richer.
Surely the effects of the AOA should be properly researched before it is made more comprehensive, which is the goal of many powerful members of the WTO. There is much world-wide disquiet about the current negotiations, the details of which are very hard to discover. We need to know much more about what is going on. If farmers could earn a proper price for the food they produce, they would be much better able to care for the countryside in the process.
One or two speakers have commented that there was nothing in the Queen's Speech, or in the previous Queen's Speech, about agriculture. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford was one of them. It is not in the slightest surprising that that is the case. Nothing serious can be done for agriculture—except alleviating minor difficulties—short of a major move away from free trade, or at least a total modification of what the World Trade Organisation is doing. Until there is that total volte-face on the part of the Government there will be no hope for British agriculture or the British countryside. It is time that the Government realised that.
8.4 p.m.
Earl Peel: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the sole member of the Green Party in either House of Parliament. Many of the points I wished to raise have been mentioned by the noble Lord.
I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his new appointment. I do not think that any of us are under any illusions as to the magnitude of the task in front of him, but I have no doubt that the noble Lord will do everything he can to aid and abet his new department.
I want to resist the temptation to say too much about foot and mouth disease. However, I shall make two brief points. First, I subscribe entirely to the points made by my noble friend Lord Kimball. We simply must have a public inquiry into the disaster. We had the Northumberland report after the 1967 outbreak. There is no doubt that this wretched business will come back to haunt us. Next time I hope and pray that we have learnt lessons and that the government of the day are in a position to act speedily to avoid all the disasters which my noble friend Lord Monro so rightly mentioned.
Before I leave the subject of foot and mouth disease I wish to raise a further point with the Minister. There appears to be a marked difference in the way that various councils deal with claims for rate relief under the hardship scheme. I have seen two forms, one from an area to the east of the Pennines and one from an area to the west. They are very different in presentation. One is helpful; the other is almost a hindrance, certainly over-complicated and

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demanding. I urge the Minister to consider the matter. After all, the whole purpose of the scheme is to help people in the disastrous situation in which they find themselves through no fault of their own. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when he considers the many points that have been and will be raised in this debate.
Foot and mouth disease has undoubtedly brought into focus many aspects of the way in which we farm and manage the countryside. I have no doubt that one of the casualties of the crisis has been the Ministry of Agriculture itself. I declare an interest as an owner of land in the north of England. As such I very much welcome the new department in principle. Indeed, I have long been an advocate of such a move. It always appeared to me quite illogical not to unite food production, forestry and rural enterprise in general with the well-being of the land and its wildlife under one ministry.
There is, of course, inevitable speculation as to whether in reality MAFF has conquered the environment or the environment has conquered MAFF. I hope that we are witnessing the coming together of two cultures on even terms with an equal weighting to both.
My noble friend Lady Blatch asked—she was absolutely right to do so—who was the environment secretary. Mr Prescott appears to have retained responsibility for international negotiations on climate change. But, like my noble friend, I find it odd that the civil servants responsible for monitoring atmospheric pollution and any other barometers of change are within the new department. Perhaps the Minister will explain how that will work in practice.
I believe that my noble friend also mentioned my next point about planning. I fail to understand why planning, which is such a dominant card in the rural pack, as my noble friend Lord Wade pointed out, remains with the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. I should have thought that that was likely to lead to disjointed government.
However, these important issues apart, what I hope for under the new department is a more streamlined and committed approach to countryside matters, less red tape, less bureaucracy, with responsibility for augmenting policy in fewer hands, but most of all a greater understanding of the needs and aspirations of those who live and work in rural England. Dare I ask the Minister whether he forecasts that the new department will result in savings, both in administration and money? If so, will the money that is saved be put back into the countryside to be invested in proper, constructive rural schemes?
There is much talk on the back of this most recent agricultural crisis about a switch from agricultural production to environmental schemes. I welcome that in principle. There can be little doubt now that since 1947 the agricultural policies have been distinctly unhelpful to the rural environment. There is a growing realisation that the enormous amounts of cash available through the CAP—I accept that they may
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decline in real terms over the years—must be redirected. That switch is important for two reasons. First, it deals with the basic principle of sustainable land management, and, secondly, it would command respect from the taxpayer which the present system clearly does not.
Most thinking people acknowledge that farmers are best placed to manage the countryside. The question is—the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, posed it—what can realistically be expected of them. Farmers must receive a proper return; otherwise they will go—and, heaven's above, too many have gone already. One has to admire the resolute commitment of many farmers to staying on the land. We have seen many examples during the present foot and mouth crisis.
Looking to the future, and putting the present crisis to one side for a moment, how many farmers could survive without support given the inevitable move towards freer markets and globalisation? It would appear that not too many could compete in the low cost bulk commodities markets. But there will surely be those who will succeed by establishing specialist goods and better marketing. It is, therefore, incumbent on government and supermarkets to give them every possible support. That includes ensuring that food produced in this country is not undermined by imports which do not adhere to our own internal standards and seeing that products are not labelled as "Cornish" or "Lancastrian" when in fact they come from Botswana or Greece. That is certainly occurring at present.
Diversification is often regarded as the panacea to solve the crisis in agriculture. While I accept that all efforts must be welcomed and encouraged, some recent figures indicate that at present on-farm diversification represents only 6 per cent of total income assessed for tax.
Another alarming statistic is that 36 per cent of total income assessed for tax comes from investments and pensions. Clearly, with the present crisis in agriculture, that is unsustainable. The trend that one can extrapolate from that is that in the short to medium term we are likely to see many more farmers coming out of farming.
However, several things are essential if this new culture (if I may so call it) is to work. First, environmental payments must truly reflect the farmers' efforts and should not be based on profits foregone, as happens at present. That clearly is a joke because there are no profits. Also—it is an important issue—this country must not develop an anti-farming culture. Good farming and environmental management should go hand in glove and riding on the back of both a successful rural tourist industry. Goodness me, how that has manifested itself during this wretched foot and mouth crisis.
Environmental schemes available to farmers must embrace an element of choice. Farmers must be given the chance to manage—and management means making decisions. I attended an English Nature conference and received its conclusions recently. I draw to your Lordships' attention two of them. First, we need more initiatives such as the Bowland

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and Bodmin initiatives, with more local discretion which involves farmers in local policy development. Secondly—I believe that this is fundamental—we require simple schemes defined by goals not regulations.
I know that there is a view in the country among perhaps the majority of conservationists that the private sector cannot deliver on environmental objectives. Given the right conditions, I believe that it can and will and in many cases is doing so. However, despite the plethora of site designations from the UK Government and Europe along with extensive bureaucracy to back them up—never mind the enormous investment of funds—many wildlife species are still in decline in Great Britain. A graph produced in a recent Countryside Agency publication clearly demonstrated this. It is interesting that the decline since the 1981 Act was particularly pronounced. That indicates to me that designations are not the simple answer for dealing with the environmental issues in our countryside. I think that at times some conservationists and large charities which own increasing amounts of land should look more closely at their own activities and successes before being too critical of others. The only way forward is through partnership built on mutual experience and first-class research—a point made by my noble friend Lord Wade. Research, I believe, has been too often compromised.
However, there remains one outstanding puzzle which needs to be resolved before these much-heralded changes can come into force. I understand that member states can spend up to 20 per cent of the direct payments from the CAP on rural development initiatives; in other words, a re-direction of resources away from agricultural support and into other countryside activities. To date the Government have committed £1.6 billion to the rural development budget between 2000 and 2006. Of that, £1 billion is earmarked specifically for agri-environment schemes. Approximately 7 per cent of public expenditure is allocated to agricultural support. Seven per cent is not very much. Therefore, even if the Government were to increase expenditure on agri-environment schemes to the maximum 20 per cent, that would not lead to the change of emphasis and culture that everyone appears to want, including the Government.
I refer again to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. We come back to this fundamental question. When shall we see a proper reform of the common agricultural policy? Without that, this new culture, this new ideal, will simply not happen.
We have a new ministry, new hope, new expectations. The gracious Speech contained nothing with regard to rural legislation. I am rather pleased about that. We have enough rules and regulations in the countryside and want a few less. However, hunting has raised its ugly head. For country people, frankly, this is another affront. But I shall not dwell on that. I wish the new ministry well. I wish our new Minister well. I conclude by quoting Michael Sissons
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in A Countryside For All—a book that I believe is compulsory reading for anyone interested in rural matters. He referred to,
"a wholehearted commitment to promoting all manifestations of a thriving modern rural economy to take its place beside the new realities of agriculture".
I hope that that is what we shall see.
8.19 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I have enjoyed the debate. I have enjoyed many good speeches on education; and some outstanding speeches on my subject, agriculture, from the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, with his great expertise, and the noble Earl, Lord Peel. The noble Lord, Lord Monro, spoke with peculiar passion because he is, I believe, the only Peer present who is directly affected by having his stock destroyed.
Funnily enough, I shall start—if the Minister will listen to me—by talking about butterflies. I received a marvellous publication recently on The State of Britain's Butterflies. It shows the species in decline and those, happily, that are actively expanding. I greatly enjoyed reading it, until I came to page 13, where, in large print, it says:
"Major reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is needed to reverse the decline of common as well as rarer species. Farm support should be conditional on the maintenance of existing wildlife and landscape features, and agri-environment schemes must be expanded to encourage suitable management and restoration of habitats throughout the countryside".
Those are admirable sentiments, but I hope and trust that the Government are not basing their attitude to agriculture on the advice that they receive from various environmental bodies, because those views do not reflect the true state of affairs in the countryside. One million people are still employed in agriculture and related industries. Without agriculture, there would not be any related industries. British agriculture still produces 66 per cent of the food that the British public consume. Although, like manufacturing, agriculture is declining as a share of the country's total production, it is still very important. No valid policy on improving the environment or the preservation of species can fail to take into account the needs of agriculture. We cannot simply say that agriculture must alter to preserve butterflies or to placate certain environmental bodies. Of course we must preserve butterflies, but we have to consider the people who farm the land.
The Government are aware of the simple fact that farms are getting bigger. Groups of two or three farmers are joining together to farm anything up to 1,000 acres without employing any people, using contractors and bigger machines. Most of them will survive, provided they have a fair and proper playing field. They cannot compete with farming industries abroad that have no health or food quality regulations. That is the first point with which the Government have to deal. With the expansion of the European Union, competition will be strong and the conditions need to be fair.

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The second development, as the noble Earl, Lord Peel, illustrated, is that a large proportion of the income on many smaller farms comes from outside employment. Many people are now part-time farmers. That is very good if they like the land and do well, but they need help if they are to survive.
The third development in farming is specialisation. Many farmers are doing tremendous work on healthy systems of production, particularly in soft fruit in my own area of Angus. Those specialists need to be able to market their produce fairly. Although the Government were quick to condemn Milk Marque as a monopolistic body, they do not seem to be quite so keen to control the other monopolistic bodies that buy the produce. That has to be dealt with and money has to be provided for the research and expansion needed.
The final development is that farmers are retiring. Many of them cannot afford to retire. Many European countries have generous schemes for retiring. The Government are considering the issue.
I shall not go into any more detail. The most important factor for the environment is the farming population of this country. The Government should consider the issue that way and should take the advice that they get from a host of uninvolved environmental bodies with practical common sense.
8.26 p.m.
The Earl of Selborne: My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. He and I have served for a long time on Sub-Committee D of the European Union Select Committee, which deals with agriculture and the environment. Sadly, he has just been rotated off the committee. I hope that that is temporary, because we desperately need his help.
Most of the last four speeches have dealt with agriculture and the environment and I shall follow them, but I shall say a few words first about education, which is the other strand of our debate. Thirteen or 14 years ago, I was the chairman of a city technology college. It gives me great pleasure to be able to congratulate the Government on supporting greater diversity and higher standards in secondary schools. It is a great credit to them that they have recognised that their initial antagonism towards specialist schools—certainly towards the city technology colleges in their early days—was misplaced and that they are prepared to learn so much from them.
Some specialist schools have been spectacularly successful. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred to their contribution in making children feel special and developing qualities of leadership. She also talked about resources, which is always a contentious issue and a key factor in any school, not just specialist schools. All schools must be appropriately and adequately resourced.
The great lesson which is now being drawn on with the expansion of specialist schools is the freedom that the heads of the schools have to develop their own curriculum, employ staff and set salary levels and
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management structures. I remember the hostility from the local authority and from neighbouring schools in the early days. My goodness, we have moved a long way. That is very encouraging. I was delighted that the headmaster whom I helped to appoint 11 or 12 years ago received well deserved recognition in last week's honours list. He then wrote a personal letter to every child in the school. No wonder those children feel special.
Coming back to agriculture and the environment, I very much welcome the new Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I have always hoped that agriculture and the environment could find a place in the same department. I recognise that, however the cake is cut, there will always be some inconsistencies. Others have dealt with that. However, at a time when—this has been stressed so often that I need not repeat it—agriculture clearly could not be in a worse position, either in the United Kingdom or, indeed, in much of Europe, the opportunity to coordinate what could possibly be described as a potential agricultural revolution for Europe is one which we should all welcome.
We should also recognise that we now have the Food Standards Agency, which has been in existence for over a year. I believe that it got off to a very solid start. It demonstrated to people that there is an ability to recognise what practices in the food chain lead to concern and what practices in agriculture are capable of improvement. I believe that it already gives to consumers a greater feeling that a detached agency does indeed inform government departments about the standards of food. That is a very important precedent.
Sub-Committee D has, to my certain knowledge, for 12 or 15 years ever more shrilly proposed radical reforms of the common agricultural policy, as, indeed, have successive administrations. We know that the government of the day in this country invariably have been in a minority in the relevant Council of Ministers. However, again, that is changing and provides us with another opportunity.
It is a sad fact that the spread of BSE into European countries has caused a sea change in feeling among some countries which staunchly supported a common agricultural policy through thick or thin. Again, I believe that there will now be an opportunity in the agricultural council to think the unthinkable in terms of how the common agricultural policy could deliver not only agricultural support, which clearly is required, but also benefits to all the other stakeholders.
Although we have talked about the matter for many years, the question remains as to whether we have yet identified the mechanisms for involving all the rural stakeholders. Do we even know what we mean by "rural stakeholders"? Who will ensure that not only do farmers such as myself talk to neighbours as to how we propose to run the farms but that a dialogue will inform priorities in our parishes and regions and, indeed, help to form part of the payment structure for which ultimately we shall be rewarded? As a farmer

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and landowner, if I am to continue to attract public funds, which I hope I shall, I must recognise to whom ultimately I am accountable. Of course, ultimately I am accountable to the wider consumer—to the taxpayer.
But, above all, I believe that it is perfectly legitimate for the issues of landscape, biodiversity, wildlife and habitat enhancement—all those matters and many others—to be issues in which those who visit the countryside or live near by but work elsewhere feel that they have a legitimate stake—at least to make their point of view known. Whether the economics of it, which clearly they would not expect to be able to control fully, will allow it is something that clearly would have to be considered further.
However, there must at least be a better system than the current one is perceived to be for allowing wider local participation in the farming systems. If farmers recognise that they should work with the local community, meet the legitimate and sensible aspirations and try to explain rather better what they believe is sustainable in agricultural terms, I believe that we shall have an agenda which we can pursue with far less conflict, far less hot air and far less simplistic views which tend to concentrate on intensive agriculture versus organic or the sins of the multiple food chains.
All those debates are sterile and unhelpful in progressing the agenda. We shall continue to have multiples selling our food whether we like it or not. I have no particular objection to multiples as such. We shall continue to have organic farming alongside more conventional farming systems for the simple reason that organic farming systems will never feed the country, let alone the world.
Therefore, we should recognise what the strengths of the different strands are. When we can organise sensible, rational and constructive discussions about stakeholder forums and the like, I believe that it will be done with possibly the new department acting as something of a facilitator.
The old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food owned and, I believe, still does own a number of farms which were often intended to help to promote the transfer of research advice. They were held in high regard. However, their remit is changing rapidly. I suspect that when and if the future of some of those farms is considered—I know that some consideration is being given to them at present—the opportunity should be taken to use them as test sites to determine what people believe they mean by soil quality. As a farmer, I believe that I know what I mean, but it may not always meet the requirements of flooding or soil biodiversity.
I turn to stock management systems. Why do people believe that some are ethically superior to others? There are, indeed, very good reasons why some are more desirable than others, and there may well be good reasons why we have a very different regime in relation to some of these matters from our colleagues in Europe. Again, those issues must be understood by all parties. We must understand the contribution that
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farming can and does make to the rural community and the contribution that it should make, as perhaps it does not at the moment.
With regard to landscape appearance, it is very easy to discuss people's aspirations; it is slightly harder to pay in results on it. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, referred to butterflies. I am delighted to report that I am a member of Butterfly Conservation, which I believe helped to produce that publication with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, which I used to chair. There again, I believe that it would be perfectly possible to put out indicators on farms as to what habitats were desirable in order to see whether some of the species which are declining—by no means all are; in fact, some are increasing—can be encouraged by favourable farming systems.
I would welcome that degree of involvement. I find that when I have a farm open day, which I do every year, I have more than 8,000 visitors. Usually they cannot understand why I am not an organic farmer, but we do not have fisticuffs about it. It demonstrates to me that there is a great appetite for further information.
Certainly when the gracious Speech refers to the reality of sustainable development being a priority of the Government, I take that as a reference to agriculture as well as to climate change. Agriculture can and should be the green industry. It can and should be able to help other industries to recycle some of their waste products. It can certainly do much to reduce its own impacts, which very often are a form of leakages into soil, air and water. I believe that it can certainly demonstrate precisely what sustainable development is all about. I suspect that it is for that reason that agriculture does, after all, receive a mention in the gracious Speech.
8.38 p.m.
Baroness Maddock: My Lords, I rise with some apprehension, given the previous speaker's opening comments about my noble friend Lord Mackie, because I am to be his replacement on Sub-Committee D.
I want to return to an issue raised by the new Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, earlier in the debate and also by my noble friend Lady Hamwee—that is, housing. I am used to being a minority in this House in speaking on housing issues. However, I appear to be in a minority of one this evening. I also want to touch on the subject of energy efficiency, particularly in relation to housing. That issue was raised by other noble Lords earlier this evening during discussions on sustainability and the environment.
The gracious Speech made virtually no reference to housing, although it did refer to the reintroduction of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill. I was involved with others Members on these Benches in the passage of that Bill during the previous Session of Parliament. We gave our support to the introduction of commonhold and to the greater opportunities for leasehold tenants to manage their houses. However, in

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the previous Session we also considered that the Government were mistaken to believe that that Bill would result in commonhold being taken up widely. We were particularly concerned that commonhold was not to be compulsory and that, if leasehold tenants wanted to convert to commonhold, everyone in their block would have to agree to it. That may mean that one or two small blocks of flats would revert to commonhold. However, leasehold will not disappear gradually; it will take much longer than the Government anticipate.
My noble friend Lord Goodhart, who is not here today, made some good proposals during the Bill's passage through this House and I hope that the Government will examine them carefully. He proposed that only 80 per cent of leasehold tenants need be in agreement in a block. That would mean much re-working of the Bill, but if the Government really want commonhold to become common, they should look carefully at that suggestion.
As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, the Homelessness Bill will be introduced in the other place next week. It will be based on the Homes Bill, which was introduced during the previous Session. We welcome the new Bill and in particular the fact that it will contain a new section dealing with decisions about the suitability of accommodation that is offered to homeless people. Liberal Democrats in another place raised that matter. Other noble Lords will join me in welcoming the fact that Part 1 of the Homes Bill is nowhere to be seen in the new Bill. That part was widely condemned around the House and we on these Benches welcome its removal.
The speed with which the Homelessness Bill was introduced, despite the fact that it was not in the gracious Speech, is in stark contrast with the slowness with which the Homes Bill was introduced during the previous Session, despite promises that were made in another place to undo the worst parts of the Housing Act 1996. At that time I heard the previous Minister responsible for housing, who was then in opposition, promise that that would be a priority should the Labour Party come into government. That was also a priority in its manifesto. Does the speed with which the Homelessness Bill has been introduced mean that we can expect further speedy action on the housing front from the Government and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who is the new Minister responsible for housing? I welcomed his opening comments, which were about giving a priority to delivery, and I was particularly pleased to see him return to his place shortly before I started my speech.
We want more resources to be made available to provide suitable and affordable accommodation. My noble friend Lady Hamwee highlighted the real problems that are experienced in that regard, especially in London. She also referred briefly—I shall do so in more detail—to the problems of families who are in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for a long time. That is a scandal and I hope that there will be rapid action in that regard.
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The slowness of action in the previous Parliament, particularly in relation to homelessness and affordable housing, played a part in the recent rise in the number of homeless people presenting themselves to councils and in the disturbing rise in the number of families living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. My noble friend mentioned this earlier but it is worth repeating the fact that in the first quarter of this year there was a 10 per cent increase in unintentionally homeless people in priority need. There was also a rise of more than 16 per cent in the number of households in temporary accommodation and a rise of 24 per cent in the number of households in bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
Shelter, the Association of London Government and the National Housing Federation joined forces to campaign for action on bed-and-breakfast accommodation. They propose that an overall national target should be set to reduce the number of households in bed-and-breakfast accommodation and that there should be individual targets for local authorities. They want local plans that outline the way in which those targets will be achieved to be developed. They call for immediate action to increase the supply of high-quality temporary accommodation and therefore reduce the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation through the leasing and managing of private sector properties by social housing landlords. They believe that spending between £250 million and £300 million over two years could provide enough homes for 10,000 households. That would be much more cost-effective than the current approach, which uses bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I understand that the Government now recognise the need for targets to speed up cuts in the number of families who are in such accommodation. I hope that we shall hear more on that from the Minister when he winds up.
There is another matter about which I want to hear more from the Government; namely, the provision of assistance to housing associations and local authorities so that they can bring empty homes back into use. I declare an interest in this regard because I am a patron of the Empty Homes Agency. Homelessness is rising but there are still 760,000 empty homes across England. I am sure that the new Minister responsible for housing is aware of the latest campaign by the Empty Homes Agency. It is called—this is appropriate for Wimbledon week—"The ball's in your court". It urges the Government to give local authorities the power to charge 100 per cent council tax on long-term empty properties. Ashley Horsey, who is the chief executive of the Empty Homes Agency, urges this Labour Government, now that they have been re-elected, to reflect on the matter, to move in the proposed direction and to consult.
Each year, the Empty Homes Agency issues awards to local authorities, registered social landlords and others for best practice in bringing empty properties back into use. There is plenty of scope for the Government to work with the Empty Homes Agency and to help to disseminate information about I successful schemes and best practice.

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I shall give one example of a scheme that won an award this year. In view of the number of noble Lords who have spoken about the need for regeneration and sustainability in the countryside, I have chosen to discuss Herefordshire county council, which was the winner of the best rural scheme. That county council came into being as a unitary authority in 1998 and immediately adopted an official empty property strategy. It appointed a dedicated officer to implement it. During the past three years, the council's empty property strategy has evolved from a blank sheet of paper into an initiative that impacts across directorates and regularly provides the authority with good news stories. By using a combination of grants, leasing schemes, advice and enforcement action, the empty property strategy was responsible for bringing 54 empty properties back into use during 2000–01. I hope that the Minister will comment on that. Some years ago, my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, who will wind up for the Liberal Democrats, was the leader of Somerset council, which also won an award for its empty property strategy.
In delivering results, the Government often seem to remove responsibilities from local government and move them to other bodies; they do not leave the democratically elected bodies to deliver for their communities. We all know that there are local authorities that do not perform in the best way, but we on these Benches do not believe that that is an excuse for undermining the democratic process. We should spread best practice to those who are elected in local authorities and to those who help them deliver.
I turn to another promise that the Government made, about houses in multiple occupation. That promise was made some time ago and it is another commitment that we hoped would have been realised during the previous Session. Towards the end of the last Parliament—in fact, in the last week of the previous Parliament—some Members of another place presented the Houses in Multiple Occupation (Registration Scheme) Bill. That would require local authorities to set up licensing schemes for houses in multiple occupation.
I and others believe that such a scheme should also contain energy efficiency requirements as a condition of registration because that would be an extremely effective way of tackling fuel poverty in the private rented sector where over 40 per cent of tenants are living in fuel poverty. I believe that any scheme which did not include energy efficiency would condemn millions of people to live in cold homes for many more years.
Virtually all the demands for a licensing scheme have focused on issues such as fire safety, means of escape, provision of facilities, dilapidated conditions, good management practice and so on. But very little attention has been focused on energy efficiency.
I do not believe that the Government are hostile in that area. Indeed, there was a discussion paper from the DETR about management standards for HMOs. In it Ministers said that they believe—and this was probably their excuse for not having the licensing of
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HMOs in the last Session—that it now makes sense to link HMO licensing with other measures aimed at improving the quality of housing generally. They now intend to legislate at the same time with a new approach to assessing the physical condition of all dwellings.
Licensing would reduce health risks. We know that. The health risks of cold homes have been well documented. The scale of fuel poverty in Britain today has been well documented. I believe that including energy efficiency standards in an HMO licensing scheme would greatly assist the Government in dealing with fuel poverty in the most difficult sector; that is, houses in multiple occupation.
I also have another interest in this matter because in 1995 I was the sponsor in another place of the Home Energy Conservation Act. That Act gave local authorities the duty to improve energy efficiency in their areas by 30 per cent by 2010, and that based on 1995 levels. I believe that a licensing scheme which included energy efficiency requirements would help local authorities to achieve the 30 per cent improvement set by the Home Energy Conservation Act, because there is no doubt that they are finding it quite difficult at the moment.
In the gracious Speech, the Government—and other noble Lords have mentioned this—reiterated their commitment to the Kyoto protocol and to sustainability. But what concerns many of us is that, particularly in the area of energy and energy efficiency, the new arrangement of departments is quite difficult across some of those areas. It may be advantageous to look at all the rural issues together, but I believe that it will be more difficult to deal with energy and energy efficiency.
Also, although those were very good words in the gracious Speech with which we can all agree, there is very little in the legislative timetable to hack it up. I believe that if the Government could move swiftly to a licensing of HMOs with energy efficiency measures, that would give a little bit more credibility to those words.
There is much more that I should like to say on energy efficiency and the poor repair of many of our homes in Britain today. Time is against me. But the new Government have four or more years in this parliamentary Session and I sincerely hope chat their priorities in the area of homes and decent housing are made a reality as soon as possible.
8.54 p.m.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, first, I add my congratulations to all three Ministers on the Government Front Bench on their new responsibilities. In particular, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, on her promotion which is so well deserved. I look forward to crossing verbal swords with her in your Lordships' House on many occasions in the future, if not this evening.
I should like to address my remarks to the part of the gracious Speech that related to education and, in particular, comment on teacher recruitment and

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retention and the involvement of the private sector in education. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, may remember that I frequently questioned her predecessor about the number of teaching vacancies in our schools. She may also remember that the answer I invariably received was that there were 10,000 more teachers in our schools now than when Labour came to power. Of course there are. There are more children in school now than there were then and we, of course, accept that the Government have reduced class sizes for 5 to 7 year-olds by a small amount, so a number of extra posts have been created. Naturally, therefore, there are more teachers.
However, there are also more vacancies in particular in our secondary schools. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will not quote me overall figures since the appalling problems in secondary schools are masked by the increase in the establishment in primary schools.
The facts speak for themselves. The vacancy rate in secondary schools has trebled under Labour, doubled since last year and is at the worst level for over a decade. Even in primary schools the vacancy rate has doubled under Labour and is the worst level for a decade. Vacancies for maths teachers have increased five-fold since 1997 and are now at the worst level for 15 years. The recruitment campaign referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, in introducing this debate will need to be vigorous indeed.
In reply, I wonder whether the Minister will answer a question which I have asked before in this House but to which I did not receive a satisfactory answer. When will the Government get a true picture of what is going on by conducting a proper curriculum and staffing survey? Only by doing so will they find out not only how many jobs are vacant, but also how many secondary classes in shortage subjects are being taught by teachers not qualified in that subject. Putting any old body up in front of a class will not produce the increase in standards that we should all like to see. Only a massive effort to recruit more good quality graduates into the profession, especially in shortage subjects, will do that.
The problem is critical. Every day we fall further behind our European partners in standards of education. The OECD report referred to by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford showed that there are 7 million Britons unable to read, write or add up to the level they need to communicate in the world of business. School leavers in the UK are in 13th place for literacy in a league table of 18 OECD countries. The author of the report, Andreas Schleicher, concluded that:
"If we don't get it right at the beginning of a person's education we can't fix it later on".
Although we get lots of students to degree level, we in Britain neglect and underfund our schools compared with the OECD average. Only four countries—Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden—have strong all-round performances and it is no coincidence
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that it is those countries which spend most on education, in particular in the early years, and where child poverty is almost unknown.
So what is putting people off coming into teaching? First, there is a lot of competition for good quality graduates. Management training schemes, the professions and the City all offer well-paid training programmes for talented young people. The Government will not attract the pick of the bunch unless they accept that a training salary, such as the Liberal Democrats have been proposing for a long time, is the only way forward.
Added to that is the need to make the profession more attractive. The burden of bureaucracy is heavy and is driving good experienced teachers out of the profession and discouraging new recruits from coming in. A total of 1,459 consultation papers, regulations, guidance notes, requests for statistical information and letters from Ministers were sent to local education authorities in the four years 1997 to 2000 inclusive. In the last year of that period, 152 of those were sent to schools. I know that the Government are addressing that but there is a very long way to go.
And that is not all. The number of new initiatives makes you dizzy. At least 24 new DfEE initiatives have been implemented since this Government came to power. It is no wonder that Harry Judge, the Dean of Education at Oxford, welcoming a group of American educationists to Britain recently, was moved to say:
"Welcome to our educational laboratory. You may conclude it is run by mad scientists and that you have seen it before it explodes".
The unfortunate sixth-form students currently taking the first AS levels, and their long-suffering parents, may well consider themselves to be the latest guinea pigs in that laboratory!
From these Benches we welcome the announcement that there will be a review of these ill-conceived examinations, but I wonder whether the Minister can tell the House anything about the terms of reference of the review. Will it simply look at the introduction of the AS examinations in isolation, or will it reconsider the desirable objective of how to broaden the sixth-form curriculum without putting undue stress on our much-examined students?
I turn to the proposals for further involvement of the private sector in our education system. I cannot understand the apparent belief that good quality management can be found only in the private sector. Anybody who has ever tried to get a courier company to deliver a parcel at a time that suits the customer, to arrange for a plumber to visit in the next three weeks or to buy a computer that works properly first time without the need for several components to be replaced will feel as jaundiced as I do about the private sector.
There is no reason why the quality of service and of management in the public sector cannot be every bit as good as the best of the private sector, given comparable resources. There is nothing wrong with private companies per se, but they all have to make

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profits for their shareholders. I am as suspicious as the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, and other noble Lords who have spoken about the profit issue in relation to education.
From where will the profit come? Nord Anglia does not run schools for the love of it. That company makes a healthy profit. What does the Minister believe is an appropriate level of profit for a company running a school? As 80 per cent of a school's budget is spent on staffing, one would assume that cutbacks would have to be made in staffing—as in the charter schools in the United States—in order to provide dividends for shareholders.
We must not allow our secondary schools to become the Railtrack of the education system. Those successful schools that the Government propose to hand over to private companies will be little different from private schools, supported by public money. That money should go directly towards the education of our children and not to shareholders.
Under the Government's new proposals we are promised that four out of 10 schools will become specialist schools, each supported by an additional £0.5 million over a four year period. That is a chicken and egg situation if ever I heard one. But where is the empirical evidence that such specialist schools will constitute an improvement? A recent study by Cardiff University's school of social sciences states:
"The specialist schools programme is seen as a key way of transforming the 'bog standard"'—
an unfortunate phrase—
"comprehensive education system. However, there is little evidence that such a programme can make such an impact. In particular, it is shown, schools that have control of their own admission arrangements will benefit the most and lead to the creation of a two-tier education system".
Will the Minister and his colleagues at the Department for Education and Skills examine the available research and accept that policy should be evidence-based, rather titan simply adopted for political reasons? There is a danger that the Government's proposals will dismantle our education system brick by brick and return us to the selection and segregation that failed so many children of my generation prior to the advent of the comprehensive system. If some comprehensives are failing, please do not condemn the whole system to the scrap heap. Fund it properly; attract and keep good teachers; support and encourage them; call for a moratorium on so-called initiatives; and then judge whether the system serves our needs or not. No government have done that. I recommend that as an appropriate course of action to the new Minister. That really would be a novelty.
9.4 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords, in view of the hour, I shall not repeat many of the points to which my brother Prelates have referred about the life that we are witnessing in the countryside at the moment. I simply want to add my voice to theirs. In yesterday's
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debate on the gracious Speech I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, referred to two economies: first, to the economy,
"in which consumers are prosperous, house prices are still just about rising and retail spending is up".
He continued:
"However, in the other economy, the manufacturing economy, things are very different".—[Official Report, 2516/01; col. 169.]
Where was the reference to the economy that concerns many of us who live and speak for rural parts of England? Where was the reference to the agricultural economy?
I shall not be the only Peer to echo the comments made at the opening of the debate on the gracious Speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, in which she expressed regret at the missed opportunity to say something in affirmation of those who work in and for the countryside. The only reference at all in the gracious Speech to rural matters was to hunting.
I recognise that the Government may not yet be ready with a programme of legislation based on the White Paper on the countryside. But some signals that they knew that there were matters to be addressed would have gone some way to acknowledge that a large part of the rural population is smarting from the effects, both direct and indirect, of foot and mouth disease, and that many involved in the rural economy do not see any sustainable future there.
Worse than that, there were few signals that the Government have taken on board how alienated many in the countryside feel from the life of what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, called the first economy. Deep divisions and suspicions, however ill-founded—we often know that they are—must not be allowed to take root. While I applaud the appointment of a Minister to "umbrella" all such matters, I hope that the Government will act to halt the perceived divide into two nations, the urban and the rural. Over the past few weeks we have seen the consequences of a perceived divide on the streets of towns in Lancashire. None of us wishes to see further polarisation if that can be avoided. It will not take much to listen to what is being said. I hope that there will be some signals that the Government are able to do that.
The gracious Speech links tackling climate change with making a reality of sustainable development. Not only within the United Kingdom is there a need to reduce poverty and bridge the widening gap between the rich and the poor. As well as being enmeshed in a global economic market, we are also facing challenges to the environment that will profoundly affect our future. What kind of sustainable development will secure a future on this planet? What kind of sustainable development are we willing to pay for now so that there may be any kind of a future? What do we understand to be the purpose of life; of plant life as it relates to animal life and of animal life in relation to human life?
All the talk about tackling climate change and making a reality of sustainable development is predicated on the assumption that we not only know

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how life—all the inter-related organisms which inhabit the earth—works, but also that we have grasped what life is for. A global scientific culture comes ever more closer to finding out how the earth works, but the post-scientific culture also needs an answer to the question, "What is life for?".
Our difficulty, I suggest, is that we pluck an answer to that question out of the air when we are considering a particular piece of legislation. That, after all, is how this House does its business; we consider the details of legislation. But where is the opportunity to collate all these implicit definitions? We work with a set of definitions about the purpose of life when considering the desirability of GM crops. Is it the same definition when we look at stem cell research? And do we use the same criteria when we debate human rights or a global effort to reduce poverty? And perhaps even more tellingly, do we allow ourselves to keep in mind a definition of what human life is for when we debate global economics?
In a period where people are increasingly suspicious of identifying with wider concerns, when the word "we" is more and more being replaced with the word "I", what are the steps that this House might take to secure common ground on which to build? I listened to speeches by the noble Lords in today's debate and so many have beneath them an implicit definition of the nature of human life which is not made explicit. If we were able to make that explicit, would we be further on in our efforts not only in terms of global economy but also in terms of an education policy which delivered for the children and for the adults too in our country?
We on these Benches have no exclusive rights to provide answers to the question of what human life is for, but whatever is being discussed we shall have this in our minds. I know that a general debate on the question of how the relationship between plant life and animal life, and animal life and human life, could be bland and unresolved. But if we do not attempt it here, what will win the day? Probably short-term economic expediency designed to give as many individuals as possible what each wants for himself or herself now. That is no way to build society and no way to build community.
The future of agriculture in this country raises in a local particular way the wider and more global questions which can be answered only in relation to our understanding of what all life is for and not just how it works. How we derive an "ought" from an "is" in a shrinking world, threatened by a population explosion and climatic change of the kind that is coming, is an essential question that we should answer.
9.11 p.m.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer on his appointment to a wide-ranging brief. I am sure that we will have many discussions on transport and I welcome ideas which have been put forward about streamlining the planning procedure. I believe that he may be responsible for them. Secondly, I want to take this
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opportunity to thank my noble friend Lord Whitty who over many years in the previous Parliament listened and responded to discussions on transport. I thank him for his unfailing courtesy and assistance in moving forward various matters of debate.
Today I want to concentrate on the railways from the freight angle. I declare an interest as chairman of a freight group. I welcome the Government's commitment to delivery on transport, which my noble friend stated in his opening remarks. I welcome the commitment to a wide-ranging review of safety regulation after the Cullen report. It will cover road, rail, air and sea. The review is long overdue, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said in a most interesting and thoughtful presentation.
In the past four or five years, rail freight has grown about 40 per cent and passenger traffic has grown significantly too. I believe that the competition which is now in the industry has given customers improved service. They like it and they are coming back. So of course I welcome the 10-year plan, which was announced almost this time last year, of an 80 per cent growth in rate and £4 billion of government money. And the industry welcomes the regulator's review of freight charges. If the Government are able to provide a little extra funding that should lead to an additional 50 per cent reduction in charges and it should enable rail freight to compete with road. However, that was mitigated by £700 million a year given to the truckers after their spot of bother in Whitehall last autumn. This is very exciting, but it is all predicated on a rail network which works and operates reliably day in and day out. Sadly, as several noble Lords have said, it does not at the moment.
The job of Railtrack is to manage, renew and maintain the infrastructure. It is paid by the operators to do just that. It has not and Hatfield was the result. It was not a freak. In my view it happened because Railtrack had failed to maintain the network over five or six years. It had failed to monitor the track condition and even complained that there was more traffic damaging the track. Railtrack forgot to say that it was to receive more revenue for the traffic that was damaging the track from which it could pay for extra maintenance.
It is sad to say that the company is submerged in bureaucracy with the fear of risk permeating decisions at all levels. That is exacerbated by a lack of understanding of the risk because so many of the engineers and technical staff have left in the past four or five years. In summary, it is all about a failure of management.
There are two matters which I would like to discuss quite briefly. They are safety and costs. We received the Cullen report last week. I am not going to go into it in any detail, but I shall quote one line from it. It states,
"There was a lamentable failure on the part of Railtrack to respond to recommendations of inquiries into two serious incidents".
That is pretty clear, is it not?
The structure of safety approval is equally bad and is a serious constraint on growth. Noble Lords will have heard over the years of the thousands of

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passenger coaches sitting in sidings around the country because they have not received approval to run on the track. The same thing has happened with freight wagons. There are 300 of them in Slovakia of the same type which have been in use for 15 years. But permission has been refused to use these new ones because seven of them have derailed in 15 years. According to independent reports, they have been derailed because of the bad track, but they have still been refused permission by Railtrack to run on the bad track because they might be derailed again.
There is not a track specification and no one is monitoring the quality. We just hope for the best. One of the pieces of Railtrack's equipment to improve the track is made by a company called Plasser in Austria. It is called a tamper. It vibrates the ballast. Special windscreens have had to be installed because those allowed in Austria are not good enough. A British inspector costing; £500 a day is employed inspecting the welding in Austria because German standards are not good enough for the British. That seems slightly odd to me. There has to be a horn on the train so one can hear when it is coming. It is not good enough to test it once a month to make sure it works, because it has to be dismounted and put into a laboratory so it can be tested to the exact number of decibels. I do not see the roadfreight competitors having to do that with their lorry horns. But that is the situation that we have reached.
European-approved wagons that come here at the moment are only allowed to operate if they have continental loads to or from this country. So if they operate between Bristol and Birmingham with a UK load, they are operating illegally. The whole system appears to be designed so that Railtrack's risk is as low as possible with whatever costs to others.
I turn now to costs. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer very clearly outlined Railtrack's costs as being two to three times those which British Rail used to estimate. He is right. It is not the fault of contractors but that of management. It is the management which is wrong.
The new high-speed track laying equipment on the west coast line has one to one-and-a-half hours of productive work in an eight-hour shift. We have to ask why. I believe that the Passenger Upgrade 2 should be cancelled, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, and be replaced by a high-speed line and leave the main west coast line to be a modern equivalent mixed railway as originally built.
The Settle to Carlisle line was closed for two months in the past two years in order to relay the sleepers and the track by hand. Even a press release was put out saying how clever they had been. In the 21st century we should be using machines like every other European country. The track and signalling quality are getting worse and costing more.
What can be done? We have to ask whether we need Railtrack at all. I have estimated roughly that between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of its revenue comes from the taxpayer. In a speech today the Rail Regulator is reported to have said that Railtrack is receiving
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£3.7 billion this year from the taxpayer and it has asked for £2 billion more. That is £5.7 billion in a year. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said, its costs are two to three times higher than when the railways were state owned and any funds raised privately incur higher interest rates. I question how any government can argue that that is good value for taxpayers' money. The regulator has also said today that the Government's allocation to rail of £29 billion under the 10-year plan will not be enough to deliver it. He is quite right, since I suspect that that figure was based on BR-type figures.
What can the Government do? There are different options. They can double the money and continue to pour funds into Railtrack's operations; they can maintain the funding level and watch traffic growth wither away as the network becomes less and less reliable; or they can change the structure. I do not support the idea of vertical integration proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. I cannot see how one train operator can manage the infrastructure fairly in allowing others onto it. I would worry about that in that 16 train operators use the West Coast Main Line. The best operator on that line for time- keeping is that responsible for running the EWS post office trains; they are better than all the passenger trains.
Maintenance and renewal contractors could operate the track and signalling and maintain it in zones under perhaps 20-year franchises let by the SRA. I believe that the train operators could he part of those consortia provided the powers were allocated fairly If one had, say, a 20-year franchise the infrastructure would be maintained to defined standards. That would be a major step forward. It would allow those consortia to invest in the most up-to-date high output equipment. They would have a duty to operate safely in accordance with independent standards which, thank goodness, come from the European Commission-sponsored interoperability directive. If we do not start to double-guess everything here, that should mean reduced costs for everybody.
But where does Railtrack come into this? In a sensible world the taxpayers' contribution through the SRA could go straight to the consortia. In any event, the SRA must become strategically involved and be creative and proactive, which we hope to see soon. Of course it will not need the Rail Regulator in its present form.
Some analysts have suggested that Railtrack's assets, particularly land, would just about balance the company's debt and mean that the compensation, if any, would be very small. On the Rail Regulator's figures, the Government's contribution this year is about equal to its market capitalisation, which is food for thought. But Railtrack is a publicly-quoted company and its costs are two or three times higher than those of BR. I believe that it has failed in its duty to operate a reliable infrastructure and, therefore, I question why it should be compensated at all.
To conclude, the Government are committed to delivery, which I certainly welcome. They are also committed to restructuring safety, which I also

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welcome. I urge them to go a little further and investigate a wider restructuring which could save them money and enable the very welcome funding of the 10-year plan to deliver real value for money for the taxpayer and freight and passenger customers.
9.23 p.m.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, after that authoritative speech from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I am pleased that I have chosen a topic other than trains on which to speak. I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene in the debate on the gracious Speech to say something about agriculture and the countryside. I have spoken on this subject in the past and, as before, I declare an interest as chairman of a group of Cumbria-based family companies concerned with land ownership, farming, forestry, construction, mineral extraction, tourism and national hunt racing. I have a personal stake in those companies. To a greater or lesser extent, all of those businesses have felt the impact of foot and mouth disease, and this year some of them will experience unprecedented losses. I do not look for sympathy. Others have been far worse hit and much more personally affected and I make no special pleading. Business involves risk, and risk I am happy to take. Even mistakes and misjudgments by government are risks which wise investors factor into their business projections, but that is very different from saying that they should not be held to account for their actions.
As so many other noble Lords have said, but it bears repetition, there must be a broad, thorough and independent public inquiry into the foot and mouth crisis. Everyone knows that it has to go further than the scientific review flagged in the Labour Party manifesto.
I do not quarrel with the spirit of the Government-supporting newspaper The Times when it said before the general election that such an inquiry should concentrate on answers for tomorrow rather than scapegoats for yesterday. Since the general election has intervened, there will be no rolling of ministerial heads. No one need be unbearably distressed by that. If, as has been our experience in Cumbria, sure and swift political action could have contained the foot and mouth disaster, any inquiry which failed to address that aspect would not only be worthless but would fail utterly to establish the basis of a coherent policy for the future. As my noble friend Lord Peel said, there will be another outbreak of foot and mouth disease one day.
The Prime Minister took personal responsibility for the crisis. No one asked him to do so, but it is the view of country people that it was his limp-wristed leadership that turned crisis into catastrophe. If Ministers now cravenly run away from a full inquiry, it will only serve to confirm that view.
I highlight my own experiences only to point out how widely the crisis has been felt and the extent to which economic activity has declined as a consequence of foot and mouth disease, especially in the non-agricultural sector. I also wish to emphasise the
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difficulties that we must anticipate in restoring a healthy level of investment. Foot and mouth disease has been devastating in its effects, which have not been confined to agriculture. May I have the Minister's categorical assurance that there will be an independent public inquiry into the foot and mouth disease outbreak and that its scope will include the role of Ministers and their handling of the crisis?
I further ask the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to tell the House how membership of the EU has impacted on the way in which his Government have conducted the FMD outbreak. If, as many commentators hold, the Government have lacked room for manoeuvre and the necessary powers to deal with the crisis are no longer in the Government's hands but have moved to Brussels, what better moment for the Minister to come clean so that we can debate the future with a clear understanding of how things are rather than how we would like them to be?
In Labour's manifesto, under the heading, "Rural Britain", the impact of foot and mouth disease is certainly acknowledged. But in the gracious Speech, as has been said many times, there is no mention of rural Britain or the disaster that has overtaken agriculture and the rural economy. The Labour manifesto says:
"Labour is committed to support our countryside and the people who live and work in it".
On that commitment, the gracious Speech is entirely silent. The manifesto continues:
"But British agriculture will only thrive in the longer term through a further radical reorientation of the Common Agricultural Policy away from distorting Europe-wide production subsidies towards more national responsibility for domestic farming, environmental and rural development priorities".
The gracious Speech contains not a single sentence about CAP reform. One should perhaps be grateful for the very brief reference made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, in his opening remarks.
Conversely, on hunting with dogs, the manifesto had nothing to say, whereas the gracious Speech gives further encouragement to the abolitionists. Do Ministers not see how muddled and unpleasant are the values of a government who on the one hand posture about animal welfare and persecute hunting people, while on the other hand they slaughter, probably needlessly, three million healthy animals, often in circumstances of considerable cruelty? The Queen's Speech sends to country people, not a message of indifference, but a message of all too familiar hostility. It was received as that; it will be remembered as that; and it will be responded to as that.
It is a long time since any government showed themselves to have a great instinct for the countryside. It is no more than a fact of life that people who derive their livelihood from the countryside have for generations been under-represented in Parliament. Through no fault of its members, the official class is hardly a repository of country wisdom either. Overwhelmingly they are office people who live in towns. Unsurprisingly perhaps, one does not remember the MAFF official as being part of the weave and warp of rural life.

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Finally, there is a raft of quangos, agencies and pressure groups. Collectively, the inhabitants of those organisations are known as experts.
The often self-styled experts in Britain have acquired a status wholly out of proportion to their value. As the paucity of experience in both the political class and the media becomes increasingly apparent, so in proportion grows the influence of the expert and the ability of experts to manipulate their political clients. A vacuum of understanding must not allow those experts to dictate the future of the countryside. Never has it been more important for the Government to develop a genuine dialogue with men and women who know and understand through experience what takes place in the countryside and indeed what the countryside might be capable of offering. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, made a similar point.
It seems to me that this bleak interval in the long history of British agriculture could be turned to advantage. It is my firm belief that we can have a prosperous farming sector, not reliant on subsidy and much more gentle in terms of environmental considerations. Farmers who want to chase subsidies are now very much in a minority. Farmers want to farm.
The wider rural economy is in many ways a more complex issue. In the case of my home county, Cumbria, there has been, I feel, a history of under-investment. When the Government come to examine the longer term effects of foot and mouth disease, I hope they will think strategically in terms of the county and not the region. The larger centres of population that lie at the heart of regional thinking have no real interest in the countryside. Why on earth should they? That point was made very eloquently by my noble friend Lord Waddington. Those who are most affected by this reverse should be most closely involved in the recovery. They will include numerous towns and villages that certainly are affected and whose economies were already fragile.
Of course I want rural areas to benefit from whatever grants and aids are available from government. However—I do not know whether I shall be thanked for saying this—I cannot see that the key to rural regeneration is asking the taxpayer to meet all the bills. We in the countryside have not been having a happy time and the Government do not appear to like us much. But we should remember that the taxpayer has not had that much of a good deal either, a point made by my noble friend Lord Peel and others.
What the Government can do, and should do with some urgency, is remove the obstacles—there are many of them—to our managing our own recovery. By listening, they should encourage the many groups that are forming in rural areas. My noble friend Lord Selborne made that point. Many of those groups are bringing forward radical ideas for transforming their rural economies in ways that will strike a chord throughout Britain. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, gave a wonderful example of what one might do. By hacking at the dreadful undergrowth of pestilential regulation in a way that no government have seriously
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attempted, we could be free to reverse the anaemic investment record that has dogged enduring prosperity. The Government should honour their manifesto pledge to do something about the common agricultural policy. If the Government, having gone so far and at such cost to ingratiate themselves to the cause of deeper European integration, then lack the will or authority to reform root and branch the ruinous, wasteful, corrupt and fraudulent CAP, then indeed the outlook is bleak.
This much is plain. Without CAP reform, there is no acceptable future for British farming. Some say that that is what the Government want. But, remember, without farming there will be no countryside. Too late, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will find that he has not only destroyed agriculture but he has even betrayed his rambling friends.
A happier vision beckons—a countryside in which the farmer is reunited with his or her market place, having been forcibly removed from it over generations, where the farmer works for and gets greater value added at the farm gate. It would seem logical for groups or local entrepreneurs to set up marketing organisations, as is already happening. There will be an increase in the practice of product branding and there will be an emphasis on quality. Organic farming will have a growing part to play, whether or not it is organic. Farming in the future will probably have to be less intensive.
That really does seem to be a goal worth striving for. It should not need, even in the medium term, significant levels of public funding. But it will need a conscious unravelling of that huge volume of official interference and second-guessing which I know from personal experience are not features of life elsewhere among our competitors and which increasingly crucify enterprise.
I believe that, in reality, in the countryside we need to experience the pain that follows life's reversals. It is simply unrealistic to suppose otherwise. Furthermore, through that pain we learn from our mistakes and enjoy the fulfilling experience of recovery through our own efforts. It unites us and we learn to appreciate the kindness of those who lend sympathy, support and help, as they have done in the countryside.
Therefore, in closing, my message to the Government is this: remove the impediments to recovery and country people will do the rest. For a start, is it too much to ask that, through their words and through their actions, Ministers should show themselves, at this defining moment, to be our friends and not our implacable foes?
9.35 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, first, I should like to thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury for his thoughtful speech. Noble Lords have been patient and I shall try not to detain the House any longer than I need. I wish to spend perhaps 15 seconds on the subject of agriculture, which I had not intended to address, before I move on to discuss one particular aspect of education.

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In agriculture, I would simply say this: any government which base their policy for agriculture on the assumption that never again will this country urgently need the food which it can produce are foolishly and irresponsibly ignoring the lessons of history.
I shall turn to education. I welcome the Government's commitment to improving educational outcomes in schools. They have already achieved much in primary schools and they are committed to taking that achievement forward into secondary schools. However, the point I wish to make is this: good teaching and good schools are not enough. The third leg of the stool, the other essential, is confident and motivated children.
In their recent publication, Tomorrow's Future: Building a Strategy for Children and Young People, the Government state that:
"Every young person deserves the best possible start in life and the opportunity to achieve to their full potential. Our job across Government is to do all we can to make this possible".
A page or two later they go on to say that:
"Educational reform represents the cornerstone of the Government's policies for helping vulnerable children".
If these government plans for equality of opportunity in education are to be successful, they must include steps to ensure that not only the lucky ones, but all children, are confident enough and motivated enough to succeed in school. My noble friend Lord Dearing made some interesting comments on this issue.
Schools themselves can help. For example, they can reduce bullying, they can help by creating an inclusive ethos and by adapting the curriculum to the needs and abilities of their pupils. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, noted how pupils respond to being made to feel special and worthwhile. But, for two reasons, schools alone cannot give a child the confidence and motivation it needs. First, for the first four crucial years of a child's life, schools have no influence on him. Secondly, even when a child becomes a full-time pupil, he spends roughly only 27 per cent of his waking hours in school. By far the most important influence in a young child's life is the family in which he grows up.
To be confident, a child needs to know that he is loved by his parents. The love of two parents is better than the love of one parent. The love of an extended family is a bonus. For a child to be motivated to learn in school, he needs to see that those he respects and loves think that learning in school is important—that they want him to succeed in school. Perhaps these words will sound like platitudes to noble Lords, but they are platitudes which today are all too often ignored.
The Government have recognised the following in their excellent document:
"Functional families are of fundamental importance to educational achievement".
They go on to say that they are,
"committed to support parents so that they can better support their children".
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Furthermore,
"Children do best when they grow up in a stable, loving family".
Therefore I ask the question: why do we have a tax and benefits system which sends such a very different message?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that he believes in targeting help for children, but what he seems to ignore is that, very often, the best way to help children is to support functional families; to support those parents who are prepared to make a long-term commitment to their child, a commitment to give him the encouragement, love and care that he needs in order to develop his full potential. The current tax and benefits system does nothing to support those family structures which are most likely to give a child what he needs.
Today, as many of your Lordships know, it is politically correct to imply that family structures do not matter. The catchphrase is that relationships in the family are more important than family structures. Indeed, relationships are extremely important, but it is far easier to sustain good relationships between the three essential partners—the mother, the father and the child—if they are living together in harmony under the same roof.
The role of the family is particularly important for the first four years of a child's life. The Government have recognised this and they have introduced the Sure Start programme. Assuming that the pilot schemes for Sure Start are successful—and I believe that the results are already encouraging—will the Government be prepared to deploy the necessary resources in terms of money and people to ensure a rapid spread of the Sure Start principle right across the country so that all children can benefit from it?
Beyond the Sure Start programme there are other things which the Government could do. First, possibly, they could give more support to family carers. The most committed and available support for parents with young children is likely to come from close relatives and the extended family. Will the Government take steps to make it easier for committed relatives to support young parents?—for example, by making it easier for grandparents and, indeed, separated fathers to find rent controlled accommodation near to where their families live.
Another issue which concerns me very much at the present time is the role of fathers in our society. The father has been marginalised in the past few decades. Today fathers are regarded in some circles as a kind of optional extra, and yet recent research shows that the role of fathers is very important for the emotional, social and educational development of children, especially boys. A father's interest can be a powerful influence on a boy's commitment to work at school. Will the Government take action—I hesitate to say this—to stop social workers and the judiciary from under-estimating the importance of a father's role in the life of his child? Will they take action to define more clearly what our society believes to be the responsibilities of fathers, and then make sure that this is part of the curriculum for citizenship education in schools?

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It is particularly hard for parents who have had themselves a negative experience of school to motivate their child to enjoy school and to want to learn. Schools have a role here. They could do much more to forge links with such parents and to understand the needs of the communities which they serve. Schools should be at the very heart of the community, again a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. Indeed, there are those who argue that the key to high standards in schools lies more in developing powerful partnerships between schools and community than it does in simply asking teachers and schools to do more.
The sociologist Robert Putnam told a gathering at the White House last year that,
"the statistical evidence is that the best prediction of performance of a community's school is the social capital in that community—this is much more important than class size".
Perhaps the real challenge in this country today is to rebuild communities, and that, I suspect, can only be done from the grass roots up.
I have been speaking so far mainly about young children. I want, just for a moment, to turn briefly to the 13 to 19 year-olds, to the contribution to successful educational outcomes which can be made by youth provision in all its forms—statutory and voluntary, sport, culture and adventure.
Following the onset of puberty, it is natural for a child to want to experiment with life outside the family and outside the school. All teenagers need somewhere to go and something to do outside the home which will help them to enlarge their experience and to develop self-confidence in a safe environment. Every child needs somewhere to make friends, and somewhere to succeed at something. Young people who are deprived of such opportunities will gravitate towards the gang down at the end of the street, and that leads to trouble.
Finally, I ask a structural question. Should not the Department for Education, rather than the Home Office, be responsible for family policy? Indeed should not the Department for Education be responsible for the delivery of effective and available youth provision? I urge the Government to accept that the improvements in education that we all want to see will not be realised by better classroom teaching alone. They will depend also on children who are motivated and confident, who can communicate and who have basic social skills, children who believe that for them education is worth while because they can succeed.
9.46 p.m.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I am pleased to follow the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, about schools and community. I was chairman of governors for a comprehensive school. I am pleased to associate myself also with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about some comprehensives being very good indeed.
I commend my colleagues in the Government for the intentions expressed in the Queen's Speech to continue their work to improve the national and global environment and for their stated plans regarding the
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reorganisation of government. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Whitty on his new environmental responsibilities.
I should also like to ask some questions about critical environmental issues facing the Government, particularly issues on which the Government are working, some of which have not been publicly announced. The philosophical and ethical imperative on our generation to bequeath a reasonable environment to our successors was well expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury.
The Freedom of Information Act is now on the statute book. So I hope that we can look forward to more public consultation in regard to policy development and the pre-legislative work of government and Parliament. The remarks of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Privy Seal were encouraging.
It should be noted that the Government can contribute to the welfare of the environment in the UK and in the world by co-ordinating, guiding and, where appropriate, supporting public and private non-governmental organisations just as much as by legislating. But this growing facilitation role requires that national and local government should be as clear as possible about their objectives; they should be transparent in their dealings with parliaments, councils and outside organisations.
The noble Earl, Lord Peel, and the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, spoke powerfully about how the farming community can contribute. The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, rightly cautioned that governments should be more than simply facilitators; that is not why they are elected.
The immediate environmental issue facing tens of thousands of British households is the danger of flood and the likelihood of steeply rising insurance costs following the recent changes announced by the Association of British Insurers. It is essential that all the responsible departments and agencies ensure that the practical and insurance arrangements are in place for next winter and thereafter and that they are well publicised.
The other watery threat to our environment comes from the rising sea level, exacerbated by global warming. This House debated the question in June last year, but there is still no clear policy as regards different coastal areas and how they will: be affected. The Minister indicated that in a classic British way each coastal area would be examined on a case-by-case basis—which I understand is effectively a cost-benefit analysis. By contrast, the Government of the Netherlands have an overarching policy of coastal defence which is reasonably transparent. As the debate demonstrated, coastal communities in the UK have good reason to be concerned about the present situation. It will require high-level government leadership to ensure that the issue is handled sensitively and that all the available scientific and engineering resources are deployed to best effect.
Indications were given last year at the Labour Party Conference—I am not sure whether I am allowed to

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mention that—that the Government would develop an initiative and legislation on ocean policy generally which would also include fisheries, resources and pollution. That is long overdue and will be very welcome to the many UK organisations in this field which could help the Government in their programmes on the environment and international development. But this requires some more open indication of the Government's future plans. Here I declare an interest as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea which works with several governments and international agencies on the ocean environment around Africa and in the Arctic.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, reaffirmed this afternoon, dealing with global change is one of the priorities of the Government. As the New York Times reported on 10th June, the UK is leading the world, both in climate research and prediction and in international action. In their commitment to sustainable development the Government need to focus on energy conservation, on new sources of power and on reducing pollution. As several government departments will have to deal with these matters, firm arrangements for ministerial leadership and openness will be needed to ensure effective co-ordination, as other noble Lords have commented. The Government should be able to learn something from the United States Government, who have a national oceanic and atmospheric administration that unifies important environmental policies and operational decisions.
In the previous Parliament our government successfully co-ordinated, with a refreshing degree of transparency, the complex issues of food, agriculture and health in the cross-departmental Food Standards Agency. This provides a template for a new approach to co-ordination within DEFRA and beyond on the policies for climate and the environment, especially rivers, coasts and oceans. Such a level of co-ordination should enable the UK to play a strong role in Europe and strengthen Europe's role in working for the world's environmental goals.
As for power and pollution, currently the industrial economies of the world are growing and releasing ever more greenhouse gases. Research indicates that this endangers the whole equilibrium of the world's atmosphere, oceans and biosphere; for example, the great rainforests, as we saw so vividly on a recent "Equinox" television programme. These dangers may well dwarf the much smaller risks associated with nuclear power. Therefore I welcome the Government's announcement that they will study future energy supplies and include consideration of nuclear as well as other practical options for meeting all the world's power needs. This seems to be the view of President Bush and therefore provides an aspect of environmental technology on which the United States and Europe can collaborate effectively, unlike others where collaboration is rather more difficult. This energy study should also seriously consider "green"
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power supplies, including biofuels, as advocated powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and wind power.
I hope that the Government will continue to push forward the more politically challenging environmental policy of tackling air quality and greenhouse gas emissions in our urban areas which led to political difficulties last year. It is essential that the Government should explain which ministry will campaign on these issues and take the lead in coordination now that responsibility for transport is in a separate department to that of the environment. We have great environmental challenges before us. I am confident that our energetic and reforming government will be able to meet them provided they use all the talents that can help them.
9.53 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, my name was unfortunately left off the List of Speakers, which is why I am now speaking in the gap. I should first declare an interest in that my wife has a hill farm in mid-Wales with a small herd of pedigree Welsh Blacks, which mercifully still survive although foot and mouth swirls around us.
Like the noble Lords, Lord Plumb and Lord Kimball, I wish to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who was invariably helpful and forthcoming on agricultural and fisheries matters. I must begin by expressing my astonishment that there was no mention of rural Britain in the Queen's Speech, although the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, suggested ingeniously that there might have been an indirect reference. I wholly agree with what my noble friend Lord Palmer and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford said about that. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, made the point last week. She thought it would have been better if the Government had chosen to try to heal some of the wounds the rural areas had sustained. I very much agree. Far from seeking to heal wounds, the only reference to country matters in the Queen's Speech is that there will be a free vote on the future of what is called hunting with dogs.
I am struck by the insensitivity of the Government, who taken as a whole are thoroughly urban in outlook and support. They appear to take only a sporadic interest in the appalling crisis which has affected huge swathes of our countryside. I suppose the explanation must lie in the maps published in the newspapers after the election. Despite Labour's landslide victory, I saw that most of England was, to my surprise, still coloured blue. Only the insets showing the cities—London, Glasgow and the rest—showed where voter power really lay.
However, the election is over. Labour has triumphed. It seems to me that it would be wise for it now to address the concerns of all our people, not least the struggling people in rural areas—not only farmers but those involved in every type of small business.
I live in mid-Wales. My wife and I have just been to a public meeting attended by 600 farmers and their wives. It was called in order for them to meet Carwyn

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Jones, the Welsh Minister for Rural Affairs. He did not turn up, for which in my book he got no marks. However, at least we had the man from the Assembly who deals with foot and mouth and the chief veterinary officer for Wales. It was a first effort to talk to and listen to farmers in our part of the world. It was very much needed, as the absence of good communication had led to wild rumours, widely believed, that there was to be a mass cull of all livestock in mid-Wales as soon as the election was over. Country people feel forgotten. Two quiet, gentle people, wives of farmers, have said to us separately, "They hate us". It is worrying that people should feel like that.
In Powys, where we live, there have been just under 100 cases. We were clear for a month and thought that we could perhaps slowly get back to normal. But, no: we have had another case on the edge of the Brecon Beacons so we are back to square one.
I want to ask the Minister whether there is to be a proper inquiry, which is badly needed, and, if so, when. It was all very well for the Government to have a major inquiry into BSE, where what was wrong happened when the Conservatives were in power. The Government need an inquiry now on the foot and mouth crisis when they were in charge. In any event, we need urgently to tackle the source, or sources, of the infection. First and foremost, there is the question of imports of meat, on which I fully agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, said. Can the Minister tell us when we shall insist that the EU takes action to put an end to imports of meat from countries which have foot and mouth disease and to personal imports of bush meat and other meat? Countries like the United States and Australia are far tougher about that sort of thing. It is worrying that we are so easygoing and continue to allow substandard meat to be brought in.
Then there is the question of vaccination. I listened with care to the report on the BBC this morning, and to Margaret Beckett's understandably cautious remarks. I believe that in the long run vaccination may be the answer. Dr Ruth Watkins, a distinguished retired virologist, told our meeting in Wales that vaccination could be cheap and nearly 100 per cent effective, removing the need for slaughter. But, of course, it needs to be Europe-wide; otherwise no exports will be possible unless all the vaccinated animals are slaughtered in due course—as has, I think, happened in Holland.
We need better information for the public: what is going on and why. And we need to tell the truth. There has been widespread distrust of the details given, or not given, by MAFF and the belief that it has been politically influenced. This terrible plague, coming on top of BSE, swine fever and bovine tuberculosis, has had a shattering effect on the British livestock industry—a great industry of which we should be proud, producing some of the finest animals in the world.
The Minister told us last week that by 21st June, 4.5 million animals had been slaughtered. In Wales there is enormous concern about what will happen when the September sheep sales normally take place.
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Large numbers of sheep and lambs will need to be disposed of, as the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, pointed out. But there is unlikely to be a lifting of export restrictions by then. That, like so much else, depends on the EU, which now takes all the main decisions on our agriculture. Will sales be permitted this autumn? A major crisis for sheep breeders is not fair off. At our meeting the chief veterinary officer said that,
"the whole cycle of the sheep industry is incumbent on finding a solution".
"I hear you loud", he told the farmers.
After this catastrophe, new policies for agriculture will be needed. Farmers in Wales and elsewhere are now, unhappily, deeply suspicious of the Government and think that present Ministers will be glad to be shot of them. Some ministerial comments are not reassuring. It is essential that the Government should be open, sympathetic and constructive. There are great problems. Most people agree that there have been far too many sheep—a direct result of subsidies paid by numbers. Farmers in Wales have very low incomes. The only way for them to make a modest living is by keeping large numbers of sheep and sending them away on tack in the winter. The system may need to be changed, but not in a way that does further damage to hill farmers.
I fear that many farmers who have lost all their stock will decide to abandon farming. If too many do so, the effect on the countryside and the landscape will be devastating, with much of it reverting to conifer plantations, scrub or waste land, along with the onset of suburbanisation. The countryside will have little attraction to tourists and ramblers.
Sorting all that out is the responsibility of the new Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. There is no mention of agriculture in the title, but, although MAFF has lost its name, it appears to have made an effective reverse take-over. I understand that the permanent secretary of MAFF has become the permanent secretary of the new department. One MAFF official is reported to have said, "We expected to get some steak, but we have got the whole cow". That is worrying, because it was MAFF that made the mistakes. Many people will be concerned if it dominates the new department at the expense of those concerned with the environment.
The environment was hardly mentioned during the election campaign, but it matters to all of us and it would be tragic if the reorganisation resulted in a downgrading of environmental responsibilities. There is an urgent need to tackle the deterioration of much of the rural heritage. We all know that common birds such as skylarks, song thrushes and lapwings have declined dramatically. So have butterflies, wild flowers and the fish in our rivers. Schemes such as the environmentally sensitive areas scheme, Tir Gofal and the Countryside Stewardship scheme do something to help, but they need to be expanded and to have more money put into them. We must ensure that the planning system is not emasculated, as some reports have suggested that it may be, and we must correct some of the excesses of intensive farming

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I hope that Margaret Beckett, the new Secretary of State, can persuade her colleagues to give those issues a higher priority and put the whole weight of the Government behind efforts to restore the damage that has been done.
It is sad that responsibility for agriculture has passed from our hands to the EU and that other members cling to the discredited CAP, which has been responsible for so much of the damage. Despite that, I believe that we can secure improvements—indeed, we must do so if we are to have the attractive, productive countryside that all our people deserve.
10.2 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to his new portfolio. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, to their new portfolios. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for all the hard work that she did. Having heard some of the remarks that have been made this evening, I am conscious that personal tributes do not always sit well with hard comments about the department. However, she was very open with us in reporting to the House about what was going on. That was a terrific example of ministerial responsibility carried out well.
Several noble Lords mentioned the comments of my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby, who spoke last week of our disappointment that the gracious Speech did not contain more about rural areas, given the current crisis. However, although the crisis is much deeper than it was at the time of the last Queen's Speech debate, this debate has been much more positive in tone than that one was. Those who have sat through both debates will agree that the tone has been helpfully more positive this time. Perhaps that is because we hope that the new department, with its widened responsibilities, should herald a new way of looking at the assets that this country is lucky enough to have and that, finally, the Government will start to make more sustainable use of them for all of us.
We have considerable assets in our land and climate—we have sun, wind and rain in the right combination. It is time to move away from squandering them to using them wisely. I hope that as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, takes on this new portfolio, he will be a strong advocate of such a change. I hope that he will move well away from the caretaker role which I believe successive governments have adopted in that they have simply allowed the squandering of those assets to continue decade after decade.
I believe that my noble friend Lord Ezra made an extremely powerful speech about the environment and about the ways in which energy use in this country needs to be radically altered. He called on the Government to introduce different policies to back up their ratification—which we welcome—of the Kyoto treaty. I was interested to hear the noble Lord,
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Lord Hunt of Chesterton, refer to how we are seen in America as leading the way. However, I believe that my noble friend Lord Ezra is absolutely right to call for the appropriate changes of policy to back that up.
It would be a tragedy if the energy review were to be a green light to the nuclear industry simply because of the lack of effort in the area of renewables. Other noble Lords have mentioned wind and solar power. As did others, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, mentioned biofuel. And, of course, there is wave power. However, the fact is that at present the Government are making absolutely minimal effort to progress renewable energy sources.
It is very difficult to obtain funding. I have personal experience of that at a local level where I am involved with a sustainable trust for construction. The RDAs do not see it as their role to fund projects such as ours, which concerns constructing more sustainable community buildings and houses and helping the private sector to do so. The RDAs do not see it as their job; it is not within their DTI remit. The DETR tells us that we are a little exceptional and that we do not fit into its pot of money either. I hope that the Government will be able to develop a more flexible attitude so that piloting energy-saving schemes and projects such as the one that I have just mentioned will not have such a difficult time in the future.
The case for international energy use was well put, too, by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford. There is still an international case for the destruction of smaller farming enterprises. Many noble Lords have spoken about that this evening. We are not alone in Britain in having seen a decline in the smaller family farm. I believe that we all read in the newspapers recently about the difficulties experienced by coffee farmers in Latin America and on the cocoa plantations of West Africa.
When the Minister, Margaret Beckett, talks, as she has, of wanting her department to promote sustainable and diverse farming and food industries that work together to meet the needs of the consumer, I believe that she has laid down the right challenge for her department. It is one that we must continue to see in the international context. We lead the way in calling for CAP reform and, indeed, in calling for the WTO to understand that environmental and social issues can no longer be ignored in favour of a purely trade agenda.
I believe that the Government have a difficult task because diversity does not suit central government. However, it does suit people, wildlife and communities. I hope that this Government understand that the challenge is to make the system work for diversity and not against it. Therefore, on these Benches we look forward to hearing from the Minister about how his department will rise to the challenge.
This evening many noble Lords have spoken about the future of farming. I believe that it would be completely iniquitous if we did not want to be a nation that could feed itself. I say that not so much because of the lessons of history but because I believe that that is the sustainable way forward. That takes us back to the matter of not squandering our assets.

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There is plenty of support among British people for buying British produce. It is often hard for them to find such produce or to see it clearly among other produce. Although the NFU's "little red tractor" scheme has gone some way towards remedying that, it seems to have stalled somewhat. It is incumbent on the Government to give much more support to clear labelling schemes—that should not be left to interest groups, worthy though they may be.
There has been a lack of support for local marketing and shops. The Government depend on the Countryside Agency through campaigns such as the "eat the view" campaign. We need initiatives that link the landscape with food consumption. That was a worthy campaign but I have not seen any reports of its results. I hope that the foot and mouth crisis will not be used as an excuse for the lack of action in that regard and that the Countryside Agency will continue to work apace.
There must be proper help for small farmers who want to diversify and add value to their produce. The Government talked about a vertical food chain. I disagree with those noble Lords who said that the regions had no part to play; they do. For example, in the west country, which I know about, we need regional processing plants and a regional approach to our dairy and meat industry. That industry is importantly different from one in, for instance, East Anglia or the north east of England. A regional approach could add a great deal to such local initiatives and it might encourage sector-by-sector produce initiatives.
I agree with those noble Lords who said that we must clamp down on imports and be much more scrupulous at our ports about what is imported. Our farmers also deserve a level playing field. The Government must promote more seriously British produce to British institutions. I am still horrified about how difficult it is for the Army to buy mostly British meat. It places an emphasis on cheapness rather than on the need to support local agriculture, although it often trains over the land in question. It should buy British meat.
The Minister will be aware that I campaigned for some time to secure support for local authorities to buy local produce for school catering services. I understand that the EU laid down certain rules about that. It is a good example of British goldplating going over the top. We enforce the provisions differently from France or Italy, for example, and the problem has to stop.
Noble Lords have discussed the need to reduce the red tape that is imposed on the food sector and on farmers. There is increasing regulation but that has led not to safer food but to other scares. Small producers, processors and abattoirs are driven out of the market, and farming has naturally become more intensive—chickens need vast quantities of antibiotics and cows are on hormones so that their milk production remains high. There has been general agreement this evening about the need to move away from that regime and towards one that is more extensive.
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Much red tape is imposed in relation to the landscape. I was recently given a very helpful leaflet produced by the Mendip Hills area of outstanding natural beauty. It outlined details of 16 different landscape scheme improvement grants. Farmers would be helped through the maze if the Government considered a one-farm plan and a one-stop shop. That would ensure that all land-based support for environmental schemes for farmers came through one gateway and that they would not have to apply for 16 different schemes. Those 16 grants related to landscape improvement alone. This is a very important matter—we have made life far too difficult for farmers. Environmental support must be simplified; that would ensure that farmers spent the rest of their time farming, not filling in forms.
Noble Lords also discussed wildlife. In the previous Session, SSSIs received more protection through the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, but the Government must not think that that is the end of the story.
Sites of special scientific interest are islands in a sea of often destructive practices. Noble Lords have mentioned butterflies this evening, which are one example of wildlife which needs corridors and islands connected together which begin to form a land mass; otherwise, they simply do not have enough space to spread out and breed.
I saw an interesting example recently, of which the Minister may be aware, near Up Cerne in Dorset. The headlands of the wheat areas are beginning to be connected together. It was encouraging to see, last weekend, how the flowers, butterflies and skylarks have spread out so much in the past three years since I last walked in that area.
Many noble Lords who are politically motivated may have shared my experience when canvassing and may have noticed the proliferation of slug pellets and bedding plants. That is quite a worrying aspect as regards biodiversity and it is a serious point. Song thrushes are in rapid decline and I have never seen so many slug pellets as I saw in May and June.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned marine issues. The Government promised a review of marine nature conservation and a report to be published this year. During the passage of the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and I asked that that should be followed up by appropriate action. Indeed, in the life time of this Parliament, we should hope to see appropriate legislation in that regard and I hope that that will be brought forward in due course.
The foot and mouth crisis has taught us many lessons, not least about how tourism and agriculture are linked together, as are small businesses and tourism in this country. The Government have already made concessions to small businesses; for example, rate relief and late payment of VAT. But in areas which are really crisis ridden, small businesses are still struggling. They need interest-free loans. They have no cash flow. And in many cases, the crunch is yet to come because it will come in the winter and spring. While I

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support the call of other noble Lords for a full public inquiry into the crisis, in those areas which have been particularly hard hit, it is a matter of keeping the businesses going for the next year. Although the public inquiry is important, on these Benches we realise that survival of those businesses is critical.
As they enter this new Parliament, the Government need to listen to a wider range of voices, not only those of the larger land-owning interests. During the last Parliament, the Government spoke very volubly of the rural sounding board and that has gone rather quiet. Many noble Lords have mentioned the various groups which they represent; for example, the Small and Family Farms Alliance. Where is their voice heard? Where is that rural sounding board?
My noble friends Lady Sharp and Lady Walmsley covered very capably issues in relation to education. And the technical knowledge of railways of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw is second to none.
We are pleased to see the proposed introduction of travel concessions. When we are discussing that legislation, I ask that we should not forget young people who often have far less income than pensioners. We are pleased that 1 million men will profit from those measures but that still leaves 16 to 20 year-olds in a completely iniquitous position unless some sort of concessions are made available to them.
We have had a very interesting debate this evening. I want to return to the comments made by my noble friend Lady Hamwee about low voter turn-out. The environment, food and education are issues which are extremely important to voters. Voters are desperate to see successful measures in relation to those issues. I believe that in many cases, the low turn-out is due to the fact that many people are cynical and believe that nothing much will happen and nothing much will change. That is a message which we heard on the doorsteps. The Government really need to act quickly and strongly in order to redress that cynicism. They must begin to deliver on matters relating to the countryside, the environment and education.
10.20 p.m.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, we have had a full and varied debate this afternoon. Criticism of the depths of the disaster still raging in the countryside has been expressed by many noble Lords. The failure of the Government's handling of that crisis has not lessened.
We welcome the new departments and their new roles. Much is expected of them. On these Benches we welcome the proposed changes to schools. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, spoke briefly of sport in schools. Perhaps in Wimbledon fortnight I can mention that for 10 years I taught tennis in a school so I was particularly interested in her comments about the role that sport plays within schools in giving confidence to pupils who go on to achievements outside sport.
I begin by reminding the House of my registered interests, particularly the farming business in Suffolk. I also record that recently I became a patron of the
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Rural Stress Network to which the right reverend Prelate and many others have referred. That organisation and many others carry out great work for our farming communities. Times are still difficult and the aid that they give to farmers is greatly appreciated.
I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for all the work that she has done in this House in relation to agriculture over the past two years. She undertook her responsibilities with great diligence and was at the helm through some difficult financial times for farming. We thank her for her stewardship.
As other noble Lords have said, the gracious Speech made no mention of a Bill in relation to agriculture. Perhaps we should be grateful for that as farmers are increasingly weighed down by form-filling and regulation. That said, the onset of foot and mouth disease was probably caused by imported infected meat and I am a little surprised that the Government's programme for the next 16 months does not contain a review of the existing legislation on import controls, nor no new legislation to control imports organised through the Internet.
A worrying point is the formation of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which has no mention of agriculture or farming within its brief. Even more concerning, as my noble friend Lord Ferrers said earlier, no Minister in the House of Commons is directly responsible for the subject. This House is the winner in that it has the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, as the Minister responsible, but that is not the same as having a Minister in the Commons with such a responsibility.
The message to the farming community is not a good one. It suggests that the Government have written off that community and do not care about the rural demise, and especially the demise of our farmers. I notice in the brief that the Minister deals with grants to environmental agencies. Will that include the payment of grants towards the environment and countryside agencies directly?
Farming should not be written off or lost. What has happened to the rural White Paper that was launched in September last year? Nearly a year has passed and we have still not had a debate on it in this House. Perhaps the Minister can inform the House of the number of recommendations in that White Paper upon which action has already been taken. Does he agree that the matter should have been debated in this House? Will he make a commitment that such a debate will be held?
Is the Minister also aware that the National Association of Local Councils and the various regional and area associations are warning their parish councils of the need to increase their subscriptions. That increase, which is put at about 50 per cent over five years, is related to coping with the effects of the rural White Paper, but as yet we have not discussed it.
In his opening remarks the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, referred to the importance of local input. What is expected of our parishes and what support will the Government give to them? Are they

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unimportant; have they been downgraded; or, in the decision to remove environmental issues from planning and transport, has there simply been a lack of joined-up government?
Previously the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was a Minister at the D ETR so he will understand only too well the need to balance the protection of the environment in relation to planning, housing and business development with the needs of those who live there. One of the difficulties to be faced by farmers in the future will be that of diversification; the obtaining of planning permission to convert their buildings and to improve income generation for themselves and other members of their families. During the past few weeks, I have heard stories of the time it takes to process farmers' applications for such grants. Will the Minister do something about that?
In the previous parliamentary Session we had numerous Statements and debates on agriculture and rural areas. We spoke of the demise of rural post offices—some two a week are closing—without effective government action to stop the leaching. The Government have still not concluded the way ahead for such post offices.
Concern has also been expressed about the closure of some county courts in rural areas. Not only is there a problem for those attending the courts, but defendants and witnesses, and families and friends have added transport costs, and sometimes costs of overnight accommodation. As ever, it puts more pressure on those living in rural areas.
The provision of housing, and in particular affordable housing, is key to sustainable rural policy. The Government produced figures for new build which were rejected by many councils as being unwise and unsustainable. We have pressed for the inclusion of suitable housing as the number of single-person households continues to rise. My noble friend Lord Wade referred to that and other noble Lords mentioned the problem of homelessness.
Equally important, and in rural areas crucial, is the role of transport. The use of cars for rural dwellers is essential for every-day living. It is not a luxury. There must be a degree of flexibility for local councils to decide on their own needs, whether it be the provision of public transport or support for community buses.
The continuing closure of small abattoirs has brought increased difficulties for many farmers, not only those who produce in niche markets; that at a time which has seen farm incomes drop by 90 per cent over five years. According to MAFF, the total income from farming is forecast to fall by 27 per cent in 2000. Other noble Lords have referred to the dire state of farm incomes. Equally worrying are the bank borrowings by the agricultural industry, amounting to some £10 billion, while investment levels are at their lowest since the 1970s.
Those are indeed sobering statistics and they do not reflect the foot and mouth outbreak, which has already driven depressed farmers into devastating despair. I, too, was most moved by the contribution of my
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noble friend Lord Monro, who is only one of several people in this House to experience the loss of all his animals. Whole communities have seen their farming future destroyed before their eyes and for some it is truly the end of the road as they seem unable to cope or see a future for their chosen profession. I want to record my thanks, and I am sure those of all Members of the House, to those who helped farmers during the past very difficult four months, whether they are professionals or volunteers.
The successful ending of the epidemic must be the Government's prime task. Incidents are still occurring and the recent one in Brecon, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, is disturbing. The disease was supposed to die out in the warmer weather but that is not happening. That increases our fears about what may happen in the autumn.
Several noble Lords and many of my noble friends have called for a public inquiry. If nothing else, the Minister will go away knowing very well the feeling of this House about the need for a public inquiry. Indeed, during last week's Statement I suggested that nothing less would do. In addition, several means of helping our farmers have been suggested. The NFU in its briefing suggests three key points which the Government might address. The first includes a much tighter enforcement of the rules on personal meat imports and a campaign to raise travellers' awareness of those rules. Secondly, there should be more frequent inspections by the EU Food and Veterinary Office of third countries which export animals and plant products to the EU. Thirdly, there should be appropriate controls on the growing trade on the Internet of agricultural products to which several noble Lords have referred.
I referred to a particular matter last week and I raise it again because it has not been solved. Compensation is definitely required for those who are experiencing consequential loss, particularly those 'who have a 30-months scheme. They are unable to have their animals rendered. That is because of the 'Goverment's stance and their handling of the foot and mouth crisis.
I turn to the future. I have a shopping list of matters to which other noble Lords have referred. My noble friend Lord Kimball referred to the practical problems as a result of the foot and mouth epidemic. He also raised a specific question as regards set aside land, more of which has become involved and which may incur more penalties.
Sustainable agriculture needs reform of the CAP, as does the fisheries policy. The two must go together. The World Trade Organisation talks are extremely important. The noble Earl, Lord Peel, the noble Lords, Lord Kimball and Lord Plumb, and many others, referred to it.
There are ever-increasing burdens caused by EU directives. Our producers have to bear them although they are not enforced by other EU countries or they are considered "a national tax responsibility" rather than one being passed on to the producer. For example, there is the climate change levy, which is going to hit our horticultural producers.

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Even the Government's own Inputs Task Force chaired by Sir John Marsh concluded that overregulation produced trade barriers to our farmers. The report of the noble Lord, Lord Haskin, Better Regulation, is excellent. It produces many positive suggestions. These are all in hand, but we have not seen them and we do not know what is happening about them.
Other noble friends, and in particular my noble friend Lord Peel, referred to the role of tourism and the need for local decisions. Several other noble Lords referred to the importance of labelling to our consumers to make a knowledgeable choice about what they buy.
There are other things which the Government could be doing. We hope that they will bring forward the possibility of pig exports. Other noble Lords have referred to the huge problem which will arise this autumn because of the number of sheep as a result of the export market being closed to us. I wonder whether the Government have considered providing help with a private storage scheme. I believe that was referred to by my noble friend Lord Kimball.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford referred to the retirement scheme, which we have spoken about in this House before.
In her speech my noble friend Lady Blatch stated that we broadly welcome the Government's proposals on education, which will give greater freedom to schools and will allow them to select pupils where appropriate. We are apprehensive that, while the Government recognise the need for schools to have that freedom, they may be reluctant to release the reins. Adequate core funding through education authorities to schools is crucial to that end.
I also welcome the Government's recognition that some pupils at the age of 14 should be allowed to pursue a vocational training scheme. It will give students a more relevant launch into the world of work. However, I hope that the Government will not overlook the complexity of the funding arrangements where school students are educated in more than one establishment. Funding for the further education colleges must be sufficient for the extra workload that they will bear, but not at the expense of school budgets. My noble friend said that I would refer to the subject. It is crucial for many of the councils. For example, when the rate support grant was announced in Leicestershire, £1,200,000 was removed under the area cost adjustment formula and given to London and the South East. A further £500,000 was given to metropolitan authorities under a new "ceilings" and "floors" interpretation. That is a total of £1,600,000, which severely affects Leicestershire's education budget. It was then told that a further £52 million was available for the poorest funded authorities. Expecting a share approaching £500,000, it received only £100,000, whereas Labour-controlled authorities such as Durham were awarded £2,800,000 and Northumberland and Worcestershire each received £1,400,000. Something needs to be done about it,
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because all of us with children seek to educate them to the highest standards. All of us want good schools which provide opportunities and training to young people to enable them to play their fullest role in the challenges that lie ahead. Equally, no one who has listened to the debate can have failed to recognise the need for clear government thinking on how they view the countryside.
Much is expected from the new department. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has a huge responsibility if he is to succeed in bringing together all the different strands which have been touched upon today. My noble friend Lord Selborne posed the question: does the Minister see his department as a facilitator'? Does he understand the urgent need to move CAP/WTO talks forward with speed, that "no" is not an answer, and that something must be done?
In his opening remarks the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, stated that standards must go up. We agree. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, has taken up her new responsibilities at an exciting time, and speeches have been made on all sides of the House in support of the Government's move. We wish the noble Baroness well in her new challenges.
My noble friend Lady Blatch said that expectations were running very high. The Government will be judged on their results. We believe that the jury is out. The message sounds good but what counts is what happens. The conversion of this Government to the need to give schools greater freedom is just as important as the need to free our farmers so that they can compete on a level playing field. It is important to lift the extra costs that they bear and the responsibilities that they carry if they are to succeed. We are extremely proud that we have always produced food to the highest standard of quality.
Over the past four years the Government have failed to deliver, to communicate and to care. They failed to control the recent outbreak of foot and mouth and to show leadership in the regeneration of our farming community. Some believe that in the case of foot and mouth the Government failed to tell the truth.
If the Government care for all the people—I am sure that they do—they must show sensitivity and pick up some of the worthwhile suggestions made in the House today. Time is not on their side; sadly, for many farmers time has already run out. To give a free vote to Members of Parliament on whether to ban hunting with dogs will do nothing to solve the rural crisis.
There is so much that needs to be done. Today's debate is just the beginning of the real needs and hopes to which our farmers aspire. People who live and work in rural areas hope that the Government will understand the situation and move forward with great urgency.
10.34 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty): My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this very wide-ranging debate. As always, during debates on the Queen's Speech everybody

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complains about the bizarre combination of topics. Nevertheless, that is the way that we do our business. I shall begin by focusing on education, very much strengthened by the fact that by my side is my noble friend Lady Ashton on whose behalf I accept and appreciate the compliments which have been expressed around the House. Education is one of the main planks of the Government's commitments this Session, and my noble friend will do a great job in your Lordships' House.
I welcome the widespread support for the reforms of secondary education, which were announced in the Queen's Speech. They will create a more diverse education system and unleash the energy of successful heads and teachers in successful schools, so that standards will improve. I note the concern about teachers, to which I shall come in a moment. We must ensure that we raise standards for all children in all parts of our school system.
Some of the speeches relating to education were wide-ranging, especially those of the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury and the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, whose welcome for the reforms I deeply appreciated. I agree with him entirely that our schools are an essential part of the community and bringing the community into schools is an essential part of the process. We need to ensure that the education provision in the community enhances both it and the performance in schools. I therefore welcome the support of the noble Lord for our proposed changes in secondary schools.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Blatch, Lady Sharp and Lady Walmsley, among others, referred to problems over the supply of teachers. We recognise those problems. But the overall figures are somewhat comforting. We are taking practical steps to encourage more people to enter into and—more importantly—to remain in the teaching profession. Those steps include training bursaries, golden hellos, welcome back bonuses and, not least, three successive above inflation pay rewards.
Teacher numbers are rising and are at their highest level since 1984. There are 12,600 more teachers than there were at the beginning of last year. Recruitment for the future of the profession is also substantially up. Although vacancies are also up, the total teacher numbers are up by far more than the number of vacancies. It is important that there is a positive trend, but we need to do more to retain and motivate teachers joining the profession.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, raised the issue of AS-levels and asked what we were doing to review the way in which they have been introduced this year. My right honourable friend, Estelle Morris, has announced a review of the implementation of the reforms after their first year. The review will focus on the examination and assessment process of the new system and we shall receive a report from Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in mid-July. We shall then have to reflect on our next steps. We shall need to ensure that the new qualifications maintain their rigour while not placing unreasonable burdens on teachers and students.
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The proposed Bill and the White Paper will support the creation of a more diverse education system to transform and deliver secondary education. Diversity and differentiation are an important part of what we intend to offer to secondary pupils. It is not entirely a conversion to the approach adopted by the previous government—I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. We are not looking for élitism, but we want diversity and equality in the provision of opportunity for all children. To paraphrase the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, we want all schools to be special schools. We want pupils and parents to identify with what a particular school can offer, but we do not want to differentiate in a hierarchical sense between one form of school, which is a special school, and others which are not. We intend to encourage schools to develop specialism, but we do not intend to create a two-tier system of education.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord has just said something which is wholly inconsistent with what we understood to be the policy. Our understanding was that 50 per cent of schools would be specialist schools, but the noble Lord has just said that the intention is that all schools will be specialist schools.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the noble Baroness did not follow what I said. I said that all schools should be special schools, which was also what the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, implied. There will be particular schools that will be encouraged to develop specialisms. That is where the 50 per cent figure derives from. But that is not creating a two-tier system. It means that within the overall inclusive system some schools will be more specialist than others.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Whitty: My Lords, there is a difference between specialisation and élitism. What the party opposite is always trying to seek within its education policy is élitism. That is not what we are about. We are improving the choice to pupils, to schools and to parents by encouraging schools to develop specialisms. What we are not attempting to do is to create division within the secondary part of our education system. Indeed, it is important that the selection process is limited. Only 7 per cent of the specialist schools that already exist select by aptitude. None selects by ability. It is important that we differentiate that from certain other proposed models of secondary education.
Another contentious area of our proposals relates to private sector involvement in state education, particularly in relation to secondary schools. Our focus in this respect, as in other areas of the public services, is on what works and not on an artificial distinction between public and private provision. The public sector will be very much in command of the education system. We want the state education system to use private sector methods and personnel where necessary but also to engage in partnerships with faith organisations, voluntary organisations and so on, and

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also with the private sector where that will raise standards. There is expertise in the private sector which we wish to mobilise here, as we do in other parts of public service delivery. We have already seen how private sector involvement can have a positive role in raising standards through the sponsorship of education action zones. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, asked when we would get an assessment. We shall get an initial report in July.
The involvement of the private sector and of partnership and diversity, particularly diversity with the faith schools, is an important part of the provision of both choice and diversity within this overall approach to secondary education. We very much appreciate the report of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and the reaction of the Church to that. We wish to develop those partnerships.
Another dimension of the role of teachers has been emphasised. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to bureaucracy, to the administrative load on teachers and to the need to reduce bureaucracy and give teachers more freedom and more time to teach. We have already moved some way in that direction. We would want a state education system where there was greater freedom for creativity and therefore a relaxation of some of the administrative burdens on teachers. We agree with the Haskins report in this context and in relation to agriculture. We want greater freedom for head teachers and successful teachers and we want head teachers and governors to have new ways of innovating in order to drive up standards in schools. We shall therefore give greater autonomy to local schools and within that relieve the bureaucratic burden that falls on teachers and senior teachers in particular.
We accept the need to keep teacher workloads to manageable proportions. We very much recognise the complaints in that regard. That is why we have agreed to the School Teacher Review Body recommendation to take the lead in commissioning an independent study of teacher workload. We recognise that that is one of the reasons why we need to improve the motivation and performance of teachers. Furthermore, we shall give teachers additional teaching assistants. More than 25,000 teaching assistants were in place this January and we have said that there will be at least a further 20,000 classroom support staff by the end of this Parliament. We are relieving the burdens on teachers in that way.
Relief for individual teachers is one thing; the encouragement of leadership within schools is another. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn was particularly concerned about the quality of leadership in schools. We are anxious to develop that as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, put it that the three legs of this effort are formed not only by the Government and by teachers but also by motivating the children themselves. The noble Lord and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn were particularly concerned about the disaffection with
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school which in part may depend on parental background, although I would not entirely share the conclusions reached on that by the noble Lord. However, clearly there is a need to engage parents in the schooling of their children more than is the case at the moment, as well as to motivate children more positively. In early years terms, the Sure Start programme has proved to be a success and we shall build on that success.
Another point raised in relation to the school curriculum was that of sport. I apologise to my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen. At the point when she made her contribution it was necessary for me to take some exercise and thus I failed to hear her remarks in their entirety. However, I returned to the Chamber towards the end. It is important to recognise that, across government, we are committed to delivering adequate time and resources for school sport. My noble friend Lady Ashton has said that she is herself specifically working on this, so we are in good hands as regards improving facilities both in schools and, it is hoped, continuing our commitment to sport after school.
A number of points were made about higher education, most of which related to funding arrangements and the question of tuition fees and the degree to which it has been alleged that they have put off young people from poorer backgrounds from entering higher education. There really is no evidence to suggest that the new student support arrangements are deterring students from entering HE. The total number enrolled has risen in each of the two years since the scheme was introduced.
The number from poorer households in the lower socio-economic groups has remained constant, although we wish to increase it, but we have not seen a blip as a result of the change in the student support system. It is still true that only 17 per cent of young people from lower socio-economic groups enter HE compared with 45 per cent from the middle and upper groups. That is one of the central problems facing the Government in terms of their higher education policy, but it is also a question of resources. Some of those resources are met by the new student support system. Furthermore, poorer students do not pay tuition fees because they are income assessed and low-interest loans are available to help them to meet their costs. We believe that once the new system has bedded in, it will be appropriate and will help to meet some of the resource problems in universities and higher education institutions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, asked about higher education pay and the report from the Bett committee. I should say that that committee is to report to employers rather than to the Government. I do not think that at this stage it would be appropriate for us to comment on how that is going to be taken forward.
In relation to higher education, secondary education and primary education, this Government's watchwords will be standards and delivery. My noble

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and learned friend Lord Falconer said the same at the beginning of our debate. That applies to the rest of our public services provision.
shall move to the area of responsibility covered by my own department. Again, I should like to accept and add to the appreciation of the role played by my noble friend Lady Hayman over the past two years. The new department represents a major realignment of environment, agriculture and food responsibilities. I very much appreciate the general welcome given by most speakers in terms of the establishment of the department. It will have a wide range of responsibilities, but they all relate to sustainability and sustainable development.
The name of the department attracted adverse criticism from the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, and others; namely, that the word "agriculture" does not appear in the title. I believe that the creation of the department upgrades and broadens the role of agriculture and food production rather than narrows and downgrades it. It is now at the centre of an approach vertically to the food chain and horizontally to rural development, whereas previously we had a Ministry which was concerned primarily with food production and did not look at the role of agriculture within the wider environment and the wider community.
The fact that it has been placed in a department which also includes the whole range of environmental activities is very important for the future. The issue of agriculture needs to be taken in parallel with our approach to the environment as whole, both rurally and more broadly. My department will therefore be responsible across government for driving forward environmental issues in relation to everything from farm production through to climate change.
A number of noble Lords referred to the relative roles of my Secretary of State, Margaret Beckett, and that of the Deputy Prime Minister. The bulk of policy in regard to climate change, the delivery of the climate change programme and our approach to negotiations will rest with our department. Clearly, the Deputy Prime Minister, with his huge experience and his success in obtaining the Kyoto agreement in the first place, will lead the negotiating team on occasions—as may the Prime Minister on occasions—but the executive responsibility for delivering the whole gamut of our climate change programme, a number of aspects of which have been referred to today, will rest with our department.
My noble friend Lord Hunt, in particular, referred to the importance of tackling climate change in the immediate and medium-term timescale, and the need to put that issue centrally in the Government's approach to policies as a whole. He raised a number of points. Our support for the environmental NGOs is substantial—indeed, they were one of the first groups with which Margaret Beckett and I met. Across this area of government as a whole, DEFRA will be leading.
My noble friend raised various points about the marine environment. Again, we will be the co-ordinating department in that regard.
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He also raised the more local issue of flooding and the problems arising from the wettest autumn on record last year, during which 10,000 premises were flooded. In my department, the Environment Agency and those areas of MAFF which previously had responsibility in regard to flooding will be brought together. The Government will not, of course, be the insurer of last resort in this area as in others in relation to flooding. By and large, premises are insurable and it is not a sensible time for us to engage in compensation for the flooded areas. However, it is our responsibility to ensure that water management and flood defences, both inland and coastally, are brought together and delivered in the light of what looks like being an increase of the pressure and the likelihood of flooding in both contexts.
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, referred to the energy review—as did the noble Lord, Lord Wade—the role of renewables and the role of CHP, which are very much central to our delivery of aspects of the climate change programme. The noble Lord asked about energy production and industrial emissions of CO2. Emissions of CO2 have been substantially reduced on the domestic side. On the transport side, there are still substantial policies to be implemented. They are all there in the climate change programme but we need to make sure that they are fully implemented and followed through.
The division of responsibility for transport from the department is more for administrative than policy purposes. It is very important that transport plays its part. Again, DEFRA will take the lead, with our colleagues in the transport department, in developing a more environmentally sensitive means of transport. In particular, we will encourage a shift from CO2 emitting vehicles to more fuel efficient and less polluting vehicles. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford referred to sustainability more generally. He reminded us that sustainability is not only an environmental and economic matter but also a matter of moral and social sustainability. It is very important that we keep those dimensions in mind. Whether we are talking about rural development or more generally, the social pattern is an important dimension.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, referred as he often does to the role of biofuels in helping to "square the circle" in terms of the need for transport and transport fuels within, broadly speaking, current technology and the possibility of doing that using biofuels of all kinds and dramatically reducing CO2 emissions. It is important that we do that. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he acknowledged, moved some way in that direction in the last Budget and indicated that we were looking at fiscal and other measures which will go further down that road. I know of his particular concern about rape-seed based biodiesel. That is clearly an area that we shall need to continue to exploit. If it proves to be successful both economically and in terms of carbon emission lifecycle, then it is clearly beneficial not only to the environmental objectives but also as a form of diversified crop which is already there for a beleaguered agricultural sector.

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I move on to the rural and agricultural sector as such. I am slightly surprised at some of the comments about the gracious Speech which almost implied that some of the big commitments contained in it—for example, to help education and the fight against crime—were somehow not relevant to rural areas. In my experience, those are precisely the matters about which people in rural areas complain. They do so as much as, and in many cases more than, they do about the problems of the agricultural industry.
It is important when we are addressing rural policy and rural development that we see the delivery of services and economic and employment prospects for rural areas beyond agriculture as playing an important part. The rural White Paper was greatly welcomed by most noble Lords. I assure the noble Baroness that it is being followed through robustly. It will provide a framework for the delivery of better services, maintaining local businesses, providing affordable housing in rural localities and providing support for market towns and for the provision of public services generally. Also, to answer a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, it will strengthen the role of parish and town councils in providing services. We shall issue a further consultation paper shortly. They have a role in the specialist provision of rural transport to meet particular local needs.
In terms of the agriculture sector, it is important to recognise that what is needed is not a whole swathe of new legislation—which is what the Queen's Speech is mainly about—but an approach to eradicating foot and mouth disease as rapidly as possible and the development of an exit plan both for the agricultural sector and for the rural economy as a whole which is sustainable.
In terms of dealing with foot and mouth, it is important that the House recognises the degree of effort that has been put in by the farming community, by former MAFF officials, by many from the private sector, by the Army and by volunteers from many government departments and local government in attempting to deal with this problem. This has been an internationally unprecedented spread of the disease. We have learnt lessons as we have gone along. I do not believe that there was much alternative to substantial culling, both for preventive purposes and immediately any contact was detected. It has meant that very large numbers of animals have had to be killed. That has put huge pressure on the disposal system, which has in itself on occasion caused some environmental problems. All of those have been efficiently tackled by ex-MAFF, now DEFRA, staff and by the others involved in that system.
It is important that we learn the lessons from this outbreak. I correct the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, who suggested that it was the previous government who set up the BSE inquiry. It was in fact this Government who did so. That was 10 years after the first identification of the disease. We need to ensure that the specialist resources are still there. The disease has still not been eradicated. There are still outbreaks and there are still hot spots where we need to eliminate
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the disease if we are to avoid the possibility of it still being present several months hence. We do not wish to divert attention from that into an inquiry at this point. However, as my right honourable friend has said, we need to make it plain that once the present outbreak of foot and mouth comes to an end the Government will want an inquiry. We shall want an inquiry which is conducted as speedily as is consistent with a thorough examination. We shall want to ascertain which matters were handled well and, where errors occurred, what we can learn for the future if such an emergency were to recur. I therefore assure the noble Lords, Lord Kimball and Lord Moran, and others who pressed for an inquiry that one will take place. However, the form of that inquiry will be announced at a later point.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, will that be a public inquiry?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the form of the inquiry will be announced at a later stage. There have been problems with some previous inquiries which have taken years to complete. We wish to have a thorough inquiry to which everyone can contribute, but I am afraid that the House will have to wait for a later announcement on the exact form the inquiry will take.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. I appreciate that he wishes to reserve the position with regard to the form of the inquiry. However, will he eliminate a Select Committee inquiry? This point has been raised before. As I said to the Minister last Thursday when we discussed the Statement on foot and mouth, if there is a Select Committee inquiry former Ministers are not allowed to give evidence. It would be a case of the existing Ministers giving evidence. No Minister in the new department has handled the matter. It would help the House to be told whether a Select Committee inquiry can be eliminated.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I suspect that the Select Committee in another place and indeed the Public Accounts Committee in another place may well wish to conduct their own inquiries into the foot and mouth outbreak. The inquiry to which I refer is one sponsored by the Government rather than by either House of Parliament.
We must recognise that there are many things that we can still learn as we proceed with the eradication of the disease. I meet regularly with the NFU, and shall do so again tomorrow, to consider its suggestions as to how we tighten up our measures to deal with the hotspots and import controls, as was mentioned.
It is important that we take action on all those fronts. As has been mentioned twice or three times in this debate, it is also important that we recognise the problems which will arise in the autumn in connection with sheep movements. Those will present us with yet another dimension to this situation. We must also recognise that export markets will not come on stream quickly either for sheep or other livestock. We shall attempt to move matters forward as rapidly as possible

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in terms of the EU and other international trade outlets, but the reality is that we shall be faced with the loss of export markets. Even when the restrictions are lifted, as we witnessed in the case of beef, it will take us some time to get back those markets. We have a serious medium-term problem as well as the immediate problem.
However, the farming sector has a third and even deeper problem which existed before the current outbreak of foot and mouth. Farm incomes have greatly declined over the past four or five years, partly as a result of parity of sterling but also as a result of other substantial and probably irreversible changes both in international trade and consumer taste and choice. Ministers in the new department therefore recognise that we need to talk carefully to farmers, to those involved in other parts of the food chain and to environmental and consumer groups about what the future of farming will comprise. We need to take full account of the distress and the concerns that are felt particularly in the infected areas but also more widely in the whole of the farming community which have been caused by the current outbreak and the subsequent restrictions.
I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford that we shall visit farming communities up and down the country. We shall meet farmers, listen to their comments and try to understand their views on where farming should go. However, it is important that, while we recognise the immediate problems, we should hold frank discussions. It is important to recognise that farmers will have to face up to further changes. They have endured many changes over decades but British agriculture will probably have to face up to some fairly fundamental changes in the not too distant future. Return to normality does not mean a return to the status quo. We shall not go back to the state of farming of four or five years ago. That means that we have to have a fundamental review, not just of the disease, but, even more importantly, of the future directions of farming and the food chain as a whole. The kind of issues to be addressed are diversification, specialisation, how we can meet tighter environmental standards and changing consumer demands, and the balance of the food chain and how farmers and the final outlet of the food chain can co-operate more closely to the greater benefit of farmers.
It will require some willingness to change. The farmers' leaders recognise that; much of the farming community recognises that. There is not as yet a consensus as to the exact dimension. As noble Lords have said, it may be different in different parts of the country. However, a willingness to change has to be faced.
Within that context, there are considerably wider issues particularly relating to the CAP and the World Trade Organisation, as the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, said. It is key that over this period when we examine the future of farming we also establish our negotiating position and our objectives within the WTO negotiations and, even more importantly, within the review of the common agricultural policy which will take place next year. There is more optimism on that
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front than there has been previously in relation to the shifting position in other countries, in particular Germany, and, up until its last election, Italy. It is important that we address that. We also need to take on board our own environmental concerns, consumer concerns and so forth. Organic farming may well play a part. But, as noble Lords have said, that is not the only sustainable form of farming and we need to address all aspects of improving the production as well as what we produce.
The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, referred to other changes of the environment in relation to the role of the FSA and the need to bring in environmental standards more generally. I concur with what he said. I also concur with what was said with regard to ensuring that the changes are well based in science. We must approach such potential changes in relation to GM and other issues not only on the basis of scientific evidence but also of the changing views of consumers and wider environmental interests.
I have now left no time to deal with my former department and the areas of regional affairs, local government and transport. Briefly—my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer is taking on my previous role and that of my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Tradeston and he will have plenty of time to speak at the Dispatch Box—we shall bring forward proposals on reforming the planning system. Some of the stories that noble Lords have read are not entirely accurate. But improvements are needed, as was suggested, in the agricultural diversification area. They are also needed in relation to large projects. We shall also come forward with proposals on housing, to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Maddock, and Lady Hamwee, referred, in relation to the homeless and the bed and breakfast syndrome—areas where there are serious problems—and in setting tight targets and following them through in relation to homelessness and rough sleepers.
Questions were raised early in the debate with regard to regional government, in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. We are actively considering the way forward on elected regional assemblies. The main point relates to the will within the various English regions. There is an issue as to how one proceeds where there are regions which are largely not unitary structures. However, the structures can change as well as the opinion in support or otherwise of regional assemblies. I can give the noble Lord, therefore, no unequivocal comfort in relation to the North West. If the people of the North West wish to move down the road of regional assemblies, other adjustments may need to be made. We regard the development of regional assemblies, when the people want it, as an important extension of democracy, not the introduction of an additional and unnecessary tier. Indeed, it may do something to help reconnect the people with the politicians if we can bring closer to them some of the decisions which are taken currently in Whitehall on planning, transport and the environment. This is not an attempt to take power

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away from local authorities but to give some of the power that currently rests here back closer to the people.
The noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw, Lord Berkeley and Lord Faulkner, spoke at length about railways—and very expertly too. My right honourable friend Stephen Byers is addressing the problem this very day, and I suspect that my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer will be back to tell your Lordships about it at a later stage. There are clearly serious problems with the railways and on broader transport issues.
I think that I have dealt with most of the points that have been raised.
Earl Peel: My Lords, after such a wide-ranging debate it is clearly impossible for the Minister to answer all the questions that have been put to him. Will he assure the House that he will do us the courtesy of writing directly to those who have asked a direct question that he has not been able to answer in his wind-up speech? I say that for three reasons. First, it is a matter of courtesy. Secondly, at least it would give all those who have participated some gratification to know that either he or his civil servants will have read their speech. Thirdly, it will reduce a plethora of written Questions that might otherwise follow.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I always scrutinise the noble Earl's speeches to see whether I need to write to him, principally to avoid the written Questions that he
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is now threatening me with. I certainly undertake to do that. There are a number of questions to which I can give specific answers.
I can give only a generalised answer on hunting, which is the other issue that I have not touched on. The manifesto and the gracious Speech have made it clear that we shall give the new House of Commons an early opportunity to express its view and enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on the issue. Speculation on the mechanism should not be taken seriously. There has been no decision on that, but there is a commitment that the House of Commons will be given an early opportunity to make its view known. We shall take it from there.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Rooker, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned until tomorrow.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned until tomorrow.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly until tomorrow.

Barclays Group Reorganisation Bill [H.L.]

  National Australia Group Europe Bill [H.L.]
  A message was brought from the Commons that they concur with the resolution of this House of 21st June.
  House adjourned at eighteen minutes past eleven o'clock.

  Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme: Tourism Businesses
  Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme: Tourism Businesses
  HM Land Registry: Quinquennial Review
  HM Land Registry: Quinquennial Review