Sitting of 8 March 2001

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

    CITY OF LONDON (WARD ELECTIONS) BILL (BY ORDER)
    Order for further consideration, as amended, read.
    To be further considered on Thursday 15 March.

Oral Answers to Questions
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  The Minister was asked—
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Veterinary Surveillance
    Mr. Tim Boswell: What steps he is taking to maintain a national veterinary surveillance structure. [R] [151384]
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nick Brown): Effective veterinary surveillance is a key element of public and animal health protection. A thorough review of current veterinary surveillance measures was issued for consultation last year. We are currently developing strategy proposals that will draw on responses to the consultation, the findings of the BSE report and any lessons to be learned from recent disease outbreaks.
    Mr. Boswell: The Minister will appreciate that the question was tabled before the foot and mouth outbreak, in which both his and private vets are doing a splendid job.
    First, will he consider the specific issue of the importance of using modern information technology in veterinary surveillance, both in reporting and exchanging information and, possibly, through imaging, in diagnosis? Secondly, more widely, will he take seriously the concerns that have been expressed by the British Veterinary Association, which are also relevant to the present problem—that there must be adequate continuing resources for a system to work effectively?
    Mr. Brown: The issue of resources at the forefront of my mind, but I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman the unqualified assurances that he seeks in response to both parts of his question. I thank him for his kind words
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    about the state veterinary service and the veterinarians who have come from private practice and from abroad to help us with the current foot and mouth outbreak.
    Mr. Colin Breed: Will such resources as will be available in the next few months be sufficient to tackle the current crisis, and what plans does the Minister have to ensure that services continue beyond that? It seems clear from the Phillips report that one of the real problems was the run-down of the state veterinary service over many years, which needs to he reversed. What will happen when the vets who have come from abroad depart, resulting in a huge gap in the professional advice that is available to us?
    Mr. Brown: The state veterinary service is about to employ almost twice as many veterinarians as it usually would, and some are employed in specialist capacities rather than as general veterinarians. The service is ably led by the chief veterinary officer, Jim Scudamore, on whose advice I rely in managing the current foot and mouth outbreak. I have told him that he is to have the resources that he needs to control the outbreak, and we will argue about where they come from afterwards. Of course, the issue of resources will have to be kept under review, and that and the findings of the Phillips report will form part of our consideration of what has happened once we have the disease under control. At the minute, however, all efforts must be focused on getting the disease under control. That is our priority.

    Horticulture (Packaging)
    Mr. Christopher Chope: What recent meetings he has had with the Horticultural Trades Association to discuss the impact of rules on packaging on the horticulture industry. [151385]
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ms Joyce Quin): I last met representatives of the Horticultural Trades Association on 1 February. The meeting covered a range of issues of interest to the horticulture industry, including the question of plant pots as packaging.
    Mr. Chope: Does the Minister agree that the decision of the Lord Chief Justice in the plant pot case on 29 January was potty, and that it would be much better for the Government now to introduce emergency legislation to change the regulations so that they have the same impact on our horticulture industry as the equivalent regulations introduced in Holland, France and Italy under the same EU directive? Does she further agree that the court has misinterpreted the intentions of the House when it passed the regulations, and will she take urgent action because, apart from anything else, the Government are already imposing a substantial burden on the horticulture industry through the climate change levy?
    Ms Quin: As the hon. Gentleman will know, the prime responsibility for the packaging regulations lies with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. In my discussions with the Horticultural Trades Association and others, I have made representations to my colleagues in the DETR, as well as to the European Commission. One of the aspects that the hon. Gentleman

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    raises is the important one of how the regulations are being implemented throughout the EU. A number of countries have taken the same view as the British court, but a number of others have not. This is such an important matter for the horticulture industry that we need to move forward on the basis of a common approach to the regulations.

    Agrimonetary Compensation
    Mr. David Heath: If he will make a statement on future payments of agrimonetary compensation. [151386]
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ms Joyce Quin): Last week, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture announced that he intends to draw down —171 million in agrimonetary compensation for the beef, sheep and dairy sectors, including all of the —156 million in optional compensation. The cost of that to the United Kingdom taxpayer is —129 million. This latest allocation of agrimonetary compensation is in addition to the —629 million already paid since 1997.
    Mr. Heath: May I wholly welcome the drawing down of agrimonetary compensation? I observe, however, that the spin that suggests that it is a response to foot and mouth disease is unhelpful. The money was already necessary and was asked for long before the foot and mouth outbreak.
    I have two particular questions. First, in respect of the distribution of agrimonetary compensation this year, what is the qualifying date for payments made on a headage basis, and will it be affected by any slaughter policy for foot and mouth? Secondly, and more difficult, will the money be provided for dairying according to quota held or quota used, and will that delay the process?
    Finally, what will replace the current agrimonetary compensation system when it runs out this year? What moves have the Government made to establish an alternative process within the European Union?
    Ms Quin: The hon. Gentleman asks about five questions in his so-called supplementary question. We are informing farmers about a number of issues. Entitlement relates to the current holding and to the current circumstances of farmers in the different sectors concerned. I hope that he will welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Minister secured European Commission agreement to make the payments to farmers much earlier than they would usually have been made. Of course, the foot and mouth disease informed our decision on the allocation of the money. Every time we have decided whether to pay out such money, we have had to consider conditions in agriculture and in the sectors that are entitled to such payments. For that reason, foot and mouth disease is an important part of the background to the compensation, especially as so much of the bill for agrimonetary payments is paid by the British taxpayer, despite the fact that they are called European payments.
    Mr. Huw Edwards: The farmers of Monmouthshire do not often pay compliments to Agriculture Ministers, regardless of their party, but they are currently paying particular compliments to my right
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    hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and his colleagues for the way in which they have drawn down agrimonetary compensation and handled the foot and mouth epidemic. Will my right hon. Friend consider other measures that would help the movement of ewes in lamb, including those that are on tack, to enable such sheep to be brought back home in order to lamb at this difficult time?
    Ms Quin: I very much welcome my hon. Friend's comments, which accord with those made to us by farmers and farmers' organisations throughout the country.
    On his final point we are trying to consider the matter as sympathetically as possible while ensuring the strictest controls to prevent the movement of the disease. He will know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture plans to say something further about that later today.
    Mr. Michael Jack: The Minister might be aware that some sections of the livestock industry have not been able to benefit from agrimonetary compensation. Their problems are typified by the call that I received from Mr. Tom Fare a pig farmer in my constituency. He told me that although the licensing scheme introduced by the Minister of Agriculture thankfully ensures that he is now able to market some of his pigs, he is at the mercy of a marketplace that he feels is not working to the advantage of pig farmers. He also worries about the additional costs associated with slaughter at this difficult time. Will she and the Minister of Agriculture consider those circumstances, especially with regard to those who do not benefit from agrimonetary compensation?
    Ms Quin: The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about which Ministers have obviously been concerned. He knows the European system well and is aware that agrimonetary compensation is available to some livestock producers, but not all of them. That is why we have brought forward money that was available under the pig industry restructuring scheme to try to help pig farmers. He made the important point that we have started some movement—albeit limited—of animals to slaughter in order to help farmers, including pig farmers. Obviously, we must keep the situation constantly and sympathetically under review.
    Mr. Tim Yeo: Yesterday, the Chancellor referred to a great many people and industries in his Budget speech, but he announced nothing new for farmers or farming. Will the Minister of State confirm that agrimonetary compensation is specifically designed to compensate British farmers for the weakness of the euro? It was needed long before the outbreak of foot and mouth disease was confirmed two weeks ago. Will she also confirm that agrimonetary compensation is an inadequate response to the financial damage caused by foot and mouth disease?
    Ms Quin: Agrimonetary payments are part of the response, but the Government are introducing a range of measures on foot and mouth disease. I appreciate that, on the whole, the Opposition have supported them, but they have a short memory about agrimonetary payments. They did not make such payments when in government; perhaps they believe that we have forgotten all the arguments that farmers directed against them in the late

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    1980s about amounts of compensation and their failure to revalue the green pound in the way in which farmers wanted. We have not forgotten, even if the hon. Gentleman has.

    Scientific Advisory Committees
    Mrs. Jackie Lawrence: What steps he has taken to promote openness and transparency in his Ministry's scientific advisory committees. [151387]
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nick Brown): As I said in last month's debate on Lord Phillips's report, I am fully committed to operating an open and transparent scientific advisory system. Even before the publication of the report, the Government demonstrated that commitment by setting up the Foods Standard Agency, which puts its advice to Ministers in the public domain.
    I want to extend that openness to all the Ministry's scientific advisory committees, several of which already include consumer representatives. A new code of practice for the operation of all Government advisory committees is being developed, and we will consult on it shortly.
    In the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the role of my scientific advisers, principally the chief veterinary officer, has been critical. It has been my policy that Jim Scudamore should make publicly available the professional advice that he gives me; I believe that that openness has been widely welcomed.
    Mrs. Lawrence: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, which will be appreciated by Pembrokeshire farmers. Will he confirm—he has done so partly—that he will make available the scientific advice that he receives on the current foot and mouth outbreak? Will he also examine the current practice of feeding commercially produced swill to pigs, and consider whether it is commensurate with the Government's policy on safe, quality food?
    Mr. Brown: I give my hon. Friend an unqualified "yes" to both questions. I intend the scientific advice that informs ministerial decisions to be placed in the public domain. As we take stock of the foot and mouth outbreak, I intend to make the Ministry's findings public, and to consult on them. Although it is not up to me to make the assessment, I expect that swill feed for pigs will form part of that consultation.
    Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: When the Minister considers the advice of the scientific advisory body, will he bear in mind the fact that developments in the foot and mouth outbreak are happening incredibly quickly? Farmers look to the Minister to give answers that are more instant than he can sometimes provide. A farmer in my constituency contacted me yesterday. He had a problem with calving heifers that were three miles away from his farm. He needs to get them back to the farm, but he has been told that he cannot do that. There are animal welfare as well as scientific considerations in that case. Has the Minister any hope for him?
    Mr. Brown: Yes, I have. The hon. Gentleman is right that developments in controlling foot and mouth disease
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    are happening quickly. I have tried to get information to Members of Parliament and regional officials of the National Farmers Union daily. We inform individual hon. Members if a new outbreak occurs in their constituencies.
    Consistent with the overriding need to control the disease, I hope that it will soon be possible to introduce secure, local arrangements to deal with the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman described, partly for the animal welfare reasons that he mentioned.
    Caroline Flint: I welcome the use of officials such as the chief vet alongside Ministers in fielding inquiries from the media, because it helps for them to be part of the debate in the broadcast media. However, a great deal of concern was expressed when the BSE outbreak first started, because dissenting voices were coshed and not heard. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that dissenting voices today are being heard? It is important to reassure not only farmers but the public that a full range of voices is being listened to and that advice is being taken from them.
    Mr. Brown: I strongly agree with both the points that my hon. Friend makes. The choice for Ministers is whether to keep information to ourselves and then explain it cautiously in the hope that we will not alarm the public, or to put all the information in the public domain, let the public make up their own mind and take the risk of starting scares when they are not justified by the evidence. I think that the second approach is the right one. We should trust the public, treat our fellow citizens in an adult way, put the information in the public domain and explain things candidly to them.
    Lord Phillips made the point strongly in his report that, as my hon. Friend said, at the start of the BSE outbreak dissenting opinions were not listened to. He used an elegant phrase—something like "dispute replaced debate". I am determined that that will not happen in the foot and mouth outbreak, and when we reflect on what has happened I intend to invite critics of the Ministry to listen to the alternative points of view. That in no way disparages the mainstream point of view.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I fully understand the reason for having a slaughter policy in the United Kingdom in respect of foot and mouth disease—such policies have been extremely effective in the past—but the Minister has just said that he wants the public to be treated in an adult way and that he wants advice given to him by the scientists to be transparent and made available to the public. Is he aware that there is growing public concern over inoculating cattle, sheep and pigs against this disease?
    What advice is the Minister receiving on a policy of inoculation and on not continuing with the slaughter policy? It would help the public and Members of Parliament to know what the balance is in the argument between slaughter and letting the disease take its course, allowing the animals to recover from it.
    Mr. Brown: There is a lot of public interest in that question. The advice being given to me is very clear indeed. The whole industry and the whole veterinary profession are speaking with one voice. They advise against the use of vaccination and against letting the

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    disease run its course. They firmly support the Government's approach of containing the movement of animals to prevent the disease from spreading, of waiting while the disease incubates and, as we discover what is already incubating, of quarantining it and extinguishing it. There are very sound reasons for that approach.
    I have seen it stated that foot and mouth disease is like flu in animals. The strong professional veterinary advice given to me is that it is not. Indeed, the fatalities that it causes in lambs are substantial. In the recent Tunisian outbreak, about 80 per cent. of the lambs born died of foot and mouth disease. It is ruinous to the livestock sector and the correct policy is, therefore, to exterminate it and get back to the disease-free status that we had maintained in this country for so long.
    Mr. Derek Foster: My right hon. Friend knows the farmers in the north-east of England well. He will know that they are even less prone to throw bouquets than those in Monmouth. However, all the messages that I have had from farmers and, formally, from the National Farmers Union state that they have been enormously pleased with the way in which the Ministry has acted. There has been firm, rapid action, sensitively taken and very well communicated. I particularly want to mention the speed with which the website was updated when it was drawn to my right hon. Friend's attention on Monday that it was slightly out of date. That was very speedy action indeed.
    Mr. Brown: I thank my right hon. Friend for those remarks and, considering the importance of the sheep sector in particular to his constituents and to our region generally, they are praise indeed.
    Mr. Tim Yeo: Is the Minister worried that the openness and transparency to which he refers is not practised by the German authorities, which reportedly did not respond in a timely manner to a Food Standards Agency request for information about the beef being exported from Germany to Britain?
    Mr. Brown: That is a BSE-food safety issue rather than a foot and mouth control issue. I fully support the work that John Krebs has undertaken with the German authorities and the Commission and I can assure the House that, from my dealings with the new German federal Minister, I know that nobody is more angry at the shortcomings of German abattoirs than that Minister.
    Mr. Yeo: If Germany continues to export illegal and possibly dangerous cuts of beef to Britain and declines to tell the Government's advisers in Britain what action it is taking to stop such exports, will the British Government protect British consumers by halting imports of German beef?
    Mr. Brown: We protect British consumers by checking every consignment. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is a serious matter. If specified risk material is found, it is not allowed into the food chain. We have made our representations to the German federal Government, the Commission and, as I understand it, another European member state to point out that such material is a risk to European citizens. It does not matter whether they live here or in another part of Europe, the risk is the same. Specified
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    risk material must be removed. The Commission is insisting on that and, indeed, my understanding is that it has said that abattoirs that have been found to be repeatedly at fault are to be closed, at least temporarily.

    Organic Farming
    Mr. David Taylor: How much his Department has allocated to research and development into organic farming methods in the past 12 months. [151389]
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): This year's budget for research and development into organic farming methods is currently —2.1 million, nearly twice as much as it 1997–98. In addition, —2.3 million has been allocated to establish the European Centre for Organic Fruit and Nursery Stock at Horticulture Research International in Kent.
    Mr. Taylor: Organic farming methods are all about sustainability. Does my hon. Friend believe that any part of the foot and mouth tragedy is linked to unsustainable factory farming? Has not "pile it high, sell it cheap" in the supermarkets led inexorably to the costly piles of burning carcases in the countryside? Will not greater investment in organic farming methods help to curb the excesses of over-intensive food production, which are wreaking such havoc on farming viability in rural Britain?
    Mr. Morley: It is understandable that the foot and mouth outbreak has made us focus on farming policy in this country, including intensive farming. It would be wrong, however, to blame intensive farming for the outbreak, which has been caused by a number of factors unrelated to it. Certain developments in modern agricultural practice have occurred, such as the growth in the dealer network and the increase in long-distance movement of animals. There are issues that need to be questioned on the basis of sustainability.
    Mr. Paul Keetch: The Minister will be aware that Herefordshire has more organic farming per hectare than any other county in England and Wales. How much has his Department allocated to research and development? Organic farmers must be told how to protect their crops from contamination by GM trial sites, which another Department has authorised in their locality.
    Mr. Morley: Part of the reason for establishing GM trial sites is to examine such issues as pollen spread. Of course that has implications for organic farmers, which is why the organic organisations have been involved in consultations with the supply chain initiative on modified agricultural crops on setting up and monitoring those trials, separation distances and the implications. That is right and proper and makes for a stronger argument for having field scale trials to examine such issues.
    Dr. George Turner: Does my hon. Friend accept that we must be sure that produce labelled "organic" is not seen to be good where produce labelled "ordinary farming" is seen to be bad? Is not it important that research concentrates on which of the

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    organic methods of farming produce safe food and benefit the environment? Should not the Government encourage outcomes, rather than labels?
    Mr. Morley: Any claim made for any food must be substantiated and based on accurate science. There has been detailed research into organic production, especially in connection with environmental benefits. It is clear that environmental benefits arise from organic farming. We expect all food, whether produced by organic or conventional means, to be safe and to meet the standards set by the Government. Those standards are carefully and rigorously enforced.

    Fisheries
    Mrs. Joan Humble: What assessment he has made of the impact of regulations on economic links of fisheries vessels on the British fisheries sector. [151391]
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): A full report on the operation of the economic link licence condition in 1999 was published in November 2000 and placed in the Library of the House. The policy is working well. There was almost total compliance; foreign-owned UK vessels increased their landings and expenditure in the UK, and additional quota was made available to inshore fishermen in the under-10-metre fleet and the non-sector. A further report on compliance in 2000 will be published later this year.
    Mrs. Humble: Is my hon. Friend aware that the regulations have been warmly welcomed by my constituents in Fleetwood? They have resulted in more than 30 Anglo-Spanish vessels joining Fleetwood's fish producers organisation, and in a very large increase in landings in the port that otherwise would have gone to foreign ports. However, will my hon. Friend look at the role of designated ports such as Fleetwood in the further application of these very welcome regulations?
    Mr. Morley: I am well aware that my hon. Friend has done an awful lot of work with the Fleetwood fish forum to promote Fleetwood and to address issues concerning its fishing industry. The economic link condition has meant that about 300 tonnes of quota have been returned to the UK inshore fleet from foreign-owned UK vessels. Landings in ports are up by 300 per cent., and an additional sum of an estimated —3 million has been spent on goods and services in our fishing ports around the coast.
    We believe that that is the right approach to deal with the issue of so-called quota hoppers. The system has brought benefits, although some Conservative Members said that, for legal reasons, we could not make it work. We have made it work, and it is a great deal better than using —55 million of public money to pay compensation for the failed policies of the previous Conservative Government.
    Mr. Andrew George: The Minister knows that Liberal Democrats support the economic link measures. Will he say what further compensation is likely to be paid beyond the —55 million that he just mentioned?
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    That compensation arises from the botched fiasco that was the Tory attempt to remove quota hoppers from the UK register. If the Minister had that money available for the UK fleet, would he direct it towards the lay-up problems in Scotland and the rest of the country, or would he use it on a decommissioning programme?
    Mr. Morley: I can certainly think of far more constructive uses for that —55 million than using it to pay compensation. That sum is the full and total settlement of the claims made against the UK, although some legal costs remain to be settled. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman that compensation claims have been settled in full, and the total cost is about a quarter of the original claim.
    Mr. Austin Mitchell: When my hon. Friend looks at the economic links regulations intended to regulate quota hoppers, will he bear it in mind that there will be many more quota hoppers unless he provides an urgent support package for the British fishing industry? Many British—and especially English—fishing vessels are not financially viable. If they go bust, the licences and quotas will be bought up by fishermen from countries that have provided aid packages to their fishing industry. Nearly every other European country has provided such a package for its industry. When will my hon. Friend be able to announce a generous aid package for the British fishing industry?
    Mr. Morley: I can assure my hon. Friend that the economic link measures, and other factors, have caused the number of quota hoppers on the UK register to decline significantly. The number continues to decline. There has been no sign that foreign-owned fishing companies or vessels are interested in buying UK licences.
    My hon. Friend makes a serious point, and I accept that the decline of fish stocks and other economic factors have hit the UK fleet. Our preference is to approach these matters on a UK basis, and there is a debate about the most effective way to support our fishing fleet.
    What I want are measures that deal with the long-term problems—the structural problems of overcapacity and too many boats chasing too few fish. I accept that we must make it clear where we stand on those issues and I hope to do so in the near future.
    Mr. Malcolm Moss: Does the Minister realise that his trumpeting of his success regarding the economic links regulations for fishing vessels in the British fisheries sector will be exposed as both futile and worthless given the crisis that is facing the British fishing industry? Without his immediate financial intervention to offset the North sea cod closure area, the UK fleet, particularly that in Scotland, faces financial disaster. Is it now the Government's policy to stand idly by and witness a substantial UK fleet reduction, which will make it easier, as has been pointed out, for vessels from southern EU countries to gain access to our northern waters after the common fisheries policy review in 2002?
    Mr. Morley: That is a bit rich coming from the party that opened the door to quota hoppers. Under Conservative policies, the number of quota hoppers increased; under ours, the number has decreased.

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    Of course, there is some difficulty with the availability of fish stocks and the impact of the cod closure area, but I make no apology for introducing that scheme. Indeed, it was introduced with the full support and involvement of representatives of the fishing industry because action had to be taken to deal with the pressure on fish stocks and the dire state that they are in.
    There are implications for the entire UK fishing industry. There is also an element of a devolved approach in the structural funds that are available to MAFF and the Scottish Executive, which is an issue in itself. I can assure the House that we recognise the pressures on the industry. The scheme is the best way that we can assist—with assistance that is beneficial in the long, not the short term.

    Woodlands
    Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: What action he is taking to increase woodland cover. [151392]
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): We give grants for planting more than 5,000 hectares of new woodland in England each year and the Forestry Commission is also planting new woods in the national forest and the community forests. Those initiatives and others, such as challenge funds, are targeted to meet our priorities and programmes for forestry as set out in our England forestry strategy.
    Mr. Thomas: I am grateful for that reply. Is my hon. Friend aware of announcement by the Woodland Trust that the impact of the Department's farmed woodland premium scheme over the past eight or nine years has been to create new fanned woodlands that are usually small, inaccessible to the public and not linked to other woodland in the vicinity? Given the purposes of the excellent English forestry strategy, will he consider reviewing the workings of the premium scheme to ensure that it more effectively increases woodland cover in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Morley: My hon. Friend makes a good point; there are strong arguments in the way in which support is targeted. Larger forests have a wider range of benefits and are much more cost-effective. That fact has been identified by the Forestry Commission and the forestry forum that has been set up as part of the English forestry strategy. I pay tribute to all the organisations that have joined the forum, which represents the private, the public and the voluntary sectors. It has had a tremendous input into forestry policy. It is committed to increasing forest cover in England, and I am glad to say that we have a budget that will increase spending on forestry by 50 per cent. in the next seven years.
    Miss Anne McIntosh: The Minister will be aware that trees take a long time to grow and so a woodland takes some years to achieve. Therefore, does he share my concern at the number of trees and the amount of woodland cover that will be lost because of the proposed line of pylons from Lakenby to Picton, Shipton and Beningbrough, which goes right through the heart of the vale of York? Will he join me to press the National
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    Grid to take the route of the pylons away from the woodland in question, in particular that part of it that is in an area of special scientific interest?
    Mr. Morley: I understand the hon. Lady's concern. Discussions about pylons are often controversial, as I experienced in my constituency some years ago. She will be aware that a planning issue is involved, which is the responsibility of the local authority. It is reasonable for local people to argue that pylons should be kept away from established woodland wherever possible. If it is not possible, it is not unreasonable to ask, as one of the planning conditions, for new woodland to be planted in compensation for any that is lost.

    Cattle (Traceability)
    Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: How many persons are employed on all forms of contract at the cattle traceability centre in Workington. [151394]
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ms Joyce Quin): At the end of February, 618 people were employed on all forms of contract at the British cattle movement service in Workington.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: The centre is one of the great success stories of west Cumbria. Will my right hon. Friend scour the whole of MAFF to see whether any more jobs can be transferred to the area? In particular, meat product export licensing work—which will, I suspect, have to be expanded over the coming years—could be transferred, as could sheep, pig and goat movements registration work. As that work expands, will my right hon. Friend look seriously at transferring it to my constituency and also to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham)? We have the workers and they are keen to take on those tasks.
    Ms Quin: My hon. Friend is second to no one in his determination to look for job opportunities for his constituents in Workington and I very much applaud his work. I hope that he will feel that, as regards work that is already available in the area, we have responded to some of the representations made by him and his constituents. As he knows, following a better quality service review it was decided that the work of the BCMS should remain in the public sector ant that there was certainly no case for moving that work away from his constituency.
    My hon. Friend mentioned traceability, which is so important for all parts of the livestock sector at present. He identified aspects where work will have to be done in future. I assure him that building on the existing expertise in his area is an important option for us.
    Mr. James Gray: While, like the Minister, I am glad that there is that traceability expertise in Workington, does she agree that traceability in this country is of precious little use unless we know precisely where imported beef comes from? Recently, there were worrying reports about beef imported with the spinal cord

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    left in. Which European Union countries have traceability standards that match the excellence of those at Workington?
    Ms Quin: On the point about imports, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in applauding the vigilance of the Food Standards Agency. It has rigorously checked imported meat in order to detect traces of specified risk material and any trace spinal column still attached to the meat. The agency's efforts should be applauded; they are extremely important for safeguarding consumer health in this country.
    A number of EU countries already have well-advanced traceability systems. The reason for that is that we are required to have such systems according to EU regulations and requirements. Indeed recent events on the continent and in all our countries reinforce the case for that increased traceability. We want to be at the forefront—along with the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)—and ensure that we play our part in that process.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the work of the Ministry's civil servants is very much valued? She knows that in my constituency we are most anxious that none of the jobs should be lost. When she is considering the employment and the extension of MAFF services, I am sure that she will understand that any attempt to move the work of the Ministry into the private sector without extremely wide consultation—or worse, any attempt to concentrate such jobs outside the existing regional offices—will be met if not with vigorous responses, certainly with a lack of amusement.
    Ms Quin: I know that my hon. Friend has had meetings with my right hon. Friend the Minister to express her concerns, quite rightly, about the future of employment in MAFF in her constituency. I also know that a good amount of work has been done on identifying the services that will be retained in her area. It is important that the Ministry plays its full part in the regionalised system of government that we have in the United Kingdom. It is also important that, especially through the England rural development programme, we deliver many services effectively at regional level, and that allows us to identify employment opportunities.

  The Solicitor-General was asked—
  SOLICITOR-GENERAL

    CPS (Berkshire)
    Fiona Mactaggart: What his assessment is of the performance of the Crown Prosecution Service in Berkshire. [151415]
    The Solicitor-General (Mr. Ross Cranston): The Crown Prosecution Service has been working with the police and the East Berkshire magistrates court to introduce the Narey proposals. All defendants charged with a criminal offence in East Berkshire should now
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    make their first appearance before Slough magistrates court within 72 hours of arrest. The agencies have also been working together to speed up youth justice.
    The CPS, as a member of the Thames valley area criminal justice strategy committee, is determined to improve the way in which racially aggravated cases are handled. The CPS has played an active role in promoting the work undertaken by the committee's sub-group on race. Other initiatives in the area include the introduction of the Glidewell proposals to ensure that greater emphasis at Reading Crown court is placed on more serious crime.
    Fiona Mactaggart: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his reply. I am glad to hear about those initiatives, but I want to draw his attention to my concern about basic inefficiency in the CPS in Berkshire. I shall cite just one of a number of examples involving constituents who have come to me about crimes that have not been properly prosecuted, not because of a decision not to prosecute, but because witnesses or the police were not informed of the date of the prosecution.
    The case that I am most concerned about involves a victim of domestic violence, whose attacker was not prosecuted because she and the police were misinformed about the date of the case. She wrote to me:
    "I am twenty-four years old. I have the whole of my life in front of me. I feel like what should be my best years have been blighted. Jason committed a crime for which at the very least he should have been made aware he did wrong. What is to stop him doing this to his next girlfriend …?"
    Will my hon. and learned Friend take action to ensure that the CPS in my area delivers on our pledge to be tough on crime, rather than failing to do so through inefficiency?
    The Solicitor-General: My hon. Friend is second to none in tenaciously pursuing cases raised by her constituents. There is no doubt that something went horribly wrong in that case, and the CPS has apologised to her and, in particular, to the victim. I understand that assistance has been given so that she might be able to bring a civil injunction in that case. Things did go wrong, but given the substantial increase in the budget for the CPS, there will be more lawyers and caseworkers in the Thames valley. The increase for next year's budget in my hon. Friend's area is about 11 per cent.
    There is a problem in the Thames valley, and also in London, in attracting and retaining staff, simply because lawyers can be paid substantial sums elsewhere. The chief Crown prosecutor in that area is trying part-time and term-time working, and so on, which is having some success.
    There was a problem in the case cited by my hon. Friend, and she has raised other cases that give rise to concern. I can assure her that I am taking a personal interest in the matter. The inspectorate will be involved later this year, and I will be keeping an eye on the area.
    Mr. John Burnett: If there was an outbreak in Berkshire of a virulently contagious animal disease, the CPS presumably would have a role in assisting the trading standards officers and the Meat Hygiene Service. Is the Solicitor-General satisfied that

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    there is sufficient preparation and liaison between the CPS and those agencies to enable the activities of rogue traders and operators to be closed down without delay?
    The Solicitor-General: There is no doubt that, as a result of the measures that we have taken over the last couple of years, the CPS is working much more closely with other agencies. That has been one of the great benefits of the youth justice pledge. Now, the CPS meets regularly with the police, social services and others. In the hypothetical case that the hon. Gentleman raised, the CPS would liaise with other agencies. I should emphasise, however, that the CPS only gets cases that are brought to it by other agencies. It can and does give advice to the police and other agencies when that is asked for, but it is up to agencies to initiate cases and for the CPS then to take them forward.

    CPS (North Wales)
    Mrs. Betty Williams: What the impact on the Crown Prosecution Service in north Wales will be of the extra funding recently announced. [151417]
    The Solicitor-General (Mr. Ross Cranston): The budget for the CPS in north Wales for the year 2001–02 shows an increase on the previous year's budget by —147,000. It will allow the area to recruit staff to fill posts kept vacant during the current year and to continue to push ahead with its proposals to implement the Glidewell reforms. In addition, installation of the new CPS IT system, Connect 42, into north Wales will be completed during April 2001.
    These additional funds will also allow the area to make permanent arrangements to provide an enhanced service to victims. It will be the first CPS area to make this provision available to all victims within its area.
    Mrs. Williams: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that answer. I welcome the content of his reply. My local CPS seems to have long-term lawyer vacancies, which puts pressures on other staff members. Will this extra money solve the problem and help them to meet Government targets?
    The Solicitor-General: Certainly, additional staff will be employed as a result of the increase in the budget. I assure my hon. Friend that north Wales is an area with few problems. It was almost a joy to visit the area recently because it is meeting the youth justice pledge and is a pilot for a number of projects, such as the Narey project. As I said in my written reply, it is also the first area to introduce the new system for informing victims. When I visited I saw that in operation and I was most impressed.
    Mr. Edward Garnier: No doubt the —147,000 increase in the CPS budget in north Wales will be welcome, but will not CPS work be hindered by the closure of courts in Wales? Is the Solicitor-General aware that the other day a defendant in Wales had to walk 50 miles to the nearest court, following the closure of his local court? Is he further aware that in Oswestry, right on the borders of north Wales, the Court Service spent —350,000 renovating a school building and converting it into a court five years ago and it is now having to spend a further —197,450 to comply with Human Rights Act 1998
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    demands, which apparently prevent prisoners in handcuffs from being seen by the public? Is that good use of Government and taxpayers money? Will it not inhibit the work of the CPS which, despite the small increase in its budget in north Wales, is cash strapped?
    The Solicitor-General: Unlike the previous Government, we have properly funded the CPS. In the hon. and learned Gentleman's constituency in Leicestershire, the budget has increased substantially by some 25 per cent. It has increased nationwide. There will be more prosecutors and more caseworkers. As for the courts, as I have said previously, there is always a tension between efficiency and providing access locally. In many cases the smaller courts, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman alluded, are too small to work efficiently and the Lord Chancellor's Department, in consultation with local people, has decided to close a number of them.

    CPS (Human Rights Act)
    Judy Mallaber: What impact the Human Rights Act 1998 has had on the work of the Crown Prosecution Service. [151418]
    The Solicitor-General (Mr. Ross Cranston): Crown prosecutors must apply the principles of the European convention on human rights in accordance with the Human Rights Act 1998. Prosecutors have been well trained and prepared for that and are applying convention principles with increasing confidence, both during the prosecution review process and when meeting convention challenges in court.
    Judy Mallaber: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. I visited my local magistrates courts on the day that the Human Rights Act came into force. Lawyers and magistrates had received training, but were slightly apprehensive about the Act's impact. Will my hon. and learned Friend tell the House how extensive the impact of the Act has been and whether the dire warnings that were issued by the Opposition that there would be chaos in the courts and that the Act would be a criminals charter have, in fact, materialised?
    The Solicitor-General: The sky has certainly not fallen in as the Opposition suggested it would. The Human Rights Act is now operating, points are being raised and argued. It is interesting that the number of cases going to the Court of Appeal criminal division has fallen overall. In the magistrates courts, human rights points are occasionally raised, but magistrates deal with them efficiently. My hon. Friend has taken an interest in these matters and in equal opportunities for a long time. She knows that it is a question not simply of what the courts do, but of changing the culture in organisations so that public agencies appreciate the human rights of the citizens with whom they dial.
    Mr. John Bercow: I am grateful for this opportunity to question the hon. and learned Gentleman, who gives every impression, in the provision of his answers, that he is paid by the word. What has been the cost of the training provided to prepare prosecutors for the advent of the Human Rights Act? How many people

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    have been involved in its delivery? Does he intend to conduct a continuing assessment of the number of staff who opt for early retirement?
    The Solicitor-General: As I have said, the Act is bedding down well. It is not as though cases are taking longer in court. Occasionally, human rights issues are raised, but they are dealt with efficiently and speedily. The fast-track procedure that we established to get contentious cases on appeal into the Court of Appeal has worked very well.
    The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of finance. He has asked questions about that, so he knows that money was set aside for courts. However, it has not been necessary to use it.

    Victims (Information)
    Mr. Barry Gardiner: What arrangements exist between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to ensure that victims are kept informed as to the progress of criminal proceedings in which they are involved. [151419]
    Mr. Andrew Dismore: What role the Crown Prosecution Service has in assisting victims in providing victim impact statements; and when these will be introduced. [151420]
    The Solicitor-General (Mr. Ross Cranston): Those two initiatives are part of a range of measures designed to improve the service provided to victims of crime and to enable victims, if they wish, to have a greater involvement in the criminal justice process.
    On the first initiative, the Government accepted the recommendations in the Glidewell and Macpherson reports that the CPS should assume responsibility from the police for informing victims of decisions to drop or downgrade charges. The CPS has been piloting arrangements for communicating such decisions directly to victims since November 1999.
    Victim personal statements enable victims, if they so wish, to inform the prosecutor, the courts and other criminal justice agencies of the effects of the crime upon them. Such statements will be taken by the police and sent to the CPS with the case papers. The CPS will take the statement into account when making decisions relating to
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    the prosecution, and it will be responsible for ensuring that the victim's personal statement is drawn to the attention of the court that sentences an offender.
    Mr. Gardiner: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for that answer. I am sure that he is well aware that one of the most frustrating things for victims of crime is when they feel that they have not been informed of the process of the trial and, often, of its outcome. Victims feel that there are representatives for everybody else, but that no one represents them. Will he assure the House that the responsibility to notify victims of what is happening will not fall between the stools of the police force and the CPS, and that there will be effective communication with victims about what is happening?
    The Solicitor-General: My hon. Friend raises a very good point. That concern was first mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). In the case to which she referred, the victim was not informed of what had happened. The procedure that we are introducing will enable the CPS to take on that responsibility, and I saw that happening in north Wales during my recent visit there. The victim will be informed directly by letter. If the victim then wants to see the prosecutor or, in important cases, the chief Crown prosecutor, that will happen.
    Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. There is no doubt that many victims often believe that not only are they not kept informed about what is going on, but the crime's impact on them is not taken into account by the courts in passing sentence. Although I am satisfied with the way in which my local police service deals with victims of racially aggravated crime, is there not a case for statements on offences such as race hate crimes to be taken by the CPS when a more detailed statement is often required to get to all the facts?
    The Solicitor-General: The victim personal statement will enable a victim of a racially aggravated crime to set out its consequences, including the distress that it has caused. On racist crime, my hon. Friend might have seen that last week the CPS published figures that show that the number of prosecutions of racist crimes has increased significantly. In addition, the police are identifying racist crimes to a much greater extent. Much work has to be done, but our approach is bearing fruit.

Foot and Mouth
12.31 pm
Mr. Speaker: We now come to written question No. 1.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
The Minister was asked—
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Foot and Mouth
  Mr. Peter Atkinson: If he will make a statement on the latest developments in the foot and mouth epidemic. [152671]
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nick Brown): At 12 o'clock this morning, there were 104 confirmed cases in the United Kingdom—103 in Great Britain and still just one in Northern Ireland, with a number of cases under investigation. The pattern is consistent with Heddon-on-the-Wall as the oldest known outbreak, with the subsequent spread mainly through the movement of animals, especially sheep. About 90,000 animals have been identified for slaughter, of which 61,000 have been killed. Plans are in hand to render some of the carcases as an alternative to burning on farm.
  The Meat Hygiene Service has approved more than 260 abattoirs for the licence to slaughter scheme. Of those, 168 were operating yesterday. The Meat and Livestock Commission estimated yesterday that British pork production was back to 50 per cent. of normal, with beef at 40 per cent. and lamb at 30 per cent.
  To relieve emerging animal welfare problems, officials are urgently working on arrangements to allow licensed local movement of animals within farms in unaffected areas, but only where that will not increase disease risk. We hope to have proposals prepared shortly.
  The European Union Standing Veterinary Committee met on 6 March. The ban on UK exports of animals and products has been extended to Tuesday 27 March, but from 9 March the UK will be able to export unpasteurised cheeses to some countries. The SVC also imposed a ban on all livestock markets and assembly points in the EU for two weeks and a ban on animal movements except to slaughter or from farm to farm, authorised by the competent authority. All vehicles leaving the UK will have to pass over a disinfectant bath.
  The Commission remains supportive of the action taken by the UK to contain and eliminate the disease.
  Mr. Atkinson: On behalf of the farmers in my constituency, I thank the state veterinary service for its work in helping to contain the outbreak. It began in my constituency and has, of course, hit it very hard. The question of how it started is under investigation and I believe that ultimately there will be prosecutions.
  Is the Minister aware that allegations are being made that the amount of illegally imported meat into the country is far greater than was first supposed? It is not simply a matter of people bringing in a few steaks from a holiday abroad. It appears that there is now a regular supply of illegal meat—especially beef and goatmeat—which goes
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  to unscrupulous suppliers in the catering trade. It may well be that that was the cause of the outbreak that struck Heddon-on-the-wall.
  Mr. Brown: Of course, I cannot comment on individual cases, particularly if they may come before the courts, although I can confirm that it is still the Government's view that the first outbreak was at the farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall, and that that is the primary source of everything that has happened since.
  The Ministry is taking a hard look at the importation of meat for personal me in our review of all the possible causes of the current outbreak. We were already considering the issue in the context of the classical swine fever outbreak. I confirm the commitment that I gave to the House earlier that the views that the Ministry forms on all the slightly longer-term issues will be put into the public domain. There will be full consultation with all those interested. I intend personally to listen to a wide range of views, not just the mainstream ones.
  Dr. Jack Cunningham: On behalf of Cumbrian farmers in the Lake district and on the fells, may I thank my right hon. Friend and his officials at national and local level for the work that they have done to contain this terrible outbreak of foot and mouth disease? Will he consider specifically the position of hill farmers, as lambing is approaching? They often have large flocks of breeding ewes on unfenced fell land, with unfenced roads across it. There are particular difficulties for those farmers. Will he consider urgently and sympathetically how his officials may be able to bring such farmers more help in the dilemma that they face?
  Mr. Brown: I thank my right hon. Friend for the praise that he has given to the state veterinary service. I am sure that his remarks are endorsed by the whole House. The Ministry has the question of continuing support for hill farmers under review anyway. An industry working group is considering how we can make the common agricultural policy support work better to support the incomes of hard-pressed hill farmers.
  I am treating the question of lambing and the movement of sheep from their winter grazing quarters back to their home farm as a matter of urgency. It is an incredibly complex problem, as I think I may have said last week, but I hope to have something more to say in a matter of days.
  Mr. Tim Yeo: We are grateful to the Minister for answering this question.
  The Opposition continue to support fully the measures already taken to contain the spread of foot and mouth disease. I endorse the appreciation of vets both inside and outside the state veterinary service, and everyone else who is working hard in the front line of this struggle. The next few days are clearly, crucial in determining whether the outbreak is coming under control. I welcome the decision announced yesterday to postpone the Cheltenham festival and the announcement that no risks will be taken, even if the situation is improving, with the handling of the crisis.
  It is just over two weeks since the crisis began. People will be disappointed that the Minister is still not able to say anything more about compensation. Will the Government now accept in principle that compensation

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  should be paid to those farmers suffering unrecoverable losses directly as a result of foot and mouth disease? If compensation remains limited to those farmers whose livestock is slaughtered, many others will simply be driven out of business for all time.
  Does the Minister agree that the need to find out how the disease came to Britain is extremely urgent, not least to reassure those who are afraid that it may return, after all the agony of overcoming it this time? The Minister will be aware of the difficulties of farmers who cannot move their ewes that are about to start lambing and of dairy farmers who need to carry out milking. Licensing movement within farms will obviously help considerably, but it will not entirely overcome those difficulties. I hope that the licences will be available soon.
  Will the European Union ban on livestock markets prevent the use of markets in Britain as collection centres—an avenue that was going to be important for a number of smaller farmers? Is the Minister aware of reports in some areas about continuing difficulties in obtaining disinfectant and concern about the prices paid to farmers sending their animals for slaughter under licence? Will he consider absorbing the inspection charges payable by slaughterhouses while they are operating under licence? Has he requested help from other Government Departments to ensure timely burning of carcases? Does he agree that all those practical, micro-issues will remain highly important to farmers and others in the industry even after the outbreak is brought under control?
  Mr. Brown: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his tone and his words of support for the state veterinary service and others who are helping to contain the disease outbreak. He is right about the micromanagement of some of the issues involved. The disease has now emerged in several different parts of the United. Kingdom, largely as a result of animal movements, especially in the sheep sector, through livestock markets.
  To take the hon. Gentleman's questions in reverse order, I am able to call on other Government Departments for help if we need it; the issue is kept under daily review. Charges are now a matter for the Meat Hygiene Service and the Secretary of State for Health, not me, so I cannot announce some new relief or extra payment today.
  As for prices in the supply chain, the hon. Gentleman will have heard me yesterday when I urged everybody in the supply chain to treat each other fairly when trade is not carried out in normal circumstances because of the necessary licensing arrangements. The issue is complex, but if people realise that the supply chain must endure—that it cannot be short term, but that relationships have to be bedded in over time—they will see the wisdom of behaving fairly and working together to get through the current disease outbreak.
  I have asked officials to check the availability of disinfectant. My understanding is that, although there is no shortage of disinfectant, there is a distribution problem. There is no problem with the manufactured product, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that demand has, of course, increased substantially.
  The hon. Gentleman asks a good question about whether the European Union temporary ban on markets will affect our proposals to use markets as collection centres. We are exploring that issue with the Commission, but the main difficulty with my desire to establish
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  collection centres, if that can be done without compromising disease control, is the far greater number of outbreaks of the disease with which we now have to contend.
  Although the movement of animals can be licensed under special conditions, I, as the Minister responsible, have to be risk averse throughout. We are proceeding with our proposals on collection centres, but there might be some delay in our establishing them. For the avoidance of any doubt, let me emphasise that we need to be risk averse in everything that we do.
  The hon. Gentleman asks about lambing, dairy herds and localised licensing. We have been able to get under way a localised licensing scheme within farms, but he is right to say that that does not solve all the problems. A substantial issue remains involving breeding sheep that are in winter quarters and would normally return some distance to their home farm where they might mix with other sheep that are potentially infected during lambing. The Government are carefully considering the best course of action. I explained the problem when I last addressed the House on the subject and it remains intractable, but to do nothing is not an answer.
  The current difficulties give rise to serious animal welfare consequences as well as to consequences for the trade. After our meeting tomorrow with the trade to discuss different ways in which to proceed and once we have a proposal—I think that it will only be a matter of days—I shall ensure that the House is informed.
  I have no new announcement to make about compensation. The outbreak of foot and mouth disease informed the Government's decision to draw down agrimonetary compensation for the livestock sector, but I accept that such compensation is not compensation for foot and mouth disease. I do not want to engage in political argument now, so I should be grateful if the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) wrote to me to set out precisely his views on what should be paid in terms of consequential loss and how widely the Government should provide coverage in that respect. Of course, consequential loss could, in these circumstances, be very wide indeed. Are we talking about the cancellation of rural visits and the loss to the betting industry as a result of the cancellation of race meetings? I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would oblige by setting out his exact request.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the next few days will be crucial. Of course, the fact that there have been many outbreaks is unwelcome; it makes the job of the state veterinary service harder. However, the good news is that each and every one of those cases has been, or is being, traced back to the original outbreak. It appears that the Government's timely imposition of movement controls throughout Great Britain has worked, and that we have been able to contain the disease to what was already incubating in the national herd and the national flock. That is how it seems today, but the situation may change. I promise to keep right hon. and hon. Members informed.
  Dr. Gavin Strang: My right hon. Friend will not want to prejudge the findings of the inquiry into the initial cause of the outbreak. However, will he address the issue of feeding swill to pigs? Most pig farmers do not feed swill to their

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  pigs, and it may not always be possible to ensure that it is properly treated. At the appropriate time, will the Minister consider ending the feeding of swill to pigs?
  Mr. Brown: The small proportion of the pig industry that still uses swill—about 1.5 per cent. of the total United Kingdom pig sector—is allowed to do so under licensed conditions. Of course, heat treatment of swill is crucial in making sure that foot and mouth disease does not spread in the sector and more widely. Clearly, we will look at the question of swill feed very thoroughly once we come to review the disease outbreak.
  Mr. Colin Breed: The Minister and the Ministry were rightly congratulated on the speed and decisiveness of their original decision. To some extent, we seem to be learning a little more as we go along. For instance, the strategic distribution of disinfectant and even disinfectant baths at ports for all vehicles have now been introduced, although they were not in place last week. When did the Ministry last formally review foot and mouth emergency procedures and when were they updated? How often does the Ministry review the exclusion zones so that farms caught within the restrictions but which may be able to come out of them can do so as soon as possible and move their animals? Is the Minister perfectly satisfied that burning animals, as opposed to burial, represents the best means of not spreading of the disease?
  Mr. Brown: The alternative to burning that we are considering is rendering. In other words, animals would be killed on the farm, taken away in sealed vehicles and rendered in the normal way.
  I do not think that burial on the farm is the right way forward; issues involving watercourses make that a less desirable way of proceeding. Frankly, each method has things to be said against it, as well as for it. I am certain that burning does not spread the virus, which is the question most often put to me. The hon. Gentleman said that we are learning more as we go along. That is a fair point: we do not know where the disease will emerge or how far it had spread before we put the movement restrictions in place.
  I promise to examine the hon. Gentleman's point about emergency procedures. Clearly, we shall want to take stock of all that, partly in the light of the classical swine fever outbreak and partly, of course, in the light of the foot and mouth outbreak as well.
  Charlotte Atkins: I welcome my right hon. Friend's comments about animal welfare, but I stress the urgency with which he must deal with the issue of ewes in lamb. I have local farmers, Mr. and Mrs. Bailey of Rushton Spencer, who need to move their ewes up to 15 miles back to the farm, and who are extremely concerned about the effect on the ewes' condition if they are not returned to the farm.
  I take this opportunity to pass on the personal thanks of Clive Langford Mycock, the chair of the NFU in Staffordshire, who believes that my right hon. Friend has
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  done everything possible to deal with the crisis, and that everyone should back my right hon. Friend 100 per cent. in the work that he is doing.
  Mr. Brown: I am grateful for the support of the local chairman of the NFU. I had an opportunity yesterday to discuss all these issues in some detail with the president of the NFU, Mr. Ben Gill. Perhaps the most intractable problem, although by no means the only one that we face, involves the ewes that are in winter quarters and that are breeding animals, due to give birth shortly. The question is whether they should be moved back to their home farm and, if so, in what conditions, and what animals they would be mixing with if they moved back. It is possible that they would move the disease through their own movement, or catch the disease when they arrive. That has to be thought about very carefully.
  I want to do the right thing, not least because of the obvious animal welfare implications, which are clear to all hon. Members. I intend to make an announcement about the matter shortly. Because of the intractable nature of the problem, I cannot make a statement to the House today.
  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On the subject of sheep, I draw attention to the case of Mr. B. Robinson, who farms at Shipton Oliffe and has sheep lambing now on the top of Cleeve hill, which is unfenced. He cannot move the sheep off that hill, he cannot get to them to supervise the lambing and he feels that there is a welfare issue involved. Will the Minister urgently look into the problem of sheep?
  All farmers support movement restrictions. Nobody wants to spread the disease. Will the Minister also look into the question of holding race meetings? He will be aware of the reports about Mr. Richard Mathews, who farms next to Lingfield race course. All race meetings were banned in 1967. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider that aspect as well?
  Mr. Brown: On the hon. Gentleman's first question, he will have heard what I said about lambing. Yes, it is a serious issue. Yes, we are focusing on it firmly, and I shall shortly have something to say. The hon. Gentleman's description of his constituent's problem shows how varied the specific problems are, and underpins the point made by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), who speaks for the Opposition, that the micromanagement of the situation is at the heart of finding workable solutions that are risk averse.
  On the question about race meetings, I am guided by the professional advice of the state veterinary service, which has advised me that on veterinary grounds there is no reason at present for the Ministry to insist on the cancellation of race meetings, so I am leaving the decision, perfectly properly, to the racing authorities.
  Mr. David Drew: I greatly welcome my right hon. Friend's remarks in his statement and earlier today, and what he is doing on welfare grounds.
  I have been approached by two of my dairy farmers, Mr. Andrew Cozens of Alkerton farm in Eastington, and Mr. John Shipp of Kingshill farm, near Berkeley. They have explained to me in graphic detail how difficult it is to drive the cows off and then to allow them to calve,

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  when the farmer cannot move even short distances to carry that through. I look forward to my right hon. Friend's proposals.
  I also make a plea on behalf of the trading standards department of Gloucestershire county council and environmental health officers. When the crisis is over, will my right hon. Friend, together with our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, examine the way we organise those departments, which are under incredible stress because they are the missing link in the operation that is under way?
  Mr. Brown: There are issues that arise out of the Phillips report relating to the competences of national and local government. I express my thanks to the trading standards officers employed by local authorities, who have responded wholeheartedly and well to the current difficult situation, and are working well with officials in the Ministry of Agriculture. The issues, are intractable. We have a partial solution, allowing carefully regulated localised movements of animals, which I hope will be of help to my hon. Friend's constituents, but there is a further problem with animals—mostly, but not solely, sheep—that need to move longer distances. As I told the House, I hope to have something more to say about that soon.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: I have just faxed the right hon. Gentleman details of two cases and I should be grateful if I could re-emphasise them. First, Mr. Cragg of Allington has 85 ewes in lamb and needs to move them as soon as they have lambed to a field about half a mile away. Secondly, Mr. and Mrs. Markham of Billinghay are in the business of producing weaners. They do not have fattening facilities, and usually they move the weaners to a fattening unit. There are now 350 weaners on their farm and they are increasing in number day by day, or, at least, week by week, and there is a serious welfare problem. Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore consider possibilities for limited movement so as to enable Mr. and Mrs. Markham to send their weaners to a fattening unit?
  Mr. Brown: Both of the cases that the right hon. and learned Gentleman perfectly properly raises are typical of the problems that we are now trying to address. It is always dangerous to pronounce on individual cases without knowing the full facts, but, with regard to the first case that he raised, I believe that localised movement under strict licensing conditions, on which we are working, will help his constituent, and I certainly hope that that is the case.
  On the second case that the right hon. and learned Gentleman raises, I am familiar with the layered nature of the modern pig industry and the need for movement within holdings. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman will know, pigs are incredibly vulnerable to foot and mouth disease. They are probably the most vulnerable farm species. We do not have much of it in the pig herd at the moment—say I, touching wood, as everyone will notice—and that is a good thing as pigs pump out the virus more readily than other farmed livestock. The right hon. and learned Gentleman quotes an individual constituency case. I have the question of principle under close review, but I must act, first, on a precautionary basis and, secondly, on professional veterinary advice.
  Mr. Nick Ainger: I echo the thanks of many hon. Members for the work that my right hon. Friend and his Department have done so far. I want to raise a couple of issues which could be discussed at tomorrow's meeting. First, Pembrokeshire county council has a number of problems with strays that are being collected by farmers who then do not know what to do with them. Unfortunately, if they cannot identify the owner, despite being healthy the animals are being put down.
  Secondly, I welcome, as do the farmers, my right hon. Friend's proposal for localised licensed movement, which will address a range of problems. However, tack sheep, which exist in large numbers in my constituency and have come considerable distances—in some cases more than 100 miles—are now starting to lamb. Could a crash training course be delivered by the Department and through the National Assembly, so that farmers with tack sheep can handle lambing?
  Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is on to a strong point. There is no way of stopping animals lambing, so if they cannot move, they will have to be lambed with specialist assistance in their location, and that has a knock-on effect for the dairy industry, where a farmer running a dairy business may well have been planning to use facilities on the farm for the purposes of his dairy business. This is not a simple question, but we are considering my hon. Friend's suggestion as well as licensed movement.
  I will ensure that advice to farmers on dealing with stray animals is placed on the Internet and in the advice sheets that we are sending out, if that has not already been done. However, a stray animal that is taken into a specific herd has, whether voluntarily or not, joined that herd.
  Mrs. Gillian Shephard: All of us understand the Minister's difficulties in balancing disease control and the animal welfare problems that have been raised time and again this morning. I know that he is aware of the gross problems of ewes that cannot be moved, which can die of septicaemia where they stand, and which might have to abort their lambs or be shot. Of course, the lambs too can die where they lie.
  I do not think that we can coax the right hon. Gentleman to say any more about the possibility of a localised licensing scheme, but will he accept that it is a matter of extreme urgency? I recognise that it is also a matter of micromanagement and I understand the problems in making exceptions, but I believe that the more locally a decision is taken, the more effective it will be. I wish him godspeed with the decisions that he is going to take, and I hope that he can make a very early announcement.
  Mr. Brown: I thank the right hon. Lady for those words of encouragement. I think that we will be able to proceed with a localised licensing scheme to deal with very localised movements. We will do so as soon as such an arrangement is consistent with disease control advice. That is only a matter of days away. However, my hon. Friend the Member for West Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire (Mr. Ainger) referred to the more intractable problem of animals that are effectively in winter grazing quarters and would, in the normal flow of the industry, move back to their home farms for lambing. I keep the animal welfare consequences closely under

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  review, as well as the disease control issues. However, it is a fact that the disease can be a killer to newborn lambs. That is another point that I have to keep at the forefront of my mind.
  Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: When the time is appropriate, will my right hon. Friend pick up on a suggestion recently canvassed at the British-Irish interparliamentary body, where it was proposed that there should be a single veterinary regime for the island of Ireland? I should like to ask another question on behalf both of myself and of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer). Will he ensure that his Department considers sheep, cattle and horses on the Thames marshes, whose ownership, control and welfare are obscure, to say the least? Those animals could pose an additional problem in combating the spread of the disease.
  Mr. Brown: Of course, the Department is keeping under review the position of wild animals, including boar, deer and Dartmoor ponies, as well as that of animals that are grazed on common land. Our current view is that those animals will have to form part of a common herd, except where it is subdivided. The disease is not infectious to horses, but sheep and cattle are at risk. As for the veterinary regime, co-operation between the different veterinary authorities within the European Union works at a professional level. The respect in which our veterinary authorities are held has helped us to convey our point of view to the rest of the European Union.
  Mr. David Maclean: The Minister will know that 15 of these appalling cases have arisen in my constituency. I must tell him that this morning's reports from the Carlisle and Longtown area are very disturbing. They suggest that the situation in that area is verging on becoming out of control. We have waited five days for some carcases to be burned and sometimes seven days for tests to come through. Everyone praises MAFF's staff on the ground—there is no criticism of them at all—but people in the area are pleading with the Minister to rush in more resources urgently so that the testing can be done more quickly. There are reports that the killing has stopped today because there are so many carcases to destroy. I see that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell—Savours) is agreeing with me. Please can we have more resources to help with the emergency? If necessary, for example, specialist units from the Army engineers could be used to help with the pyres.
  Mr. Brown: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is a logistical problem not only to kill the animals, but then to destroy their carcases. I do not need any extra resources to do that; it is just a matter of managing the problem. I express my full sympathy to him and to his constituents, as it has now emerged that Longtown market was at the centre of the spread of the outbreak. Unfortunately, a large number of contacts were traceable back to that market, and thence to the Heddon-on-the-Wall farm. The comfort that I can offer is that the chief vet has been told that he must draw upon whatever veterinary resources are needed. There is no other constraint within Government: we are giving priority to control of the disease.
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  Secondly, all the cases that have emerged so far, excluding the most recent cases on which work is currently being done, are traceable to the original outbreak. The movement controls that we introduced last Friday seem to have prevented the further spread of the disease. However, it had already spread far more widely than anyone could have forecast or wanted.
  Ms Rosie Winteton: I greatly welcome my right hon. Friend's comments about urging those in the supply chain to treat each other fairly. He will be aware of reports of shoppers paying higher prices for meat without any benefit to farmers or those who work in the industry. Will he assure us that everything is being done and will continue to be done to ensure that consumers are not raying unjustifiably high prices?
  Mr. Brown: That is quite a complex question, because the supply chain has been substantially disrupted. I can only repeat my appeal to all the players in the supply chain to treat everybody fairly. That includes the industry's customers.
  Mr. William Thompson: I appreciate the Ministry's efforts to deal with the terrible disease. The single case of foot and mouth in Northern Ireland was due to an illegal trade in sheep that were bought in Carlisle, imported to Northern Ireland and transferred to the Republic of Ireland.
  It has come to light that, under EU regulations, it is not possible to stop the transport of sheep at the ports; they can be checked only at the point of arrival. That means that sheep cannot be checked at the ports. If they are diverted, they cannot be checked at the frontier. There appears to be a loophole in EU legislation. When the Minister has an opportunity, perhaps he will discuss that serious matter with the European Commission so that the loophole can be closed.
  Mr. Brown: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is right; I shall check the law and write to him. It is my understanding that I have all the powers necessary to prevent the movement of animals and thereby the spread of the disease in Great Britain. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Northern Ireland has a separate veterinary regime. It is not for me to interpret the law, but I believe that the veterinary authorities there have all the powers that they need to restrict the movements of animals. There is no importation of live animals for movement into Great Britain; just as the domestic herd and flock cannot move, neither can any imported animal. I imagine that the position is the same in Northern Ireland under the strict licensing arrangements that pertain there.
  Mrs. Betty Williams: I, too, wish to thank my right hon. Friend and his colleagues for the way in which they have handled the terrible epidemic and for the Ministry's detailed consultation with the National Assembly for Wales. We greatly appreciate that.
  Does my right hon. Friend accept that foot and mouth disease has wide-ranging consequences beyond the livestock industry? Crops and horticulture, and the tourism and outdoor pursuits industries are also affected. They are essential to the economy in my constituency.

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  Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he and his colleagues will seriously consider that threat to jobs and incomes in my constituency?
  Mr. Brown: The consequences of the disease control measures for other parts of the United Kingdom economy are under careful review not only by the Ministry, but by other interested Departments. Our strategy to contain and eliminate the disease is right, but the longer the measures continue, the more they will affect people who earn their living from activities that are unrelated to the livestock sector but conducted adjacent to it.
  Mr. Peter Luff: Although I have received today representations from farmers who believe that there should be no livestock movement because of the danger of spreading the disease, I have also received powerful representations from sheep farmers about ewes. The Minister rightly dealt with that in earlier answers. I want to push him on several specific matters.
  On licensed local movements to a farm, what constitutes "farm"? Will the definition apply, for example, to ownership or to adjacent fields? If the farm is divided by a highway, will crossing it be acceptable? That affects one farmer in my constituency. Also, what constitutes "localised"? Another sheep farmer in my constituency has ewes waiting to lamb five or six miles from his farm, and he has to make a round journey to inspect them, see to their welfare and feed them. That risks spreading disease. What constitutes "localised" and what constitutes a "farm"?
  Mr. Brown: The localised movement scheme will have to be a matter for local judgment, but it will operate within guidelines issued by the Ministry. The question of ownership is not of paramount importance. What is of paramount importance is the movement of animals, whether they would normally mix together, whether they are disease-free, and what the risk of spreading the disease is. Those are, ultimately, matters for local decision under what will be a permissive licensing arrangement for restricted, localised movement.
  Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: My right hon. Friend will know that my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) and I have been discussing with Ministers almost daily the developing problems in Cumbria. Will my right hon. Friend tell us when we are going to be given the model roll-out programme for de-restriction that will apply once the last case of foot and mouth disease has been notified? That is what people all over the country want.
  Secondly, I refer my right hon. Friend to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) and support his suggestion that there is a major problem in Cumbria of not being able to dispose of carcases. In the light of that, will traditional forms of disposal now be reconsidered by the Ministry to get over this crisis?
  Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is right to point out the representations made to me and other Ministers by Members of Parliament representing Cumbria. There are serious issues to be addressed, both on carcase disposal and on what my hon. Friend rightly says might be quite a long tail to the control of the disease. The antibodies—in
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  sheep, in particular—may well be present long after the virus has been eliminated, and we shall need to protect the national flock, and the national cattle and pig herds, from an outbreak occurring after we think it is over. Serious consideration has been given to those important issues. The management of the period when we think that the disease is over will be of enormous importance, and there are huge lessons for us all to learn from what happened in 1967.
  Mr. Paul Keetch: The plight of farmers in my constituency, as elsewhere, is very urgent. Mr. Robert Watkins of Kentchurch, for example, has 2,000 ewes in holdings. They are now lambing at the rate of 100 a day. The animal welfare concerns, the feed costs and the risk of smothering are vast, yet a mile down the road he has some 400 acres that he could use for them.
  Further to the points raised by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), I want to press the Minister on the use of the Army. I was told earlier this week by members of the Royal Logistic Corps and the Royal Engineers that they were surprised that they had not yet been asked to intervene and assist. What discussions has the Minister had with the Ministry of Defence about getting the Army involved? That could certainly speed up the disposal of these creatures.
  Mr. Brown: There is proper communication across Government as to the use of the uniformed services and, indeed, any other resources of Government that we need to call on to control the disease. However, in all of this, I am professionally advised and would not want to assert a political judgment of my own over the professional advice that I am given.
  On the hon. Gentleman's first point, the localised scheme that we hope to be able to bring in very soon will address the problem of his constituents. I hope that it will, although I cannot give a definitive answer because I do not know their circumstances, and that will be a matter for local judgment. However, there is still the rather more intractable problem of the animals that are miles away from their normal location in winter.
  Mr. Huw Edwards: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a factor in the outbreak has been the considerable distance over which much livestock is being transported for slaughter? Is there not a case for more local abattoirs? He knows that the farmers fresh initiative has recently opened a new abattoir in Kenilworth. Does not that provide a model of co-operative working? When he meets the Welsh Minister for Rural Affairs, Carwyn Jones, will he discuss the need for more investment in agriculture infrastructure in south-east Wales, especially in Monmouthshire, which can serve the whole of south-east Wales and beyond?
  Mr. Brown: The Agriculture Minister for Wales and I discussed abattoir provision when we last met and it is one of the issues that we keep under review, not least because there are compelling and perfectly justifiable reasons to support low-throughput abattoirs. The Government have tried to do that by underpinning the costs of veterinary inspections with public funds. Indeed, the money is being transferred from my Department's budget to that of the Department of Health precisely for

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  that purpose. However, it is not the abattoirs or the trading practices of retailers that are at the heart of the foot and mouth outbreak.
  The two issues that ought to be of concern to us all in reflecting on the matter are how the outbreak happened in the first place—inquiries on that continue, but we know the point of origin, or at least the farm where the disease first appeared—and how it spread so quickly. The issues involved in the spread are clearly livestock markets, sheep and the movement of sheep.
  Mr. John Maples: Farmers in Warwickshire will be pleased to hear that the Minister is considering closely the possibility of introducing a local movements scheme. I first wrote to him about that matter at the end of last week and it is becoming increasingly urgent by the day. He is right that there are serious animal welfare considerations—lamb losses will be very high—but I hope that he will take another issue into account as well.
  Farmers whose sheep are a mile or two, or even less than that, from their farms have to make several road journeys each day to look after them, feed them and perhaps take care of the lambs. That involves a risk of spreading infection. Perhaps undertaking one journey to bring sheep back to the farm would be less of a risk. I realise that the Minister has to protect against any possibility of the disease spreading, but I hope that he will take those factors into account in making his decision.
  Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman makes a shrewd point. On each journey, it is necessary to disinfect the vehicles being used and to do so thoroughly. It might be better, even for disease control measures, to have a localised movement scheme; and the case that he advances is one reason why we are closely considering such a scheme.
  Mr. Paul Tyler: Can the Minister say with confidence that his Department has learned all the crisis management lessons of BSE, as set out in the Phillips report, and of classical swine fever? We all appreciate the work being done in his Department, from top to bottom, and the difficulty of co-ordinating the activities of its various parts with those of other agencies. However, may I draw his attention to the case in Cornwall of an abattoir that was given a special licence to slaughter —40,000 worth of cows on Monday, only to have that licence withdrawn within 24 hours? No information was given as to what would happen to the meat, and total confusion resulted.
  We understand that co-ordination, though extremely important, is hard to achieve in a crisis. We also understand the Minister's difficulties in that respect. However, can he give an absolute assurance that all the lessons about the co-ordination of all activities that were not learned during the BSE crisis have now been learned?
  Mr. Brown: I am making sure that the way in which I handle the situation as a Minister is informed by the Phillips report. When reporting on the Government's response to Phillips, I promised the House that the lessons would be learned by the Government and that, specifically
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  where they applied to Ministers, they would be learned by me. I am therefore considering questions of transparency, putting the scientific advice in the public domain and listening to dissenting voices. I am encouraging the Department to do the same.
  Again, I place on record my wholehearted support and the wholehearted support of the Government for the officials who have to tackle this difficult and complex situation, not just at veterinary level, but at administrative level and between national Government and local government. I am sorry that I cannot comment on the specific constituency case that the hon. Gentleman raised.
  Mr. Tim Collins: I echo the remarks made from both sides of the House by Members representing Cumbria and thank the Minister and his team for all the efforts they are making in the county. In the past hour, I have spoken to Gordon Capstick, the chairman of Cumbria's NFU and one of my constituents. He spoke yesterday to Mr. Andrew Hayward, the MAFF vet in the area, who is seriously concerned about the lack of manpower resources. As the Minister may know, he is responsible for an area that comprises both Cumbria and Tyne and Wear. He is dealing with 32 confirmed cases of the disease, which is very nearly one third of the entire national outbreak. He has 34 premises to investigate, and 30 dangerous contacts to inspect, yet there are only 11 full-time professionals on his team.
  It is clear that Cumbria and the north-east are especially badly affected. Given the overall resources available in the UK, will the Minister see whether he can concentrate some additional manpower resources in the area?
  The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) mentioned the specific issue of livestock destruction. In at least one case, the undestroyed carcases of sheep remain close to a field by a road six days after the animals were put down.
  Mr. Brown: I understand how distressing such circumstances are to farmers, and to members of the public who come across them. I will make sure that the hon. Gentleman's remarks are drawn to the attention of the chief vet. The extent of the role of the Longtown market in the spread of the disease before the movement restrictions were put in place has become clear only recently. If it is necessary to divert extra resources to Cumbria, I assure the hon. Gentleman that the only constraint on those resources will be veterinary advice.
  Mr. Tony Baldry: Beef farmers in exclusion zones cannot move or sell their cattle, which are increasingly becoming over age. The farmers are having to spend more on inputs, and are getting into a pretty desperate financial plight. The Minister rather sought to tease my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), who speaks for the Opposition on these matters, on the question of compensation. However, will he give the House an undertaking that, if the NFU and the Country Landowners Association come forward with suggestions for further financial aid for farmers in difficulties as a result of foot and mouth, he and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give them serious consideration?

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  The question of financial aid and compensation will not disappear, and it cannot be batted away by saying that it is impossible to work out where the boundaries should drawn. More and more farmers are going to be in a severe financial plight as a consequence of foot and mouth.
  Mr. Brown: The request that I made to the Opposition spokesman was meant seriously. Of course, an assessment of all consequential losses as they applied to farmers could be made, but would one then move further down the supply chain and talk about the loses already incurred by those who operate markets that are closed? Would one include people employed at abattoirs, where business has been disrupted and which are only in part getting back to working normally? Would one go on to look at the impact on the tourist industry? There has been loss of trade in small towns that are not receiving the visitors that they expect, and the Forestry Commission has had to close its visitor attractions.
  The issue could run very wide. It is a serious question: what do the Opposition believe that the Government should do? However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have discussed the matter with the president of the National Farmers Union, and I have a clear view of his organisation's priorities.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on. I am sure that the Minister will be coming back to report to the House, and I will remember which hon. Members were not called today.

Business of the House
1.25 pm
Mrs. Angela Browning: Would the Leader of the House tell us the business for next week?
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 12 MARCH—Continuation of the Budget Debate.
TUESDAY 13 MARCH—Conclusion of the Budget Debate.
Motion on the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2001.
WEDNESDAY 14 MARCH—Remaining stages of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill.
Motion on the Weights and Measures (Metrication Amendments) Regulations 2001.
THURSDAY 15 MARCH—Estimates Day [2nd Allotted Day].
There will be a debate on the Eighth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee on Weapons of Mass Destruction.
At 7 o'clock the House will be asked to agree the Spring Supplementary Estimates, Votes on Account, Excess Votes and Defence Votes A.
FRIDAY 16 MARCH—Private Members' Bills.
The provisional business for the following week will be as follows:
MONDAY 19 MARCH—Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No.2) Bill.
Second Reading of Regulatory Reform Bill [Lords].
TUESDAY 20 MARcH—Second Reading of Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH—Opposition day [7th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.
THURSDAY 22 MARCH—The House will be asked to consider motions arising from the Second Report from the Procedure Committee: Election of a Speaker.
The Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration at 4 o'clock.
FRIDAY 23 MARCH—Private Members' Bills.
Mrs. Browning: The Leader of the House has just announced that next Wednesday we are to deal with the remaining stages of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill—which is not the only debate scheduled for that day. For the third time, may I raise with the right hon. Lady the way in which that Bill has been dealt with in Committee?
The new programming rules have meant that the Committee will conclude at 7 o'clock this evening, with much of the Bill still not having been properly scrutinised. After Second Reading, the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), announced that there would be about 16 sittings in Committee, despite the fact that the official Opposition asked for 18 as we realised that the Bill was important and dealt with many aspects of criminal justice. When the

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Minister brought the programme motion to the Programming Sub-Committee, we found that it provided for 14 sittings.
I have raised with the Leader of the House our concern about programming in general and the programme for this Bill in particular. It is now a matter of great concern that the Committee stage will end today and we will deal with remaining stages next week, given that this afternoon the Committee will have to deal with no fewer than 56 clauses, six schedules and 42 amendments.
The matters to be considered this afternoon include the disposal of information held by tax authorities; powers of seizure; safeguards of legal privilege—a matter that has been raised by the Bar Association—police training; and DNA testing and police discipline, about which the Police Federation and the Association of Police Authorities have expressed concern.
It is unacceptable for a Bill of this magnitude, whose content had cross-party support in many areas, to be curtailed in this way. This is the last opportunity that I will have to draw this matter to the right hon. Lady's attention from the Dispatch Box before the business is taken next Wednesday. In Committee, the Minister made it clear that, contrary to what the Advocate-General for Scotland said, the Opposition have not prolonged debates unnecessarily. In fact the Minister said clearly at column 567 of the Official Report of the Standing Committee that the Opposition had not filibustered. They have behaved properly in this matter.
The right hon. Lady's roles are now incompatible: she chairs the Modernisation Committee, yet she is expected to do her duty to the House. For the third time running at business questions, I have drawn her attention to the problems associated with the Bill, and the Home Office Minister, no less, informed the Committee that he had written to the right hon. Lady describing his concerns about the Bill. If all that means nothing, the right hon. Lady should consider her position as Chairman of the Modernisation Committee. Clearly, she cannot discharge her duties to this House regarding Bill Committees while she is Chairman.
We will not take this matter lightly. It is an affront to democracy. Previous Governments have allowed more than 200 hours in Committee for similar Home Office Bills. It is a mockery to call this a justice Bill when it has not been properly scrutinised by the House.
Also—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where's the question?"] I do not think that we need frivolous remarks from below the Gangway. I also ask the Leader of the House—for the second time, as I requested this last week—how the Hammond report is to be conveyed to the House. After all, one can read extracts from it on BBC Online, yet the right hon. Lady has still not identified how the Government intend to convey its contents to the House so that hon. Members on both sides can scrutinise it and ask the Government about it. Will she tell us when, during next week's business, the House will have an opportunity to deal with the Hammond inquiry?
My final request is somewhat small in comparison with the weightier matters to which I hope the Leader of the House will give her attention. Yet again, I ask for the annual small business debate promised by new Labour
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when they came to office. Such a debate has been promised by successive Ministers, but there is no sign of it.
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Lady says, correctly, that she has previously raised with me the handling of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill. However, although she has repeatedly said that she frequently raises the many problems that have arisen as regards programming, she has in fact repeatedly raised the problems that she identifies in respect of that one Bill. She repeatedly makes the same point, as she is, of course, perfectly entitled to do.
As she has done in the past, the hon. Lady refers in particular to the question whether there were 14 or 16 sittings—it is news to me that the Opposition had requested 18 sittings. Perhaps there is a little too much focus on sittings; as the House will readily appreciate, the number of sittings is not the same as the amount of time spent on a Bill. The hon. Lady says that there was no undue delay in scrutinising the Bill in Committee. However, it is my understanding that additional sittings were offered by the Government—and indeed, that longer sittings were offered on some occasions when the Committee was already meeting—in order to meet requests for extra time. Although the number of sittings is 15—in itself more than the number proposed originally—the time spent on the Bill amounts to about 16 sittings' worth—[HON. MEMBERS: "That is not right."] Well, it is a matter of simple arithmetic. I do not suppose for a second that hon. Members know anything about it.
There is certainly a point of view on the way that the Committee is being handled that is different from the one frequently expressed by the hon. Lady. As for how that relates to my responsibilities, that does not strike me as a matter on which the House would necessarily want to spend much debating time—which is what the hon. Lady is asking me for. May I remind her of something that she seems—not for the first time—to have forgotten? There is nothing unprecedented about the Leader of the House chairing a Select Committee: the Leader of the House always used to chair the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, for example. Although I understand that the hon. Lady objects to the position as regards my chairmanship of the Modernisation Committee, such chairmanship is not new—it happens from time to time.
The hon. Lady makes a general point about the amount of time available for the Bill. Although there has been some amendment of content and some addition to the Bill, it is nothing like tie amount that was needed on Bills introduced by the Conservatives in the past. That means that it is possible to scrutinise the measure without taking up the same amount of time as has been needed in the past. Obviously, the handling of the remainder of the Committee stage and Report will be a matter for those concerned.
As the hon. Lady knows, we have briefly discussed such issues in the Modernisation Committee. A matter that the House genuinely has to take seriously and balance in its own mind, and in its workings, is the degree to which we try to structure our time to ensure that we look at all aspects of legislation. There are some Members—as the hon. Lady knows, there are some in her party—who believe strongly that the House should be prepared to exercise a discipline over itself in order to ensure the scrutiny of all parts of legislation; others find the matter

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of less importance. However, it is one on which the House will, ultimately, have to come—one way or another—to a collective view and approach.
The hon. Lady refers to the Hammond report. She says that its contents can be read on BBC Online, as if to suggest that the Government have in some way withheld them from the House. I take it that what she is referring to is what the BBC said were the contents of the report.
Mr. Eric Forth: How did it get there?
Mrs. Beckett: I have no idea, because the Government were not in possession of the report when those documents were published. It is nothing to do with Ministers that some parts of what may ultimately be in the report are actually in the public domain. As for how the matter will be reported to the House, hon. Members will, of course, be kept properly informed by the usual means. I believe that I am right in saying that we expect the Hammond report to be published tomorrow, and it may be for the convenience of the House to know that. Finally, I am conscious of the hon. Lady's reminder about the small business debate, and will remain conscious of it.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: My right hon. Friend will know that last year we in the United Kingdom imported 12,500 tonnes of fireworks, worth —22 million. Does she share my incredulity that there are no official statistics on the number of commercial fireworks that are imported? They are monster explosives, which can kill and maim. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Lancashire Evening Telegraph has been documenting the havoc caused by those monster explosives in east Lancashire? Phone boxes and two cars have been blown up. Last month, a van was blown up outside the house of an 86-year-old woman. A park pavilion has been blown up. Last October, a man died. May I urge my right hon. Friend to hold an early debate on the importation of commercial fireworks and their end use, because it is clear that those lethal devices are leaching into the market and that many people who buy them use them with scant regard to their impact on the general public?
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. I admit that I was not familiar with the scale of the events that he describes in his part of the country. I understand his anxiety and concern. Equally, I was not aware—although I can perhaps understand why—that commercial fireworks are not differentiated from others in the statistics. I am not 100 per cent. sure, but from memory, I think that this is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I will certainly draw it to the relevant Minister's attention. I fear that I cannot offer to hold a debate on the Floor of the House, but it seems to be exactly the kind of subject that my hon. Friend might raise with profit in Westminster Hall.
Mr. Paul Tyler: The Leader of the House will recall that, last week, I asked her to get a statement to us on the practical implications of the continuing foot and mouth epidemic on the census and the May county council elections. Since then, the media have been briefed extensively on those issues, although the information has been peculiarly confusing. Having been given a week's notice, will she at least give us
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some guidance? For example, would the postponement of the census require the House to consider any legislative change, or would it simply be an administrative matter? How soon would either of those announcements have to be made? I understand that they would have to be made in the next 10 days or so if a postponement were planned.
The right hon. Lady will be aware from the statements that have been made and the oral answers just given by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that it would seem that we have not yet reached the peak of the current outbreak of foot and mouth. We can therefore expect several weeks yet of restrictions in many rural areas, including mine in Cornwall. In those circumstances, what contingency plan has she in place to deal with the county council elections on 3 May—and any other possible election that may be planned for that day? Will she please ensure that the House is kept fully informed of those arrangements, which are crucial to the practical application of our democratic procedures? Not only should the House be informed, but those who are campaigning on behalf of the various parties should know what the situation is.
Mrs. Beckett: First, I apologise to the hon. Gentleman; I am afraid that I do not have the answers that he seeks. He is right to say that questions concerning the legislative handling of any such decision are strictly factual. One of the reasons why I do not have those details is that no decision of any kind has been made as to whether we need to contemplate such steps. In that light, people have not pursued the detail of how those issues would be handled. If I may, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman.
Although I am not an expert on such matters, my recollection and understanding is that the incubation period for foot and mouth disease is about two weeks, which is why we are not yet clear whether we have reached the peak. It is also not yet clear whether there is any more than one source. As my right hon. Friend the Minister has said, until now—we must all hope that this continues to be the case—we are talking about one source. Again, that seems potentially to make something of a difference. I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern and the wish of all hon. Members to know where they stand on campaigning. The Government are not yet taking a view and a position on these matters, but we will keep the House informed.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I know that my right hon. Friend is a great supporter of the Executive providing free and open information to Parliament. I know that she will therefore be prepared to consider holding a debate urgently on whether Members are receiving full information. I tabled a question to every Department about Serco and the contracts that it has won and lost throughout the Government system. I have received full information from all the Departments, except the Ministry of Defence, which has chosen to give me details of the number of individual contracts, with no information about the contracts concerned. I find that worrying.

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On a related matter, if the Hammond report is to he released tomorrow, is there to be an inquiry into the source of the many highly specialised and partial leaks of the apparent contents of the report that have appeared in the press over the past week?
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend raises the issue of Serco contracts and I am glad to learn that she has had information generally. I was not aware of the particular difficulty that she identifies with the MOD and, of course, I will draw her remarks to the attention of Ministers there. She may like to bear in mind that it is Defence questions on Monday week, when there may be an opportunity to raise the matter. On a cautionary note, since it has recently become apparent that hitherto there has been no central record of the great range of Government procurement, it is always possible that some of these matters are ones of error as much as of design. But, naturally, I entirely take my hon. Friend's point.
My hon. Friend asked whether a further inquiry is intended into the circumstances surrounding the work of Sir Anthony Hammond. Obviously, that is not a matter for me. No doubt someone may give it consideration somewhere. There has been a long history of inquiries into how information is leaked and I am only thankful that on this occasion it was information that was not even in the possession of the Government.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I warmly thank the Leader of the House for arranging a debate on the second report of the Procedure Committee relating to the procedures governing the election of a Speaker, and for tabling the necessary amendments to Standing Orders. In responding as she has, the right hon. Lady has met the wishes of the majority of Members on both sides of the House. Will she join me in thanking the Committee Members for their dedicated hard work in producing the report?
Bearing in mind the visit over the last few days of Mr. Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, to Europe and, in particular, to France, and the fact that he is behaving in the most tyrannical and despotic way in his country and is directly responsible for the deaths of people, will the Leader of the House get the Foreign Secretary to come to the House to make a statement on the apparent red-carpet treatment that the French have meted out to him? We should be giving thought to removing his country from the Commonwealth for the foreseeable future until his behaviour and that of his Government improve.
Mrs. Beckett: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thanks. I am glad that we have been able to arrange a debate on the Procedure Committee report. I cannot always grant these requests as readily as I have been able to on this occasion. I am pleased to have been able to do so. It is my hope that the motions on the Standing Order changes that will allow the House to reach conclusions on this matter will be on the Order Paper as soon as possible. That is certainly our wish and intention. I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the hard work of the Committee Members. I hope that they will be able to take part in the discussions, although, obviously that is a matter for the Chair.
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The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of Zimbabwe and the concern that exists on both sides of the House about the behaviour of the Government of Zimbabwe. Certainly, anxiety has been expressed about some of the problems that have arisen in that unhappy country. How others deal with the issues is a matter for them, but we all hope that they have raised with President Mugabe the great concern that is felt across the European Union. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary intends to raise the issue at the forthcoming meeting of Commonwealth Ministers.
Mr. Chris Pond: Will my right hon. Friend consider making time for a debate on United States-United Kingdom relations, with particular reference to the proposal to build a reservoir in Virginia that will result in the destruction of 437 acres of wetlands and the loss of the livelihood and the homeland of the native American Mataponi tribe? Is she aware of the importance of this issue to my constituents in Gravesham, because the Mataponi are the direct descendants of Pocahontas, who died in 1617 off Gravesend and who is at rest in the churchyard of St. George's church?
As my right hon. Friend will know, the borough of Gravesham is rich in history and heritage, of which Pocahontas is an important part. My constituents would like to show their support for her descendants, the Mataponi, so will my right hon. Friend give us an opportunity to consider this matter in the House?
Mrs. Beckett: The whole House is clearly lost in admiration at the creativity of that link. It is certainly a different concern from those that are usually raised at business questions. The whole House endorses my hon. Friend's remarks about the importance of Gravesham and acknowledges the concern that he has expressed on behalf of his constituents. I fear that I cannot undertake to find time on the Floor of the House for the debate that he seeks, but Westminster Hall might relish it.
Sir David Madel: Last month, the Government signed the treaty of Nice. Have the parliamentary draftsmen completed the necessary work for the ratification Bill to be presented to the House? When it is presented to the House, can we be assured that there will be no guillotine attached to it, since it is a constitutional measure that must receive very full consideration?
Mrs. Beckett: I cannot, off hand, recall the answer to the hon. Gentlemans questions. He is right: the treaty of Nice has now been signed. On the questions of when and how it might come before the House, I shall, of course, bear his remarks in mind.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order that is to be the subject of a debate under the affirmative resolution procedure next Tuesday evening? I am sure that she will recall that I raised this question with her last Thursday and asked her to consider how sensible it was to put such an order through in a one-and-a-half-hour debate under the affirmative resolution procedure, with no opportunity for amendment.

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Twenty-one organisations are due to be banned from operating in this country, causing a great deal of disquiet in the Islamic, Turkish and Tamil communities. That is not because people support terrorism, but because they want to encourage a peace process. They recognise that some of the organisations are currently engaged in ceasefires in their own countries, and are actively engaged in the search for long-lasting peace that will bring about the resolution to conflicts. Does my right hon. Friend not accept that a one-and-a-half-hour debate, with no possibility of amendment, is not a sensible way to deal with such a serious issue?
Mrs. Beckett: I understand my hon. Friend's concern, but he will know that this order represents the inauguration of the process. If the list were to be amended in the future, that might be done on a one-off basis to add or to remove organisations from it. A number of organisations are covered, but my hon. Friend will also know that there has long been discussion about many of them, so the issues that will be aired in the debate are not, in that sense, completely new.
My hon. Friend will also know that statutory instruments are not amendable; that is not the way in which the House proceeds. I understand his concern, and I assure him that the issue has been given careful consideration. However, it remains the case that the Government are giving the order the, normal amount of time for debate.
Mr. Roger Gale: The right hon. Lady will remember that the Broadcasting Committee's report was published several months ago and that before Christmas I raised on the Floor of the House the possibility of debating it. I understand that the appointment of a new contractor for broadcasting the House of Commons is imminent. Will she assure us that the report will be debated before the contract is signed?
Mrs. Beckett: I recall the hon. Gentleman raising that report. I fear that I cannot give him the undertaking that he wants, but I will bear his point it mind.
Mr. David Winnick: Surprisingly, the Opposition have not pressed my right hon. Friend on the election. Does she agree that when there is election fever and a great deal of speculation, there is much to be said, as there was in the 1980s, for getting it over and done with? [Interruption.]
Mrs. Beckett: I note with some amusement—as, I am sure, does my hon. Friend—that Opposition Members refer to panic. There is no sign of panic on the part of the Government, but I thought that those Members were a bit gloomy yesterday.
Mr. James Gray: The consequences of foot and mouth disease are often unpredictable and widespread, as was made clear earlier this afternoon. For example, the people of Chippenham and Malmesbury are disappointed by Her Majesty the Queen's correct decision to cancel the visit to my constituency a week on Friday. None the less, that highlights the, necessity for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to come to the House as often as he can to answer questions on what is a difficult issue. Of his two most recent appearances,
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one was for an Opposition debate and the other was today in response to a written question tabled by a Conservative Member of Parliament. Is it not time to put a procedure in place so that the right hon. Gentleman comes to the House—perhaps once a week—to update Members on the epidemic?
Mrs. Beckett: I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman. When Lord Biffen was Leader of the House, he said that business questions is when Members deliver themselves of the point or speech that they have been nurturing in their bosom undelivered all week. I know that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) was present throughout my right hon. Friend's statement and subsequent questions, and was not successful in being called. He can congratulate himself on the fact that his constituents' concerns are on the record.
The hon. Gentleman will know that one of his hon. Friend's suggestions in business questions last week led to the specific arrangement that allowed the Minister to answer questions today. I am not sure that we need to make a formal decision about what particular mechanism is adopted, but I can assure him that my right hon. Friend has every intention of keeping the House informed. The hon. Gentleman will know, and no doubt has benefited from, the arrangements that my right hon. Friend and his Department have established to make information available to MPs, which I also mentioned last week.
Valerie Davey: The centre for the deaf at Bristol university has recently pioneered a video link system for the deaf, which uses British sign language to enable them to communicate via screen. Will my right hon. Friend consider how the system might be used to enhance the involvement of the deaf in parliamentary democracy, perhaps by using an interpreter to ensure that their questions reach Members and/or enabling them to see an edited version of what happens in the House, possibly similar to "Yesterday in Parliament", again via screen?
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend makes an extremely interesting point. I was not aware of that work and I join her in paying tribute to her constituents and those who are engaged in such matters. My initial thought is that she should consider taking the issue up with the Information Committee. The nature of electronic communication in the House is, at least in part, a matter for it. She might also like to write to the Speaker and the Clerk of the House. However, I suspect that it will be difficult to resolve how we can make use of such facilities, but it should certainly be considered.
Mr. Eric Forth: Can the Leader of the House be a bit more helpful about the Hammond report? She has been very coy about it so far. Does she accept that we need to know whether what the BBC is reporting is accurate—in the cause strictly of open government and transparency, which the Government of course espouse? Can she guarantee that the report will be properly presented to the House so that we are able to ask questions about it, not least about the role of the shadowy figure of Alastair Campbell, who, unless the report corrects the record, apparently runs the Government, sacks Cabinet Ministers and unapologetically seeks to sidestep the whole issue?

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Can the Leader of the House give a specific undertaking that everything will be done to tell us whether what the BBC is saying is accurate and, more important, that the House will have a proper opportunity to hear all about the report and ask lots of questions about it?
Mrs. Beckett: I am not being coy. I think that the report was received only this morning. I believe that it is the intention that it will be published tomorrow, so I am not in a position to say anything more to the right hon. Gentleman. I am certainly not in a position to tell him whether what the BBC says is accurate. When the report is published—probably tomorrow—
Mr. John Bercow: What about the leaks?
Mrs. Beckett: That is a very good question. Do not ask me. They are nothing to do with me.
Mr. Bercow: Not me, guv.
Mrs. Beckett: Very much, "Not me, guy." I have already said that the matter will of course be properly reported to the House. As for the notion that Mr. Campbell is a shadowy figure, I would have thought that that was a less-than-apt description. He is certainly an effective servant of the Government and of the public service, and that is very much to be welcomed.
The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is perhaps slightly losing sight of the fact that, if I recall correctly—indeed, I must check for myself—Sir Anthony Hammond was looking into whether there was any impropriety in the award of a passport.
Mr. Keith Darvill: In the light of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) yesterday about local government finance, will the Leader of the House consider again the need for a debate on that subject? I say that in the light of the numerous responses to the Green Paper, to which the Prime Minister referred, and the short amount of time that hon. Members were given to debate this year's rate support grant. It was the subject of a truncated debate, and many hon. Members who wished to contribute were not able to do so. I also say that in the light of the experience in my local authority, which has raised a series of issues that we have not had the opportunity to debate on the Floor of the House. It would be good to have a debate so that the Government can consider the views of all hon. Members before the White Paper is drafted.
Mrs. Beckett: I understand my hon. Friend's concern and his dismay that we did not have as extensive a debate as usual on the local government settlement. He may recall that at that time the Opposition were going through one of their phases of objecting to everything, and one of the things to which they objected was an extended debate. Whether they imagined that the Government would keep hon. Members here late at night to discuss whether we should extend the debate, I do not know. The Government simply accepted their decision.
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I fear that I cannot undertake to find time in the near future for a specialist debate on local government finance. My hon. Friend can perhaps look for a general debate on the issue in Westminster Hall. It sounds to me like a good subject for an extended debate there, but I am sure that there will be other opportunities for my hon. Friend and others who are anxious to discuss it.
Mr. Graham Brady: In response to my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House, the Leader of the House confirmed that the Hammond report would be reported to the House in the usual way. Given that most of us have read its contents in the newspapers or seen them on the broadcast media already, we could be forgiven for thinking that it had already been reported to us. In response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the right hon. Lady confirmed that the matter would be reported to the House properly. Given that the report is apparently to be published tomorrow, will there be a statement in the House tomorrow, or will it be next week?
Mrs. Beckett: As the report has only just been received, it is yet to be decided how it will be properly reported to the House. The hon. Gentleman will be perfectly well aware, and successive occupants of the Speaker's Chair have confirmed, that there is a variety of ways in which information can properly be laid before the House. A written question is one of them.
Mr. Paul Flynn: My right hon. Friend will know that the final decision on Corns jobs has not yet been made. Is it not important that we have a debate before it is made, so that we can discuss that foolish proposal, which will lead to the closure of some of the most efficient steel plants in the world? Corus has confirmed that the works in Newport that the company plans to close down are far more productive and efficient than its plants in the Netherlands and other countries. Can we not emphasise that the reasons behind the decision are in part to do with differences in payments for redundancies in the different countries, with Dutch steel workers getting up to five times the redundancy payments that British workers receive; and with the parity of currencies, which means that the price on the continent of production from Llanwern is artificially high, whereas imports from the continent are artificially cheap here? Is not Newport's plight a case of "euro, or your job"?
Mrs. Beckett: hon. Friend makes an important and powerful point. I think that I am right in saying that he has some years' direct experience of the steel industry. He knows that we h we discussed that issue in the House and that further discussions are continuing. He will also be aware that, fortunately, owing to pressure from the Government and others, Corus is now discussing its proposals and plans with the trade unions. I fear that I cannot undertake to find time in the near future for a further special debate on the issue, but my hon. Friend, too, might consider the advantages of Westminster Hall. In addition, he will know that today's Budget debate is likely to concentrate on industrial matters, so he might find an opportunity to raise the matter during that debate.
Mr. Desmond Swayne: The Government's published standards on care homes are

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vastly more prescriptive than those produced by the National Assembly for Wales, despite the fact that both arise from the same piece of legislation. May we have a debate on the Government's standards'? Many of us believe that they will have a perverse effect, deny many elderly residents the en-suite facilities that they currently enjoy and, more important, deny many elderly and vulnerable people a place in a residential care home, as developers all over the south queue up to build new houses on the sites of care homes that have gone out of business.
Mrs. Beckett: I fear that I cannot undertake to find time in the near future for a special debate on that issue, but the hon. Gentleman will recall that Health questions take place on Tuesday, so he might find an opportunity to raise it then. He will know that debate continues on how to handle the availability of places in care homes. In addition, there is extensive discussion about how we can get the balance right between people who need health care and those who can be properly cared for in their own home, which also has an impact on the care homes sector. I cannot arrange a special debate, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will find other ways in which to raise the issue.
Mr. John Cryer: May we have a debate on the west's treatment of Iraq? The British and American Governments appear to be determined to bomb Iraq back into the stone age, despite the widespread opprobrium with which our policy has been met. The recent bombing appears to have been motivated by the fact that there is a new American president who is viciously right wing and has a peanut for a brain.
Mrs. Beckett: I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for a special debate on Iraq. My hon. Friend will know that those concerns have been expressed many times in the House in a variety of different ways, and I am sure that he and others will find other In ways of making their points. In the near future, it is not likely that we shall have time for the debate that he requests.
Mr. John Bercow: May we have an urgent debate in Government time on sentencing policy? Given that since January 1999 no fewer than 31,000 serious criminals have been released early after serving less than half of their sentences—including people convicted of manslaughter, attempted murder, actual and grievous bodily harm, drug dealing, cruelty to children, sex offences, violent disorder, burglary, robbery and kidnapping, to name but a few—would not an early debate in the House present the public with the clear choice that they will soon have to make on crime between the Government's institutionalised wimpishness and the robust policy of honesty in sentencing that is commended to the country by the Conservatives?
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman's point about people being released early from jail has been made frequently by Opposition Members. Although I speak from memory, I understand that we are talking about people being released perhaps a week or so earlier than they otherwise would be released. Under this Government, there has been no vast change in the approach to the handling of sentences or the period that people serve.
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As for the hon. Gentleman's remarks about choice, Opposition Members talked a storm about those things in government, while crime doubled. At the weekend, I read the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, in which he said how different things would be if only the shadow Chancellor was at the Treasury, the shadow Foreign Secretary was at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the shadow Home Secretary was at the Home Office. I cast my mind back and thought, "But the shadow Chancellor was at the Treasury, the shadow Foreign Secretary was at the Foreign Office, and the shadow Home Secretary was at the Home Office—and look what happened then."
Mr. Denis MacShane: With her long experience, my right hon. Friend will recall that, just before the 1970 election, the late Enoch Powell made a disgusting xenophobic speech, which was dismissed by the then Conservative leader, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). The Conservatives went on to win that election.
Last Sunday, the Leader of the Opposition made a disgusting xenophobic speech, so could we have a debate on the problem of xenophobia in politics, with particular reference to the report in today's edition of Tribune about Lord Pearson of Rannoch being prepared to pay —2 million to bribe members of another political party to stand down to allow more extreme right-wing, anti-European, xenophobic Conservatives to garner more votes? Surely, that financial interference in our electoral system is unacceptable, even at the cost of Tory xenophobia.
Mrs. Beckett: I have not yet seen this week's edition of Tribune, but I am aware of newspaper stories making the suggestion to which my hon. Friend referred with regard to the United Kingdom Independence party. It is certainly interesting to see how assiduously certain members of the Conservative party are working to influence the electorate's decisions.
My hon. Friend made a point about the general content of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, and there was certainly widespread concern about it. When I read it, what struck me forcefully was the distinct impression that the entire Conservative party had been beamed down from Mars in 1997 and that everything wrong in this country is the result only of the operations of this Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right."] I hear echoes from Opposition Members; they may think that the world began on 1 May 1997, but the rest of us are conscious of a rather long trail, track record and history.
As my hon. Friend will understand from my remarks, I find attractive his proposition that we should provide an opportunity to air those issues in the House. I fear, however, that the pressures on time are such that it is a pleasure that we shall have to forgo.
Mr. Christopher Leslie: I appreciate that we are in the middle of debating the Budget which, as we know, represents a balanced approach, providing both measured and affordable tax cuts and extra investment, but, surely, there must be a way of debating and scrutinising the Opposition's policies, which are so right-wing, barmy and unbalanced that they pose an enormous risk to the country. The more exposure they get, the better.
Mrs. Beckett: I understand and sympathise with my hon. Friend's concerns. It would be attractive to spend time exposing the Opposition's mistakes, follies and continual U-turns; for example, we never discussed what happened to the tax guarantee, which may be relevant in the context of the Budget debate. I fear however that, no matter how much I might wish to, I cannot undertake to find extra time for such debate.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: The majority of hon. Members would like a general election. May I pick up on the question of the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler)? In reality, it is highly likely that there will be a general election on 3 May—that is agreed ground. Will my right hon. Friend discuss with the Home Secretary and the Northern Ireland Secretary introducing a short Bill which would allow free delivery of local election addresses during that period, to match the facility for parliamentary candidates? Will she consider bringing forward the Northern Ireland elections, which are scheduled for mid May, to 3 May if appropriate? Finally, what is the expected date of arrival of the International Criminal Court Bill from another place?
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend asks a number of questions. He was right to say that the local elections are scheduled to be held on 3 May, but whatever the assumptions, I am not aware that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made a decision, never mind announced it. We can all be confident that there will be a general election within the next 14 months.
My hon. Friend makes a new proposal about free delivery of local election addresses, which may have wide-ranging implications. I shall draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friends, but I cannot undertake at this point that we will be able to make the changes that he seeks. As I said, I shall draw the package of concerns that he identified to the attention of my parliamentary and political colleagues.
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With regard to the International Criminal Court Bill, I have slightly lost track of its progress in the Lords, but I believe that it is due to finish there today. We hope to make progress with that important and useful measure.
Mr. Steve McCabe: I return to the need for a debate on modernisation procedures and programme motions. On the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, when the Standing Committee turned its attention to the content of the Bill, the scrutiny—this applies to hon. Members from all parties—was constructive and effective.
When my right hon. Friend considers further representations on the matter, however, particularly in view of the mock, synthetic outrage that we witnessed earlier from the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), will my right hon. Friend take time to peruse the Official Report of the Committee? Will she look at the volume of time that was devoted to lengthy and gratuitous insults levelled at members of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, deliberate lengthy and misleading misrepresentations of international animal welfare organisations, smug and lengthy eulogies to minor Conservative party researchers, and extraordinarily lengthy comments on the television series "Dangerfield", which might have been more appropriate on the television critics' pages of the Radio Times? Does not that demonstrate that far too much time and attention are devoted to trivia by the Opposition, which is why the Committee is not making progress?
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend makes an interesting and powerful point. I hope that it has been heard and taken on board by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning). My hon. Friend's underlying point is extremely important and we make it repeatedly in the House. The question is not just how much time is available for discussion, but whether that time is used constructively. It has often been a delusion of Oppositions, and we in the Labour party can plead guilty to this in the past, that people admire skill in wasting time. My understanding is that members of the public think that they send us to this place to use our time constructively, and rather despise us if they think that we do not.

Orders of the Day
  WAYS AND MEANS
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [7 March].

  AMENDMENT OF THE LAW
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That it is expedient to amend the law with respect to the National Debt and the public revenue and to make further provision in connection with finance.
  (2) Subject to paragraphs (3) to (6) below, this Resolution does not extend to the making of any amendment with respect to value added tax so as to provide—

  (a) for zero-rating or exempting a supply, acquisition or importation;

  (b) for refunding an amount of tax;

  (c) for varying any rate at which that tax it any time chargeable;

  (d) for any relief, other than a relief which—

  (i) so far as it is applicable to goods, applies to goods of every description, and

  (ii) so far as it is applicable to services, applies to services of every description.

  (3) Paragraph (2) above does not exclude the making of amendments with respect to value added tax—

  (a) providing for refunds of the kind specified in paragraph (4) below;

  (b) providing for that tax to be charged at a reduced rate of 5 per cent. on supplies of the descriptions specified in paragraph (5) below (and on equivalent acquisitions and importations); or

  (c) making provision of the kind authorised by paragraph (6) below.

  (4) The refunds mentioned in paragraph (3)(a) above are refunds of value added tax where—

  (a) that tax is chargeable on a supply to, or an acquisition or importation by, a museum or gallery, and

  (b) the supply, acquisition or importation is attributable to supplies of free rights of admission to the museum or gallery.

  (5) The supplies mentioned in paragraph (3)(b) above are—

  (a) supplies, in the course of a conversion of a building (or part of a building), of services related to the conversion if after the conversion the building (or part) contains living accommodation;

  (b) supplies, in the course of the renovation or alteration (including the extension) of a dwelling that has been unoccupied for at least three years, of services related to the renovation or alteration;

  (c) supplies of goods by a person making a supply of services within sub-paragraph (a) or (b) above if—

  (i) those services include the incorporation of the goods into the building concerned (or its site), and

  (ii) the goods are building materials within the meaning of Group 5 of Schedule 8 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994;

  (d) supplies of children's car seats.

  (6) The provision authorised by this paragraph is provision re-enacting, without altering any person's liability to value added tax or the amount of any such liability, provisions providing for that tax to be charged at a reduced rate of 5 pet cent. on certain supplies, acquisitions and importations.—[Mr. Gordon Brown.]
  Question again proposed.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
2.13 pm
Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: What a difference an approaching election makes to a Budget statement! In some ways, the Budget yesterday was not the worst of the Budgets presented by the Chancellor over the past four years. For instance, it was his shortest statement. The problem for the Government and for the country is that the promises that the Government may make in their last Budget cannot repair what happened as a result of the previous Budgets over their period of office.
Because the Chancellor has squeezed five Budgets into less than four years, we have already had the tax increases of four years, even before the Chancellor made another statement yesterday. Nothing can alter the fact that the Government will go down in history as the largest tax-raising Government of all time. According to their own figures, total tax receipts, which include social security contributions as well as taxes, will have risen over the past four years by a staggering —100 billion, almost exactly.
There were some welcome U-turns in the Budget yesterday—for example, on road fuel taxation—but why did it take a tax revolt, with all the shortages and disruption that accompanied it last autumn, to make the Government listen? If the Prime Minister and the Chancellor spent more time in the House, they would have heard hon. Members making the same points in debate after debate on previous Budgets. They would have been told that the relentless increase in road fuel taxation was not just socially and politically damaging to those in rural areas and others—people who must have cars to get to work—but that it was undermining the competitiveness of the haulage industry, which still faces competitors from the continent delivering goods in this country using fuel that is much cheaper than any available in Britain.
The Government have damaged the haulage industry and manufacturing industry. Although they have repented and although there is a modest cut, we still have the highest petrol prices in Europe. According to some estimates, we have the highest petrol and diesel prices in the world.
Like all Chancellors' statements, this one was better eaten cold. Once the more gullible Labour Members have had a chance to read the small print and the Budget document, as I hope they will, they will see, as we have, a parallel Budget emerging from the mist. For instance, the Chancellor persistently underestimates the tax effect of his measures in successive Budgets. The Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, used to deny that the burden of tax was rising at all.
Even though it was clearly set out in the Government's own documents that the percentage of tax as a proportion of gross domestic product was rising, the Prime Minister used to resort to any circumlocution to deny that fact. It was eventually the Prime Minister's press secretary who came clean and admitted that there was a continuing increase. All he had to do was to read some of the Budget document. In other cases, there have been problems because the Government have difficulty with their own figures. In some cases, by accident or design, they disguise the real truth.

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Let us consider the tax burden in the current year—2000–01. In the 1999 Budget, that was predicted at 36.7 per cent. of GDP. In last year's Budget, the figure was revised upwards. In last year's pre-Budget statement in the autumn, it was revised upwards again. Yesterday in the Budget, it was increased yet again to 37.7 per cent. of GDP. That is more than a 3p in the pound increase in income tax. That is what the Government do—they will not admit at the time that they are increasing taxes; that must be discovered retrospectively by examining the documents, which show a continuing increase. The same has already happened to their estimates for the tax burden next year. That, too, has been revised up from previous years to the present level.
Mr. John Bercow: My right hon. Friend eloquently describes the Government's sneaky and deceptive approach to communicating their taxation measures. Does he recall that, for 15 successive years, the previous Conservative Government published an assessment of the impact of direct and indirect taxes on the disposable income of a family on average earnings and on families in other income deciles? Does he further recall that the Chancellor's consistent and calculated failure to continue that practice was most recently denounced in a report of the Select Committee on the Treasury of March 2000 at, if my memory serves me correctly, paragraph 35?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: My hon. Friend rightly points to a further example of fiddled figures. I can give him yet another one. He may know that the working families tax credit is presented in the Red Book as a tax reduction, even though, in the small print at the end of the document, the Government have to admit that it should be treated as an addition to expenditure. I refer the House to page 216 where it clearly says:
"income tax credits…score as public expenditure under national accounting conventions",
but that is not how they are treated in the document. They are not treated as expenditure; they are treated as negative taxation to flatter the Government's taxation figures. Therefore, the figures that I have just given to the House showing the constant revision upwards underestimate the true position. If, as required under national accounting conventions, we also add in the working families tax credit, the rise becomes even steeper and the tax burden becomes even heavier.
It is no wonder that people are cynical about politics and politicians. The Prime Minister complains about public cynicism about his record, but is it any wonder when the Government fiddle the figures in their own Budget document? Therefore, my first request to the Government is that they come clean and tell the truth about what is happening to people's money and the burden of taxation.
That applies not only to taxation—the same sleight of hand is now apparent on public expenditure. Again, the more impressionable Labour Members cheered the announced increases in public expenditure yesterday. I refer those same hon. Members to page 200 of the Red Book, which shows that there is no increase. There is actually an underspend in public expenditure, and only in
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the financial year 2003–04 do the Government get back to their originally announced public expenditure profile. The Government are spending less than they have announced in previous years. They tax more than they have announced previously, but they spend less.
Mr. Christopher Leslie: I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman is now trying to set out his stall and paint an awful picture of the Government, but if the Government are that bad, what did the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) mean when he said that he was in a dilemma?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: We are in no dilemma at all; it is the Government who are in a dilemma, and not just the Government, but their figures. We cannot tell from what the Government say whether they are putting up taxes or expenditure; we have to examine the figures, and that is where the dilemma arises. It is the job of the House to find out what is happening and to tell the truth. If the hon. Gentleman is to have any chance at all of retaining his seat at the general election, which I rather doubt, I urge him to start to tell people the truth; otherwise this pervasive air of cynic ism will see the back of him as well as the Government.
Exactly the same subterfuge is apparent over borrowing and debt. Again, the Chancellor made it clear yesterday that he was reducing debt. He made a great deal of that, but it is a pity that he did not describe how it will go up again. I refer hon. Members to page 188 of the Red Book. It shows that the burden of debt will rise by —58 billion during the next four tears, but that, too, was not referred to by the Chancellor in his statement.
All that means that the Government are taking a colossal risk. They are vulnerable to any downturn in the world economy, but there is more to it than that: even if there is no hiccup or downturn in world growth, they are eroding the competitiveness—the performance—of the British economy, on which all the expenditure depends. Again, that shows up in the figures. Business investment has pretty well collapsed. [Interruption.] These are the Government's own figures. If anyone wishes to dispute them, we have a problem with the Treasury figures.
In the Conservative Government's last year in office, business investment rose by 7.75 per cent. It has now slowed to a crawl—to little more than 2 per cent. a year. The savings ratio, referred to by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, was 11 per cent. when we left office, but it has now more than halved to 4.75 per cent. The start of that collapse coincides with the withdrawal of dividend tax credit for pension funds, which is still taking out of the private pension sector more than —5 billion a year Is it any wonder that almost mortal damage was done to the propensity to save, which is showing up in the savings ratio? That is building up serious problems for the future.
Mr. Edward Leigh: Does it not follow that it is essential to remove all taxation of savings?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: How right my hon. Friend is, and that just happens to be the policy on which he and I will fight the next election. Instead of gimmicky little give-aways, we will remove savings taxation at a stroke below the higher rate.
Mr. Jonathan Shaw: Is the commitment to abolish tax on savings guaranteed, or will that policy be changed tomorrow?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Good Lord, cannot Labour Members do better than that? Yes, it is.
I am glad that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is to speak in the debate. Perhaps he can answer some of the questions about competitiveness and productivity. The Department of Trade and Industry has missed out again. During recent months, we have observed how it is usually ignored or overlooked by the Treasury, and the Budget is yet another example of that. That is not to overlook the welcome modest simplification of the VAT system and the promised—again, jam tomorrow—research and development credits for larger companies. However, set against the incredible increase—layer upon layer—in business taxes and regulation during the past four years, that brings practically no comfort for the business world.
For example, yesterday the Forum of Private Business said:
"On balance, the Budget is likely to make life more difficult for small firms, because of previous stealth taxes…and increased complexity in the PAYE regime."
The Institute of Directors said:
"Insufficient has been done to simplify the ever-more complex tax regime or lessen the burden of state interference and regulation in the business environment."
The London Chamber of Commerce said:
"the Chancellor was more interested in delivering a second term for Labour, rather than a Budget for business."
It again drew attention to the problems of tax complexity and the burden that that puts on businesses of all sorts, and their resulting loss of competitiveness in world markets.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend intend to refer in any detail to the climate change levy? Would he be interested to learn from me that a textile company that I know well, which employs some 300 people and has invested more than —1 million in energy saving and in reducing any output of pollution into the environment, is likely to be faced with an annual tax increase from 1 April of —60,000 to —80,000 as a result of the climate change levy? Is that a way to make British manufacturing industry more competitive?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: My hon. Friend is spot on. The tax is completely unnecessary and could easily have been withdrawn yesterday. The Finance Act 2000 does not require the Government to introduce it; it merely permits them to do so. They could have announced that they had recognised on mature consideration the damage that the measure would cause, especially to British manufacturing industry, and withdrawn it. Instead, as my hon. Friend said, in four weeks' time, all businesses, whatever their size, will be paying a surcharge on energy bills that are already rising. For example, gas prices have doubled for business in the past year.
For that reason, the new surcharge is likely to be entirely counter-productive in environmental terms. If businesses do not invest here or if they migrate from this country to other tax jurisdictions in countries with lower environmental standards, the global environment, which is supposed to be what the charge is all about, will suffer
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as a result. The tax is amazingly complicated. Any reductions that are required by international conventions can be met far more easily and cheaply in other ways. That is how the Conservative party has always achieved such reductions. We met the Rio targets and we will meet those set in Kyoto, but we will do it by other means. We take seriously our environmental responsibilities, but we do not agree that it is necessary to create an industrial desert in order to fulfil them.
That is why I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). Indeed, he is in extremely good company, as the Confederation of British Industry has also drawn attention to this damaging levy. Mr. Digby Jones, its director general, said again in a press release yesterday that it
"is seriously damaging UK competitiveness."
Furthermore, the Engineering Employers Federation said that
"the Climate Change Levy remains one of the most badly designed and ill-conceived economic instruments of recent times, a device for raising revenue rather than a serious attempt to encourage energy efficiency. Manufacturing will be bitterly disappointed the Chancellor has failed to address the anomalies of this tax."
I entirely agree with those points. Any pretence that the Government are pro-productivity or pro-competitiveness is completely contradicted by their persistent introduction of such measures. They did the same with IR35, which, as I think the House will know by now, was the 35th press release issued by the Inland Revenue in respect of the 1999 Budget. It was never referred to in the House or announced by the Chancellor, but the measures that it set out turned out to be among the most damaging ever conceived for the IT sector.
The Government have the gall to publish a leaflet called "Productivity in the UK: Progress towards a productive economy", which contains a section about business skills, when they are driving people abroad with their policies. One of the most lively websites on the internet is called GoAbroad.com. It is used by people who will not put up with these conditions and are taking their skills elsewhere. Consequently, companies telephone the Home Office and say that they are short of skills, and the Government decide to relax immigration controls in respect of IT specialists, thus denuding the third world and poorer countries of skilled people so that they can replace people driven out by this mad measure called IR35. That is not what the Government say that they are doing, but it is what they practise in reality.
The House will remember the fiasco regarding double taxation relief, which was announced in last year's Budget and was another ill-thought-out measure. A prominent accountant from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mr. Peter Wyman, pointed out that it was not going to work. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury insulted Mr. Wyman in the House, but he turned out to be absolutely right. Indeed, the Government have now admitted that he was right and have withdrawn all the measures. They amended them in the Finance Act 2000 and then announced more amendments in the pre-Budget statement. Now we learn from the Budget statement that there are to be even more amendments. That is three to Mr. Peter Wyman and zero to the Chief Secretary.
A little more humility is required from a Government who have been warned persistently about the damage that is done by such measures, but still they persist with them.

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The erosion of our competitiveness is now beyond dispute and is doing much damage to our international reputation. On productivity in the United Kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reports:
"Real economy-wide output per worker rose at an average annual rate of 2.4% from 1992 to 1997"—
the period of the previous Government—
"but grew by only 1.4% annually over the last three years, only half the rate achieved by the US."
People reading that report in the United States and elsewhere will realise what has happened in this country: the productivity record inherited by the Government has now also collapsed.
Mr. Phil Hope: The right hon. Gentleman quotes from various newspapers, but perhaps he should remind the House of the front page of today's edition of The Sun, which announces that it is supporting Labour at the next election.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I conclude from that intervention that the hon. Gentleman is simply not interested in what is happening to the United Kingdom's productivity. He has nothing to say about that or about what people abroad who are contemplating investing in this country will now think of the Government, who have practically halved the productivity record of their predecessors. Along with the intervention made by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw), that is an eloquent testimony to the complete contempt with which the Labour party treats the real problem in this country: the production of wealth before it can be spent.
Mr. Michael Jack: Clearly, the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) did not read the inside page of The Sun in which Trevor Kavanagh points out that the Chancellor enjoys spending other people's money and is a true socialist—a position that is rather different from that set out on the front page.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: My right hon. Friend has clearly been as assiduous as ever and has read the inside pages of The Sun as well as the headlines. The House will be grateful for that. I never get very far when I read it.
On productivity, I have mentioned the Government document entitled "Productivity in the UK: Progress towards a productive economy". It is a little late to be starting to make progress—the Government should have done so by now. We are grateful for the observations of the Trade and Industry Committee on this subject. During the past four years, a blizzard of White Papers, parliamentary statements and gimmicky measures have been introduced in Budgets, supposedly to try to raise our productivity gain. They have tried hard to do something, but what have they achieved? The Labour-dominated Committee observed that not only has very little been achieved, but we cannot measure what has been done. Its January report states:
"The result is that it cannot be demonstrated that policies pursued over the past three years intended to narrow the productivity gap have had any measurable outcome."
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It goes on to state:
"The set of enterprise society' objectives, targets and measurements is a dog's breakfast."
That was the Committee's description of such arrangements even before yesterday's Budget statement. In passing, the report notes that the DTI cannot even pay its bills on time. It slates:
"It is an indictment of the department's ability to manage its own affairs that, having identified its failure, things should be getting worse rather than better.
The report concludes:
"The bleak truth is that we cannot tell whether some of the department's crucial objectives over the past three years, such as the promotion of enterprise, innovation and increased productivity, have been achieved".
The Department is simply operating in a vacuum; it has no idea whether its actions are doing any good. Meanwhile, figures show the collapse in the savings ratio, business investment and productivity.
Mr. Barry Gardiner: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heathcoat-Atmory: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I have been generous in giving way and I wish to conclude.
The Government inherited a strong, dynamic and competitive economy, but they undermine it with layer upon layer of new regulations and extra business taxes. They bind themselves to long-term public spending commitments that surpass any conceivable growth rate for the economy. They value spin over substance, and words over deeds. They thus betray the hopes on which they were elected and break the promises that they made to get elected. Such a Government will not survive the scrutiny and verdict of the next general election.
2.40 pm
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Stephen Byers): Yesterday, the Chancellor presented a Budget for the future, to build a Britain of opportunity and prosperity for all. It combines wealth creation with social justice, and it supports hard-working people and their families. It invests in reform of our public services, but insists on results in return. It is a forward-looking Budget, which presents change as a bringer of opportunity, not a threat. It builds on the great strengths of the British people. The foundation for the Budget is economic stability; it was our first duty in government to establish that.
The Budget strikes a balance between prudent long-term investment and targeted tax cuts for hard-working people pensioners and savers. It provides new opportunities and incentives for enterprise, and thus helps people with commitment to start and extend businesses. It makes work pay. Our economy is strong because of the decisions and choices that we have made.
For too long, the United Kingdom has suffered from violent swings of the economic cycle. Almost four years ago, we reformed the whole basis of economic policy making. We took tough decisions early to make the Bank of England independent, to establish a proper fiscal framework, and to repay the national debt. Consequently, inflation is now at a 30-year low, and is the lowest in

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Europe. Long-term UK interest rates are at about their lowest for over 35 years, converging with those of Germany.
Through the new deal, which is the most ambitious welfare-to-work programme in Britain, we have cut youth unemployment. One and a half years early, and at half the planned cost, we have exceeded our goal. Not 250,000, but 270,000 young people have now moved from welfare to work.
In total, 1,100,000 more people are in work now than four years ago. Britain has the lowest unemployment since 1975, the lowest long-term unemployment since 1979, and the lowest youth unemployment since 1975. Employment rates among women are the highest ever, and today, there are 1 million vacancies spread across the country.
That clearly demonstrates that the Government are working in the interests of all our people. The economy is enjoying its longest period of uninterrupted growth since the war. As well as huge improvements in the labour market and the economy, we have put public finances on a sound footing.
In the early 1990s, the national debt doubled. Consequently, we inherited an unacceptable level of debt in 1997. The tight fiscal stance we have adopted means that we have been able to repay some of the national debt. Last year, some —9 billion was repaid, and this year —34 billion is being repaid. As we cut the costs of failure, we are able to provide money for our real priorities and those of the British people.
In 1997, more was spent on debt interest repayments than on schools. We inherited that position. In 2001–02, we will spend —10 billion more on schools than on debt interest. That is not coincidence or luck. It has happened not by chance but through the deliberate choices that the Government have made. However, it can be sustained only if we hold firm to the financial disciplines that we have imposed, and run fiscal and monetary policy in tandem.
Our recent history shows all too clearly what can go wrong when risks are taken with the economy: businesses and people suffer.
Mr. Nick Gibb: What will happen to interest payments from 2002–03 onwards, when the Government's net borrowing increases by —1 billion, and, successively, —10 billion, —11 billion and —12 billion? What will happen to the interest charges to the Exchequer in those years? Will they go up or down?
Mr. Byers: The figures are clearly stated in the Red Book. We are complying with the fiscal rules that we have established. We are therefore not taking risks with the economy. Yesterday's Budget was prudent. We will not do as the Conservative Government did in the late 1980s.
Let us consider Lord Lawson's Budgets. He had a strong economy, but what did he do with it? He cut taxes irresponsibly. Businesses and people paid the price in the early 1990s. Let us go back 10 years to February and March 1991. This week 10 years ago, inflation was more than 8 per cent; interest rates were more than 13 per cent. That is the Tory record of irresponsibility. Thousands of small business men and women were beginning to feel the consequences. There were more than 47,000 bankruptcies in 1991, and GDP fell by 1.5 per cent.
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Businesses and millions of people suffered. At least 1 million hard-pressed home owners suffered negative equity. Approximately 250,000 homes were repossessed between 1990 and 1993. More than 1 million people lost their jobs in manufacturing in the early 1990s. That vicious circle trapped businesses and individuals. It was a traumatic period which must never be repeated.
Those are not just my views. Recently, I found on the internet the "Alan Duncan MP Westminster Zone", which I recommend to hon. Members. The website proclaims various publications and draws attention to "An End to Illusions". Some might say that that was an appropriate title. Of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I believe a Conservative Government were in office, the book states:
"In the late 1980s political leaders claimed that Britain was experiencing an economic miracle. The years of decline had come to an end. Instead the 1990s began with unprecedented debt, a deep recession and a credit squeeze that destroyed thousands of businesses and caused hundreds of thousands of repossessions."
That Alan Duncan is none other than the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton, who speaks for the Conservative party on trade and industry matters. I have given an example of his being right for a change. In those words, he outlined the true position in the early 1990s.
Mr. Christopher Gill: During the period to which the Secretary of State refers, Britain was a member of the exchange rate mechanism. The right hon. Gentleman advocates fixed exchange rates. Does not he realise that on both occasions in the 20th century when Britain joined fixed exchange rates, unemployment soared? From 1925 to 1931, unemployment increased from 1.25 million to 2.9 million, and between 1990 and 1992, it increased from 1.65 million to 2.85 million. Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that that is the effect on employment of going into fixed exchange rates? Does it not register with him that that is a powerful argument why we should never join the single currency?
Mr. Byers: I would like to know whether the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) agrees with that statement.
Mr. Gill: The right hon. Gentleman should answer my question.
Mr. Byers: I will answer the question, but I am interested to know whether the statement that the hon. Gentleman made represents Conservative party thinking on the single European currency. I think that it probably does, as far as the Members sitting on the Opposition Front Bench in this debate are concerned. One can tell; we know what the reality is. These are principled people sitting opposite me, and they believe strongly that the United Kingdom should never join the single European currency. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) nodding his head in agreement with that.
Mr. Bercow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Byers: No, I want to answer the legitimate question raised by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill).
There is a tendency among certain members of the Conservative party to blame the rest of Europe for all the problems that have been created over a number of years.

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The difficulties that were created in the early 1990s came about as a direct result of the irresponsibility of the Tory Budgets of 1987 and 1988. The then Chancellor faced a choice. There was a strong economy, as there is today. He chose to act in an irresponsible way, introducing swingeing tax cuts that were applauded at the time. In the Budget of 1988, the basic rate of income tax was reduced by 2p and the higher rates above 40 per cent. were abolished. The problems of the early 1990s were a result of that.
That is why we have chosen prudent tax cuts, which are targeted, and also to invest for the long term. That is the Government's approach. We have built a strong economy and we now have the foundations on which we can invest in the future to create wealth that will benefit all our people.
Mr. Bercow rose—
Mr. Byers: I will now give way to another anti-European.
Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton is living proof that size is not everything. He has a distinguished track record in business, unlike the right hon. Gentleman, who has never worked in a company in his life.
Given that the Secretary of State is now auditioning unconvincingly for the role of high priest of prudence, will he tell the House what assessment he has made of the impact of the change in the rules on the use of capital receipts from the sale of council houses on the size of interest repayments on local authority debt?
Mr. Byers: That is a very important question, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will receive a reply from the Paymaster General when she winds up the debate later.
Mr. Alan Duncan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Byers: I want to make some progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a minute.
The situation to which I was referring obtained in the early 1990s. We have now managed to move away from the stop/go economy of those days. As a result, living standards are rising for many people. Someone with a —60,000 mortgage now is paying —315 a month less in interest payments than in 1990. Someone with a —100,000 mortgage is now paying —600 a month less than in 1990. That makes a real difference to hard-working people.
As we cut the costs of economic failure by cutting public debt, reducing unemployment and maintaining low inflation, we are freeing up the finance to invest in the infrastructure and high-quality public services that our country so badly needs. That is money that the Conservatives would simply take away.
It was interesting that the right hon. Member for Wells, in opening the debate, confirmed the Conservative position of sticking to investment of just 2.25 per cent. The Budget announced yesterday by the Chancellor means that spending will now grow by 3.7 per cent. a year
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over the next three years. The Conservatives have stated that their spending is to be capped at 2.25 per cent. or less. We need to know how they intend to fill the spending gap that would clearly result. If 2.25 per cent. were stuck to for all three years, a gap of more than —16 billion would result. If we were to be generous and suggested that they might postpone the 2.25 per cent. restriction in the first year, limiting it to the second and third years only, they would still have to find cuts of a little more than —10 billion. That is the Conservatives' position, and they have not stated where those cuts would come from.
In the election campaign, the British people will know that there is a choice: prudent, long-term investment in high-quality public services, which we support, or long-term cuts in public services that would come about under the Conservatives. Without risking our hard-won stability, we are now investing in public services, increasing opportunities and prosperity for hard-working families and supporting the small firms that are the lifeblood of our economy.
Mr. Duncan: It was eight years ago that I wrote "An End to Illusions", but I am grateful to the Secretary of State for pointing out that it was at least intellectually honest and cogent, and that it covered a difficult time that needed analysis.
Will the right hon. Gentleman in return be equally intellectually honest with the House and admit that the benefits that the Government have enjoyed over the past couple of years have been that receipts have been greater than planned, and a at expenditure on welfare payments has been less? However, we are probably at the top of the economic cycle, and his plans are on schedule to outstrip the growth in the economy as a whole. Will he therefore admit that as soon as the economy turns, he will face a squeeze for which he and his Administration will have to be accountable to the general public?
Mr. Byers: I should like to make a number of points in response to that question. First, the fiscal rules are set in a very cautious way, with an in-built barrier or margin against particular difficulties equivalent to 1 per cent. of GDP. In addition, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that tax receipts have been buoyant; they have been higher owing to a number of factors, the main ones being higher earnings and increased employment. Those are the signs of a successful economy, and we make no apology for them.
Our first ambition must be to secure substantial productivity growth, as the right hon. Member for Wells mentioned in his opening speech. That is why the Budget proposed further reforms to promote competition and innovation, and to support enterprise. Competition has long been recognised as essential to an efficient economy. It creates pressure to innovate, to keep costs down and to improve the quality and choice of products available, and it ensures that resources are allocated to the most efficient firms. Competition is also the most effective way of ensuring that consumers receive a fair deal.
The Government remain anxious to ensure that all sectors of the economy are exposed to competition. The Office of Fair Trading yesterday published its report to the Government on competition in the market for professional services. Today I wish to give the Government's response to that report.

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The Director General of Fair Trading concludes that the professions should be fully subject to competition law and that unjustified restrictions on competition should be removed. He raises questions about a number of existing restrictions, including the distinction between Queen's counsel and junior barristers, which is said to have significant effects on competition. He also questions the operation of the system as a quality mark and its value to consumers.
The director general comments on the number of rules of various professional bodies preventing or hindering the establishment of multi-disciplinary practices. Such practices could bring together accountants, lawyers and other professionals such as surveyors and estate agents. Potential benefits such as overhead cost savings, more flexible allocation of resources and more open access to the professions could be gained as a result. That could help smaller businesses in particular.
The director general noted that solicitors employed by non-solicitors can act only for their employers. Removal of that law could allow solicitors working in different business structures to compete on a broader front. He also noted that solicitors and accountants are not allowed to make payment to a third party for work that is referred to them. Such a restriction may be hampering the development of an online market place that would bring clients and professionals together.
The director general states that the Law Society prohibits seeking business by telephone from potential clients and comparative fee advertising. He draws attention to two further restrictions and believes that further implementation of sections 34 to 52 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 would allow banks and building societies to provide conveyancing services. Solicitors have 95 per cent. of the market. Further implementation of sections 54 and 55 could increase competition in the market for probate services. Where lawyers compete for work with non-lawyers, perceptions of legal professional privilege can distort competition. It falls to Ministers to deal with all those restrictions.
We recognise that those are complex areas. We shall therefore consult on the report, and it seems appropriate to consider comments on the director general's analysis before taking further action. The Government will therefore issue a formal consultation paper addressing those issues and inviting comments. However, on one recommendation, I feel that action should be taken now.
Under schedule 4 of the Competition Act 1998, there is an entitlement to request that professional rules be excluded from the provision in that Act that prohibits anti-competitive agreements. The director general believes that the regime weakens the incentives not to engage in anti-competitive activity that exist elsewhere in the economy, as the threat of financial penalties and action for damages does not exist. He recommends that the provision should be removed. The Government agree that the entitlement to exclusion should be removed and that the professions, as a result, should be fully subject to competition law.
We need a tax system that supports companies large and small. We have already reduced corporation tax from 33p to 30p, but in the new, knowledge-based economy we need a tax regime that reflects the nature of that new economy. That is why we propose to introduce a new
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tax relief for intellectual property and goodwill. We shall consult on the detail on relieving tax when companies sell substantial shareholdings.
Enhanced capital allowances since 1997 and new tax credits to encourage investment and innovation have already saved businesses more than —1 billion, with a third of a billion pounds being saved by manufacturing. We shall now consult on proposals for a new tax credit aimed at boosting research and development and innovation in larger companies. That new credit is designed to complement the R and D tax credit for small companies, which we introduced in April 2000.
Mr. Jack: The Secretary of State mentioned the policy on business tax allowances for capital investment that the Government have been pursuing. How much net extra investment has resulted from those proposals?
Mr. Byers: If the right hon. Gentleman reads the Red Book, he will see that we have record business investment compared to GDP, although that is not how the right hon. Member for Wells portrayed the situation. The figures are based on 1995 prices, so the comparison is good.
Mr. Harry Barnes: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that, to encourage enterprise, six tax cuts will be targeted on areas that have suffered relative depression, such as coal, textile and steel communities. Presumably, my constituency will be included, as Biwater has closed. Will information be supplied as to which areas will be eligible? Obviously, I have a constituency interest in that. The proposals are distinct from ones to which he referred at a previous Question Time, when he said that tax credit provisions will relate to the best bids for help with economic regeneration. There is sometimes a problem over who has made the best bid, so targeted provision is important, as is knowing whether we are in on it.
Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The six-point package, which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor mentioned yesterday and which I hope to touch on later, will be available to designated areas and communities. Work on that designation is still going on, but we can expect an announcement in the not-too-distant future as to which areas will qualify for that important package of help with regeneration and job creation in the parts of the country that need it most. The package is part of an active regional industrial policy, which is important to ensuring that our country's economic prosperity is shared round and that we enlarge the winner's circle so that more people can benefit from the success that we are making of the economy.
Extending the R and D tax credit from small companies to larger companies will be an important development resulting from the Chancellor's statement. We want to make sure that we get it right, which is why we want to consult in detail, particularly those industries that will be able to benefit from such a regime.
Since 1997, the number of small businesses has grown by 170,000. That is a response to the tax cuts that we have introduced for the sector. Small company tax has been cut from 23p to 20p and there is a new starting rate of just 10p in the pound. That means an overall cut in the typical small company tax bill of nearly 25 per cent.

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We shall continue to improve the environment for smaller firms to create new opportunities for enterprise and to help existing firms to grow, creating new jobs and prosperity. That is why we shall introduce a new regime to simplify VAT for up to 500,000 small businesses, which will include allowing at least 100,000 more businesses to file VAT returns annually instead of quarterly and increasing the VAT threshold in line with inflation, keeping the UK threshold at the highest level in Europe.
We shall also seek views on a new optional flat rate scheme for small firms. It would be simpler to use, with VAT calculated as a percentage of their taxable turnover; and rather than small firms having to wait until they had been registered for a year, they would be allowed to enter the annual accounting regime immediately. That would achieve real practical benefits for small companies.
We are also consulting on a radical new look at the tax treatment of small companies. Those proposals would allow small companies to base their tax calculations on their statutory accounts, which would end the current administrative burden of having to submit to the Inland Revenue a tax calculation in addition to the statutory accounts.
We also intend to improve the enterprise management incentive schemes to make them easier for companies to operate, doubling the limit on the total value of shares that can be offered and removing the limit on the number of employees who can be granted those options.
As the Chancellor announced yesterday, we accept all the recommendations of Paul Myners' review of institutional finance. We shall change the rules on life insurance companies investing in venture capital so as to provide greater incentives for insurance companies to provide equity finance for small and medium-sized enterprises. We shall also make it easier for small companies to raise equity and long-term finance.
We shall create new opportunities for businesses to support the jobs and growth of the future; but at the beginning of the 21st century, we must also invest in our children—the future of our country. We have already introduced a wide range of reforms that benefit women, families and children in particular. There are more women in work than ever before. We have introduced the national minimum wage, benefiting some 1.5 million workers, more than 70 per cent. of whom are women, and helping to reduce the pay gap between men and women to its narrowest ever.
Last year, we introduced new rights for part-time workers, 80 per cent. of whom are women, and ended discrimination on pay, pensions, training and holidays for the 5 million women and l million men who work part time. We calculate that the changes have benefited part-time workers by about —555 each. Part-time workers will no longer be treated as second-class citizens under the law. They play a valuable role in a flexible labour market, and they should be treated justly.
In introducing these regulations for part-time workers, I have paid particular attention to the needs of families. I have extended the new rights to include all workers and ensured that some of the most vulnerable groups—such as home workers and agency workers—will now receive full protection.
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Full-time workers who start working part time will now be able to compare their new terms and conditions to their previous package. That will help women returning to work part time after maternity leave.
We have also introduced a right to time off work to deal with a family emergency, starting from day one of employment. We have introduced statutory rights to decent minimum standards—all of them opposed by the Conservative party.
In the modern economy we need to harness fully the energy and talents of our work force. In a tight labour market, employers find it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain skilled people. In this changing world, it is vital that we recognise the pressures on working parents and business, and that we look at ways to support businesses and parents in meeting the challenges of family life. That is why last December I published a Green Paper setting out proposals to give more help to new parents and greater support to the businesses employing them. Our proposals were based on the most comprehensive review of work and parents ever undertaken by a Government in Britain. In the light of that review, we set out nearly 50 options to give more support for new parents and for the businesses that employ them.
Following an extensive consultation on these options, a range of measures was announced yesterday that will radically improve the lives of working parents with a new baby. We will increase statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance from its current —60.20 a week to —75 a week next year, and to —100 in the following year. That is as big a rise in the next two years as occurred in the previous 40. We will not only improve the rate of maternity pay, but increase the period during which it is paid, raising it from 18 weeks to 26 weeks. For the first time, parents who adopt will qualify for these benefits: paid adoption leave, for the same period and at the same rate, will be available when a child is first placed with a family. To help working fathers, we will introduce a new right to two weeks paid paternity leave—at —100 a week—from 2003.
To help employers, we will increase the support that small businesses receive for the administration of maternity pay. We will double the threshold for small-employer relief, to —40,000. That means that about 60 per cent. of all firms paying maternity pay will be able to reclaim their costs in full, plus compensation.
These measures support a range of further steps in the Budget to support families and children. There will be a further increase in the sure start maternity grant, from —300 to —500, for more than 200,000 low-income families. The value of the children's tax credit will be increased from the previously announced —8.50 a week to —10 a week when it is introduced on 1 April this year—making it worth up to —520 a year for around 5 million taxpaying families.
However, we also recognise the additional costs that are incurred during the first 12 months after a child's birth. We will therefore raise the children's tax credit to —20 a week for a year from the birth of the child.
One of the issues raised in our consultation on work and parents was the need for good, affordable child care. The absence of affordable child care remains one of the main barriers to work for parents. Evidence clearly shows that an increase in the current limits for child care support

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is crucial in order to help cover the regional variation in costs and the higher child care costs for children under five.
That is why we intend to increase the limit in the child care tax credit component of the working families tax credit and the disabled persons tax credit. That limit will be raised to —135 a week for the cost of child care for one child, and to —200 a week for the cost of child care for two or more children.
In order to claim the child care tax credit, families must use appropriate child care. However, current child care credit rules do not apply to child care provided in a person's own home. This restriction poses particular problems, especially for parents who work irregular hours. I heard that at first hand when I recently discussed these issues with a group of mothers in Bolton. They described the difficulties very clearly. A nurse working irregular hours set out graphically the problems that she encountered in finding affordable child care. The mothers said that support for child care costs in their own homes would be a significant advance.
That support would also benefit families who have a child with a disability. I am therefore pleased to be able to announce that we will now consider how we can help families who need formal child care in their own homes. One possibility being considered is extending the child care tax credit. That is a practical approach that will make a real difference to many working parents.
The changes in the Budget will benefit business, parents and, above all, children. However, we need to ensure that the changes translate into real benefits that increase prosperity in every part of the country. Now that we have economic stability, we have an opportunity to make a real difference for all our people, wherever they might live, and to make sure that all parts of Britain share in rising prosperity.
There are now more people in work in every region than there were in 1997, and average earnings have increased in every region as well. However, too many areas are still underperforming. Some regions are lagging behind in productivity growth and investment in research and development. Our next steps must be to put in place the measures that will allow all regions to fulfil their potential.
Over the past four years, we have made a start in giving the regions the tools that they need. We established regional development agencies and we are increasing their funding substantially. Tomorrow, my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Deputy Prime Minster will announce new financial flexibilities to enable regional development agencies to fulfil their role in delivering higher productivity and balanced growth in every region.
In addition, we will introduce new fiscal incentives to extend the opportunities for enterprise in rundown areas. In total, we are introducing six new tax cuts targeted at enterprise and growth and worth —1 billion over the next five years.
To render tax free the first stages of buying property and bringing land back into use, stamp duty will be abolished in designated areas. To bring disused properties back into use, we will cut VAT on residential property conversions. There will be accelerated tax relief for cleaning up contaminated land, and to help revitalise our
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high streets, we will provide 100 per cent. first-year capital allowances for bringing empty flats over shops back into the residential market.
Moreover, to cut the cost of small-business borrowing, we will introduce a new community investment tax credit. That was recommended by Sir Ronald Cohen and, with a capitalisation of some —40 million, it will ensure that a partnership between Government, financial institutions and the charitable sector makes a real difference to businesses growing in the designated areas.
To cut the costs of start-ups, the Small Business Service will offer one-stop support and up to —2,000 of help for any start-up company drawing up its business plan. That will make it easier than ever in the designated areas to start and sustain a business. With our active industrial and regional policy, the Government are reaching out to all parts of the country to ensure that they can benefit from our economic prosperity.
The stability that we have achieved means that we can now make the reforms that our country needs. Those reforms include increasing enterprise in every region and supporting hard-working families. The Government can do that because we have made our choice. We have chosen stability, not boom and bust; full employment, not mass unemployment; investment in future prosperity, not cuts in essential services; tax cuts that we can afford; and a commitment to strong communities, not a belief that there is no such thing as society.
This is a Budget to build a Britain of opportunity and prosperity for all. I commend it to the House.
3.19 pm
Mr. Cohn Breed: First, I welcome the Budget as far as it goes. The Chancellor made a great point of saying that it should be a balanced Budget, but much of that balance is subjective. I welcome the help for low-income families, particularly in rural areas where, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, far too many families—especially those working in agriculture—are on very low incomes.
Small businesses predominate in rural areas. More than 97 per cent. of businesses in Cornwall and in my constituency are small, or even micro-businesses employing fewer than 10 people. The fact that they will have a simplified means of paying VAT and corporation tax—for those that have the good fortune to pay tax—is to be welcomed. The reduction in VAT on the renovation of property is also to be welcomed. There is a significant number of empty properties which could be used for affordable housing. I hope that the measure will be directed at that sector, not at providing even more potential second homes for other people who want to live in Cornwall.
I also welcome the raising of the minimum wage, which, for an area of very low wages, is one of the most significant measures in the Budget. I hope that that increase will help a considerable number of my constituents who take home the minimum wage.
But—and there has to be a but—one sector of our business community has suffered considerably in the past five or six years, not only from the consequences of BSE but, in some places, from the catastrophe of swine fever, from the wet weather and the flooding of much farmland, and now from the disaster of foot and mouth disease.

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It must have been a bitter blow for many people engaged in that industry when they listened yesterday afternoon for the sort of measure that might give them some hope, but recognised at the end of the speech that what they would get was a free tax disc for their tractor. That will be a bitter blow to many hard-working families—families of the kind who the Chancellor recognised needed assistance.
I suspect that there can be no harder-working sector of the community than those who are engaged 12 or 14 hours a day in trying to make a living on a farm. Their incomes have dropped significantly in a relatively short time, but they have not succeeded in attracting the Chancellor's attention to their plight.
The fact that the Government are going to apply for agrimonetary compensation is welcome, but if they had applied for it six months ago, some of the payments would be coming through now. I welcome the fact that the Government recognise that they must try to get it fast-tracked, but they were already depending on it to deal with the problems that we faced prior to foot and mouth disease. This morning, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said that the present foot and mouth crisis influenced the Government's intention to apply for agrimonetary compensation. It would not, perhaps, be wrong to deduce from that comment that, had the disease not occurred, the Government would not have applied for the compensation.
Mr. Hope: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in the lifetime of this Parliament, farmers have received upwards of —500 million in agrimonetary compensation, whereas under the Conservative party, they received not a penny?
Mr. Breed: I agree, although I suspect that the Opposition would say that they were only in power for three or four months during the period when they could have applied for such compensation. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman is right. Farmers have benefited over a long period of time. The Government have also recognised that remaining outside the euro at present has a cost not only to farmers but to tourism and manufacturing. The agrimonetary compensation scheme was set up for that purpose. That cost should be provided for.
Mr. John Townend: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we went into the euro at the present exchange rate, it would not make the slightest difference? He is assuming that we would go in at a much lower rate. He cannot assume that.
Mr. Breed: If we were going in at today's rate, presumably we would be having a referendum now and deciding to do so. I do not suggest that we would go in at the present rate.
The agrimonetary compensation scheme finishes this year. At present, there is no successor scheme to provide further support while we remain outside the euro.
The timing was right and the compensation is to be welcomed. However, specific support to deal with foot and mouth disease would be unbalanced. The Chancellor's great card was that he wanted the Budget to
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be balanced. At present, the balance is that farmers who have the misfortune of having foot and mouth disease confirmed on their farms will have their animals slaughtered and receive 100 per cent. of the market value for them, but that many more farmers who will probably be affected by the disease because they are in a restricted area and cannot market their animals will receive nothing.
I accept that the question of consequential loss is a minefield. For some time the Government have said that no Government have provided for consequential loss to be compensated, and that a decision to do so would set a precedent. However, these are unprecedented times for agriculture. We cannot ever have seen such a decline in the industry. There cannot have been a time when farmers have been subjected to so many disasters in such a short time, or when a consequential loss has rippled out to affect such a large area. We should consider measures that would be carefully targeted—a phrase that the Chancellor often uses—on areas affected by foot and mouth disease which will not receive compensation.
Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman makes a lot of sense on foot and mouth disease and assistance to farmers, but was casual in his reference to the experience of this country outside the eurozone. Will he confirm that he does not think that short-term fluctuations in interest rates or the difficulties posed by an over-valuation of the exchange rate in any way constitute an argument for the permanent abolition of our national currency, given that under the terms of the treaty of Amsterdam, the European Central Bank is not merely entitled but obliged to ignore any representations from outside bodies about its conduct of monetary policy, and furthermore, that the treaty goes on to specify in article 108:
"governments of the Member States undertake to respect this principle and not to seek to influence the … decision-making bodies of the ECB or of the national central banks in the performance of their tasks."
Is that not an affront to, and the antithesis of, democracy?
Mr. Breed: I do not agree with virtually any of that, to be honest. The situation is clear. Farmers and many people in my part of the world recognise only too well that being outside the euro has been a disaster. Many of their businesses have been affected. Had we had the opportunity to be in side the euro, they would not have been visited by quite so many disasters.
Support for those affected by foot and mouth disease is unbalanced: the present situation with respect to compensation is at best an anomaly and at worst a real injustice. So many people whose businesses are clearly affected will receive no compensation. To continue that anomaly or injustice would not be right. However difficult it may be—I suspect that it will be very difficult—the Government must decide to assist those businesses which have been affected by foot and mouth but which under the current arrangements will receive no compensation. Many of the good measures in the rural White Paper will be much more difficult to achieve if the economy in rural areas is further weakened.
There is another disappointment. The introduction of an early retirement scheme linked to a new entrants scheme could have assisted the agricultural sector. We have been promoting such an initiative for a long time. It can be no surprise to many hon. Members that a significant number of older farmers—especially tenant

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farmers—are locked into their business. In the current circumstances, they cannot get out They are making almost no money and have no real assets to provide themselves with a decent pension fund, while other people have the skills, experience and enthusiasm—even at present—to take over some of those agricultural holdings and make a success of them.
It should not be beyond the wit of the Government—nor should it be extremely costly—to develop a scheme whereby those who are locked into a miserable situation can retire with some dignity and those who have the enthusiasm and will to get into the business can do so. Not only will that help to revitalise the industry: it will address a particular hardship, which I am sure the Chancellor wants to do.
Over the past three or four years, although I have heard much talk about venture capital for small businesses, no significant amount has gone into them. Most small businesses are undercapitalised: it is difficult for them to access affordable and sensible amounts of capital. The Government have announced several schemes—regional and national—to which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry referred again today, but no significant progress has been made.
Small indigenous businesses, especially in rural areas, are still much in need of genuine risk, venture or even development capital, but there is no source for it. In many cases, the costs involved are small I realise that if a business needs capital of —50,000, the costs will be horrendous, but there should be some means of providing the small amounts that businesses want.
Mr. Hope: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has bothered to listen to any of the debates that have been held in the House during the past four years. The English rural development programme provides —600 million for rural areas, directly targeted on the small businesses which he claims have no support. Will he offer the House the facts about the support that the Government give to rural areas and small businesses, rather than misleading people by pretending that those programmes are not available?
Mr. Breed: The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the actual number of investments is extremely low. Many of them are not much more than buy-outs, where there is an opportunity to sell out to a trading investment or to go on to the market. There are pitifully few investments of small amounts—between —50,000 and —200,000 partly because of the costs and partly because of the monitoring and the barriers around such schemes. However, small businesses offer a real opportunity for employment growth.
I want to deal with landfill tax. I support the principle of such a tax, but do the Government realise that the fly tipping that results is beginning to affect the countryside? Many landowners are subjected to indiscriminate tipping of rubble on their land. That is a direct result of landfill tax; people are not prepared to pay it, so they tip their rubbish on someone else's land. That is wholly reprehensible, and we need to ensure that it stops. Increasingly, local authorities are unable either to detect fly tipping or to pick up the rubbish. The problem is growing in rural areas.
Last year, measures were introduced on interest on late payment of debt, in order to improve cash flows for small businesses. Many of us were sceptical about exactly what
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improvements would result; we felt that many small businesses would not charge their larger customers interest on outstanding debts. Recently, I examined the number of creditor days. It has not decreased; indeed, according to some reports, there has been a marginal increase.
Perhaps we should try another tactic: to name and shame those companies that persistently do not pay their bills—especially to small businesses. One way of doing that would be to insist that audited accounts include a note of debtors of 30 days, 60 days or more. We could then see which large companies persistently make late payments to their suppliers.
Mr. Jack: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the exercise he describes is already undertaken by the Federation of Small Businesses? That information is already in the public domain.
Mr. Breed: The Federation of Small Businesses has produced the information, but it is not at present included in audited accounts. Accounts are audited for tax purposes, and I see no reason why they cannot provide information to allow us to identify the companies.
A pesticides tax has not yet been introduced, but it is hanging like a sword of Damocles above many people in the agriculture industry and is due to be considered in 2002. No one could possibly suggest that the industry is likely to be in good enough shape to bear a further tax by then. Would it not be more sensible—indeed, humane—to defer the tax for at least a year, or even two, so that the industry had the opportunity to recover?
3.36 pm
Mr. James Wray: I come from a poor constituency. At one time, we had the highest unemployment in Britain; 40 per cent. of my constituents were recipients of social security.
It really annoys me to listen to Opposition Members in this Chamber talking about fiscal terms and Red Books. The red book that I read did not bother about tax increases as long as they were made in the right place and went in the right direction. Our Chancellor has done a great job on the economy. We must never forget—we must never let the people forget—the fragmentation, the misery and the deprivation left by the previous Government. They raided the coffers; they fell off the Front Bench like snow off a dyke because of corruption and all the consultancies they reached out for. They were not interested in the poor. We are interested in the poor.
The Tories were given plenty of advice from their bible—The Economist—about their short-term strategy and their boom and bust, but they did not heed it. They laid the foundation stones of the economy in sand and it crumbled around them. We do not forget the people who are still out there—thousands of them—who were enticed by the former Prime Minister to take out equity, but who finished up having their houses repossessed, even though wives and husbands were still working to pay the money back. That is why the people of this country will never forget and will never return a Conservative Government.
I come from a family who lived—10 of us—in one room and a kitchen. I saw some of my family die of poverty—from tuberculosis and from sleeping in damp beds. That is why we must give all that we can. The

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Chancellor made the right decisions; he is laying his foundation stones in concrete and he is spending his money on the right people—those who deserve it.
Is there anything wrong with giving to the poor? Is there anything wrong with a working families tax credit that takes account of the family situation so that children aged between one and 15 are given an extra —15 or —25? A family of four, with children aged 16 and 18, receive a further —26. Families can also receive a child care allowance, which is especially important for lone parents, who need it most. They can receive a grant of 70 per cent. of child care costs. That could be a lot of money for big families.
If that money had been available when I was born, we would have had much better quality of life. That is what a Labour Government are here to do. We are not here to get consultancies; we are here to build the economy to ensure that we decrease the gap between the rich and the poor. Let us not worry too much about taxation, so long as it is against the rich and gives to the poor. We, as a Government, must be a Robin Hood.
Mr. Breed: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is reprehensible that many of the families who went through the appalling negative equity and are just getting back on their feet are being chased by the banks, which, although they are making billions of pounds profit, want to try to recoup some of the negative equity with which those families thought they had dispensed?
Mr. Wray: That is why we must pay heed, and why we should write off the debt. We should tax the banks a bit more heavily and give the money back to the poor, who were robbed in the first place. The shadow Secretary of State did not mention or apologise for the previous Government. He never talks about the —28 billion deficit or the fact that 42p in the pound was paid in interest charges because of the economic mess that they left behind. How can the Tories appeal to the nation to be the Government again? I do not think that they will ever be in government this century.
Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman talks about the importance of giving help to those who most need it. Will he therefore helpfully explain the justification for the operation of the children's tax credit, whereby two parents, each of whom earns —30,000 a year, are eligible to receive the credit, but where only one parent earns —40,000 a year, he or she is not?
Mr. Wray: Sometimes we do not get the particular economics correct, but if there is any anomaly, and it is brought to our attention, we will make a change and redirect the money if we can. It is difficult to have a universal tax with low-income people, but that will be tackled in the near future. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we will not forget what the previous Government did when they took power. We cannot forgive you for the fact that 3 million people were unemployed. I do not know why you cannot understand that a Government who have created the conditions for the lowest percentage of unemployed people for 35 years must be a success.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member and should remember that he should use the third person when referring to another hon. Member.
Mr. Wray: The Opposition should know that we went through a difficult period, and I am only telling them that unemployment was never worse than when they were in power. Surely they are not against us spending millions of pounds more on the health service. We are talking about spending about —835 million on it in three years. One reason why we are doing so is that everyone knows that 3 per cent. more must be spent on the health service just for it to stand still. We hope to double that figure. That is because of the state that the previous Government left the health service in; they were not interested in nurses or sisters, or whatever. In fact, their White Paper said that they wanted to encourage accountants and business managers. We have to change all that. A lot of nurses left the health service because of that reconstruction, and we must encourage them back. The Government have said that they will spend —135 million on recruiting hospital nurses, which cannot be a bad thing.
Not enough money was spent on education when the previous Government were in power. There was overcrowding and composite classes, and children were sharing books, but things have changed now. We have decided that about —200 million will be invested to recruit extra teachers.
One of the most important things is that the Tories left a legacy of drug abuse, and it has taken millions of pounds to try to get rid of it. All kinds of people tried to attract some of the great financial resources that were put into drug abuse. An organisation called SCODA—the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse—was more interested in starting a federation so that that could control the finances. We must win the battle. I have heard hon. Members talk about harm reduction, but that is a backward step; we should invest the money to encourage all organisations—whether those involving teachers, ministers, priests, of ordinary fathers and mothers or brothers and sisters—to fight the problem. We have to deal with it; we cannot give in. We must be the winners. We must not be beaten by the minority—the drug dealers and peddlers.
I sometimes think that we do not pay enough attention to child abuse. We should do much more. Organisations outside the House know that it takes not only a great deal of time to get the perpetrators to court, but 10 or 20 years to discover the abuse. It should not take that length of time to help those children in care and protection who have been abused by housemasters and the various other workers in homes and other institutions. It is time to put our money into the problem and to change legislation to ensure that no one gets away with child abuse. We should change the legislation so that those who committed abuse before 1964 can be prosecuted. They should be treated in the same way as anyone who commits murder. There should be no restrictions on prosecutions for child abuse; they should be possible regardless of the date.
I want to raise one or two other issues, but I know that other hon. Members want to mention the many ways that people have gained under the Budget. I shall not take too much time because I know that they want to catch their trains and planes home. Once the Chancellor has made his statement, we always find that everything goes dull in

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the Chamber and people want to get home. I simply say that the Government's direction on the economy is right. I hope that there will be more changes and that pensioners, lone parents and unemployed people will gain. My constituents and I are grateful that the Chancellor gave consideration to the poor in the Budget.
3.49 pm
Mr. Michael Jack: It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow, Baillieston (Mr. Wray) and to hear somebody speaking on a platform of compassionate socialism. He is right to speak about his constituency and Scotland, and to remind us of some of the real problems that have beset post-war Governments for a long time. I take issue with his suggestion, however, that the Conservative Government cared nothing for the national health service. Our rate of real-terms increase in health spending was ahead of that of the early years of this Labour Government.
The hon. Gentleman was right to alert the House to the scourge of drugs. As a former Home Office Minister responsible for drugs policy I can tell him that we took that matter just as seriously as do this Government. Our expenditure of —500 million a year was an effort to tackle the problem. I share his concern that Governments of recent times have not yet got to grips with this scourge on society and, more importantly, on the individual. The effect on criminality and crime is there for all to see. I join him in wishing this Government and Ministers well in their endeavours to fight this scourge of modern living.
In the Budget there is some discussion about further measures to help the inner city. I applaud that and support anything that helps to clear up the mess that still exists in some of our great urban centres. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was the last Conservative Government who maintained a high level of investment in Scotland. That is why Scottish industry is restructured, and Scotland has the benefits of silicon glen and the high levels of employment that go with it. It is fair to criticise the Conservative Government just as we criticise the present Government, but to say that we did not care is utterly to ignore the facts of the matter.
I was delighted to be here to listen to the Secretary of State's opening comments and his announcement of help for working families who work anti-social hours, particularly lone parents. At long last some help will be given through the various tax credit mechanisms. I am sorry that he could not announce today what that help would be. I have letters going back over the past 12 months to the Treasury and the Department for Education and Employment on this very subject. I wish him well, but ask him to speed up the consultation on his announcement. I have constituents working, for example, in the care homes sector who would much appreciate child care help during what are termed anti-social hours and who would be interested to know the outcome of the consultation exercise.
I also welcome the measures to assist families in general and small businesses in particular, especially with reference to the completion of their tax returns. I will return to the theme of tax simplification.
So far much has been made of the contrast between the good economic situation that is seen from the Government Benches and the difficulties that pervaded part of the premiership of my right hon. Friend the Member for
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Huntingdon (Mr. Major) and his Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry did not pay as much attention as he should have done to the natural economic cycle. All Governments hit difficulties from time to time. I commend to him the historic data in the Red Book which show what a mess previous Labour Governments made of their situation and the problem that the Conservative Government had in clearing up their mess before we could make progress. Yes, we had difficulties in the early 1990s, but prior to that we had got borrowing down to a very low level. We exercised properly fiscal control and imposed monetary disciplines. My right hon. and learned Friend again did that once we had the economy back in hand.
It is interesting that the Financial Times review of the Budget points out the relative luck that this Chancellor has had in having a benevolent economic situation. It points to:
"A seven-year run of output growth averaging 2.9 per cent a year, combined with low inflation."
The Chancellor could not have had the low inflationary levels which he enjoys had it not been for the work done by my right hon. and learned Friend to put in place the foundations to give us a low inflation economy. It is said that interest rate decisions take about 18 months to come through. We hit the inflation target set by my right hon. and learned Friend at 2.5 per cent. on the nail on the month, and it is noteworthy that in this Budget this Chancellor has sustained my right hon. and learned Friend's inflation target. Equally, we have had a seven-year run of output growth, so by definition three of those years were ours. I contend that much of the benefit that the Government have put before the House in the Budget was due to my right hon. and learned Friend's prudence. Part of the benefit that this Government have enjoyed in terms of their record on public expenditure comes from the fact that they took over the former Government's spending plans and went one better: they were even meaner and did not spend the money which we had left in place. Then they turned round and criticised those plans for not providing the resources which should have been spent.
Mr. Andrew Miller: I appreciate the honesty and integrity of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks. Is he pressing for a change in the shadow Chancellor to bring back the sanity of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)?
Mr. Jack: No, my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has shown in his recent remarks a proper line of intellectual activity to probe the question of the level of the inflation rate. It is right to test existing assumptions, even if at the end of the day one concludes that the existing assumptions are correct. If we are to sustain a low inflation economy, it is right to look at the underlying implications. Now is not the time to have a debate about that, but if the hon. Gentleman cares to have one in Westminster Hall, I would gladly attend.
The Financial Times article goes on to provide a further interesting insight. It states:
"Mr. Brown has guided the economy well in a sunny period. But he cannot control the weather—even if he would like to imply as much in the euphoria of a pre-election period."

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That gives us an important perspective on the Budget and the substantial increase in public expenditure which is included in the Red Book. The article reminds us that
"total departmental expenditure limits are set to rise at an annual rate of 8 per cent a year between 1999–00 and 2003–04."
If the sun shines those numbers can be sustained, but the true test of any Chancellor—and of this one if he is lucky enough still to be in office after the general election—is how he deals with the situation when the going gets tough. Any Chancellor can look good with lots of cash coming in, a self-imposed corset on public expenditure and some rather nice numbers on borrowing. Previous Conservative Chancellors have shown their metal in getting the economy back on the rails after a period of difficulty.
The Financial Times is interesting in its analysis. It states:
"Mr. Brown ducks the question whether such a rate of expansion is sustainable, even assuming steady economic growth. Of course it cannot be over the long term, unless taxes are to be raised."
The article then rather teasingly says:
"That is a problem for another Budget in another parliament."
It is not, in the sense that the nation is likely to have to go to the polls before another Budget. Therefore, the question of the sustainability of the Chancellor's much proffered public expenditure position is not for the next Parliament, but for here and now.
Mr. Breed: If the right hon. Gentleman is saying that the last five years of the Conservative Administration and the first four of the Labour Administration are two parts of the same economic cycle, would he have repaid —34 billion of the original debt that was run up during the Conservative period?
Mr. Jack: I counsel the hon. Gentleman to go back through the historic data in the Red Book. He will observe that towards the end of the 1980s we paid back debt because public finances were good. Whether paying back —30 billion odd is the right thing to do with the money is an interesting point. There is some conjecture. It could have been used to do more to help with savings.
The most that the Budget did for savings was to leave in place the current levels in the complex individual savings account system. Instead of examining ways to encourage improvements in the saving ratio in the way that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has done, the Chancellor ducked the issue. He ducked the issue as to whether he could have used creatively some of the fiscal surplus to encourage more private investment, in particular, in new activity in the economy. That is sad, given the amount of money that the Chancellor had and the things that he could have done with it.
In The Daily Telegraph, Ian Cowie, its personal finance editor, wrote an article under the headline, "Don't be misled, the main winner will be the taxman". He points out the massive increase in tax take that has occurred as a result of the Chancellor's activities. Since the Government took over, they have received a further —43 billion of extra receipts of one sort or another. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) said yesterday, that is effectively the equivalent of 10p up and 1p down.
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It is a very small people's dividend for the hard work of the hard-working families of Britain to have such a scant reward, because no Chancellor can deliver all that he claims. Given the sum total of the parts of the British economy, the peoples dividend is very limited.
I went back to look at the Red Book that I signed off when I was in the Treasury. In the years 2001–02, we pencilled in Government receipts of —370 billion, but the projection in the current Red Book for the same period is just short of —400 billion. That again shows the increase in the tax take that has occurred.
The result was even more fascinating when I searched for the table in the current Red Book to see how the Government were dealing with the increase in the personal tax burden. 'Put up taxes" are the words that the Chancellor hates to utter. I looked in our Red Book for the figures for the year 2001–02 and I noted that the figure for income tax as a percentage of gross domestic product that we had pencilled in was 9.8 per cent. The current Red Book shows that that figure has gone up to 11.3 per cent. of GDP, but what is missing is the comparator with last year's Red Book. Here the Government look seriously embarrassed. The telling point is that, for the period 2001–02, last year's predicted figure for income tax as a percentage of gross domestic product was 10.8 per cent. The burden of income tax is rising whatever those on the Treasury Bench may say.
Mr. Bercow: All my right hon. Friend's points are telling. Does he not agree that it is now becoming clear that what Labour meant when it said that it would be a people's Government was that people who are married, people who pay mortgages, people who own cars, people who have the temerity to put petrol in them, people who acquire savings, people who possess pensions and people who run businesses would all soon face significantly higher tax burdens as a result of the depredations of this Administration?
Mr. Jack: Indeed, and to build on my hon. Friend's salient point, families with children may have had some recompense, but all the married couples, who have lost the married couples allowance, home owners, who no longer receive mortgage interest relief at source, and anyone who runs a car will all know just how hard they have been hit by the Government.
I commend anyone to examine table C9 in the Red Book and compare last year's projections for the percentage of GDP taken by income tax with the current position. The figures for social security contributions may show a more level picture, but more telling is the rise in all tax receipts when compared with last year's projections for them as a percentage of GDP. The Government are condemned by their own figures as a high-tax Government.
I want also to consider the issue from a personal point of view. One of the arguments that the Government have used to explain the increased tax receipts is that more people are in work. Yes, that may be so, but the 1999 edition of the Inland Revenue statistics contains some interesting facts. In the financial year 1997–98, a fraction over 17 million people were basic rate taxpayers. The Government claim that they have created 1 million extra jobs, so one might assume that there should now be 18 million basic rate taxpayers. However, the projection

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for 1999–2000 in the document is that there will be 20.8 million taxpayers. Not only are the Government receiving more tax receipts, but they have now put more taxpayers into the tax net.
That is equally true for higher rate taxpayers. I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will be familiar with the contents of table 3.4 of the Inland Revenue document that points out that we already have 635,000 people paying the higher rate on incomes of only —30,000. Many middle managers pay higher rate tax already.
With the public finances in better order, it is time for the Chancellor to consider how he can take people out of paying tax altogether and to review the total number who are paying higher taxes. Mr. Andy Goracy, the general manager of the Somerfield at Downend near Bristol, was interviewed in the Financial Times and he makes it clear that he, for one, wants that to happen He says that
"it is time to move the threshold up to about —33,000."
Mr. Goracy is not a highly paid man; he is one of Britain's middle managers who work in the engine room of our economy. It is time that we encouraged such people by reviewing the higher rates of tax.
The landfill tax has been briefly mentioned and the House was reminded that it has gone up without any corresponding decrease in national insurance. This issue shows how small increases in little taxes, such as the landfill tax, can suddenly become nice little earners for the Chancellor. The Chancellor enjoys spending other people's money. After all the earlier ballyhoo about extra money going into health and education, it is still clear that he had not got things right, because he had to announce a bit more yesterday.
However, if the Chancellor were engaged in a value-for-money exercise, my constituents in Fylde would seriously question whether he has got it right. We had joy celebrating the decision to build a new cardiothoracic unit at the Blackpool Victoria hospital, but a recent parliamentary answer said that that would happen subject to the availability of capital. It is clear that the job is still tight for money. Those who send their children to Lytham St. Anne's High school have heard about all the money for education, but they will wonder why a school for 1,800 pupils can provide accommodation for only 350 of them for school dinners every day, because no capital is available to expand the school's facilities. My constituents in the ward of Ingot, a part of Preston that is beset by vandalism, will still wonder where the extra police officers are in spite of all the talk about extra money being spent on law and order.
I mentioned a moment ago what the Chancellor might have done with some of his surplus. He said in his Budget statement that he was committed to energy saving and to meeting the Kyoto targets. Why did he not use some of the money to promote further work to assist the development of the new generation of nuclear power plants? A 1,000 MW power station would achieve as much as the climate change levy in the reduction of CO2 emissions. What could be a better way of investing for the future of our environment than helping in that way?
I have already referred to tax and it is evident that, with the plethora of credits, our tax system is becoming ever more complex. I congratulate the Paymaster General on the way in which she has supported the tax law rewrite exercise, but the Budget missed a great opportunity to go
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further and form a partnership to develop models of analysis of how we could reduce the complexity of the tax system.
I awoke at an early hour this morning to hear a Mr. John Williams of Progressive Engineering, a midland company, say on Radio 5 Live that he already spends a quarter of his time as a Government agent in dealing with issues such as the working families tax credit. If such people in small engineering companies are spending so much time on the complexities of the tax system, does it not cry out, if entrepreneurship is to be truly set free, for us to get a grip on simplifying the tax system?
I say that against a background of a Chancellor who loves to fiddle and micromanage the economy. That is why I asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he could say how much extra investment had arisen from the tax credits or small-scale tax measures. He answered that question and the Paymaster General directed me to page 46 of the Red Book. It mentions a total amount of investment, but does not make a specific analysis of those measures. Before the Chancellor introduces any more whizz-bang ideas, he should undertake and publish a cost benefit analysis to establish whether those ideas are capable of delivering.
The hon. Member for South—East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) mentioned farming. That industry has gone through an unprecedented period of difficulty. Foot and mouth caps it all. I should have liked the Budget to include a measure to help with the costs of slaughter and the difficulties faced by abattoirs. Many farmers have—thankfully—been allowed to take some of their animals for slaughter so as to enter the marketplace, but they are deeply worried that the normal market mechanisms are working against them and that the costs of slaughter are likely to rise in these unprecedented times.
If Ministers are involved in discussions with farmers and their representatives and there is any way to assist the industry temporarily, that would be money well spent. Without a well-financed farming industry, farmers' ability to be the stewards of our countryside—to look after our landscape and environment—is much diminished.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My right hon. Friend raises an important point which, for a good reason, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was unable to deal with fully today in either of his two appearances before the House. Does my right hon. Friend accept that farmers in general and livestock farmers in particular are having their cash flow dramatically interrupted? Bearing in mind that financially they are on their knees, should not the Government try to intervene with the financial institutions on their behalf? They should at least deliver guidance or an exhortation that the situation should be properly taken into account, otherwise, many people will be lost from the land.
Mr. Jack: My hon. Friend is knowledgeable on such matters and makes an extremely good point. I can give him a crumb of comfort. Yesterday, I received a letter from Mr. Andrew McThomas of Barclays bank advising me that it had given a three-month period of special help to farmers who have borrowed to keep their businesses going. That illustrates my hon. Friend's point.
The Chancellor has led a somewhat charmed life. He has a great deal of money because he has soaked not just the rich but all taxpayers. My right hon. Friend the

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Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) gave an idea of how a future Conservative Government would turn the clock back by helping pensioners, savers and hard-pressed taxpayers. Our policies stand in excellent contrast to those of this Chancellor who is a pure exemplification of tax and spend.
4.13 pm
Mr. Tony Worthington: The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) said that the Chancellor has led a charmed life. I am reminded of Gary Player, the great golfer, who said, "It's funny. The harder I practise, the luckier I get."
The Chancellor has demonstrated sheer competence, which has had a rich reward. I approve of the Budget enormously. In our job, we sometimes have to think about the things that people no longer say to us, one of which is, "It's not worth working." That used to be said over and again when there was no minimum wage, working families tax credit, children's tax credit and so on. The Government's attack on child poverty is superb. It must be encouraged. If we impoverish our children, we later impoverish our society. Thank goodness we are through that phase. The fact that the former chief inspector of schools left his post has meant that we are no longer hearing the nonsense that poverty does not affect educational achievement, because it does, and we are attacking it.
It is a fine Budget. However, three matters concern me, two of which I should like the Government to reconsider. I am worried about the regulation of insurance companies. There are public expenditure implications if something goes wrong with them. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) knows what I am going to say because he heard me discuss this matter in an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall.
The conduct of the insurance industry concerns me in one respect in particular. Chester Street Insurance Holdings, which recently collapsed, carried the bulk of asbestos claims that are covered by employer's liability. The company was restructured, and many people would know it better as lion Trades. It had a concentration of claims with the shipbuilding industry and heavy engineering. The profitable part of the business was sold off in February 2000 to an Australian concern called QBE. The unprofitable part, which involved asbestos claims, was kept by Chester Street. That deal was approved by the Financial Services Authority, which monitors financial services.
By April, Ernst and Young, the accountancy firm, said that it did not know how long Chester Street could keep going with the liabilities that it carried. By January, the company had collapsed. However, the chief executive had not collapsed; he had awarded himself —450,000 extra for what he had achieved that year. He left the company with his performance-related pay and the congratulations of his chairman on his outstanding achievement, but now thousands of asbestos sufferers cannot be compensated through the courts for what has happened to them.
Chester Street has thrown away people's rights to resort to the law. I am worried about the way in which its collapse has been monitored.
Mr. Miller: A constituent of mine has suffered from that outrageous situation. The complaint that he suffers
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from got worse and worse and he had to take early retirement. The day that he reached terms with his employer, the cheque from that wretched insurance company was withdrawn. That cannot be allowed to continue.
Mr. Worthington: I am glad to have my hon. Friend's support. I am so incensed because my constituency has the highest concentration in the country of people who suffer from asbestos-related diseases. More and more hon. Members will receive representations by people who think that the situation is outrageous.
The Insurance Times says:
"What is happening to insurance regulation? Chester Street Holdings switched all its assets to Iron Trades and then flogged off Iron Trades to raise cash to pay claims."
Indeed, it sold it off for —77 million less than its book valuation. The result, which the regulator should have seen coming, was that the paying ability of the residual lump was not enough to cover its liabilities with regard to long-term claims. Chester Street has gone belly up and the supposed regulator—the FSA—washes its hands of the problem while thousands of seriously ill claimants lose out.
There was much fuss when Equitable Life turned a bit dodgy, but that was because prosperous people had policies with it, including some MPs. However, when asbestos sufferers lose out, the reaction is fairly quiet.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Gentleman spoke eloquently the other day in a Chamber of this House. I was unable to participate in the debate because I was in the Chair. However, I am pleased to be able to tell him that he has proper cross-party support for the campaign that he is leading. In Macclesfield, Mr. McCreery, who is a resident of Bollington, is dying of asbestos poisoning and needs the money to ensure that he has some quality of life in his remaining days. The hon. Gentleman has my full support. What has happened is an abuse by the insurance industry.
Mr. Worthington: I am deeply grateful for that. I am sure that we can make a change. It would be utterly wrong if anyone lost a penny out of the activities of Chester Street. Our aim has to be 100 per cent. restitution of the claimants' civil rights. I hope that the Government will come forward soon with proposals to do that. I believe that the insurance industry should put it right. It should have a collective scheme to prevent its name being blackened in this way. The Government were very active on pensions mis-selling, and all credit to them for that. We cannot allow an insurance company to restructure itself in order to fail. We have to act, and the industry has to act.
Another issue that I want to raise is VAT. My compassion goes out to the poor souls on the Front Bench who have to understand VAT. Many good things were said in the Budget about VAT, such as relaxing VAT rules on refurbishment of derelict property. VAT on repairs to listed buildings has been cut from 17.5 to 5 per cent. There has been a VAT cut for small businesses, for museums, and so on. I welcome all that, and the consideration of VAT relaxations for sports clubs. However, those proposals make even more anomalous the imposition of VAT on hospices.

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There are 185 hospices in this country. I have one in my constituency. It is a magnificent institution that is tremendously respected by local people. It is run by the Sisters of Charity, under the dedicated and committed leadership of Sister Rita Dawson. It is the largest hospice in the west of Scotland. It has 60 in-patient places and 60 day care places, and it provides a great deal of home care. It costs about —2.5 million a year to run. It receives about half of that from the Greater Glasgow health board, so it has to raise —1.2 million or —1.3 million a year to tick over to provide a service that would cost millions more to provide ourselves.
I am told that the cost of an NHS acute care bed in that area is about —500 a day, yet the hospice receives only —64 a day. Every time nurses' salaries go up, as they should, more fundraising has to be done. The hospice's costs are mainly staff costs. Hospices are treated in an absurdly hostile way in VAT terms. My local hospice successfully runs a tea room and restaurant for patients, carers, the bereaved and the wider community. It is in no sense a commercial restaurant, but it has to pay VAT. The hospice built a laundry and staff facilities. If it had had the money, it would have built them when the hospice was originally built, but it had to build them separately so it was clobbered for —34,000 of VAT. It built an education centre that is totally non-profit making, for which it was clobbered for —132,000 of VAT. It built a spa pool for the patients, and it was clobbered for —50 000 of VAT.
The cost to the NHS of providing such a service would be huge. The fundraising that has to be done is enormous, and we are not treating our 185 hospices correctly. I appeal to my colleagues on the Front Bench to reconsider the issue. They are considering sports centres and sports clubs and they have done good things in many other areas of VAT. There is no case for putting VAT on hospice activities. I am told by the hospice people that the percentage of funds given by the state to support hospices is falling year by year, so I ask for that to be attended to.
The Myners report came out yesterday. I thoroughly approve of it. It looked at institutional investment in this country. It is immensely important. My interest in this goes back to when I was with Strathclyde regional council. I was chair of the finance committee. On day two of the job, I was told that I was also chair of the pension fund. My knowledge of pension funds was not voluminous. It was the largest local authority pension fund in the United Kingdom. It was responsible for the pensions of all the regional council and the 19 district council employees in Strathclyde. I see that my impact was not too damaging, because the assets of the pension fund are now —6.7 billion—a lot of money.
The Myners report accurately describes trustees. It says that they do not know what they are doing. There is no training for them. There is no guidance on what their role is, and that needs to be looked at. I remember when I started the job of chairman that I asked naive questions. I asked what good the fund did for Strathclyde. The response was silence. That was not the point of the fund. I wanted to know what good all that investment did for the Strathclyde area. It was there simply to provide a guaranteed income for the pensioners. I got a strange look.
The money was being gathered together by the workers of Strathclyde, put in a big bag and shipped down to London. There was a beauty contest between Schroders—Barings in those days—Robert Fleming and so on. We asked the fund managers how they intended to conduct
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the fund, and they gave their story. I asked the local pension fund controllers what benefits there would be to our investing through them, as they knew the local scene. They said that there would be none at all, because they would invest in just the same way, in equities and so on.
The Myners document is useful because it makes us think about how our pension funds invest. I was astonished to see that in the 1960s more than half of British industry was owned by individual shareholdings. That is now down to about 15 per cent. The great bulk of British industry is in a sense owned by pension funds, insurance companies and so on. If one wants to put it that way, we nationalised the industries. People own companies, but they do not know that they own them.
A key sentence in the Myners report is:
"Savers' money is too often being invested in ways that do not maximise their interests."
It is likely to follow that capital is being inefficiently allocated in the economy. I think that that is so. Pension funds are not creating as much wealth as they could. We have an enormous asset in our pension funds. That is one of the reasons why we will not face the same difficulties as other countries in Europe as people age. They have brought about immense improvement.
The Myners report illustrates that there is too much of the herd instinct in the investment industry. The key thing for people is that they do not slip behind the line in terms of investment performance. It used to be called the Wood Mackenzie line. All the institutions jump the same way at the same time so as to be average. They all go into dotcoms, and they all come out. It is a case of "Do not panic, but panic first". The report illustrates that there has not been much investment in private equity by pension and insurance companies. By private equity, it means unlisted companies that are not on the stock exchange. It says that it is striking that the growth in venture capital has been led by United States companies investing in this country in a given way.
I am aware that others want to speak, so I shall conclude my remarks by saying that although some of the Myners report was implemented immediately, I hope that the House will find time to debate it, because it deals with big money and the future of our country's investment policy. I have not had time to study the report in full, but I hope that many others—including the Select Committee on the Treasury—will do so and that extensive consideration will be given to ways in which we can ensure that money in this country is used more effectively. The subject should not be left merely as a reference in a Budget statement.
4.30 pm
Mr. John Townend: Yesterday's Budget was clearly a Budget for an election, so it is reasonable to ask how the Chancellor has arrived at the current position since taking office.
It is fair to say—one tries to be fair—that the Chancellor inherited a golden legacy from the previous Government: a growing economy, falling interest rates, falling unemployment and a falling deficit. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. HeathcoatAmory) said, the last Red Book of the Conservative Government, produced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), showed that by 2001–02 the deficit on the public sector borrowing

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requirement would be eliminated and we would have a —2 billion surplus. When we ask how the Chancellor has managed to pay off so much debt and applaud his wonderful and clever performance, we should remember how lucky he was in receiving no less than —22.5 billion from the auction for the third generation of mobile phones. That had nothing to do with the Government—it was pure luck for them. The sum was so high because telecommunications companies throughout the world suffered a fit of madness, which they now regret.
From the start, the Labour Administration's cynical use of stealth taxes while pretending to keep taxes down has led to a large increase in the overall burden of taxation, which has risen from 35.2 per cent. of gross domestic product at the last election to 37.5 per cent. That does not take account of the fiddling of the figures whereby family income support was changed from expenditure into a tax credit and treated as though it were a reduction in taxation. If that were taken into account, the taxation burden would rise by a further 0.5 per cent. to 38 per cent. of GDP.
As a result of all that, this country has less and less the low-tax environment of the United States—a country that the Chancellor is supposed to admire—and more the tax environment seen in Europe, which is overtaxed and uncompetitive. It is fair to ask whether that is part of convergence policy, whereby we enable ourselves to join the euro by getting our taxes up to European levels.
The section of the community that bears the burden of that taxation is middle England. Pensioners who have saved and contributed to occupational pension schemes have had —20 billion of extra tax taken from them since the Labour Government came to power. It is inevitable that their future pensions and future contributions will be affected by that. At a time when we have a waiting list to get on a waiting list for hospital treatment and when young people are often given preference, the Government have been mean-minded enough to remove tax relief from pensioners' private health insurance. There is nothing in the Budget for the pensioners of middle England.
No action has been taken in respect of the ridiculous regulation that forces pensioners, on reaching the age of 75, to invest the money in their private pension in an annuity, so that if they drop dead six months later, none of the money goes to their children; it goes to the insurance company instead. I was hoping that the Chancellor would have seen the problem and in this year's Budget either abolished that rule or raised the age threshold to, say, 80.
Motorists have faced massive increases in petrol tax—we have the highest in Europe. Almost 80 per cent. of the pump price is made up of taxes. Such high fuel tax rates hit small businesses and rural areas, such as my constituency, especially hard. Since the election, increases in duty and VAT on those increases amount to no less than 15p per litre, so the 2p that the Chancellor has given back in the Budget is pretty mean compared with what he has taken away.
Another attack on middle England takes the form of the swingeing tax increases on company cars. Whenever the Chancellor increases expenditure or makes a concession to the taxpayer, he announces it and reannounces it and often double-counts, but in this year's Budget statement he did not announce that the next 12 months hold a further
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swingeing increase in the taxation of company car drivers. That measure was announced last year, but the Chancellor did not announce it again yesterday.
Married couples have borne the brunt of tax increases. Last year, the Chancellor abolished the married couple's allowance. He said that it would be replaced by the children's tax credit, but there was a year-long gap in which even people with children were worse off and paid more tax. Furthermore, the tax credit is means-tested, so there is nothing for couples whose families have grown up, couples with no children, or couples with children if one of them earns about —35,000 a year. Middle England has been hit again.
The home owner has lost his mortgage tax relief and has had higher stamp duty imposed on him. That punishes middle managers—the people who have ambition and on whom we depend for economic expansion. They are hit whenever they change job and move to a different area.
By not uprating the starting thresholds for higher taxes, the Chancellor has put 30 per cent. more people into the higher tax bracket. That does not mean that there are 30 per cent. more wealthy people in this country; it is merely the result of fiscal drag. He has not raised the starting threshold for higher rates even in line with inflation, and certainly not in line with the increase in earnings. Again, the section of the community that suffers is middle England.
It is clear that the Government are no longer new Labour, but old Labour in disguise. They are a high-tax Government. That is the most outrageous breach of promises and commitments that they made at the last election. In August 1996, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said:
"Our proposals do not involve raising taxes";
in September 1996, he said:
"We want people to pay lower taxes";
and in January 1997 he said:
"The programme of the Labour party does not imply any tax increases".
That was systematically dishonest and misleading, for what did the right hon Gentleman say after he became Prime Minister? He said that he had not meant all of that, but had been referring only to the standard rate of income tax.
Two years of Conservative restraint on spending and then large Labour tax increases meant that a large surplus was inevitable. That will rapidly disappear and turn into a deficit as a result of the Chancellor's spending spree, which is set to last for the foreseeable future. The Labour party is reverting to type and it will end its first term as a tax-and-spend Government.
Mr. Miller: We are going to win again.
Mr. Townend: It is arrogant to judge in advance what the public will do. We shall wait and see. If Labour wins, it will do so having built up troubles for itself. The International Monetary Fund—not the Tory party—thinks that the Labour Government's plans are so worrying that it has published a warning that they could eventually push interest rates higher and keep sterling overvalued.
I should like to turn now to public spending and value for money. The Government do not seem to realise that it is not just the amount of spending that matters, but what

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the spending produces. More does not always mean better. Judged on that criterion, the Government have been a failure in many areas. I want to point out where money is being wasted or is not delivering the goods. In some cases, additional savings that could be made should be added to the list that has already been spelled out by Conservative Front Benchers. I have to say, however, that that list is a little modest.
Take education. At the last election, we heard "education, education, education." We were told that class sizes would be reduced. However, those were just words. Overall, class sizes have increased. I accept that the size of primary school classes has been reduced, but that has been more than offset by the growth in the size of secondary school classes. Examination results may, on the face of it, be better. However, if one talks to any university professor, he will say that grades are easier to achieve and standards are lower. Once again, there is spin and no delivery on education.
Mr. Worthington: The hon. Gentleman said that if one talks to any university professor, he will say that. Can he name some?
Mr. Townend: I am not going to name individuals, but I shall give an example. Only last week, on "Question Time" on television, a university professor said exactly that. To be honest, he blamed the previous Government as well as this one, and said that grants were increased for those universities that gave out more first-class degrees. The pressure in his university—against which he had fought, but failed—was thus to increase the number of first-class degrees so as to get more grants.
Mr. Shaw: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Townend: No, other Members want to speak, and I want to move on to the health service, which is important.
At the last election, the Prime Minister promised that the NHS would improve to the highest standard in the European Union. We are not ever near the average standard. Where waiting lists have gone down, as they have in some cases, they have been replaced by waiting lists to get on waiting lists, which are getting longer and longer. Regrettably, our health service is one of the worst in the EU, but that is not because we spend less. We spend more from the public purse on our health service than practically any other country in Europe. The difference is that, in this country, Governments have discouraged expenditure by the private sector, so far less private sector money goes into our health service than into those of continental countries such as France.
After four years, people know that the Government have not delivered on health. All of us must now look for radical change. One of the problems of the NHS is that it is the largest organisation in Europe; it is the largest employer in Europe. We shall probably have to accept that we will never have as efficient a health service as we need without radical change. In my view, it is unwieldy and too big to manage. We need a radical rethink.
On crime, higher spending does not seem to have produced a safer society. Crime was coming down when we left office and it continued to come down. Now, regrettably, there is a significant increase in violent crime.
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We were told that the Government would spend more money and that there would be more policemen. In the House, members of the Government said that there were more policemen. Today, I checked with the Library and found that, at the last election, there were 125,051 police in this country; the last time figures were taken, there were 122,230, which is 2,821 fewer police.
The police are spending too much time and money on being politically correct. Since the Macpherson report, many chief constables have become obsessed with race. Take the case of Constable Pentry, a policeman with 13 years' exemplary service, who, in a moment of anger, lost his temper and was then accused of calling another officer a wog—not to his face, but to another policeman in a dispute about shifts. He was suspended and dismissed. He appealed, but the dismissal was approved by the chief constable. There was a public outcry, which was led by many members of the ethnic communities. To the Home Secretary's credit, after a year there was another inquiry and Constable Pentry was reinstated.
If I treated my staff like that—if one of them called somebody a black bastard, which is equally offensive, and I sacked him on the spot—I would be taken to an industrial tribunal. Under the law, I would have to give my employee an oral warning; if he repeated the offence, I would have to give him a written warning and, to be safe, I would have to give him a second written warning too; otherwise, I would be taken to an industrial tribunal, which would probably cost me about —10,000.
One area to which the next Conservative Government must attend—I do not think that this Government will, but they ought to—is the way in which ours is becoming a rights and compensation society. The emphasis on rights, particularly the incorporation of the European convention on human rights in British law, is encouraging a vast increase in compensation mentality and is costing the country billions of pounds. That is happening not only in the private sector, but in the public sector too. Every day one picks up the paper and sees that somebody is asking for compensation. A policeman who was at Hillsborough got—
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: —330,000.
Mr. Townend: Absolutely. Because of psychological problems, he claimed and got —330,000. How many policemen on the beat would that have paid for? People who join the police, the other emergency services or our armed forces do so on the understanding that part of their job is to deal with emergencies and tragedies. They will see people killed and badly injured; if they are not prepared for that, they should not go into those services.
Mr. Winterton: It is important to balance what my hon. Friend said. Although I entirely endorse the views that he expressed about the behaviour of that policeman, an overwhelming majority in the police service deplores the action of that individual, who has deprived the police service and taxpayers of a huge sum that could have been used to much better effect.
Mr. Townend: My hon. Friend makes a good point.
I was brought up in the war. If the present situation had prevailed in 1945 or 1946, practically everyone who had seen service on the front line could have claimed masses

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of compensation. My hon. Friend says that the case that I described is an exception, but it is not. There was another case of a policewoman, Angela Vento, who suffered taunts and won —258,000, yet a young lady who suffered a terrible attack and head injuries was awarded —22,000. Another policewoman, Sarah Locker, won —1 million from Scotland Yard for racial and sexual harassment.
I have no qualms about people responsible for such behaviour being disciplined, but those large sums paid in compensation must come out of the public purse. The same applies in the health service. A fund should be set up for people who suffer from inefficiency and poor care, but such cases should be taken out of the compensation business. Lawyers are making enormous sums of money. The expense to the public purse arises not just from the compensation, but from the cost of such cases being brought.
Mr. Forth: Before my hon. Friend leaves the point, does he agree that where people are genuine victims of crime, in particular, and especially where they suffer physical injury, there is a case for a properly structured compensation scheme? The cases that my hon. Friend mentioned are, in many people's view, frivolous and unnecessary. The longer we allow the situation to continue, the worse it will become.
Mr. Townend: I agree with my right hon. Friend in general. He takes me on to my next point. We are now seeing a growth in claims for compensation from convicted criminals who are in jail. Surely that is nonsense. An IRA bomber—a murderer—was involved in an escape attempt in which a warder was shot. The terrorists who were trying to escape claimed that in the scuffle they were assaulted with rather more force than was necessary. I have no objection to an inquiry being set up to look into the case, and the officers being disciplined if the claim was proved to be correct, but I do not believe that convicted murderers and terrorists who shot an officer while trying to escape have any right to compensation at all.
Compensation claims were made in the forces, too. Ladies who joined the forces signed a contract to the effect that if they became pregnant, they would leave the forces. Using the European convention on human rights, women who had left the forces five or 10 years earlier claimed. The total compensation paid out was between —80 million and —100 million. That money had to come out of the defence budget, or the taxpayers had to find more money.
I come to social security. The Government promised at the last election that they would save billions of pounds by reforming the welfare system and cutting out waste and corruption, and that that money would be spent on the priorities—education and the health service. Once the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) was given the boot, Labour gave up any thought of radical reform, however. Far from expenditure on the welfare budget being reduced, it has gone up, from —99.5 billion to —108.3 billion. Consequently, the worthy projects that were to have been financed by savings have had to be paid for by massive increases in taxation.
Fraud and waste in the welfare system are growing to a frightening extent. There are 20 million more national insurance numbers in issue than there are people in the
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country. That is an indication of the extent of fraud. Many people have two insurance numbers—one where they work and one where they claim benefit, because they say that they are not working. The next Conservative Government must grasp that nettle if we are to make meaningful tax reductions.
What are asylum seekers costing us? Their numbers are soaring. I object strongly to Labour Members who say that anyone who raises the issue is racist or xenophobic. Let us be honest: the majority of asylum seekers entering the country illegally are white. This is not a racial issue. The question is whether a country has a right to stop itself being swamped by people who have no right to come.
We know that, this year, 100,000 asylum seekers came here. Those are the ones that we caught, but there are enormous numbers coming in who do not get caught—perhaps another 50,000. If no action is taken, over 10 years that could amount to 2 million people, because those who are allowed to stay or who disappear will eventually bring their families.
What is the cost in housing and education? What are the legal costs? Every time we try to send asylum seekers back, they go to court, appeal and re-appeal. It is no wonder the rest of Europe looks upon the United Kingdom as a soft touch. The costs are enormous. Most want to stay in the south-east, and the number that will have to be accommodated means that much of the green belt will have to be built over during the next 10 years, with environmental consequences.
We could save up to —1 billion a year if we had a system whereby asylum seekers were seen within seven days and, if they wanted to appeal, had to do so within seven days, and those with no right to be here were sent back. The French are good at doing that. They send them across the channel, and when we say we want to send them back, they refuse to have them.
Last year, although the Government decided that 35,000 asylum seekers had no right to be here, they sent back only about 3,500. The courts are now in revolt because the judges say that they will be made to look stupid if they decide that people should be sent back and nothing is done.
Money could also be saved on overseas aid, on which we spend up to —3 billion a year. Between 25 and 30 per cent. of that is not spent by Britain but goes to the EU, which is not noted for its efficiency in spending money, and there are many instances of corruption. One would expect such money to be spent in sub-Saharan Africa and other places where people are starving, but the list of the main recipients includes Morocco, Tunisia, Poland, Egypt and Algeria. I find it strange that so much goes to north Africa. That shows the influence of the French on the Commission. These are francophile countries and the French get most of the trade.
Mr. Bercow: I for one am particularly sorry that my hon. Friend, who always speaks his mind and has powerful conviction, is not seeking re-election to the House. But is he aware that the European Court of Auditors recently denounced the extravagant and inefficient EU aid programme, and that its report was published to coincide with the Nice summit, but

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the Government, in their feeble, institutionalised wimpishness, did nothing to try to tackle this endemic problem?
Mr. Townend: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think that he would agree that, if we repatriated and kept all our overseas aid budget and dealt with it ourselves, rather than sending it to Europe, we could get better value, do more good and save the taxpayers' money at the same time.
With regard to whether our money is being well spent, no one today has mentioned the fact that —1 billion provided by the public was spent by the Government on the dome, which, far from being a great advert for the millennium, became an embarrassment.
There has also been an enormous increase in Government expenditure due to the constitutional reforms which resulted in the setting up of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Irish Assemblies, and due also to an increasing number of civil servants, especially political advisers. The majority of that expenditure has been borne by the English, but they have received I no benefit from it. My constituents still have about 25 per cent. less per capita to spend on health, education and local government than Scotland enjoys. That is not fair and it is due to the out-of-date Barnett formula.
From the point of view of equity, all parts of the United Kingdom should be treated the same, and Scotland and Wales should be treated the same as Ireland. It is argued that Scotland is so much poorer, but most of Scotland has a higher GDP than the north of England. If the Barnett formula were phased out, —1 billion a year could be saved.
With regard to alcohol duties, I declare an interest. I was pleased that the Chancellor froze alcohol duties, for the simple reason that, because of the enormous amount of smuggling, there is not a level playing field. But had it not been an election year, it is highly unlikely that he would have done that. However, one anomaly that the Chancellor should have dealt with was the duty on sparkling wine. Sparkling wine is no stronger than ordinary wine, and the extra duty of 58p a bottle is a relic from the past when people used to think of champagne and rich people. Most sparkling wine is now drunk by ordinary people and is not champagne at all.
I had intended to speak on small businesses, but I want to allow others to speak.
Mr. Forth: Before my hon. Friend even thinks about finishing, will he answer a brief question? Does he agree that in his brief resume of potential savings—not least on the sub-state of Scotland—he may already have identified savings well in excess of the modest ones to which my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor referred? Has he given his list to my right hon. Friend? If so, will he encourage him to build on it and to produce even greater savings for the people of this country, to be delivered in a few weeks' time?
Mr. Townend: Earlier, I said that I hoped that Conservative Front Benchers would take notice of some of the things that I had said. I have known the shadow Chancellor for some time, so I can assure my right hon. Friend that he became well aware of the views that I have expressed when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Indeed, he was keen for my support as chairman of the
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Conservative Back-Bench finance committee in trying to persuade other high-spending Ministers to curtail their avarice.
I have spoken in every Budget debate except one since I have been in the House, and this will be my last such speech. I think also that I have a reasonable grasp of finances, since I trained as a chartered accountant. In the past couple of years, however, I have had great difficulty in finding the information that I want from the Budget documents. When we used to have the Red Book and a White Paper on public expenditure, it seemed very easy. Today, I had to get the Library's help to obtain some information that I could not find. I told the chap there, "I think it's a good job I'm retiring. I must be too old, as I can't seem to get a grip of this." He replied, "I have to tell you, sir, that neither can we or most other Members. It takes us far more time to deal with queries than ever before." I appeal to Treasury Ministers to try to bring back a little more simplicity and order into the Budget documents, so that they can be understood not only by chartered accountants, but by ordinary Members.
This is not a Budget for all the people. It is a means-test Budget. There is very little for middle England; the main thing for it is an increase in the 10p band, but taking inflation into account, that is worth only about —40 a year. There is also very little for savers. Certainly, there are nothing like the measures that would have been introduced if the Conservative proposals to exempt tax on savings had been accepted. There is nothing to compensate occupational pensioners for the —20 billion rape of their pension funds. As the Government had such a massive surplus, they could have done something for the pensioners. There is also little for the countryside. The tuppence off petrol sales pales into insignificance when compared with the rise of 15p a litre since the election.
This is a pre-election Budget. The Chancellor has been a very clever politician. He built up his war chest by taxing the hell out of the country and keeping expenditure down for the first three years. He has now started a spending spree, but has given a pittance back to the taxpayer, who has paid more than he should have done. The taxpayer now deserves a significant rebate, but he has not got it.
I believe that the country needs a deregulated and competitive enterprise economy, with low taxes. The most efficient economy in the world is that of the USA, and we should move our tax burden towards USA levels. We should move down towards 30 per cent. of GDP, rather than up to 40 per cent., as we are currently doing. I believe that my party has been too reluctant in recent years to propagate the benefits of lower taxation for the people of this country and I hope that it will take on board some of my suggestions. I would like the Conservative party to have a 10-year programme to reduce the tax burden to 30 per cent. of GDP. That might sound like a large reduction, but such a level would be only 3 per cent. less than when we took over in 1979.
As often happens when a Budget is cheered to the rafters by the Chancellor's supporters, things will turn out differently as time goes on. There are shadows on the horizon. We do not know the extent to which we will be affected by the American downturn or how long it will last. The Chancellor did not mention one of our biggest problems: the growing deficit on our balance of trade. The economy has been growing as a result of the enterprise

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economy started by Mrs. Thatcher, but the growing burden of regulations and taxes on small and medium-sized businesses will progressively take effect.
The Budget is designed for an election; to please the country now and pay later. It is the Budget of a Chancellor who believes that he can spend people's money better than they can: the Budget of a tax-and-spend Government.
5.4 pm
Mr. Phil Hope: The hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) said that the Budget was a pre-election measure, but he made a pre-election speech, even though he is not standing for re-election. If whistling in the dark was ever a strategy for victory, we have just heard a mournful tune, and had a brief tour d'horizon of the Tory prejudices and failures of the past 20 years.
I welcome the Budget as a boost for families and pensioners in Corby and east Northamptonshire, and for schools, health services and businesses in my constituency. Other speakers have drawn attention to the Budget's help for families and pensioners. In Corby and east Northamptonshire, more than 12,000 families will be significantly better off, and more than 15,000 pensioners will receive a real increase in their incomes.
Motorists, especially those in rural east Northamptonshire, and the distribution industry, which employs so many people in Corby, will welcome the cut in taxes on cleaner petrol and diesel, and the cash help from the reduction in vehicle excise duty for lorries, businesses and cars with engines of up 1500 cc.
I know from my meetings with representatives of local businesses that there will be a genuine welcome for the measures to reduce the impact of VAT on small businesses and for the tax credit for research and development by larger companies.
The measures that the Chancellor set out will build on the record amount of investment in local schools and hospitals. The —3 million Corby education action zone and the —3 million sure start initiative are helping to give children in my constituency a better start in life. The extra cash for schools that the Chancellor announced yesterday will give teachers, head teachers and governors additional resources to buy new equipment such as computers and to invest in new facilities for learning, which will help to raise education standards in the town, thereby reflecting and fulfilling our policy of education, education and, yes, education.
What a contrast yesterday's Budget made with those that we endured for more than 18 years under the previous Government. There were more than 18 Budgets because various rescue Budgets had to be announced in between the annual Budgets. What effect would Tory cuts of —16 billion have on rural areas? How many families and pensioners in rural areas would lose out? What about schools? Three thousand rural schools closed under the Conservative regime; such schools would be under threat again.
Department of Trade and Industry investment in post offices would be threatened, as would rate relief for village shops. The —900,000 subsidy for rural transport that will go to Northamptonshire would also be vulnerable. Let us consider rural policing. The ring-fenced
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sum of —30 million for Northamptonshire would be under threat, as would support for farmers. Agrimonetary compensation and the pig outgoers and ongoers schemes would be threatened by a Tory Budget.
Earlier, I drew attention to the rural White Paper, which provides a comprehensive strategy for a living, working and sustainable countryside. I do not underestimate the problems. Foot and mouth disease is a genuine crisis, and we must face up to it. However, we have done much to support rural areas. We have to do a great deal more, but there would be a lot to lose from a Tory Budget.
I want to concentrate on the importance of building a long-term, sustainable future for the constituency through a new approach to personal and community assets. Let me begin with physical regeneration. The Budget contains several new measures, which Opposition Members have welcomed, that are targeted on the physical and economic regeneration of run-down areas, especially support for urban regeneration companies. My hon. Friend the Minister knows that Corby launched the first urban regeneration company after the publication of the urban White Paper in December. I was delighted that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister was able to visit Corby in February to launch the new partnership for regeneration between local businesses, local authorities, the East Midlands development agency, English Partnerships and local community and voluntary groups.
The Corby regeneration company that will be established over the coming weeks will attract major investment into Corby,and provide an opportunity for the borough to grow and prosper. It will create new jobs in industry and help to create a future of high-skill and high-wage employment in Corby. It will help to bring about the much needed redevelopment of our town centre, improve the leisure and community facilities in the town, restore—we hope—a main-line passenger railway station providing links down to London and up to Sheffield, and build thousands of new homes to attract many more people to what is becoming a successful and dynamic town in the north of Northamptonshire.
I regret that the Conservatives have chosen to oppose the regeneration company. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), a Conservative spokesperson on the environment, has made it clear in our local press that they do not want to see Corby grow, develop and prosper. That is a pity because other right hon. and hon. Members—the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), for example—earlier supported measures for regeneration in run-down areas, and I hope that we shall receive cross-party support for the initiative. Furthermore, the —1 billion package of regeneration measures in the Budget will be of enormous benefit to Corby's regeneration.
I am keen to see further corporation tax relief for firms investing in urban regeneration companies, because that would be a major boost for the company that we have established in Corby. The accelerated tax relief—at 150 per cent.—for the cleaning up of contaminated land will be of particular benefit to Corby, which still has substantial areas of former British Steel land that was quarried for the extraction of iron ore.
We are also keen to make the most of the new community investment tax credit, which is to be introduced alongside the first community development venture fund, itself a partnership between the

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Government, financial institutions and the charitable sector. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for charities and the voluntary sector, I am delighted at the various new measures for tax incentives to encourage giving and investment in the sector, which will help to build active communities.
A few weeks ago, the Chancellor announced about —60 million of extra money for investment in the voluntary sector's infrastructure, about —70 million for the children's fund to develop local community projects in the most disadvantaged areas, —50 million for community chests to be developed and —120 million to support volunteering in public services, particularly among older people. A total of —300 million will, therefore, be available over the next three years to support voluntary sector and volunteering activities. That is very important. Those and other Government initiatives will help in the development of the new Corby community trust that we are trying to establish, which will be an endowment fund to provide financial help in the form of small grants for local community groups and voluntary organisations in the town.
I shall move on from the Budget's help in building the physical asset base of our communities to my second theme, that of building the financial asset base of individuals and families to provide greater security and a platform for personal development for individuals.
Measures to encourage personal savings were at the heart of the Chancellor's Budget speech. Policies encouraging financial wealth and the ownership of assets are not new. They have shaped British politics over the past 20 years. I am sure that the Conservatives would want to remind us of their introduction of the right to buy for council tenants, and the various privatisations that tapped into people's aspirations for independence, freedom and ownership. However, I regret to say that those assets policies were in no way egalitarian, and had scant regard for social justice and social inclusion. The number of households with no financial wealth increased from 5 per cent. in 1979 to 10 per cent. in 1996. As much as 50 per cent. of the population are now asset-poor, with less than —500 in savings.
The Government recognise the power of people's aspirations for asset accumulation but, unlike the Conservatives, we believe that aspirations for individual ownership must go hand in hand with social renewal. A progressive asset-based welfare policy can lead to fundamental increases in opportunity for all, allowing everyone to realise their potential. That is why it is right that we are helping pensioners by spending an extra —4.5 billion a year on pensions and, in particular, helping those who have saved hard all their lives, through the pensions tax credit. If a person has worked hard and saved hard all their life, they should enjoy security in retirement.
The Budget also encourages savings by allowing people to save up to —7,000 a year tax free in individual savings accounts. About 8.5 million people have opened ISAs and, by 2006. According to the figures in the Red Book, that will represent a cost to the Exchequler of —2.85 billion, which is —800 million more than was projected if we had stuck with TESSAs and PEPs.
Those two measures represent the asset development that I want to happen, but I have a particular concern for a group of people who are not part of that system—the young. How can we ensure that young people, as they
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move from childhood to adulthood, have access to the financial help that they need to cope with what I call lumpy items of expenditure, such as setting up on their own, getting a job, gaining qualifications or even setting up a business?
At certain times, young people do not have the financial backing that they need, perhaps because they have just left home. However, middle and higher income families with savings take it for granted that they will help their children out with finding somewhere to live, buying new clothes for a job interview, getting transport or buying furniture.
Why should young people from lower income families not have access to such resources? If young people could develop their own financial asset base as they were growing up, they would be able to draw on it when they needed it most—around the ages of 18 to 25, as they leave home and begin to make their own way in the world.
Asset-based welfare represents a new approach to welfare policy. Such an agenda would build on the popular ISAs by encouraging low-income households to accumulate financial assets for long-term economic security and investment. Such accounts would be based on a contract between the individual and the Government. For example, the state could make matched contributions: for every pound an individual deposited towards the future, they could deposit another.
Targeted incentives to save money would ensure a fairer distribution of assets. The key objective would be to ensure that all people live their lives knowing that they will have a sum of money to invest in their own futures and aspirations. Encouraging saving by low-income groups would be positive for three reasons. First, the process of saving and accumulating financial assets empowers people. It has positive psychological effects and enables them to think and plan for the future while developing financial literacy and confidence.
Secondly, holding financial wealth gives people the benefits of greater economic security. Thirdly, spending that financial wealth opens up a huge range of potential advantages. People could invest in their futures or use their assets to overcome difficult lifetime events that might otherwise trigger their return to poverty.
An assets-based policy could come in several forms. One example would be to build on the development in the United States of individual development accounts, which are a highly targeted version of the policy that concentrate on specific communities. We in the UK could explore that option through credit unions, which could be used as delivery vehicles for highly local policies aimed at developing the financial assets of excluded communities. It might even be possible to pool individual assets in communities so that people could collectively invest in their futures and aspirations.
Another option to which I am especially attracted is a universal child-centred version of the policy. It has been labelled a form of baby bond, although the Institute for Public Policy Research, which has developed the idea in the UK, calls it an opportunity account. Such an account would be universal and inclusive, and one would be opened for every child. The state could deposit an initial capital endowment—perhaps of —250—in every account at birth. All accounts would benefit from favourable tax treatment to encourage saving for all children. If we wanted to reap the benefits earlier, the policy could start

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with 11-year-olds and an account could be opened for everyone. There are lots of possible variations on the theme.
There could also be a targeted element whereby the Government would match contributions from individuals on low incomes, using a pound-for-pound ratio. That policy would support savings for all children, but would also give extra help, through a means-test, to people on low incomes. The funds would not be accessed until age 18 and restrictions might have to apply to their use, perhaps alongside the provision of financial advisers and linking the process to the school curriculum.
Public policy could specify how such funds might be used—for example, on education, home ownership or entrepreneurship. That would ensure that every child had a pot of financial capital to invest in opportunities denied them at present. The policy has been researched and there is enthusiasm for it. One respondent summed up the positive reaction by saying that
"being in a council flat and working every day and coming home and just doing everyday things, you haven't got an asset, you haven't got anything … this is why I think it is a good idea."
Given that time is short, I shall not elaborate on that proposal. I hope that it will be developed from the policies on people's savings opportunities that were at the core of yesterday's Budget statement. The Government have established that sound economic policies and social justice are two sides of the same coin. Similarly, personal aspiration and social justice are part of the agenda of opportunity for all.
The Budget's investment in public services and its support for pensioners and families will be greatly welcomed in my constituency. The measures to promote physical regeneration are of huge importance to Corby, and are very welcome. However, I have argued today that that is just the start, and that we need to build on the measures to encourage saving.
When my hon. Friend the Paymaster General winds up the debate, I hope that she will say that the Government agree with me. I believe that adopting a radical assets policy will give us a real opportunity to change fundamentally the lives of ordinary people in the United Kingdom.
5.21 pm
Sir George Young: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) on what he described as his swan song. It was a typically robust contribution, full of Yorkshire common sense, and one of a long series of such contributions that he has made to Budget debates.
The hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) referred to urban regeneration in the context of his constituency. He will recall that, following British Steel's disappointing decision, the Conservative Administration of the 1980s established an enterprise zone in Corby. That initiative helped the community to come to terms with the loss of jobs and to rebuild itself.
I recall visiting Corby at the time and finding that almost every square foot of the enterprise zone had been taken up. There had been a substantial move towards rebuilding the town, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman
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will not attribute to the Conservative party any hostility to urban regeneration—nor any hostility to the problems that confront towns such as Corby.
The Budget contains measures that I, too, can welcome, although I shall not be as effusive as the hon. Member for Corby. I am afraid that I cannot bring myself to say that the increases in current expenditure on health and education should be called investment, but the extra money is welcome, and it is a further dividend of some nine years of sustainable growth.
In passing, however, I note that although extra money has been given to the NHS, there is no extra money for social services. That replicates a pattern evident over the past few years, yet the fortunes of the two services are increasingly intertwined. Much of the pressure on the NHS arises from problems backing up from social services. Bed blocking is the best example of that, but it is by no means the only one. I hope that discussions may take place between health trusts and social services at a local level, and that some of the extra NHS money may be nudged sideways towards social services. That would be in the interests of joined-up government.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has clearly decided to spend more money on the family, and I welcome the decision to rebalance the tax burden more in favour of those confronted with the costs of bringing up children. I also welcome many of the other initiatives in the Budget—those on research and development and help for small businesses, as well as some of the VAT changes.
The Chancellor enjoys referring to the deficit of —28 billion inherited by this Government. The Red Book calls it structural, but I happen to think that it was cyclical. I have two remarks to make in passing. First, whatever the level of the deficit in 1997, it would have been a lot higher had the previous Conservative Government listened to the Labour party in the previous Parliament. The then Opposition objected to decisions to increase the revenue at the same time as they urged us to spend more, so it ill-behoves this Labour Government to criticise the level of the deficit that they inherited.
Secondly, and more importantly, my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) was correct to say that the previous Government had taken decisions designed to eliminate the deficit within three years. That turned out to be the case—the deficit was eliminated within that period.
I should be letting my constituents down if I did not say that farmers are very disappointed with the Budget—a point that has been made by others. Abolishing vehicle excise duty on tractors is an inadequate response to what is happening in agriculture. An important sector of the economy is on its knees: if the Chancellor can help the betting industry, it is perverse that he cannot help farmers. I hope that the Chancellor has not ruled out some transitional help for agriculture as it recovers from the crisis afflicting it at present.
May I mention in passing the Government's failure after nearly four years to identify the way forward for the London underground? I am no longer a London Member of Parliament, but my commuting constituents use the underground and I feel that it is verging on negligence that there is still no clear strategy and no agreed financial regime to deal with it. During those four years, the costs of catching up have risen. In addition to promoting social and economic reforms on the macro scale, it is legitimate to expect a Chancellor to deal with those bread-and-butter issues in the capital.

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I have four brief points to make. First, I found paragraph 3.71 the most disappointing in the Red Book. It reads:
"Reducing red tape in the public sector is an important factor in creating a productive work environment."
In itself, that is a serious understatement, but what is the solution? We are told:
"The Government has a team analysing, assessing and actively reducing red tape and bureaucracy on frontline public sector staff. Projects include work on reducing the burdens faced by General Practitioners, head-teachers, the police and local authorities."
That is hardly the sound of the cavalry coming over the hill.
There is a real problem. I was talking to a policeman in my constituency a few days ago. He said that before he makes an arrest he now consciously pauses because of the number of forms that he will have to fill in and the length of time he will be off the pitch. He asserted, and I believe him, that that problem has got worse, and it is the same right across the public sector.
It is bad enough being a Member of Parliament and having to open all the unsolicited mail that we get from the Department for Education and Employment, but imagine what it must be like if one is a teacher. I have no confidence that this Administration will tackle the problem of red tape in the public sector. Indeed, much of the Chancellor's reform agenda will make it worse. There is no sense of urgency or timetable in paragraph 3.71. There are no targets in that section of the document.
Secondly, although the Budget speech had at its heart the theme of sustainability, the strategy is unsustainable. Hon. Members may have heard the Chancellor on the "Today" programme this morning saying that public expenditure was planned to grow at 3.7 per cent. According to paragraph 2.37 of the Red Book, trend growth in output is only 2.5 per cent. In the short term, one can do that, but one cannot go on doing it. In the medium term, one has to either change the policy on borrowing—the Chancellor may have locked himself out of that option—increase taxation or switch off the public expenditure tap.
The Chancellor has rather ingeniously glossed over that matter in paragraph 2.61, with a sentente that some wordsmith in the Treasury must have spent some time crafting:
"The average surplus since 1999–2000, which on the Government's provisional judgement is the start of the current cycle, also stays positive, remaining above 1 per cent. over the next five years."
In other words, one defines the cycle as beginning in the years with a huge unexpected surplus; one averages it over the next five years; and one declares it to be above 1 per cent. That leaves unanswered the question of what one does at the end of the five years, once one has used up one's credit.
My third point is on another structural issue that arises out of the Budget, to which the answer is less than clear. The Government want to bring together the tax and benefit systems. Paragraph 5.53 of the Red Book is a good example of what they want to do. It states:
"The Pension Credit and associated changes represent a further step in the Government's programme of bringing the tax and benefit systems closer together"—
a worthy aim. We would all like to simplify the interface between the citizen and the state, preferably by having one dialogue with one Government Department instead of
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one with the Revenue and another with the Department of Social Security. Integration has been a gleam in every Chancellor's eye for the past 30 years, although progress has been faltering since the abolition of child tax allowances and family allowances in 1970 and the introduction of child benefits. Now, even part of that simplification is being unpicked.
I found it surprising that there was no attempt in this Budget to align the tax and national insurance systems, which many see as a pre-condition for such integration.
The Budget speech and the documents that I have looked at are silent on some key questions. The tax system takes as its unit of assessment the individual taxpayer, and has done so for more than 10 years, since separate assessment for husband and wife was introduced. The benefit system takes as its unit of assessment the family—broadly defined; a single mother will find that the resources of the live-in boyfriend are taken into account if she claims benefit. The tax system looks at income over a year, whereas the benefit system takes a series of snapshots to assess need when an application is made. Some benefits are contributory and some are means-tested.
The section in the Red Book on the pension credit is silent on how integration will work. What is the unit of assessment to be? Is it to be the individual pensioner or the pensioner couple? Significantly, the example is of a single pensioner, not of a married couple. However, we know about the anomalies that can arise when the two systems are hastily knocked together, because they have recently arisen in connection with the children's tax credit. As other contributors to the debate have pointed out, if a father and mother both work and earn —32,000, they can claim the full amount of the credit——520. However, if one of them earns more than —40,700, no credit is payable. There is no logic in that; it actually encourages both parents to go out to work. Nowhere in the Red Book or in the debate could I find the answer to this question: what are the ground rules that will apply when we try to merge two completely separate regimes in the case of the pensioner credit?
Many differences between the parties have arisen during the debate—the traditional one being the argument on tax and spend. However, there is a more significant difference: the Chancellor wants to use the tax system for what might loosely be called social engineering. He wants to target particular groups and design a tailor-made regime for them. That entails forms, rules and means-testing—more contact between citizen and state. Against that background, it is surprising that, on page 93, the right hon. Gentleman describes means-testing as "intrusive", since what he is actually planning is a massive extension of means-testing.
That is one approach. The alternative, which I favour, is simply to take people out of the tax system—or, if they stay in it, to reduce the burden of tax and then take supply-side measures to allow the market to work better. I have some doubts as to the efficacy of the Chancellor's micromanagement of the economy, based especially on what happened with the new deal. It is clear that what is planned is a huge new and much resented burden on employers and a massive extension of bureaucracy.
What about the citizen? The jury is still out as to which is the best approach in the eyes of the average citizen. The further the Government go down the road they have

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chosen, the more the public will prefer the simplicity and clarity of the approach proposed by my right hon. and hon. Friends, and the more they will reject the complex, Kafka-esque structure of interrelated benefits that are being introduced by the Labour Administration. The debate will move from the traditional themes—who will spend more and who will tax more—to the question of which party has the best approach towards the interface between the citizen and the state. I infinitely prefer the policies that my hon. Friends propose.
5.33 pm
Mr. Jonathan Shaw: I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) with whom I spent many a day on the armed forces scheme, both in this country and abroad.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to social services. Part of health expenditure goes to social services departments; for example, the winter pressures money. That mechanism is jointly organised locally, in much the way he advocates; there are already many examples of social service expenditure that reflect his suggestions.
Additional money has been allocated for children leaving care, many of whom do so far too early, at the age of 16 or 17. The relevant age is to increase to 21. Such young people make up only 1 per cent. of the general population, yet 30 per cent. of them are in young offender institutions. It is a damning indictment of public policy that such damaged individuals have to leave their home so young. Young people will now be able to leave care at 21. Provided that they stay in education or training, they will be able to stay in care until they are 24. That is a huge departure and a big improvement for a vulnerable group in society, and it is an example of the differences between the Labour party and the Conservative party.
The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire welcomed the increases in expenditure on health and education, but later in his speech, he said that they were unsustainable. The Conservative party cannot have it both ways.
I welcome the Budget; it builds a strong economic base for my constituents and all constituencies across Britain. Unemployment has fallen in Chatham and Aylesford, and youth unemployment has fallen by more than 80 per cent. Interest rates are down and inflation is firmly under control. We are seeing the benefits of public expenditure and public investment in schools and hospitals throughout my constituency.
I want to talk about industrial matters later, paying particular attention to the paper industry, but I shall make some more general points before doing so. Teacher recruitment is problematic in the south-east. I welcome the announcements made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in that regard, because we have to consider creative ways to be more flexible and to entice people back into teaching. There is a pool of teachers out there who choose not to teach, for a variety of reasons. I come from a family full of teachers, so I know that if flexible arrangements and incentives for teachers are introduced and used in the way in which head teachers want, it will provide a plank to overcome that difficulty. The —6,000 grant to teachers who enter college represents further
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assistance. We have recently heard about more money for people willing to go into the areas of particular shortage in secondary education.
There are more books, more computers and brighter classrooms. Standards are rising thanks to the additional funds and the hard work put in by teachers. I pay tribute to the hard-working teachers and the learning support assistants at the schools in my constituency. I often visit schools and people introduce themselves, saying, "I'm only a learning support assistant." I always take issue with them because they form an important part of the education provided at those schools.
I am a school governor, and our school has employed many more learning assistants to help pupils, especially those with special needs. That is possible because of the additional resources made available by the Labour Government. Before 1997, we used to have to try to find where to make savings in our budgets every October. That simply does not happen any more.
I pay particular tribute to head teachers, whose leadership is central to raising standards and who deserve our gratitude and thanks for the hard work that they do.
I should like to refer to a couple of examples of how the additional expenditure is helping children's education in my constituency. Chatham South is a popular high school, and it was my pleasure to speak at its prize-giving recently. The head teacher was pleased to inform parents that, after vaiting 26 years, the school was to get a hall. Work will begin later next month not only on a new school hall, but on seven additional classrooms and a refurbished canteen—again made possible by —1.24 million of additional money from the Government.
St. Mark's school is a small village school in Eccles. It was built in the 1880s and has slightly more than 100 pupils. Its head teacher, Mrs. Celia Smith, told me that the additional money that it was receiving for resources was fantastic but that the school has no room to store the equipment. Mrs. Smith is not concerned about that, however, because —1.5 million has been allocated to build a brand new school. That money comes from the new deal, which the Conservative party is pledged to scrap. What should I tell my constituents in Eccles? The work should begin in May and the bills will be finalised in March 2002. So if they vote for a Tory Government, there will be no new school, and they will remain in the 1880s, because the Tories have pledged to scrap the new deal. After years of waiting, there is to be a new school. The Tory party has accused us of introducing stealth taxes: their cuts would be certainly be stealth cuts.
I have lived in Kent all my life. I am a Kentish man from the west of the county. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) talked about his website and about negative equity. I have no information about negative equity on my website, nor have I written a theoretical piece about that episode in our history, but I experienced it, like housands of others who bought their first house in the late 1980s. Many people in my constituency, in Walderslade, Lordswood, Larkfield and Snodland, who purchased houses at that time aspired to get on to the ladder because they were concerned that, with rocketing house prices, they would not be able to buy a house if they did not move quickly. My wife and I were both local government workers and we purchased a house when we thought that the time was right. We got it completely wrong, as did thousands of my constituents

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and many more people up and down the country. If only we had waited. Like many of my constituents, we experienced the Tory bust of the 1990s. It hit us. Not only did people lose their jobs and their homes, but when they had to sell their home, it was worth less than they had paid for it. People are still having to carry with them a negative equity millstone of up to —15,000. My constituency is one of the youngest in the United Kingdom, so my constituents were particularly affected by the negative equity problems in the south-east.
My constituents want stability. For most of us a house is our most expensive purchase. Today's Bank of England announcement is a ringing endorsement of my right hon. Friend's stewardship and management of the economy. Not only have interest rates not been increased, despite the increase in public expenditure, but the fact that the decision has been made so early on is a ringing endorsement. We shall not see interest rates held down artificially as we did before.
I welcome the VAT reduction for empty properties. I have been campaigning for that for a long time and have initiated Adjournment debates and introduced 10 minute-rule Bills on it. We will be able to get more out of what we already have. It is crazy for VAT on a run-down property to be charged at 17.5 per cent.
We need to recycle more. The Government have set targets of 25 per cent. for local authorities. Paper is the largest single commodity that we can recycle, yet the three newsprint mills that reprocess paper are full to capacity. If we are to increase recycling, local authorities have to have somewhere to take the waste paper. It is all very well to ship it abroad, and for a period we shipped it to Asia, but now Germany's paper is cheaper and our paper is stored by merchants. Companies do not want to collect it from the local authorities because the price has gone through the floor. We need increased capacity and assisted investment in a large mill that can start to reprocess paper.
I pay tribute to my local authority of Tonbridge and Malling, which has increased its recytling by 16 per cent. with the introduction of a green box system. Every resident across the borough has a green box and there is plenty of information. This is an important issue, and we need to take people with us if we are to increase the amount of recycling.
Members have mentioned manufacturing industry, where gas prices have doubled in the past year: they have risen by —10 million a week. I raised this issue with my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe in an Adjournment debate, and I am pleased that the Government have persuaded the European Commission to hold an inquiry into the matter. However, the Office of Fair Trading should also conduct an inquiry here in the United Kingdom.
The Budget will go a long way to assist hard-working families and pensioners in my constituency. It will also help those who have found it difficult to get off benefit and into work. The new deal, the working families tax credit and the children's tax credit Will help the people who need our assistance. They will make a real difference to their lives. Improving the quality of life and creating firm foundations are what the Budget has delivered. I look forward to our building on it in future Labour Budgets.
5.46 pm
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a brief contribution to the debate. The House has heard some excellent speeches.
I was particularly taken with the views expressed by the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington), who raised several issues which one would not necessarily have expected to be raised in a Budget debate. The matters are of deep concern to him, to people outside the House and to hon. Members on both sides of the House, not least Conservative Members. He described what I shall call an insurance fraud perpetrated by a company, and explained how people who are dying from asbestos poisoning could be deprived of the compensation to which they are entitled. I hope that the Government will consider the issue carefully and seek to intervene in the industry. Perhaps the industry could produce a life-saving package to help those who have suffered because of the conditions that they experienced at their place of work. Only recently have we realised the long-term damage that asbestos can cause.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North—West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) made, as usual, a thoughtful and positive speech, identifying elements of the Budget that Conservative Members could welcome and, carefully and sensitively, pointing out where he disagreed with the Government and believed that action should be taken.
The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) was a tour de force. I regret that it is likely to be his last in the House before retirement. He has been a good friend and a good parliamentarian. The House will most certainly miss him.
I know of the interest that the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw) takes in the paper and board industry. If he examines some of the steps that the Government have taken, however, he will realise why several industries—not least the paper and board industry—are concerned about the Government's failure to appreciate the impact of their policies on manufacturing.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) on his thoughtful speech. He spoke with great clarity and demonstrated his commitment to the points that he made.
This is clearly a Budget for a general election. As always, it was well presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he simply gave back to the people of this country—I emphasise the term "gave back"—a fraction of what he had already taken from them in the previous four years. Research carried out by the Centre for Policy Studies—not by the Conservative party—shows that the Labour party has imposed 45 stealth taxes since it came to office four years ago. At the last election, the Labour party claimed that there had been 22 tax rises under the previous Conservative Government. So it has more than doubled that number of tax rises.
I was somewhat confused by the Chancellor's statement. His Budgets appear to get more complicated as the years go by. It is not what he says that is important, but what he leaves unsaid. Figures in the Budget's small print show that the tax burden in the United Kingdom has risen from 35.2 per cent. of gross domestic product when the Labour party took office, to 38.2 per cent. of GDP this year. Therefore, we have a Government who have increased the amount of taxation that they raise from our people. They have raised, as part of the tax burden, about

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—28 billion, which is equivalent to 10p on the basic rate of tax. Even if the measures that were announced yesterday are equivalent to 1p off income tax, the right hon. Gentleman has turned out to be a 10p up, 1p down Chancellor. Other people have said that, and I am sure that it will be repeated many times between now and the election.
Labour's stealth tax strategy has led it to impose a disproportionately heavy tax burden on the business community. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford talked about business and industry. I know of his commitment to the paper and board industry, which is the major employer in his area. For some years, I was a non-executive director of a paper company, so I know the industry well and I am aware how important energy is to it. The industry is vulnerable to any increase in energy prices, whether they are introduced by the energy providers—the hon. Gentleman mentioned gas—or as a result of any climate change levies, which tax energy. Such price rises or impost from Government make it less competitive in a highly competitive worldwide industry.
Labour has imposed a disproportionately heavy tax on the business community while trying to conceal its tax rises from the general electorate, who will vote on election day. According to the Confederation of British Industry, businesses are struggling to cope with paying —5 billion a year in extra taxes. In addition, the Institute of Directors believes that there is an extra —5 billion of regulatory costs. Both bodies represent industry, business and commerce in this country.
The small businesses forum, which represents many smaller companies, has made a number of criticisms of the Government. The Chancellor and other Labour Members have expressed considerable concern about such businesses. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and business is carrying a bigger tax and social cost burden, which makes it less competitive. If the Government were serious about helping business, they would repeal the —1 billion energy tax which will hit businesses, especially manufacturers, from 1 April. I refer of course to the climate change levy.
In an intervention, I mentioned a textile company that I know well, which employs some 300 people. It is highly successful in what is perhaps the most competitive of all industries in the world because so many companies have set themselves up in developing countries, where labour and social costs are much less than in the United Kingdom. That company has spent —1 million on energy conservation and introducing energy generation and production methods that will emit less and less pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the environment, yet it advises me that it could well face a bill for between —60,000 and —80,000 a year from 1 April as a result of the climate change levy.
I have been in touch with the British Apparel and Textile Confederation. There are about 4,000 companies in the United Kingdom in that sector of our economy. Only 150 of those will benefit from the climate change levy rebate. One of my disappointments is that yesterday, faced with growing evidence from industry of the damage that the energy tax will have, the Chancellor did not decide that it should be cancelled. There are other, better ways of reducing pollution in the environment than the
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one that the Chancellor has adopted, which is making industry less competitive in the global market in which we operate.
Under the Labour Government, petrol and diesel taxes are the highest in Europe, but has that money been invested in better roads and transport infrastructure? No. Since May 1997, the price of a litre of petrol has increased by 20p, but more than 15p of that rise is directly due to the Government's fuel tax increases. The balance is due to the rise in crude oil prices. More Labour stealth taxes will soon hit our towns and cities, with Labour perhaps taxing people who park at work or drive into town centres.
It seems that the Government have got things the wrong way round. Let them first improve public transport. Let them put in systems whereby people can get to work efficiently, quickly, securely and at a reasonable price. When they have done that, they can by all means introduce some penalty for driving, although I believe that it is wrong to deny people mobility. The Government will learn the lesson, as they did in the autumn, that people want mobility, and the car provides them with it.
In return for all the taxes that they have raised from the driver, the Labour Government have delivered what some people call a standstill Britain. They have slashed roads programmes. One of the first things that they did in my constituency was to remove from the priority roads programme the Poynton bypass and the Manchester airport east and west link roads, which are vital if my constituency is not to be submerged in traffic and people are to be able to get to Manchester international airport. The airport is now blessed with a second runway, which I supported because of its economic benefits to the country and the north-west.
Mr. Andrew Stunell: The hon. Gentleman mentions a subject that is close to my heart. He and I have worked together to ensure that roads schemes in the south-east of Greater Manchester are developed. Does he agree that the sooner we have the report from the Government consultants and get some cheques signed, the better it will be for all of us?
Mr. Winterton: I am delighted by that intervention. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have worked together. Not only do we both want the roads that are vital to the economic progress and prosperity of the area in which both our constituencies lie, we strongly support the extension of another part of the transport infrastructure: the metrolink.
This country often boasts that the headquarters of about 240 of the top public limited companies are located in London or elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but I do not regard that as an advantage. It is not something of which I should boast. All those companies are wholly in the gift of the City, because they move their accounts and produce reports based on how they believe the City will receive them. To my mind, we need more private companies, because investment in those companies is made in the right way and at the right time—not to decorate annual reports, but to provide progress and new jobs and to pay for the investment required to keep them in the vanguard of their industrial sector.
I hope that the Paymaster General will accept my following remarks as coming from one who represents an area of extremely low—in fact, negative—unemployment:

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our unemployment rate is 1.3 per cant. None the less, much of my local industry is deeply concerned about increases in the business rate. It is all right that industry is given some incentives, but if the Government ignore the business rate and heavy local costs—dictated and decided by Government—they make industry less and less competitive.
Although I am happy with the modest changes that the Government have made to capital gains tax, when will a Government reduce tax paid on capital gains from the marginal rate to, say, no more than the standard rate? The Conservative Government failed to do it. If we want people to invest in this countrys companies and manufacturing industry, it is crazy to make them pay so high a rate on capital gains. I concede that there is an element of disregard—about —7,200 in the last year. In addition, there are benefits for those who hold shares in the company for which they have worked, but they comprise only a small percentage of those who are prepared to invest in stocks and shares and in the equity market. To have the marginal rate as the standard rate of tax on capital gains is grossly unfair.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Timms): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Winterton: Certainly—I am pleased to have provoked the Minister into rising to his feet.
Mr. Timms: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the rate of capital gains tax on all unquoted shareholdings is 10 per cent. after four years.
Mr. Winterton: The market in unquoted shares is somewhat limited. I should like all shares that people buy to be taxed at the standard, not the higher, marginal rate of tax.
Farming is vital to my constituency, but I fear that farmers are being driven off the land. In a recent article in The Daily Telegraph, Bill Deedes warned that the current foot and mouth epidemic could bring about further urbanisation of the United Kingdom. To my mind, that would be a disaster. We want farmers to be able to earn an income on the land by producing the food that we need, and to do so without experiencing the desperate problems that have affected them in recent years.
I accept that the Government are drawing down agrimonetary compensation, but that is to compensate for the value of the pound against the euro and does not provide farmers with compensation for the unique problems that they have recently iced. May I tell the Treasury Ministers that that is extremely important? My right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), in answer to my intervention, said that Barclays bank was allowing farmers to have credit for longer. However, we need a rather bigger package of aid and assistance from the complete range of financial institutions. If farmers are not on the land creating work for themselves and those whom they employ, producing goods that the country needs, who will maintain the country side?
There is a crisis, and the Government must produce more answers than they have so far I have great regard for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; he has been outstanding in his handling of the foot and mouth
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outbreak and he has received strong support from the Opposition. He will continue to do so, but the farming industry, because of the crisis that it faces, deserves greater support, understanding and action from the Government.
To conclude, this is an election Budget. It will become rather less attractive as we look at the nitty-gritty of the Red Book; its results will be less appealing. However, my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has introduced sound proposals, which will be well received by the electorate.
6.6 pm
Mr. Jon Trickett: The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) said that this was an election Budget. If that is the case, I am happy to fight the election on the Budget.
This afternoon, I have sat through the whole debate without a single break, and it has been interesting that not a single Tory Back Bencher could be bothered to discuss the —24 million worth of cuts which, if the Conservatives were elected, would be imposed on every constituency, including their own. In talking about the election and the budgetary strategies of the two parties, it is fascinating that the Conservatives were happy to concentrate their fire on alleged misdeeds on our part, but failed to mention the cuts that they intend to impose.
I welcome many of the measures in the Budget; indeed, I welcome all of them. In doing so, I speak not only for myself, but on behalf of 16,000 pensioners in Hemsworth, who will benefit from the —5 increase for single pensioners and the —8 increase for pensioner couples. Changes in the tax regime will also help those who have been saving to have a modest additional income. I welcome the Budget on behalf of the 2,500 families who will receive the working families tax credit introduced by the Chancellor.
I welcome the Budget also on behalf of my 150,000 fellow citizens in Yorkshire and the Humber who will benefit from the announcement about the minimum wage. It was noticeable that the Tories failed to say that they supported the increase; they said that they would not oppose it, but they did not say that they supported it. When the election comes, 150,000 people in Yorkshire will no doubt remember that. I reckon that one in 10 working people in my constituency is on an income of less than —4.10 an hour. No doubt, they will all welcome the Budget and the Government's strategy and, whenever the election, they will want to turn out to vote for the Government to continue their strategy.
Everyone with children at school will welcome the additional money that the Chancellor allocated to schools. He has also allocated —100,000 a year for four years to larger secondary schools, which is an extremely significant allowance. Doubtless, teachers, head teachers and governors will welcome that. Above all, parents and children themselves will see the benefits of changes and increases in education funding, which add up to —1 billion.
May I tell my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that, in relation to school funding, the Chancellor seems to be falling into the habit of making money available directly to schools? I do not object to the sums of money going to the schools, but I do object to the fact that the money is distributed through the standard spending assessment mechanism because the system is unequal. In my

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constituency, there has been major progress on school funding, but there is a differential of —1,400 per child between Wakefield schools and schools in Kensington and Chelsea, which is surely unjustifiable. One understands why the Chancellor is making money available directly to schools: that introduces an element of egalitarianism.
Fundamentally, the problem lies in the inheritance that we gained from the Tories—the unequal formula which unevenly distributes money to schools not only in my area, but throughout the country. We feel strongly about that. I know that the Government are looking into the matter, and want to make progress if not before the election, then shortly afterwards. It would be better if a more equitable formula were drawn up, so that local education authorities could be supported directly. Wakefield is a good LEA and has just received an excellent Ofsted report.
I shall touch briefly on the regeneration of communities such as mine, which consists of about 15 pit villages and small townships, which the Tories destroyed during their tenure of office and which the Government are beginning to regenerate. In my constituency there has been a reduction of 70 per cent. in the number of long-term unemployed. That is a phenomenal achievement for our Government, of which we should be proud. I know many people in my area who never thought that they would have a job again, and who now have a job—a job with a minimum wage, which is beginning to give them a decent, civilised living and, above all, self-respect.
I worry, though, about the definition of unemployment and the statistics that define so many people as economically inactive. Altogether in this country, about 2.5 million people of working age are, for one reason or another, regarded as economically inactive. In my constituency, it is staggering to discover that 27 per cent. of those who are of working age are disregarded because they are considered economically inactive. That is a huge number of people. For every three people who are regarded as available for work, one is said to be economically inactive.
Again, that is a legacy of the Tory Government. During the days of the pit closures, many of my constituents were told by civil servants on Government instructions that if they wanted to avoid having to sign on every two weeks and the dole queue, they should register for invalidity and disability benefit. Many of them are invalided in some way or another, but many would like to work. It is important that we tackle the issue. The Government have done a great deal to intervene in the labour market, but more intervention is needed in the next term, if we win the support of the people in the general election.
I worry slightly about the transformation of training and enterprise councils into learning and skills councils. In my area, we find that our labour market is being directed, in so far as that is done by the learning and skills councils, from Bradford, by a board that is dominated by people in the Leeds and Bradford area.
I have the best will in the world towards Leeds and Bradford—after all, I spent all my life there until I became the Member of Parliament for Hemsworth—but the Leeds and Bradford economy has nothing whatever to do with the Wakefield economy, especially my constituency,
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which consists of the most deprived communities, as a consequence of the vindictive closure of the pits by the previous Government.
I worry about whether a board dominated by Leeds and Bradford representatives and located in Bradford has the capacity to understand, let alone to come to terms with, the problems faced by people in my area. We have a distinct local micro-economy within the west Yorkshire economy. Leeds is booming; Hemsworth is still on its knees. We need to know that the learning and skills council based in Bradford will understand the problems and reach out to help the communities that I represent.
I welcome the Chancellor's announcement, reiterated today by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, of tax cuts for certain geographical areas, which I understand amount to —1 billion. I want to look at the details, hut I hope that former colliery areas, such as mine, will be included within the geographical definitions. It would be unthinkable for us to be excluded. At least, I hope that it would be unthinkable.
There are two former pit sites in my constituency, which is no doubt representative of many other former coalfield areas, one at Green lane in Featherstone, and the other at the South Kirkby colliery site. The land there has been cleaned and there has been investment in the infrastructure. We have been promised a new road up to the Al(M), which will unlock the development potential. We are waiting for developers to come, and the loyal and flexible work force there is desperate for work. We need investment and tax breaks and other incentives to attract private industry into our area so that people can realise their full potential, as all decent people in Britain should be allowed to do.
Elsewhere in my constituency is the small industrial estate of Langthwaite Grange, created by a previous Labour Government as an enterprise zone. We have some good companies there, such as Berwin and Berwin, a long-established textile manufacturer which does high quality tailoring, whose suits I frequently wear with pride in the House. Such firms need buttressing. I do not suggest that they are likely to go, but we understand the pressures, particularly on the textile industry. But were they to go, the consequences would be devastating. In that part of my constituency, the only employers of any size, other than those on that trading estate, are the schools. The high schools are the largest employers in that part of my constituency and we cannot afford any further loss.
When I approached Yorkshire Forward, our local regional development agency, about the possibility of helping a local firm on that industrial estate, I was told that no money was available to ensure that such firms became competitive, rather that the RDA stood ready to intervene to help anyone who was made redundant. It is bizarre that an agency that we are proud to have established should say that it cannot help a company to survive, perhaps by ie-tooling and re-equipping itself, but that it will find money should redundancies occur. That is entirely wrong.
I understand that one other hon. Member wishes to speak, so I simply say that I am fully behind the Budget. The Government need at least one more term, and probably more, so that we can advance faster and farther in the direction laid out by the Chancellor.
6.17 pm
Mr. Andrew Miller: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Trickett) for his courtesy.
I want to make four points about the Budget, thinking ahead to the next term and the term after that, to which my hon. Friend has just referred, and I do so against the background of incredibly positive events in my constituency.
For example, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who knows my area well, will know the Cheshire Oaks complex. When that was granted planning consent under the previous Government, no one in the House or outside would have believed that it would attract 7 million day visitors a year. That is a sign of the economy's success and of the free capital that there is in the community to be spent on quality goods in companies that are supplied by many of the qt ality firms to which my hon. Friend referred.
Alongside that are other successes. Despite all the difficulties of General Motors internationally, Vauxhall created 1,000 new jobs last year. Hon. Members might want to go into the Tea Room and have a weightwatchers sandwich made by Gibsons, a bakery in my constituency, which now employs 300 people to supply a national market that was not there a few yers ago.
More importantly, hon. Members should consider the success of Brookside school, which I visited the other day. The school is situated inside an education action zone and has brilliant architecture, excited and enthused teachers and well-equipped information technology facilities. That all happened because of our policy on education action zones.
As for my four points, first, although the proposed research and development tax allowances for larger businesses are a superb idea, I remind Ministers that we must use them in our discussions with businesses to attract R and D back to our shores. For far too long, we have lost laboratories and research centres involved in the production of pharmaceuticals, vehicle building and other industries. We have the expertise; ane only has to look around the M25 belt to see the fantastic support in Formula 1 and at the top end of the vehicle-building industry. However, most of the R and D in the manufacturing sector has disappeared from this country. That has begun to happen in the pharmaceutical industry also and we must make the new policy work for such industries.
Secondly, we must deal with vehicle taxation in its broadest sense. I made rather belated representations to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary about liquid petroleum gas, as it struck me that it would have been nice to introduce LPG incentives to create some encouragement for companies that are equipping their car fleets. A tax deduction could be made for drivers, who are currently carrying the extra —1,500 capital value of LPG vehicles. That is a disincentive for people whose company offers them a choice. Unless we tweak that regime, they are unlikely to opt for LPG.
I should like to go a little further. I want the Treasury to take a long-term look at what is happening to vehicle engines. Within five years, fuel cell technology and better quality electrically powered vehicles will be on our roads and there will be more use of gas, so we need a much longer-term vision of how to tax vehicles in their entirety
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and not merely in respect of purchase, excise duty or fuel. The matter has to be considered in the long term, so I suggest that we develop some serious modelling, and work with the industry and consumers to consider the best way of creating the positive incentives that are needed to encourage people to use more environmentally friendly vehicles. Of course, we should also not forget that the Treasury needs to raise funds for all the good things that the Government do with their money. An earlier speaker seemed almost to suggest that the Chancellor raises funds for himself. It is not his money, but that of the nation, and it is the Government's job to ensure that it is spent wisely and in the nation's interests. That is why we should take a long-term look at the very complicated issues involved in vehicle taxation.
Thirdly, I have a more specific point for my hon. Friend the Paymaster General about an anomaly of which she is already aware. As far as I can see, there is not yet a solution in terms of the various child credits and child support mechanisms. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have demanded an increase in the number of nurses in our hospitals. If nurses who are going to Chester college on a —6,000 bursary decide instead to work for Sainsbury's down the road—I say this with the greatest respect to nurses—they will be considerably better off, as the bursary is not considered to be a wage.
If an apprentice goes to work while training, we would not expect him to do so without pay or without being treated as a normal employee by the taxation system. Trainee nurses have to go on the wards, where they undertake proper work while learning how to be nurses. Like apprentices, they are under a lot of supervision, but not treating them as employees is anomalous. I urge my hon. Friend the Paymaster General to consider that carefully. A single parent in my constituency launched herself on a nursing career through sheer determination. She is at a significant disadvantage, especially as she has three small children.
My fourth point deals with the six welcome tax measures that are aimed at deprived areas. The selection of those areas should be linked to associated Government policies. For example, areas that have education action zones, or benefit from the single regeneration budget, sure start and so on should be considered. We should try to ensure that the support systems that are being introduced are managed under a unified structure. I am worried about multiple management of the new initiatives in some parts of the community.
A special set of circumstances pertains in my constituency. Many people live in the deprived part of the community, in five wards that are cheek by jowl with the petrochemical industry. A large piece of brownfield land, which is currently owned by Shell, would be ideal for attracting support under the new mechanism. The Treasury can count my comments as an early bid. I hope that Ministers will listen carefully.
There are important considerations in petrochemical areas. No one who moves into the area would choose to live in the housing adjacent to the industry, yet those houses were built because of it. That phenomenon occurs in petrochemical towns throughout the western world. How do we balance the interests of industry with that of communities? The Treasury has found a potentially wonderful solution through the combination of its policies on tax support and on VAT on empty properties.

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How do we create an incentive to attract modern industry to those sites? The six tax proposals do that. How do we create uplift in areas where there are large numbers of vacant private sector properties? The VAT regime and proposals for flats above shops might create a viable package. I hope that my hon. Friend the Paymaster General will consider joined-up schemes. It is vital that we do not simply establish another industrial development site in deprived housing areas: we must ensure that our actions raise the standard of living of those who live cheek by jowl with the chemical sector. People need to get something out of that relationship, which is important and well understood in the community. The Budget presents ideal opportunities to find imaginative solutions.
I had no premonition of the Budget's contents, but I contacted the Government office of the north-west and Shell last week and told them that it was time for people to get their heads together to devise imaginative proposals for using the waste land productively, while ensuring that we work with the community to improve housing in that area.
This Budget presents the possibility of real solutions to the long-term endemic problems that my constituents have faced. I welcome the Chancellor's Budget proposals and I know that the people of Ellesmere Port and Neston will also do so.
6.30 pm
Mr. Howard Flight: The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry began by echoing the Chancellor's boastful claims of achievement over the past four years, seeking to take credit for the positive economic up-cycle that has, in reality, been in place since 1992. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) pointed out, economic growth in the past four years has been almost exactly in line with the projections in the 1996 Budget, except that inflation has been slightly higher and the tax take has been —28 billion per annum higher.
The United Kingdom has under-performed over the past four years on almost all counts. Growth has averaged about 2.4 per cent. a year, compared with 3.1 per cent. a year during the last five years of the previous Conservative Government and 4.6 per cent. a year in the United States. We have even under-performed in comparison to euroland. Investment in new ventures has run at only about 27 per cent. of the level of the United States, pro rata to the size of the economy. There are 14 economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development with lower unemployment than us, and there has been a marked slow down in the rate of new jobs over the past four years.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat—Amory) pointed out, the productivity growth figures have been disastrous: down to 1.4 per cent. a year in the past three years, compared with 2.4 per cent. between 1992 and 1997, and less than half the level in the US. Those figures are some 60 per cent. worse than they were under the previous Conservative Government.
Savings have collapsed from 11 per cent. to 4.75 per cent. The Chancellor boasts that he has reduced Government debt by —30 billion, but I must remind him that he has created a rise in personal debt of more than
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double that amount—about —60 billion. Part of the reason for that has been the disastrous decline in the rise of disposable incomes. Growth is down to 1.6 per cent. a year, compared with 2.75 per cent. a year until 1997. Disposable income growth is now approximately zero.
There is similarly bad news on investment, which has fallen from an increse of 7.75 per cent. in 1997 to only 2 per cent. now. The Chancellor also forgot to mention that the trade deficit has doubled to —29 billion in the past four years, reflecting the vulnerable position of many manufacturers in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) pointed out that we have standstill Britain as far as transport is concerned. In agriculture, as the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) pointed out, the Government are presiding over the worst depression for the past 70 years, and all that they have to offer are free tax discs for tractors.
Further bad news is that the tax take has increased by about 3 per cent. of GDP, up from 35.2 per cent. to 38.2 per cent. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) pointed out, that is, in principle, bad for an economy. Our economy needs to get closer to the US tax take of 30 per cent., rather than rise to 40 per cent., if we are to have the growth that will pay for the health care and education that we all want.
There is a further crucial point, on which I am not sure where the Government stand. If they think that they are going to maintain the increase in public spending at a rate of 3.7 per cent. a year—which they are proud to boast that they are now planning—it must result in higher taxation and the squeezing out of growth in the private sector. They also run a severe risk of increasing inflation, as the International Monetary Fund has warned the Chancellor, much to his displeasure. Alternatively, there could be a massive increase in Government borrowing. Indeed, a —58 billion increase in Government borrowing is already projected. Interestingly, the IMF recommends that the Government prune back their plans for extra spending by about —10 billion, which is very much in line with Conservative policy.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wells drew attention to a practice that is becoming increasingly objectionable to the country as a whole, which is the use of propagandist and devious tactics in presenting figures. We have got used to projections that deliberately lead us to think that taxation will not go up as much as it does. Now we see that forecast spending turns out to be much higher than the reality. Often, it is the poorer members of society who do not get the benefits that the Government claim to be laying on for them.
Right across the I board, such misrepresentations rear their head. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), the leader of the Conservative party, pointed out the failure to mention VAT being imposed on spectacles and other optical aids. Indeed, Customs and Excise has been told to advise opticians very quietly of that, because the Government do not want the embarrassment of making an announcement.
Perhaps no one noticed that the Red Book shows no increase in the threshold levels of corporation tax. Indeed, that follows several years of no increase in such thresholds, which, over time, is one of the main causes of rising taxation on companies. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire pointed out, middle England

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is being hit in all manner of ways. Income tax is now paid by 20.8 million people. The rise in the national insurance ceiling to —575 a week means that nany people at that marginal income level will pay out a lot more than the 75p a week they will get as a result of the wider band of lower taxation. Those who have to move for their jobs will be hit with double the level of stamp. As we all know, the alleged substitution of means-tested child care for the universal married allowance has left a gap of a year with nothing.
The hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) said that, because the —7,000 limit is being retaoed, the ISA regime will be more tax generous than the old PEP and TESSA regime, referring to its costs. However, —10,500 a year could be saved in a mixture of PEPs and TESSAs, so the ISA regime is significantly less generous. The landfill tax is being increased without any national insurance compensation, which will increase illegal tipping. The Government have accepted sonie of our proposals for making the enterprise management incentive scheme slightly less inflexible, but the Chancellor failed to mention that the Government have imposed taxation of 47.32 per cent. on all unapproved options when employees exercise those options, making them completely unattractive and useless as a mechanism for smaller businesses to attract talent.
What about annuities? There is some guff in the notes about further consultation, but the reality is that people who retire with money purchase pension schemes are being exploited by the Government. They are being forced to lend too cheaply when they buy their annuities, which have to invest in gilts. The Governor of the Bank of England said last week that he is deeply concerned that these distortions in our economy will result in long-term interest rates being artificially low because of the reduction in supply and the increase in demand from annuity purchases.
We all welcome the Myners report and the ending of the minimum funding requirement nrgime, but what have the Government to say about the European Union proposal to put in place a measure hat will be infinitely worse?
Mr. Worthington: The hon. Gentleman wrote those remarks beforehand. When will he reply to the debate?
Mr. Flight: The hon. Gentleman clearly was not looking as I was scribbling away, taking notes. I have deliberately woven into my speech the remarks of various Members and I shall get to his comments, for which I have considerable support, in a moment.
For business, the little string of positive measures will not do much to reduce the —10 billion of extra costs and red tape. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells pointed out, the Confederation of British Industry and the whole of manufacturing industry are disgusted with the Government for proceeding with the foolish climate change levy. The levy will damage agriculture, horticulture and manufacturing in particular—the most vulnerable sections of our economy.
Really worrying is the worsening of the country's underlying competitive position. Much of what has been introduced and what has happened over the past four years has chipped away at that position. Sadly, our reputation internationally is no longer substantiated domestically.
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The fuel tax reductions are welcome, but our hauliers are in a poor position, and they have serious problems with foreign competition.
I shall deal now with charities and VAT. We welcome the fact that the Chancellor has honoured by means of rebates what he had promised to churches in respect of repairs. The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) asked about hospices and charities such as the Leonard Cheshire Foundation. Charities are burdened with a gamut of arbitrary and unfair VAT liabilities that need to be redressed and corrected. I also support what the hon. Gentleman said about Chester Street Insurance Holdings, and I trust that the Government and the FSA will address that matter.
The Government have imposed higher taxation on charities than any Government in the past. When the advance corporation tax recovery on dividend incomes runs out in 2004, charities will be hit with increased taxation of —500 million a year. That used to trickle down to all other charitable activities, so more than pension funds will suffer from the loss of ACT recovery.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North—West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) correctly said that nothing has been done to increase funding for social services. They have been starved of funds for the four years of this Government.
In summary, the Chancellor has performed the oldest trick in the book. He increased tax in the first three years of the Parliament, then aimed to bribe the electorate in election year. He was very successful in achieving his first target, but more lacklustre when it came to his second target. His proposals are far too complicated and pernickety. They wrap us in red tape—as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire said, a Kafkaesque system of benefits is developing in this country. A psychiatrist friend of mine told me that such obsession with complication reflects the mentality of the anally retentive. As a nation, we are being tied up in an unnecessarily complicated system of taxation.
It has been said:
"The fact is that, in terms of manipulating the Budget to boost Government popularity, he"—
the Chancellor—
"has done exactly what he claimed he would never do.
In his first two years, he controlled spending and put up taxes and so moved the public finances into surplus. By contrast, in the 18 months leading up to the General Election, he has announced big increases in spending and an expensive assortment of tax cuts.
The lurch from puritan fiscal restraint to cavalier tax-and-spend abandon is far more pronounced than under the Conservatives in their 18 years of rule up to 1997.
Mr. Brown may be able to kid himself his fiscal policies have been impressively stable and prudent, but it would be a shame if he is also able to kid the electorate."
Those are not my words, but the words of the country's leading monetary economist.
6.44 pm
The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): Yesterday's Budget was a Budget for the future. It set out the best economic conditions for a generation and built on them. It was a Budget for growth and stability. It is our commitment to stability that gives us the lowest inflation for 30 years, the lowest long-term interest rates for

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35 years and the lowest unemployment rate since 1975, with more people in work than ever before, as well as sound public finances.
The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who cannot be in the Chamber for the closing speeches, pointed out that many excellent speeches have been made in the Budget debate of the past two days. Those speeches have come from both sides of the House and some have been extremely considered.
Before I deal with the speeches, however, I must point out one thing to the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight), who repeated an allegation that was made in the Chamber yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition about the imposition of value added tax on spectacles. I make it clear to the House that that measure is not a result of this or any previous Budget. In fact, it is the consequence of a decision that was taken in 1990, under the previous Government, to pursue a highly complex and long-running insurance court case, which eventually led to a House of Lords appeal hearing in January that was lost. I will be more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about that issue so that he can understand its consequences.
Mr. Flight: Will the Paymaster General confirm the Opposition view that the House of Lords decision results from a European Union judgment that pertains to the imposition of VAT, which takes us into wholly different territory? Why did the Government not announce the fact that VAT would increase? I did not say that the increase was in the Budget; I said that the Government had failed to announce it.
Dawn Primarolo: I have explained that the increase was the result of a court judgment following action taken by the previous Government. It is not connected with this Budget and I will be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with the details.
The hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) made a spirited and wide-ranging speech. There was much in it with which I did not agree, but the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) pointed out that the hon. Gentleman would not be seeking re-election to the House. I believe that he was first elected in 1970. I presume that his contribution was a final "getting everything off his chest" on every subject under the sun. I wish him a happy retirement. I think that I can say without fear of contradiction that we will all miss him—even hon. Members who did not agree with what he said.
The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) mentioned a tax on pesticides in 2002. He, too, offered his apologies as he could not be here for the closing speeches—I do not know what I have done to offend all these hon. Gentlemen. The Government have welcomed the crop protection industry's voluntary package of about 20 measures aimed at reducing the environmental impact of pesticide use. We are pleased that the measures have the support of the National Farmers Union. We hope that the package will be implemented in full from 1 April and that it will deliver the environmental benefits that have been identified.
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I am sure that hon. Members would agree that it is sensible to review the package as soon as possible—preferably in the run-up to the next Budget.
Mr. Lembit Öpilk: On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for SouthEast Cornwall (Mr. Breed), may I ask the hon. Lady about the time scale for that review? Will it take place within one year or within a few years?
Dawn Primarolo: I thought that I said that the review would take place before the next Budget. I assume that there will be another Budget within a year—as is normal.
The hon. Member for South—East Cornwall also said that landfill tax causes fly tipping. However, there is no evidence of that. A survey carried out by the Tidy Britain Group in 1999 she wed that most fly tipping is of household waste, and of course households do not directly pay the landfill tax However, I am sure that every Member of the Houst would agree with his comments on fly tipping. The illegal disposal of waste is taken seriously by the Government; a number of penalties can be and are imposed on those who are prosecuted for such offences. I understand that the Environment Agency has a 24-hour hotline that people can use to report fly tipping.
Like other hon. Members, the hon. Gentleman referred to the pressures curently experienced by the farming industry. The House will continue to discuss many aspects of that matter over the coming months. I remind the House that the Government have paid farmers —750 million more during this Parliament—on top of existing subsidies. I certainly do not want to tell the House that we do not take the position of the farming industry extremely seriously. Clearly, the work of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in dealing with the current pressures will inform our future decisions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Baillieston (Mr. Wray), who is also no longer in the Chamber, made a spirited speech on unemployment and house repossession. He concentrated on the scourge of poverty and his experience in his constituency. He made some policy suggestions that are not immediately attractive to the Government, but he made them with great sincerity and conviction and I promise to read them carefully.
The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), who is an experienced Member of the House and a former Financial Secretary, raised several issues. He made suggestions as to what the Government should be doing to tackle and reduce compliance costs for business. I agree with him about setting objectives, but I am sure that we shall probably disagree on the measures for their achievement. In the press releases on the Budget, we announced that there would be consultation on a radical new look at the treatment of tax for small businesses—aimed at reducing the regulatory burde is, through, for instance, broadly aligning their profits for tax purposes with those reported in the accounts.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman continues to take an active interest, both inside and outside the House, in tax simplification questions. I am sure that he will want to participate actively in that consultation with business. I shall ensure that he receives the documentation and that he is kept informed of developments. The Budget announced a range of measures on VAT; that will be of

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specific help in the reduction of burdens on small businesses. There is a commitment to consider a flat rate of VAT for small businesses, although he will appreciate that such a scheme would be incredibly complicated. That is why we need to consult businesses on its design and operation, in order to avoid what the right hon. Gentleman described—starting off with good intentions but ending up by making matters worse, without giving them proper consideration. I am sure that he will welcome that.
The right hon. Gentleman commented on the Government's intention, announced in the Budget press releases, to extend child care provision, so that carers can look after children in their own homes. He must understand that the child care industry was not regulated before. We must ensure the quality and safety of the care provided to those children and make sure that it is regulated properly. I am talking not about a massive scheme, but about Government money being used to support a home child carers regime. We are consulting on that matter and if he is actively interet ted in it, I am happy to keep him informed. If I fail to do so, I am sure that he will jog my memory.
The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we should increase the basic tax rate threshold to —33,000. That would cost an estimated —1.4 billion, and it is the Government's judgment that it would not benefit those in most need. As he will see from our Budget, targeting tax cuts and investing in public services represents the way forward. I shall not add that sum to the running total of all the commitments that the Conservative party has made this evening to cutting tax while increasing expenditure, because the right hon. Gentleman ofi ered that suggestion to explore how our tax limits operate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington)—who is here—started with a succinctly and well-made point, with which I cannot believe any hon. Member would disk gree. He said that if we impoverish our children, we are impoverished as a community. Our children, their skills and the contribution that they make to our future society are important. He will see from the Budget that we are attempting to provide such help with the children's tax credit, the introduction of the new baby credit, the increases in the working families tax credit and in the child care element.
My hon. Friend made some important points about the Government's regeneration package. Unfortunately for me, he settled on the vexed problem VAT. I absolutely share his admiration for the hospice movement, as all hon. Members would. I am sure that even the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) would not disagree with that. My hon. Friend will understand that the Government have carried out a charity review, in which we considered the imposition of VAT on some of the activities that charities undertake. The cost of relieving the charities of that VAT would be —400 million, which the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs committed the Conservative party to spending.
I need to look very carefully at the issues that my hon. Friend raises about the hospice in his constituency. Clearly, we need to balance the independence of the hospice movement, which wants to be independent from the national health service, and its charitable status with the sensible operation of the tax system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie, and several other hon. Members, referred to Chester Street Insurance Holdings. Of course the
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Government understand the position of those involved. I am sure that he is aware that, as a consequence of the insolvency of Chester Street, provisional liquidators were appointed on 9 January this year. At a meeting on 5 February, a scheme of arrangement was agreed with the creditors. The Government expect the Policyholders Protection Board to work closely with the provisional liquidators to ensure that claims are processed promptly. The PPB will ensure that the provisions of the Policy Holders Protection Act 1975 are implemented fully. Her Majesty's Treasury is monitoring the position by keeping in close touch with other Departments and the Financial Services Authority, and my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary is pursuing the matter—
It being Seven o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed on Monday next.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [28 February],
That the Motions in the name of Mr. Secretary Straw relating to the Electoral Commission shall be treated as if they related to instruments subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation) in respect of which notice has been given that the instruments be approved.—[Mr. Betts.]
Hon. Members: Object.

LIAISON COMMITTEE (SUB-COMMITTEE)
Motion made,
That Standing Order No. 145 (Liaison Committee) be amended as follows:
Line 31, at end add—
( ) The committee shall have power to appoint a sub-committee, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to report to the committee from time to time.
( ) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the minutes of evidence taken before the sub-committee.
( ) The quorum of the sub-committee shall be three.'.—[Mr. Betts.]
Hon. Members: Object.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [31 January],
That the Select Committee on Science and Technology shall have leave to meet concurrently with any committee of the Lords on science and technology or any sub-committee thereof, for the purpose of deliberating or taking evidence, and to communicate to any such committee its evidence or any other documents relating to matters of common interest—[Mr. Betts.]
Hon. Members: Object.

SITTINGS IN WESTMINSTER HALL
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [23 January],
That, following the Order [20th November 2000], Mr. Nicholas Winterton, Mr. John McWilliam, Mr. Barry Jones and Frank Cook be appointed to act as additional Deputy Speakers at sittings in Westminster Hall during this Session—[Mr. Betts.]
Hon. Members: Object.

SELECT COMMITTEES (JOINT MEETINGS)
Motion made,
That Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended as follows:
Line 40, before the word 'European' insert the words 'Environmental Audit Committee or with the'.
Line 50, before the word 'European' insert the words 'Environmental Audit Committee or with the'.
Line 52, at the end insert the words:—
'(4A) notwithstanding paragraphs (2) and (4) above, where more than two committees or sub-committees appointed under this order meet concurrently in accordance with paragraph (4)(e) above, the quorum of each such committee or sub-committee shall be two.'—[Mr. Betts.]
Hon. Members: Object.

Fuller's Earth Mining (Mid-Bedfordshire)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Betts.]
7 pm
Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: Nothing that I have to say this evening will surprise the Minister because I have given him a copy of what I intend to say. This discussion has been going on between his Department and myself for the past three years. It concerns the plans of Steetley Woburn Bentonite Ltd. irrevocably to despoil the landscape of one of the most attractive parts of Bedfordshire so that its foreign parent company can make marginally more profit.
Ministers have told me that they cannot interfere and that it is for Bedfordshire county council to determine the matter. The council has acted: it has rightly refused Steetley's application to surface quarry in one of the most attractive parts of my constituency.
Bedfordshire county council's refusal stated:
"In accordance with Minerals and Waste Local Plan Policy, MW8, it is considered that the applicants have not demonstrated an over-riding need or economic benefit arising from the proposals, when set against the significant environmental impact in terms of
A: the unacceptable effect on the Area of Great Landscape Value
B: the significant adverse effect on the County Wildlife Sites
C: the effect on the setting of listed buildings and the Woburn Conservation Area
D: the possibility of potential nitrate and pesticide leakage into the groundwater at the Woburn Sands aquifer."
I have read a number of planning refusals in the past, but rarely one so comprehensively damning. Steetley's application is in conflict with the minerals and waste local plan, the Bedfor Ishire structure plan and the Mid-Bedfordshire local plan.
We now hear that Steetley is to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate and will plead that all these planning policies can be overturned because it can prove that there is a need for fuller's earth and that it is in the national interest to quarry it. I am also told that it will claim DTI support for such an assertion.
First, will the Minister confirm that no statement has been made by a Minister or official which Steetley could pray in aid? Secondly, I intend to show that no such statement should be made. I then hope, in the light of this evidence and that county council's decision, that the Minister will feel able to confirm that no support will be given to Steetley in future and that in the last resort the Secretary of State would call the application in.
Steetley is a wholly owned subsidiary of a private Spanish-owned minerals and mining company, TOLSA S.A., to which the profits revert. Another player in this saga is Ciba Speciality Chemicals (UK), formerly Allied Colloids—a Swiss-owned company.
The product that Steetley wishes to surface quarry is fuller's earth, which is processed with other materials into bentonite. It then has a number of applications, including being used for cat litter. Fuller's earth has been extracted locally continuously since the 1950s and the quarry was most recently extended in 1993 on a marginally won appeal. However, that work took place in an area that was not visible to most poople.

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The current application, however, is for a site of 58 hectares—146 acres—of highly visible open farmland. It would remove the whole of a wooded ridge between Woburn and Aspley Heath and Woburn Sands, and it is part of the famous Greensands ridge. It is greenbelt land, designated as an area of great landscape value—an AGLV—and it is close to two sites of special scientific interest. The nearest residential property is only 10 metres away. [Interruption.] I am delighted that I have been joined by many other Members, who have come from the Standing Committee that is considering the Criminal Justice and Police Bill. That shows just how important the issue is, not just to my constituents but to the House.
The effects of the excavation would be profound. Some years ago, in the view of the inspector, the need for the mineral marginally outweighed the effect on the AGLV, but he said:
"I hold few fears that allowing this appeal would create a compelling precedent for other nearby sites…I doubt that much land in the locality would have so little impact on the AGLV as a whole. It is the appeal site's location at the core of previous workings that would, I believe, minimise impact."
He continued:
"The fact that from the exterior the works themselves would be wholly screened by trees is a positive advantage and certainly sets this site apart from those in Surrey".
Those were his comments on the refusal of the Laporte application in 1988.
Things are different now. First, there is not the need for the site, as I will show; secondly, there are alternatives, as I will prove; and, thirdly, the damage that will be caused will be highly visible, catastrophic and irreversible, and that is not in the national interest.
Let me provide some background to the issue. The total world production of bentonite is 15 million tonnes per annum. Woburn processes just 30,000 tonnes—less than one third of 1 per cent. of that. Some 92 per cent. of Woburn fuller's earth is processed to form bentonite and sold to Ciba, and 94 per cent. of this product is exported for use in overseas paper mills. Only 12.6 per cent. of United Kingdom paper production uses Woburn bentonite; 87.4 per cent. does not.
Ciba obtains 70 per cent. of its bentonite from other sources because Woburn bentonite is not the preferred material in all its applications. The other sources in Europe and the USA insist that the performance of their material is in no way inferior to that of Woburn clay and they insist that they have the capacity to meet any increase in demand from Ciba. Their general claim is that they can beat Woburn on performance, but not always on price. Ciba itself admits that it has
"an ongoing requirement for Bentonite and particularly Woburn Clay to protect our position in the paper market".
It adds that it needs it
"to maintain their competitive edge".
Therefore, we know that the definition of the word "need", as used by Ciba, means marginally more profitable. However research shows that Ciba has access to alternative, comparable and superior technology, which has been developed over the past few years and is used in paper making worldwide. Microparticle retention using bentonite systems is giving way to newer, cheaper and more efficient technologies. These synthetic water-soluble polymers have no environmental disadvantages. In an advert dated 1997, Cytec described its polyflex
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micropolymer as "Better than Bentonite." It is used on four continents and lowers the cost per tonne of paper by 30 to 40 per cent.
In September 2000, Ciba bought Cytec's retention and drainage acids, including the polyflex micropolymer, so it believes in the system. Ciba, which at the time was Allied Colloids, has a patented formula called hydrocol, which, when taken out in 1986, referred only to bentonite. In 1998, it extended it to include colloidal silica. A more recent patent extended it again to include "other anionic bridging coagulant", thus widening Ciba's options still further to include the possibility of an organic microparticle akin to the Cytec micropolymer polyflex.
Steetley says that its product is unique, but the facts deny that. Laporte Industries, which is about to mine 176,000 tonnes at Baulking in Oxfordshire—enough for the next decade—maintained in May 1999 that those deposits
"are able to be used in these"—
Ciba' s—
"processes to produce paper in an identical or similar way."
So much for the argument about need.
The next Alice-in-Wonderland argument that Steetley may adduce is that of the environment. It may claim that bentonite makes the recycling of paper more efficient. In its site visitors' guide, it states:
"Fullers Earth has special properties that make it a vital ingredient in paper manufacture giving environmental benefits such as conservation of trees, lower energy use and reduces waste effluent".
To achieve that, it wants to dig up thousands of tonnes of soil, chop down a 260 m band of thousands of trees, cause dust, noise and pollution for 20 years and blight the countryside and the lives of thousands of people.
What of the national interest? We know that only a fraction of fuller's earth is used in United Kingdom paper making and that alternatives are available. The majority is exported, so there can be no national interest. Nor are the sums involved so large that their loss would even be noticed. The despoiling of Woburn would be worth —2 million a year to Steetley's parent company, but its effect on Woburn would be profound in terms of noise, dust, loss of amenity, disturbance of roads, destruction of the landscape and loss of jobs.
Woburn is the second-largest tourist destination in Bedfordshire. Walking in the area is a major visitor attraction. Anything detrimental to the visual attraction of the area will deter visitors. Eight circular walks through the area that is covered by the planning application begin and end in Woburn, and there is a new millennium walk. Whereas only two Woburn residents depend on Steetley for their livelihood, 170 Woburn residents are employed in tourist-dependent businesses.
There is no need for the site, as I have shown, and there is demonstrably no national interest at stake, as I have proved. I await the Minister's assurances that this shoddy, shabby and selfish campaign by Steetley will get no help from a Labour Government.
7.14 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) on securing this important debate. I also thank him sincerely for his

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courtesy in giving me such detailed notice of the issues that he wanted to raise. I shall do my best to address as many of the points that he raised as possible. First, however, I should explain why fuller's earth is an important mineral resource.
Although fuller's earth has been extracted from the Woburn area since 1952, only one site is currently operating. It is, as the hon. Gentleman identified, operated by Steetley Woburn Bentonite Ltd. That site is expected to run out of permitted reserves by 2004. The company applied on 3 April 2000 for planning permission to extend its workings to a nearby site at Wavendon Heath South.
Bedfordshire county council considered the application. Its views are set out in the special development control committee report of 1 February 2001. The council refused planning permission on the basis that the applicant had not demonstrated an overriding need or economic benefit arising from the proposals when set against the significant environmental impacts of extraction. I understand that an appeal has now been lodged against that decision. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot comment on that appeal because there is a legal need for impartiality on the part of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. I am absolutely certain that the hon. Gentleman understands the extreme caution that I have to exercise in the quasi-judicial position that I hold, which explains why no statement of support or opposition will be made by Ministers. However, within those constraints, I want to try to answer the two specific questions that the hon. Gentleman put to me.
First, the hon. Gentleman asked for confirmation that no statement had been made by a Minister or official which Steetley could, as he put it, pray in aid. The most precise answer to that is that the local council asked the Department of Trade and Industry to comment on the economic importance of the application. The DTI said that the development would make a positive contribution to the economy, but did not indicate that the development was of national importance.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman asked me whether in the last resort the Secretary of State would call the application in. Again, the most precise answer that I can give to that question is that Parliament has given local planning authorities the responsibility for development control in the first instance. The Secretary of State is therefore very selective about calling in applications to determine himself. However, it is open to the public to ask him to do so. If such a request is made, the Secretary of State will consider the particular circumstances of that case in reaching his decision.
I hope now that it will be for the benefit of the House if I try to place this issue in its economic, environmental and planning context. Bentonite produced from Woburn fuller's earth is used almost exclusively by the paper industry. Steetley Woburn Bentonite Ltd., which produces the bentonite, sells almost all of it to Ciba Speciality Chemicals for use in two of its patented products. Ciba, in turn, exports bentonite to the paper industry worldwide. Woburn bentonite is currently used in about one sixth of total UK paper and paper board products.
Fuller's earth has other industrial and even domestic applications, however. It is a bonding agent for silica sand used in foundry moulds. It is a suspension agent for
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oil-well drilling muds and agricultural sprays. It has various civil engineering applications, for instance supporting excavations. It can be used to refine edible oils and fat. Its domestic applications include face packs. In some countries, such as the United States, clumping pet litter is a growth market, now worth more than $700 million each year. Use of part of the production as pet litter is often emphasised by those who oppose extraction of this mineral, but the important industrial and construction uses should not be understated.
Fuller's earth has been extracted in small quantities since Roman times for cleaning and de-oiling wool. The 20th century saw an expansion of uses. Between 1970 and 1990, the UK was producing about 200,000 tonnes each year to supply both the domestic and export markets. Production has been falling since 1994, possibly reflecting the exhaustion of permitted reserves. In 2000, production was estimated at only 70,000 tonnes.
Fuller's earth and natural bentonite are also imported, partly because of the range of qualities that need to be met for specific purposes, and perhaps partly because of lower domestic production. The amounts have been variable over the past decade, from less than 2,000 tonnes to over 75,000 tonnes in 1999.
There were five operations in 1991. Since then, permitted reserves have been exhausted in east Surrey and in Kent. Three quarries were left in 1999, at Aspley wood near Woburn, Clophill in Bedfordshire and Baulking in Oxfordshire. The Clophill quarry has since closed. The Woburn site has sufficient reserves to support production until 2004. The Baulking site has permitted reserves sufficient for about eight years. It is within this context of declining permitted reserves that a new planning application was lodged.
Where are fuller's earth resources located? Minerals can be worked only where they are found, so we must turn to geology for the answer. The deposits are very localised and occur only in Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, Kent and North Somerset. It is likely that economic resources remain only in east Surrey, where about 1.6 million tonnes of economic reserves lie adjacent to an area of outstanding natural beauty and within the metropolitan green belt, and near Woburn, Bedfordshire, where perhaps 320,000 tonnes at Wavendon Heath lie within a locally designated significant landscape area. Therefore, there are, limited options for the future extraction of fuller's earth in the UK.
Because fuller's earth is a scarce material with special economic value, in 1951 the Minister of Housing and Local Government set up the fuller's earth regional conferences to ensure that resources were not sterilised by other forms of development. In 1952 the south-west regional conference expressed concern about how quickly those resources were being depleted and planning authorities were asked to protect potential reserves as far as they could. The national importance of fuller's earth was recognised in that, for example, the M23 road line in east Surrey was amended to avoid sterilising some of that mineral resource.
Between 1970 and 1991 there were five applications to work fuller's earth: one in Oxfordshire, two in Bedfordshire and two in east Surrey. All were refused by the relevant mineral planning authority and each went to appeal. One Woburn site and the Oxfordshire site were permitted on appeal. Following the dismissal of one of

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the Surrey appeals in 1988, the then Secretary of State commissioned the British geological survey to undertake the appraisal of fuller's earth resources in England and Wales. That confirmed that the availability of fuller's earth and options for future extraction in the UK were very limited.
Since the 1970s, noise and, in dry weather, dust have been recognised as the main environmental effects of working and processing fuller's earth, especially because large volumes of overlying material have to be dug and then replaced. There have been significant steps forward in site management practices since that time and my Department is currently preparing and consulting on new guidance on the environmental effects of mineral extraction to improve performance further, with noise and dust in the first instalment. Some concerns have been expressed that extraction might have an adverse effect on groundwater resources and quality if adequate operational and mitigation effects cannot be imposed. Other relevant factors may include the effects of traffic both within and outside the site and visual intrusion on the landscape, especially in sensitive areas.
All those factors can be considered only in relation to specific sites for which planning permission for extraction has been sought and they have to be balanced against the economic need for the mineral. The need to handle large quantities of overburden creates some environmental problems, but return of the material to the pit allows restoration close to original levels without bringing additional materials on to the site. There are good examples of restoration of fuller's earth sites to uses such as sports fields, nature conservation areas and forestry.
Minerals are important natural resources. They make an essential contribution to the nation's economic and social progress and thus to the quality of life. We are concerned to promote the development of indigenous natural resources as an activity that promotes economic growth, saving imports and encouraging exports—but not at any price. Sustainable development requires proper attention to the environmental and social aspects of decisions, as well as economic issues.
Current policy for the working of fuller's earth is set out in general minerals planning policy guidance note 1, published in 1996. In their development plans, mineral planning authorities should set out clearly where mineral extraction is likely in principle to he acceptable and where it is not likely to be acceptable, having regard to the objectives for sustainable development. Resources of economic importance should be safeguarded from surface development. For particular scarce and limited resources such as fuller's earth, local authorities should consider the national importance of those minerals and put in place appropriate provision for their future supply. Those are factors that may influence the content of the minerals local plan, which is an important element of the plan-led system.
Local authorities must also protect sites with environmental and nature conservation value, which may range from European sites down to those of local importance. Therefore, there may be a conflict between safeguarding our natural heritage and extracting minerals. It is a responsibility of the mineral planning authority to consider such issues when considering applications for planning permission.
Mr. Sayeed: Does the Minister agree that there are considerable deposits of fuller's earth in other countries and that there is fuller's earth of especially high quality in Turkey? Does he agree that there are synthetic alternatives, which he has not spoken about at all? If the inspector decides that Steetley's application should go ahead, what advice can he give my constituents to ensure that they may do their best to persuade the Secretary of State, whoever that is, to call the application in? The idea that —2 million profit a year for a Spanish company is sufficiently in the national interest to justify despoiling the lives of people in a lovely part of Bedfordshire, as well as the landscape, is extraordinary.
Mr. Hill: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I listened carefully to his learned and highly informed speech, in which he ranged over the scope of the availability of that mineral resource in other parts of the world. I would not want to dispute that for one moment.
On the issue of how his constituents should register their concern in the event of planning permission being granted, may I repeat carefully—I have to be extremely cautious in these matters—that I alluded to the fact that there is clear strategy provision for members of the public to register their objection to any such planning permission and for the Secretary of State to consider whether to call in applications on the basis of that expression of local concern. The statutory procedures are clearly there and, on the strength of the hon. Gentleman's representations and the basis of local feelings, I am fairly confident that full exercise of that opportunity may be made in due course, should that eventuality arise.
The hon. Gentleman also asked me about the availability of synthetic alternatives to which, it is true, I have not referred in my remarks. He will recall that I have focused on British legislation and provision in relation to scarce mineral resources. However, I do not doubt the accuracy of his observations on the matter. I hope that I am not being identified as adopting a prejudicial position by giving what, to me, is an entirely objective recognition of the facts.
To conclude, fuller's earth is a nationally scarce resource, with significant economic resources in East Surrey and Mid-Bedfordshire. The quality and specific properties of fuller's earth determine its likely end use. The country is not self-sufficient in fuller's earth; we both import and export the mineral. The planning system seeks to balance the conflict between extracting the mineral and safeguarding our natural heritage. It requires appropriate policies and mechanisms to be set out at national, regional and local levels.
Bedfordshire county council has made public its assessment of the recent planning application for working fuller's earth at Wavendon Heath South. The applicant has appealed against that decision, and the appeal is being duly processed. The House will understand that the Secretary of State's duty of impartiality means that I cannot comment further this evening.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Seven o'clock.

Preamble
[MR. MICHAEL LORD in the Chair]

Civil Legal Service
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned—[Mr. Dowd.]
2.30 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. David Lock): I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate public funding for civil legal services. It is almost a year since the launch of the community legal service, which introduced several crucial reforms to the old civil legal aid system. It was a manifesto promise and fundamental to the implementation of the Access to Justice Act 1999. In place of the old fragmented, unco-ordinated system of legal aid, the CLS is a comprehensive, network of legal service providers working together to ensure that people have access to good-quality, local legal advice.
The lack of vision and focus of the old legal aid system was one of its greatest failings. Providing access to justice is not only about funding those who are eligible and wish to pursue or defend a case. People have differing legal concerns and want to access advice in different ways. People are no longer prepared to be told, "ask a solicitor", and in the past many people have found it difficult to follow that advice. By contrast, through the community legal service we have identified priorities, targeted resources and created partnerships with other funders.
The CLS has a clear vision of funding for legal services. It recognises the importance of other advice providers, such as the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, and understands the need for a variety of information points, including leaflets, telephone help lines and a comprehensive website. That vision at the heart of the funding reforms is of improved access to legal services for everyone. I have no intention of dwelling on the past. The current developments of the CLS and our vision for the future of civil legal services are of much greater interest. However, it is important to remember that the old system was in desperate need of reform.
It may be helpful if I remind hon. Members of some of the principal failings of the old legal aid scheme. Expenditure increased each year, yet the number of people receiving help remained the same. Spending was fragmented, with no connection between legal aid services and the services provided by other funders. Lawyers had no incentive to provided cost-effective services. Areas of greatest need were not targeted. The quality of service varied according to where one lived. Some areas were devoid of advice centres. Other areas offered an overwhelming mass of unconnected options and no way of finding out which option might be the right one. The old system lacked the flexibility to tackle such problems effectively and a completely fresh approach to providing legal services was needed.
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The CLS identified three key vehicles for ensuring access to good-quality, local legal services: partnerships, which bring together all the local funders and providers of services, so they can plan provision on the basis of meeting local needs and priorities; the CLS quality mark, so that members of the public can identify suppliers of quality assured legal services and the CLS website, which is called, "Just Ask!" With the launch of the CLS came the community legal service fund, which replaced the civil and family legal aid budget. The fund is administered by the Legal Services Commission. In the same way as the method of providing legal services needed to be reviewed, the funding of legal services had to be modernised.
There are three tiers to that modernisation. First, funding is now allocated on the basis of priorities, which are set at both a national and local level. The Lord Chancellor's national priorities include cases involving the welfare of children, domestic violence and cases that help people to avoid or climb out of social exclusion.
Secondly, the priorities have been given effect by the introduction of contracts, which enable the Legal Services Commission to target taxpayers' money on the areas of greatest need and choose which services to provide. They are also an incentive to provide good quality services cost-effectively. The quality of service is closely monitored because all suppliers must pass the Legal Services Commission's quality assurance standards. From April, suppliers that are under contract to the commission will provide all civil and family legal services.
Thirdly, the merits test for legal aid has been replaced by the funding code. That code also gives effect to identified priorities by deciding which cases should receive funding and setting more or less stringent tests, according to the priority of the case category. The code helps to ensure that only worthwhile cases receive funding.
This year, the Government expect to spend about £810 million on the community legal service fund. Over the next three years, we expect to spend, on average, £700 million pounds a year, of which £235 million will be spent on legal help.
Some hon. Members will have made a mental note comparing this year's expenditure of £810 million with the lower average sum of £700 million a year for the next three years. That lower expenditure reflects the fact that personal injury is no longer within scope. Additionally, since April last year, we have refocused expenditure on national and local priorities by the letting of contracts and the introduction of the funding code. That has allowed more money to be released to support the CLS. More money than ever is being spent on legal help—formerly civil legal advice and assistance—so that a greater number of disputes can be resolved more quickly without involving the courts, and thereby avoiding the higher costs that would be incurred.
Mr. Edward Garnier: I could not hear what the Minister said about the figures. I think that he mentioned average spending of £700 million on the CLS, not this year, but in each of the next two years. He then said that a proportion of that money—something like £200 million will be spent on a particular purpose.

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However, I did not hear what it was, and he did not tell us how the balance will be spent—or if he did, I did not catch it.
Mr. Lock: Approximately £700 million will be spent on the community legal service fund. That is not the same amount of money as is spent on procuring legal services—that is a much higher sum—because the costs of winning cases are returned to the fund and, therefore, the money is circulated. One can draw an analogy with a water cistern. The money is the amount that is used to top up the cistern every year, rather than the total amount flowing around it. Of that sum, approximately £235 million will be spent on contracts for legal help, which is the successor to the green form scheme.
Approximately £70 million of the balance will be spent on money and damages claims, and the vast majority of the remainder will be spent on family litigation. The spending on money and damages claims represents a small proportion of the number of claims that are funded and represents only the top-up each year that is required to support such claims.
Mr. Andrew Dismore: Will my hon. Friend give his assessment of the likely consequences on additional services that are not claims for money, damages or property, if the community legal service was abolished by a future Government?
Mr. Lock: At various times, there have been proposals to run money and damages claims through a contingency fund. That would not be appropriate if we continued with conditional fee agreements because there would be adverse selection and the fund would quickly go bust.
It would be impossible for advice on a range of issues, such as benefits, housing and immigration, to be run on a contingency fee basis; it would not work. Equally, family cases cannot be run on a contingency fee basis. For example, how could contingency fees be used to fund the parents of a child who had been taken away by a local authority? They have the right to be represented, whether or not they have a good case. I am not aware of any way of moving such litigation out of the subsidised market, although perhaps we shall hear more about that later this afternoon. It would be a disaster for the lawyers and a much greater disaster for the clients who need those important services.
Some people argue that greater access to legal advice will lead to more people taking cases to court. The Government, however, take the opposite view. Good advice and assistance at an early stage can often prevent a legal problem from getting worse and lead to an early resolution, thereby avoiding the need to involve the courts. I am aware of complaints that the Government are not spending enough on public legal funding, although such expenditure must be considered against other Government priorities such as health and education. No matter how worthwhile and deserving we might believe legal funding to be, it will never be as high a priority as other areas such as education and health.
The Government have a duty to obtain the best possible value from the money that is available to invest in public legal funding. We have achieved that aim. The
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success of contracting and the funding code in reprioritising expenditure has released funds to be spent on expanding legal services. I should like to talk about three key examples of that—contracting and innovation, remuneration and eligibility.
Through targeted funding and expansion packages, as well as the continued development of new and innovative methods of service delivery, there are now sufficient numbers of contractors in most categories to ensure access to services across the country. We firmly believe that, through contracting, higher standards can be achieved to improve the quality of publicly funded legal services and value for money in the future. Levels of service are subject to constant review, and if the need for additional funding in any category of law is established, additional funds can be made available.
We acknowledge that not all suppliers have found the transition to the contracting system easy, but I assure hon. Members that I spend considerable time listening to practitioners, whose views are taken into account in policy making. One matter raised by practitioners is the amount of administration involved in the contracting process and the quantity of forms. I have been involved in a review of the amount of paperwork in the contracting system with Mr. Steve Orchard of the Legal Services Commission. I have also asked the LSC to consider the design of forms and ensure that information is requested in the simplest possible way and only when it is really needed.
We have also introduced incentives since April 2000 to encourage firms to expand their services in areas of law that have been targeted for priority funding within the community legal service. The first of those was introduced on 3 April 2000, when the Lord Chancellor announced details of an additional £46 million legal help package, which is intended to boost legal services in areas such as immigration, education, community care and mental health The number of contracts in those categories has increased significantly as a result, and nowhere more so than in immigration and asylum work. Of the £46 million package, £23 million was made available solely to develop legal services in immigration and asylum. The additional funds have enabled the LSC to fund immigration training courses to allow firms to expand and retrain staff. It has also enabled the Legal Services Commission to introduce several targeted expansion packages aimed at encouraging new and existing firms to undertake more immigration and asylum work in areas of need, which were identified following the Home Office's dispersal programme. The remaining £23 million of the legal package has been used to fund new and innovative methods of service delivery across all priority categories of law, including second-tier, outreach and telephone services to contracted organisations.
Remuneration is an essential consideration when creating a system that can provide good advice and accessible services. Good-quality people are required to meet the legal needs of local communities. We must examine continuously what services the LSC should procure and what it must pay. We have listened to the concerns that the legal profession has expressed about remuneration, and we recognise that many public sector lawyers are dedicated, efficient and caring individuals who provide important services to the poor and disadvantaged for modest returns. We recognise that

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the fees earned from publicly funded work fall short of the fees paid in the private market, but the public purse cannot—and, indeed, should not—try to match those fees.
To safeguard the good range of quality assured legal firms that do CLS work, in addition to the increases made last year, the Lord Chancellor recently announced proposals for a package of remuneration increases for family law and social welfare solicitors. The increased rates are aimed at solicitors working in CLS priority areas such as domestic violence, children's welfare and social exclusion.
The package has been generally well received by the profession. It includes increases of about 10 per cent. in legal help rates in most priority categories of law and the introduction of payments for file review. To encourage greater specialisation and expertise within publicly funded work, the Government also propose to introduce a further guaranteed minimum 15 per cent. enhancement for legal representation for solicitors who have achieved accreditation to either the Solicitors Family Law Association panel or the Law Society children's panel. However, many respondents to our consultation expressed concern about the proposal not to increase rates in other important categories such as welfare benefits and debt. I am pleased to announce that legal help work in all the categories that are not included in the originally proposed increases will now receive an increase of about five per cent.
I turn to eligibility. Since April 2000, the CLS has been targeted on those who most need help. However, the Government believe that the CLS fund has the potential to help even more people. In July 2000, we published a package of proposals to reform eligibility for funding. These proposals have several objectives: to make the financial limits fairer and more consistent; to ensure that the financial conditions reflect priority needs; to introduce a simpler means test that could be used for all levels of service and that would be easier for applicants to understand and to ensure that there is a fair balance between publicly and privately funded litigants.
This week, following consultation on the proposals, the Government published their conclusions and a plan of action for achieving their objectives. First, we will increase significantly the eligibility limit for legal help. In the past, people were often forced to seek help through legal representation because they were not financially eligible for legal help. In future, we hope to be able to set exactly the same financial eligibility limits for all levels of service. The proposed increase to the legal help limit is a crucial step towards that goal. The changes announced last week will bring about 5 million more people within the scope of legal help.
The Government will not introduce contributions for people who benefit from legal help. Therefore, the people who are brought within its scope by the increase will receive legal advice entirely free of charge. That will also make the scheme much more easy for solicitors and advice agencies to administer. When the legal help limits are increased to the same as those for legal representation, a further 2 million people will be brought within its scope.
The simplified means test will apply to all levels of service. As it contains a gross income cap and a small number of allowances, applicants will need only to
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supply a little information to have their means assessed. That will make the means-testing process more transparent and easier to understand.
The changes will be implemented from 1 October 2001. The effect of the changes is that the package will cost more. Over the next three years, the estimated additional cost will be £30 million. That money can be released because of the control mechanisms for spending that the Government have already introduced into the system, and which were not present under the old legal aid system.
The Government have decided not to introduce contributions from equity. During the consultation period, the main argument against such contributions was that they could deter people on low incomes from applying for publicly funded legal services. We have listened to the public's concerns on the matter, and we have decided not to go ahead with the proposal.
I conclude this part of my observations by mentioning some of our future plans for developing the community legal service. The new relationships formed through the CLS have distanced us from the old thinking and structures and unleashed a great deal of energy and new ideas. We want to encourage that, especially in the context of partnerships.
At the end of last year the Lord Chancellor announced that we were setting up a partnership innovation budget worth £15 million over the next three years. That money should produce new initiatives to help those communities badly served by existing services, such as socially excluded groups, and provide services in rural areas for the disabled, for example, who find it difficult to get to a solicitor's office or access legal services in other ways. The funds will provide essential seed-corn money for new initiatives by local partnerships. The proposals for the partnership innovation budget have been put out to consultation, but we are working to a strict timetable, as we want the first money to be paid out to successful bids by this autumn.
There are now clear alternatives to the Government's proposals for a community legal service. The Conservatives have published their plans for civil legal aid, which make chilling reading for the clients, because they propose to abolish all the provisions to which I have referred. The partnerships and the co-ordination of funding will be forgotten.
Mr. Patrick Hall: I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for giving way. Is he aware that the community legal service partnership steering group in the Bedford area has only recently started its work, and that the partners involved are extremely positive about their task of mapping the needs for specialist legal advice and representation among the local population and the availability of that advice? The partnership is intended to plug the gaps by attracting funding for that purpose. Does the Minister agree that leaving those gaps unfilled—which would be the case if the Conservative party gets its way—would leave large numbers of people without access to legal advice, with damaging personal, social and economic consequences?
Mr. Lock: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, based on his own experience in Bedford.

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Throughout the country there are 165 partnerships that do the work that he describes. Some have existed only for a short time, others for a couple of years. They analyse the needs in their area for legal services, which provide ladders out of social exclusion, and work out how people in their area are able to access those services and where the gaps are. They can do that only by prioritising the funds available and co-ordinating the funds between different providers. The Legal Services Commission is not the only body that funds legal advice: local authorities, the National Lottery Charities Board and Government Departments are also involved. Without that co-ordination, it is impossible to be sure that people will receive the services that they need in the priority areas of law in places such as Bedford.
I commend the work of the Bedford partnership, to which my hon. Friend has given his support. The enthusiasm shown in Bedford is matched throughout the country, so it is a tragedy that the Conservative party proposes to abolish not only the partnerships but the quality mark and to return to a demand-led system in which any lawyer could take any case, whether or not that lawyer had expertise in that area of law. They propose, too, to establish a contingency legal aid fund for money and damages claims but would allow conditional fee agreements to continue. That fund, it is said, would pay costs to losing parties and anyone, regardless of income limits, could take part. All that would be financed through a 10 per cent. levy on damages for cases that win.
We considered in detail the concept of the contingency legal aid fund during the consideration of the Access to Justice Bill. I assure the House that the Opposition proposals are a combination of economic illiteracy and political foolishness of the highest order. Our best guess is that the fund would work only if it won approximately nine cases for every one that it lost. A tough merits test would be set, and only cases with a 90 per cent. chance of success would need to apply. Even then, in our judgment, adverse selection, with the better cases being dealt with through conditional fee agreements and the more dubious ones staying in the fund, would ensure that the proposal would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions in a short time. However, that is not the worst aspect of the proposals, as I understand them—no doubt the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) will correct me if I am wrong. The abolition of the community legal service fund and the return of £525 million a year from legal aid to the Treasury would mean that funding for legal help for family cases would be abolished in its entirety.
Labour Members value the help that is provided for debt, housing, domestic violence and immigration cases. The answer to people who cannot afford to pay for legal services themselves is not to turn the clock back to before 1948 or say that the state should not fund them, but to accept our duty to such people and provide them with quality advice when they need it.
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: Is there not a risk that the proposals might offend the Human Rights Act 1998?
Mr. Lock: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Let us take the example of a local authority that takes
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two children into care whose parents want to resist the application. The full force of the state would be applied to take the children into care for what the state perceived to be the children's best interests. Is it right or possible under the Human Rights Act to say that the state will provide no funding to help those parents in dealing with lawyers, social workers and the court case to determine whether it is in the children's best interests to be taken into care? I would be astonished if it would be compliant with duties under the Human Rights Act to allow the state to take children into care without providing any legal help to the parents to assert their rights in a forum that is likely to involve language that they find difficult to follow, legal concepts that are new to them and serious consequences. Leaving them alone without any help would be a travesty and, undoubtedly, a breach of their human rights.
I am confident that Labour will win the general election and that the Tories' plans for the funding of legal services will not come about. However, they are destructive and damaging and go against the grain of all our experience over the past three years of building a community legal service with quality mark services throughout the country and the enthusiasm and commitment of many people to providing civil legal services.
Having come so far and done so much in the community legal service, it would be a travesty and a tragedy if it were all to be ripped up by the Opposition. I am confident that that will not happen, but a year on, the reality is that the CLS is enabling more people to receive good-quality advice early on from quality assured providers, which undoubtedly contributes to the public good.
2.58 pm
Mr. Edward Garnier: I declare an interest as a practising member of the Bar, although I have not for many years done any publicly funded work. I regret that the Parliamentary Secretary did not find time to express our sadness at what the President of Zimbabwe is doing to the legal system in that country. Although Zimbabwe is a long way away, it inherited its legal and judicial system from this country, and the undermining by an authoritarian president of the judiciary's freedom to exercise its lawful duty—President Mugabe has summarily and unconstitutionally caused the removal of office from the Chief Justice of Zimbabwe—is a matter of great regret.
It is also a matter of regret that neither the Foreign Secretary, nor the Lord Chancellor nor the Parliamentary Secretary has thought fit to deprecate the activities of the President of Zimbabwe in that field. It is equally regrettable that the conduct of the Lord Chancellor throughout his tenure, and especially recently, has caused the reputation of his Department and that of the Office of the Lord Chancellor to fall into disrepute. It is also regrettable that, as head of the judiciary, the Lord Chancellor has become involved in party political fundraising by inviting lawyers to spend large sums to attend a dinner. In so doing he will muddy the waters of the civil justice system and allow members of the public and members of the legal profession who received invitations to think that their future careers as providers of civil justice, both publicly funded as advocates and as members of the judiciary, have been interfered with.

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I also regret that the Home Secretary, who is a member of the Bar, sought fit to attack publicly funded lawyers, who give their services to the people of the United Kingdom for little remuneration. Both the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary have done themselves and the Government no good at all. I assure the Minister that lawyers who practise in the publicly funded civil justice system are appalled at the way in which those two senior Cabinet Ministers have behaved.
A letter in The Times on 2 March, from the chairman of the Bar, Mr. Roy Amlot QC, refers to the Home Secretary's recent criticism of publicly funded lawyers. He wrote:
"His latest diatribe surely points up the need for an independent legal profession able to withstand an authoritarian government, the dangers of a salaried government-run defence service, and the vigilance and ability the Bar and solicitors can bring to avoid further miscarriages of justice."
That is the immediate context of today's debate.
Recently, I received a letter from the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mr. Barry Reamsbottom, which refers to the Lord Chancellor's Department's announcement. He wrote that
"they intend to carry out a wide ranging reform of the court service in their consultation document "Modernising the Civil Courts". The document proposes major changes, in fact the first major organised changes since 1840."
The Public and Commercial Services Union which
"represents over 5,000 members at all grades within the Lord Chancellor's Department and county courts, is concerned that this will mean over 140 of the 222 county courts"
in England and Wales
"closing and losing up to half the current staff."
At this stage the union
"does not know which courts"
are to be closed or where they are, hut it is undeniable that the closure of a large number of county courts will severely inhibit access to civil justice.
Mr. Lock: Has the hon. Gentleman read the document, "Modernising the Civil Courts"?
Mr. Garnier: Yes, I have.
I return to the second area of context that is germane to the debate. Shortly after the Government were elected in May 1997, the Lord Chancellor and his Minister, who is now the Secretary of State for Defence, began their plans for reforming the provision of publicly funded civil justice. It was announced in autumn 1997 that the effect of the Government's proposals would be to create
"a faster, cheaper and more open civil justice system that"
would be
"available to everyone who needs it."
It was claimed that it would be
"a civil justice system in which there is fairness between the very poor, the very rich and the very great majority in the middle. The Government's aim is to make access to justice a reality, not simply a slogan."
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The then junior Minister went on to proclaim that he and his colleagues in Government would
"transform the legal aid scheme and allow it to bring help where it is most needed and can do most good." —[Official Report, 21 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 531.]
Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. Perhaps he could tell us how cutting £500 million pounds from the community legal service, as he would propose if he were in government, would improve access to justice?
Mr. Garnier: I regret to say that the Minister so mis-described my proposals that it would take too long even in this three-hour debate to correct every inaccuracy. In any event, this is a Government-sponsored adjournment debate on the Government's proposals. The purpose of Parliament, although the Government and their Back Benchers may have forgotten it, is to hold the Government to account. The hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) and I are here to do precisely that. I fully accept that the area of legal public policy has not, sadly, attracted a huge number of Back Benchers of any party into this Chamber. It is not a party political point, but it is none the less regrettable that the only members of the Government party here—there was a Whip here a minute ago but I believe the Minister's speech already pushed him out of the room—are a PPS, who has to be here, although she is dealing with other matters and not concentrating on the debate, and the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who at least has the decency to attend, albeit that he is barracking from a sedentary position. He has not been wholly favourable to every Government proposal on civil justice. No doubt he will be causing the Lord Chancellor further trouble following the Office of Fair Trading report, which came out today. I dare say that he cannot wait to remove from the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General the suffix "Queen's counsel".
Mr. Dismore: And from the hon. and learned Gentleman.
Mr. Garnier: No doubt when the hon. Gentleman gets around to it and manages temporarily to shut his mouth, he will want to make the requisite arrangements to remove the suffix from me as well—good luck to him. However, that does not appear to be the current policy of his political master; that is to say, the noble and learned Lord Chancellor. No doubt when the junior Minister returns to his private practice after the election he will wish to reconsider the comments of the hon. Member for Hendon.
The Minister asked me about the Government's document, "Modernising the Civil Courts". I read out the contents of a letter that I had received from the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union about the closure of 140 of the 222 county courts. The word "closure" no doubt stung the Minister because he is the man who, when standing as a candidate for election in 1997, promised the electors of Wyre Forest that he would oppose through thick and thin the closure of Kidderminster general hospital. Hardly a day had passed following the election when he completely changed his tune. Here we have a Minister who pretends

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to be the champion of the poor, the disabled and children in the realms of civil justice, who said one thing before the election and within minutes, in order to advance his political career, said quite another. I fear that after the general election he may have more time to consult the people of Wyre Forest and those in the queues at Kidderminster general hospital.
In his announcement in autumn 1997 the then Minister, now the Secretary of State for Defence, said that civil justice was
"too expensive and too exclusive."
He said:
"The very rich have access because they do not need to worry about the costs of litigation. The very poor have access because they are financed by the legal aid fund paid for by the taxpayer. However, the vast majority of people who go out to work and fund legal aid through their taxes dare not risk pursuing their rights through the courts. Those people cannot litigate because lawyers' fees are so high and because they cannot afford the risk of losing and having to pay their opponent's costs as well as their own."
He continued:
"The great majority of the population are not eligible for legal aid. They are effectively excluded from obtaining access to justice in our courts. That cannot be right and it must change. In future, legal actions brought by ordinary working people will usually be paid for by way of one of two routes: conditional fees and legal expenses insurance. The Government are proposing to extend conditional fee—or no-win, no-fee—arrangements to most money recovery civil proceedings, except family cases. Clients will be put in a stronger position to negotiate with their lawyers the fees that they are willing to pay to bring a case. At a stroke, legal help will become affordable to deal with disputes with insurance companies, banks, builders, mortgage lenders and pension funds—provided, of course, that the lawyer has sufficient confidence in his or her legal judgment of the case to enter a no-win, no-fee arrangement."
He concluded —I suspect more in hope than with any other emotion:
"At last, the vast majority of people will be able to afford to uphold their rights in court if they need to."—[Official Report, 21 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 532–36.]
The one problem that he was unable to deal with, and which the Government remain unable to deal with, was the requirement that if access to civil justice was to be provided through conditional fee arrangements, a mature insurance market was required to underpin them. At the time—and subsequently—the Government signally failed to demonstrate that CFAs have been so underpinned. I had discussions with representatives of one of the biggest legal insurance providers only this morning. They were sceptical about whether CFAs were turning out to be the answer to the removal of legal aid in more or less every cause of action brought about by the Government.
How have the Government managed to perform? They said that—
Mr. Dismore: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Garnier: During the long sittings of the Committee that considered the Access to Justice Bill, I accused the hon. Gentleman of having a spring in his back. I am sure that he is itching to criticise the Lord
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Chancellor about the QC system. If he manages to catch your eye, Mr. O'Hara, we will listen with rapt attention, as always.
What I find interesting about the way in which the Government have approached the whole question of destroying legal aid—[Interruption.]
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): Order. I am being extremely patient about sedentary interventions, but they are becoming a little too frequent and intrusive.
Mr. Garnier: I find it interesting that the Lord Chancellor, at the outset of the Government's period in office, said that his watchword would be consultation, listening and responding to the advice of those who knew more about the matter than he did. In October 1997, in his Law Society speech in Cardiff, he said that he was there to announce an integrated package of proposals, on every one of which
"I intend to consult the profession."
He said:
"Change is on its way, and the best thing to do with change is to manage it through consultation and in a spirit of consultation."— [Official Report, 21 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 550.]
If there is one thing that this Lord Chancellor is noted for—and for which his junior Minister has become noted—it is to consult by megaphone and not to listen to the voices of those who are trying to respond. In this field of public policy, the Government have not listened to anybody, but have simply trampled all over the rights and interests of a host of people, many of whom are now hugely disadvantaged.
I have no doubt that the late Clement Attlee is spinning in his grave at the way in which this so-called Labour Government have destroyed access to justice. They have cruelly and cynically called the Act of Parliament that overlays this debate the Access to Justice Act. It can be more properly described as a denial of access to justice Act. I think that most practitioners in the publicly funded civil jurisdiction would agree.
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us how many constituents have complained to him that they have been unable to gain access to an adviser in a legal issue in which they are concerned, during the past year?
Mr. Garnier: I cannot give the figure off the top of my head, but a good many have complained to their solicitors, who have then complained to me.
It is not just in my constituency. When I was shadow Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, from 1997 until the summer of 1999, I made it my job to meet provincial law societies around the country, and the law societies and their officers in London and in other major urban areas that have many solicitors' firms. I got the message. nationally and locally, from individual practitioners, from officers of local law societies and from the national Law Society, that the Government had not undertaken—I was about to use an unparliamentary expression—the consultation that the Lord Chancellor had promised. Those societies recognised that the Government had just bullied their way towards the goals that they desired, without taking notice of anybody else's concerns. They continue to do that.

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At the outset of this shiny new Government, the Labour party published a policy document entitled "Access to Justice". On conditional fee arrangements, it said:
"We regard conditional fees as an experiment to be monitored closely and in the light of the Scottish experience".
It did not expect the introduction of conditional fee arrangements
"to make a significant improvement to access to justice. They are at present little more than a gimmick designed to mask the chaotic state of the legal aid scheme and the courts service."
That was what Labour believed before the last election. Within minutes of the election being over, it decided to change its mind, without carrying out any adequate research, displaying any consistency of thought or policy or caring two hoots for the consequences of its actions on those who had been protected by the legal aid system before the passing of the Access to Justice Act 1999.
Much criticism could be made of the way in which the Government have imposed conditional fee arrangements on the public. I have always made it clear that I have no principled objection to conditional fee arrangements, but I find fault with the Government because they have sought to strip out, except in one or two areas, access to legal aid in its entirety, and replace it wholesale with the use of conditional fee arrangements.
There are, and will be, cases in which conditional fee arrangements work, especially in personal injury work, where the real issue, as often happened under the legal aid system, is not liability, but quantum. If a lawyer picks up a case that he is reasonably sure will be more about quantum than liability, of course he will take a CFA because he knows that he is in no danger of not being paid. However, as the hon. Member for Hendon candidly admitted earlier in this Parliament, the personal injury side of the legal aid fund made a profit. I was not as optimistic or bullish about the profit element, but the fund's net expenditure up to the abolition of the legal aid system was around £36 million a year.
Mr. John Burnett: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows my views on conditional fee agreements. Does he agree that when a personal injury case involves quantum, the lawyer who pushes his client into a conditional fee agreement will ensure that he receives not just his fee, but a substantial uplift?
Mr. Garnier: That is a consequence. Lawyers with conditional fee arrangement cases have a personal interest, as opposed to a professional disinterest, in the outcome of the case. I cannot provide this Chamber with examples of lawyers who have encouraged a client to settle on unfavourable terms because it might be favourable to the lawyer. That information is not available and the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to have it. However, the thrust of the Government's policy is to push us towards the American system of funding justice.
The conditional fee arrangement system is, if not explicitly, at least by implication, a move towards the contingency fee system. Before hon. Members become over-excited, I candidly admit that the principle of
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conditional fee arrangements was introduced under my noble and learned Friend Lord Mackay. However, it was under the present Government's Access to Justice Act 1999 that the system was introduced wholesale and I submit that, if the Government remain in office, we can look forward to increasing erosion of professional disinterest in the provision of civil legal services and a further move towards a contingency fee system such as that in the United States.
Mr. Dismore: This problem arose during our consideration of the Access to Justice Bill. The hon. Gentleman seems to think that conditional fees and contingency fees are the same, but they are completely different. Will he tell us which American states operate a conditional fee system, as opposed to a contingency fee system based on the level of damages, which is what the hon. Gentleman advocates? He wants the American system; the Government do not.
Mr. Garnier: I think that we are talking at cross-purposes. I know precisely the difference between conditional fee arrangements, which Lord Mackay admitted to this jurisdiction, and contingency fee arrangements, which apply in the United States. I do not need a lecture from the hon. Gentleman on the subject.
I am suggesting—the hon. Gentleman may disagree and no doubt he will tell us why at great length—that the Government's wholesale move towards expansion of the conditional fee arrangement system is a move towards the American contingency fee system in the provision of legal services. I say that with some confidence because there have been meetings at the Labour party headquarters at Millbank at which I understand the Parliamentary Secretary was unable to be present. However, Professor John Peysner, professor of law at Nottingham law school, chaired those Labour party policy meetings, and, with Mr. Brian Raincock, an interesting figure in the legal insurance world, and other citizens advised the Labour party on how best to advance non-publicly funded legal services to replace legal aid. It is no secret that Professor John Peysner is a supporter of the American system.
Mr. Burnett: The hon. and learned Gentleman is making a powerful and correct point. I regret to say that I cannot remember the exact title of the statutory instrument that we were debating in Committee—I think that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) was the Conservative spokesman but—I believe that the question of conditional fees was raised. I pointed out at the time that, in effect, the Government were being put under pressure to acknowledge and agree to unlimited uplifts. They resisted, and I hope that the Minister agrees that a conditional fee agreement would lead to unlimited uplifts that were nothing but contingent fee agreements.
Mr. Garnier: The hon. Gentleman exposes a further reason for the Government to be embarrassed about their handling of the provision of legal services in this area of public policy, and he will doubtless tell us more about that in due course.
The Minister drew to our attention to a document entitled "The Government's Conclusions Following Consultation: the Community Legal Service—financial

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conditions for funding by the Legal Services Commission", which was published this week. I received a copy of it in this morning's post, for which I am grateful, along with a document entitled "Community Legal Service: financial conditions for funding by the Legal Services Commission", which deals with the revised eligibility limits.
The outcome of the Government's deliberations has been the subject of some criticism. It is fair to say that the president of the Law Society has in part welcomed the announcement, not least because the equity in a house need not be taken into account when assessing eligibility for legal aid, but in the Law Society's response the president said:
"There is still a long way to go before eligibility for legal aid is at a level which ensures effective access to justice for all".
Before I am criticised for not completing the president's sentence, I should point out that he adds that
"today's announcement is an important step in the right direction."
I suppose that that is true, but it is an unusual step for the Government to take if they have taken on board criticisms of the consultation paper that were made last autumn. I think that it was Lord Goodhart who, on asking in the other place last November about responses to the consultation document, was told by the Lord Chancellor that 34 responses had been critical and two or three were in favour. I may have got the exact figures wrong but the ratio is broadly correct.
In any event, today the Law Society, whose voice can be heard in this Chamber only through Members of Parliament, issued a response to the proposals that the Minister outlined a little while ago. It states:
"The Society has considered the eligibility proposals in the light of the extent to which they meet the objective that public funding should be available to ensure that all citizens can enforce their legal rights."
It has considered the proposals from two perspectives: the public interest, and the impact on solicitors' businesses and the likely consequences for the public. It roundly
"rejects the Government's view that, unless additional measures are put in place, either clients, or by implication, their solicitors, will seek to lengthen their cases, having no incentive to bring them to an early end. The Society is concerned that the Government appears to consider that financial considerations occupy the entirety of, or indeed are uppermost in clients' minds in the conduct of litigation."
That is in line with the Government's continual insulting of lawyers who work in the publicly funded sector. The Lord Chancellor inaccurately, stupidly and rudely accused legal aid lawyers of being fat cats—[Interruption.]
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): Order. It might be appropriate to withdraw "stupidly".
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. The Lord Chancellor appointed the hon. and learned Gentleman as a Crown court recorder, so perhaps the word was not out of place.
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): That is not a point of order.
Mr. Garnier: That is not funny, let alone relevant. The Lord Chancellor appointed me a Crown court recorder, but I did not have to pay £200 for the privilege.
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The Law Society has rejected the Government's view, but its attack on the publicly funded legal profession is of a piece with the unfortunate and uncalled for remarks of the Lord Chancellor. He has had to accept the unwisdom of calling legal aid lawyers fat cats, which was in line with the Home Secretary's unfortunate remarks last week. Interestingly, the Government seek to bend the facts to suit their propaganda and spin, which is designed to infect the public's mind against lawyers who do this valuable work. The Government have come up with nothing sensible and their conduct in dealing with the legal profession, and especially the publicly funded legal profession, has been shoddy.
Mr. Lock: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman recall the enormous cut in eligibility that occurred shortly after he entered the House in 1993. Would he agree that that cut was reversed by this week's announcement that provided 5 million more people with legal help. Can he explain how returning £525 million from the community legal service fund to the Treasury would assist eligibility?
Mr. Garnier: I cannot recall that cut and I joined the House in 1992.
The Law Society concludes that although one aim of the community legal service is to ensure that needy people can pursue their legal rights, the new proposals will act as a disincentive on many needy citizens. The proposal would adversely affect homeowners—especially in areas of high housing costs—employed people who incur travel and/or child care costs and those who are in receipt of tax credits. The groups most likely to be affected would include pensioners, working single parents and disabled citizens who are in receipt of benefits. I spoke on behalf of those groups during the consideration of the Access to Justice Act 1999 and the debate in the House on 21 November 1997.
The Government have never paid attention to my remarks, but they might pay attention to bodies such as the Law Society and those who practise in the publicly funded civil jurisdiction before continuing their attack upon the way in which the publicly funded legal profession works. It is not surprising that the Law Society concludes:
"At a time when many solicitors are considering carefully the impact which publicly funded work has upon their viability as businesses, the new proposals and in particular the proposals concerning collection of contributions will serve only to drive solicitors away from publicly funded work thus limiting the availability of publicly funded services to those most in need."
The Government's record on that aspect of public policy is bad and it is getting worse. Their response has been so arrogant that I suspect few members of the legal profession will vote for the Labour party in general and the Parliamentary Secretary in particular at the next general election—whatever its result may be.
3.34 pm
Mr. John Burnett: I would like to tackle the Government's announcement earlier this week, which has been largely welcomed. I want to raise some points about eligibility with the Minister.
I expect that the Minister will receive a number of submissions about the announcement and the papers that the Government have circulated. I would like the

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Minister to address three points concerning the financial eligibility for civil legal aid and say whether the Government have plans to change the rules for eligibility—[Interruption.]
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): Order. If there is to be communication between those in the Chamber and those outside, it should be by note, and not verbal.
Mr. Burnett: Thank you, Mr. O'Hara.
A reconsideration of eligibility by the Government would be welcomed by a number of people across the land. My first point concerns housing costs—including council housing costs—and whether allowances should be made for council tax and service charges. My second point concerns employment costs, including full travel costs, child care costs and other necessary subscriptions. My third point, which was alluded to by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), concerns equity in a dwelling. What proportion of the equity value of an individual's home does the Minister believe should be taken into account when assessing eligibility? Will the Minister respond to those points in his conclusion?
It is imperative that we have a system that is available to large sections of the public. We all agree that we cannot offer a blank cheque. I look forward to hearing the Minister's view on eligibility.
During the debates on the Access to Justice Bill, we discussed at length the amount of legal aid that would remain for civil cases, year on year. We know that, as far as criminal legal aid is concerned, the quantity will be demand led.
Although the Government's announcement is welcome, I am anxious to know about their long-term strategy for funding civil legal aid. If the Government are re-elected, will there be a finite group of individuals with specific incomes and needs who will always qualify for civil legal aid, or will there be a finite sum for the legal aid budget that is indexed to inflation or earnings?
I did not hear all of the Minister's speech, but I believe that he referred to a growth in civil legal aid of about 5 per cent. per annum. We were keen, during the debate on the Access to Justice Bill, to see the criminal legal aid fund separated from the civil legal aid fund. We understand that the civil legal aid fund cannot be left to grow like Topsy; there must be constraints. However, I am anxious to know the Government's long-term strategy. We expressed the concern that legal aid will be left to wither on the vine and that concern is shared on both sides of the Chamber.
Test and lead cases are important and affect not only miners and people with legitimate claims, but organophosphate victims, about whom I have written to the Minister recently. We hope that the Government are seriously considering funding test and lead cases and class actions, which are in the long-term interests of the taxpayer. By setting a decision, individuals will have the chance to claim their damages not as a result of a plethora of cases, but following one test and lead case.
Mr. Lock: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the wider public interest in cases has been set out as a priority for the Government within the funding code. Does he accept that decisions about the funding of individual
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cases should be taken not by Ministers, but by the Legal Services Commission under the funding code? The Government have done as much as they can, which is to identify the importance of cases with public interest within the code and have then passed the matter over to the LSC, which is operationally independent, as it should be.
Mr. Burnett: I agree. Such action is entirely fair. We should have some acknowledgment, however, that a finite pool of money can be drawn on for such cases, which are in the taxpayer's interest. If we can consolidate a series of cases, it is cheaper than it would be case by case.
Much was made of the abolition of civil legal aid for personal injury cases during the debates on the Access to Justice Bill. Have the Government had second thoughts about that? Now that there has been a change to the system, I do not know whether there are any reliable statistics on whether the Government have saved any money as a result of that abolition. When we debated the Access to Justice Bill, I said that if we stripped out the value-added tax element and the benefit savings, there were unlikely to be any savings in the legal aid budget if we abolished legal aid for personal injury cases. The then Minister's comments to me were that the Government anticipated that there would be the same amount of cases post-abolition as before, and therefore the same amount of value-added tax would be levied and paid to the Exchequer.
Mr. Lock: It may assist the hon. Gentleman to know that the cost to the legal aid fund for personal injury cases in its last year of operation was more than £100 million. It could have been as high as £170 million. I do not know the exact figure. More than 100,000 litigation insurance policies have been written in support of conditional fee agreements. About 60,000 claims—the number is rising—have been undertaken through Claims Direct. All the evidence that the Department has from the insurance industry—defendant insurers, not legal expenses insurers—is that claims are increasing substantially. There does not seem to be a reduction in the number of people who are claiming under defendant insurance policies.
Mr. Burnett: I am grateful for the Minister's explanation, but I would appreciate knowing either this afternoon or in due course the Government's best estimate of legal aid costs that they have saved through abolishing legal aid for personal injury cases, bearing in mind the benefit savings of the litigation. He has answered the benefits point by saying that litigation has increased, which means that the value-added tax element has increased and that significant savings have been made. I should like to know exactly how much they have been, or, at least, be given a best estimate.
The Government's solution to individuals who have personal injury cases and to the fact that it is difficult for middle-income Britain to get access to justice is to increase widely the class of case that can be dealt with through conditional fee agreements. As may be obvious from my earlier intervention, I object on principle to CFAs on the grounds that they cause a conflict of interest between lawyer and client. None the less, they exist and we must live with them.

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A paper was published in January by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies on the ethics of conditional fee agreements. The chairman of the committee that produced this excellent piece of work is Mr. Richard Southwell QC. Will the Minister confirm that he has had an opportunity to study that paper?
Mr. Dismore: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the article by David Marshall of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers in this week's edition of the Law Society Gazette. He comments on the paper that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and says that it could only have been compiled before all the new changes came into effect.
Mr. Burnett: I have not see that article and am grateful to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for bringing it to my attention. None the less, I would like to make a few points arising from the excellent paper compiled by Richard Southwell QC, and look forward to hearing what the Minister says about the conclusions and recommendations set out in it.
Have the Government considered the role and conduct of insurance companies in the litigation process? Have they done an appropriate amount of research and independent scrutiny into that role? I referred to the conflict of interests between solicitor and client caused by conditional fee agreements; nowhere is that more pronounced than when a commercial insurance company is involved. We are worried that the insurance companies may drive the litigation, select the lawyers to act and tell the client when, or when not, to settle.
I hope that the Government have done research and scrutiny into the role of insurance companies. Are they satisfied that there is a sufficient open market for insurance for CFAs and that it is not a cartel? Do they believe that not only are there sufficient providers but that their policies are provided at a fair and competitive rate, and that their terms and conditions will not contradict the best interests of litigants?
Will there be a firm cap on the total costs at a particular percentage of the damages? I would hope that that could be applied compulsorily but, none the less, I look forward to hearing the Minister's view. The paper to which I referred also mentioned the cooling-off period between the presentation of a CFA and its signing. The paper referred to that as a period of contemplation between the explanation of the draft CFA to the client and the client being requested to sign.
Will the Minister say something about the definition of the terms success and win? One of the problems of conditional fee agreements is that lawyers are given an incentive to get their clients to enter such agreements, thereby doubling their fees. Lawyers are also given an incentive to settle the case too quickly, getting insufficient damages for their clients. Richard Southwell's paper suggests that success and win should be properly defined.
During discussions on the Access to Justice Bill, which is important in relation to conditional fees, we raised a point about experts and other witnesses. It is
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hoped that no expert can participate in litigation based on a speculative, contingent or conditional fee agreement.
I have raised five points and there are further points that relate to the Bar's code of conduct. There should be stronger provisions that require barristers always to act in their clients' interest, and not in their personal interest. Problems of inter-chamber conflict should be covered by a specific provision in the code of conduct. Judges should play an appropriate part in maintaining and raising ethical standards in the legal profession.
We must learn to live with conditional fee agreements, however. Subsequent Governments will come under great pressure to change from conditional fee agreements to contingent fee agreements, as they have in the United States. Such pressures will be unstoppable. However, we have a system of conditional fees and it is an important part of civil litigation. It replaces much of the legal aid that was previously available. I hope that the Government are monitoring the system and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about exactly what progress they have made, through monitoring, to try to make that system fairer.
3.52 pm
Mr. Andrew Dismore: I declare an interest because I am a solicitor and I have specialised in personal injury work for over 20 years. Unlike the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), I am not moonlighting because I regard myself as a full-time Member of Parliament. I do not think that hon. Members should have the time to practise in the courts, as he does.
I was appalled by the hon. and learned Gentleman's disgraceful attack on my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor regarding the fund-raising dinner. I was at that dinner, and I do not think that there is any chance of me currying favour with the Lord Chancellor for judicial or Queen's counsel appointments. Indeed, by the time that I am old enough to be a QC, I hope that such appointments will have been abolished.
I welcome the introduction of the community legal service. In Barnet, my local authority, we have worked with the authority and community to develop a partnership with the Lord Chancellor's Department to provide, for the first time in the borough, access to legal services through an advice centre. I am grateful for the encouragement that the Minister and the Department have given that project.
I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough has left the Chamber because I would like him to hear some points that follow on from his speech.
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): Order. I understand that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough will return. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) may wish to defer some of his observations until that point.
Mr. Dismore: In that case I shall pass over my points that relate to conditional fees until the hon. and learned Gentleman returns.
Mr. Burnett: The hon. Gentleman has reminded me that I did not declare an interest. I am a tax solicitor,

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although I no longer practise because, like him, I am a full-time Member of Parliament. I apologise to you, Mr. O'Hara, for not making that point earlier.
Mr. Dismore: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity to clarify the position. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough has decided to absent himself from this Chamber, I shall respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Torridge and South Devon.
Mr. Burnett: My constituency is Torridge and West Devon. I do not want to appear too pedantic, but strictly speaking it should be Devon, West and Torridge, although it is referred to colloquially as Torridge and West Devon.
Mr. Dismore: Clearly, the hon. Gentleman is from somewhere in the west country. I am afraid that my knowledge of geography does not extend that far.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the report by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies, and I was grateful that he took a short intervention from me on that point. He would do himself a favour were he to read the article by Mr. Marshall in the Law Society Gazette in which he makes some important points. It shows the extent to which the report by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies is out of date, and that its methodology is suspect. Only one member of the working party is likely to have had significant experience of CFAs in practice, and the working party as a whole appears to have undertaken no independent evidence gathering.
The hon. Gentleman referred to a cap on the level of damages, but the committee undertaking the inquiry seemed to be unaware that that no longer appears in the Law Society's model agreement. The original purpose of that provision was to protect the client, although that issue no longer arises, given that the losing party and not the client now pays the risk element of the success fee. It is important to stress that under the new rules on CFAs and the new civil procedure rules accompanied by the practice direction, CFAs must be the most closely regulated method of funding litigation ever. When my hon. Friend the Minister replies, I hope that he will clarify some of those points in more detail. The study, which I have looked at briefly, is behind the game compared with how things have developed.
As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough has returned, I shall deal with some of his points about CFAs. First, he prayed in aid Mr. John Peysner, an academic from Nottingham university. I can only assume that he has not read this week's The Lawyer magazine, because it contains a lengthy article by Mr. Peysner on this subject. Mr. Peysner writes:
"In many respects the present policy of supplementing and replacing legal aid by conditional fees, backed by after-the-event insurance (AEI), has been remarkably successful. Risk-based litigation has had a very limited role in the UK. And while conditional fees have been available since the early 1990s, they were little used, and the Scottish speculative fees system has never really taken off. The secret was to offer the stick—the removal of legal aid—with the carrot, AEI giving clients protection against the opponent's costs and, if required, their own lawyer's fees. The ability to recover the success fee and insurance premium after the Access to Justice Act seems to have completed a neat and self-sufficient package."
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If the hon. and learned Gentleman is quoting from academics, he might like to quote from their most up-to-date work, such as that published this week, rather than that to which he referred earlier.
The hon. and learned Gentleman also prayed in aid information from the Law Society. I have the Law Society brief, which was faxed to me today at 13.19 pm. Michael Napier, president of the Law Society, said:
"The Law Society welcomes the announcement for an improvement in eligibility for legal help. This will provide access to justice for a number of people who are at present excluded.
We also welcome the Government's decision to abandon the plan to require those with house equity above £3,000 to contribute towards the cost of legal representation."
Again, therefore, the hon. and learned Gentleman is a bit behind the game. I know that he is a Queen's counsel, and QCs are not good at doing their own research—they tend to ask solicitors to do the research for them. As a solicitor, I like doing my homework and research, unlike the hon. and learned Gentleman, who tries to commission it from other people. I can only assume that he has been badly briefed by whoever did the job for him on this occasion.
The issue of conditional fees created a lot of controversy when it first arose. As Mr. Peysner said, however, they have proved remarkably successful. In his intervention on the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon, my hon. Friend the Minister provided some statistics to show how well it has been working. Nevertheless, a few potential glitches were identified during the debate on the Access to Justice Bill, and a couple of them have worked their way through. If the system does not deal with them as it develops, the Government must do so.
The first glitch concerns the recoverability of after-the-event insurance premiums, particularly in cases that are not litigated. I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware of last month's decision at Chester county court, which upheld the recoverability of insurance premiums. The success fee in that case was 40 per cent. The technical calculation would have produced a success fee of about 35 per cent. On appeal, the judge decided that it was sufficiently within the deputy district judge's discretion to admit the original 40 per cent. charge. The after-the-event premium was in the region of £200 to £300, which is not excessive.
A few months ago, my hon. Friend responded to an oral question that I put to him at Lord Chancellor's questions by emphasising that the Government believe that insurance premiums should be recoverable, and that that was the intention behind the legislation and the subordinate legislation. That answer can, no doubt, be used on a Pepper v. Hart basis to construe the legislation.
I regret that the insurers are, apparently, planning to challenge the decision in the Court of Appeal. One or two of its members take a slightly dinosaur approach to conditional fees, so I hope that, if it construes the legislation differently, the Government will look sympathetically at the detailed wording of the subordinate legislation. Will the Minister find out

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whether the Court of Appeal can deal with the matter expeditiously, because if the uncertainty continues, that could create considerable difficulties for practitioners?
Mr. Burnett: The hon. Gentleman has made a sweeping comment that some members of the Court of Appeal are dinosaurs in their approach to conditional fee agreements. Will he explain that?
Mr. Dismore: There is little doubt that. before the Government began their reform programme, the Court of Appeal took a very suspicious approach towards the conditional fee issue. That is evidenced by its decisions on the old CFA arrangements that were introduced by Lord Mackay, and it has not liked the way in which the Government have taken the issue forward.
I am not castigating the entire Court of Appeal. Some of its judges are far-thinking. However, a couple of them are suspicious of the Government's approach to the matter but, when the issue comes before the Court of Appeal, I hope that it will examine in particular my hon. Friend's response to my question about the intention of the scheme.
I also want to highlight collective conditional fees. They have greatly improved access to justice for trade union members. Traditionally, trade unions have provided the backbone of legal aid support, particularly for personal injury claims. They are also the backbone of a range of other services, such as employment tribunals, which are not covered by CFAs. Trade unions were potentially at a disadvantage until arrangements could be made to introduce collective conditional fees. The arrangements that have been produced are more complicated than they might have been had my hon. Friend and his colleagues in the Lord Chancellor's Department accepted the point of view that I expressed on the indemnity principle in the Access to Justice Bill debates.
The issue has been referred to the civil procedure rules committee for further consideration, but if we can get rid of the indemnity principle, that would provide a major step forward in simplifying the operation of the conditional fee scheme. Section 31 of the Access to Justice Act 1999 allows for rules of court to limit or abolish the indemnity principle. The indemnity principle acts as a bar to progress given the introduction of another aspect of conditional fees; the whole concept of fixed fees and capped fees. There is much pressure to introduce them, particularly for fast-track cases. Realistically, we cannot have fixed or capped fees in fast-track cases until the indemnity principle has gone. The whole concept behind fixed fee arrangements is that the client will pay the fixed fee come what may. If the case is successful the fee is passed on to the insurers, and, in personal injury cases, to the defendant.
If the work done amounted to less than the fixed fee, that would infringe the indemnity principle, and the system of fixed fees could not operate. If we strive for greater simplification of the way in which civil justice is funded, the indemnity principle will inevitably go. Under today's commercial arrangements, it no longer serves the purpose for which it was originally intended in funding litigation involving individual or collective clients. It is a relic of the past that should go.
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I raise the activities of companies such as Claims Direct. I am concerned that the arrangements under which such firms operate no longer provide the advantages that existed before recoverability of insurance premiums and success fees from insurers. Those firms have an enormous marketing operation, and I am concerned that members of the public should be aware that they may not be getting as good a service as they would if they went to a solicitor on the Law Society personal injury panel.
I contrast the Government's efforts to improve access to justice, especially for victims with personal injury claims, with the views expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough on his class scheme. He must explain how his scheme could possibly interact with the success of the conditional fee arrangements. I have challenged him several times on that issue, especially on the distinction between conditional and contingency fees, and I do not believe that he understands the difference. Perhaps that is not surprising. Barristers do not want to get their hands dirty with the nitty gritty of funding—they only want to pocket the cash at the end.
Mr. Garnier: On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. That is a gross insult that impugns my integrity. The hon. Gentleman should withdraw it at once.
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): Would the hon. Member for Hendon like to reconsider his remarks?
Mr. Dismore: I would be happy to, Mr. O'Hara. I simply made a general point about the practice of barristers that was not aimed at the hon. and learned Gentleman, but which might explain why he does not understand the difference between conditional and contingency fees. Barrister's fees are negotiated by their clerks. Barristers do not involve themselves in the nitty gritty of negotiation and, frankly, few barristers understand the detail of how costs are assessed and how cost schemes work. These days, barristers are beginning to get a better grip on conditional fees in the world of personal injury because they are now offering those fees. I understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman does not practice in that world, so I suspect that he does not have direct experience, which may explain why he does not seem to understand the difference between the two types of fees.
Mr. Garnier: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman, as he is so keen to insult me continuously and unattractively? His comments tell us more about him than about the quality of his arguments. As it happens, I have done a conditional fee arrangement case. Should the hon. Gentleman wish to visit my chambers, I would be happy to show him the valuable work that my chambers and I give to the public.
Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for that offer, but I have seen the inside of many barristers' chambers, and I do not suppose that his are very different.
Mr. Burnett: I practised in a field of law in which I was only occasionally required to refer a case to a barrister for an opinion. Without exception, I received an excellent service from a strong, independent Bar. I hope

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that the hon. Gentleman will reconsider his castigation of the profession on which he has just pronounced without any qualification. It is not in the best interests of the House to make such sweeping statements.
Mr. Dismore: I was not suggesting that barristers are not competent in arguing their cases in court. Some are, and some are not. I was referring in particular to their grip on costs, how costs are calculated and funding methods. In 20 years in practice, I have always found that their knowledge is not what it should be. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman's experience is the same, but in dealing with assessments of costs, I have found that, with the exception of one or two barristers who specialise in that field, their grasp of the facts and issues is lacking. It is always the solicitor's job to get his hands dirty with the nitty-gritty of such work.
I digress from the main thrust of my argument, which relates to the difference between a contingency legal aid fund and conditional fees. Conditional fees are not linked to the level of damages awarded. A client whose conditional fee case is successful will not see his damages eaten away as they would be under a contingency fee system.
Under a contingency fee system, lawyers are funded out of damages. Conditional fees are completely different, because they are linked to the amount of work that the lawyer does on the case, and are subject to scrutiny. The problem with contingency fees—which is the American system—is that they are linked to the compensation that the client recovers. The lawyer's interest is therefore directly linked to the amount of compensation. That is less healthy than a conditional fee. Moreover, the people who lose out, in the personal injury world, are those who suffered the injury, and they need compensation in full. Despite what hon. Members may read in the newspapers, compensation in this country is not over-generous for personal injury. Under a contingency legal aid fund scheme, such as has been suggested, damages would be eaten away, and that would be abhorrent.
Mr. Burnett: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that conditional fee agreements have shortcomings? I hope that he has read the correspondence that I have seen, which suggests that, under conditional fee agreements, a huge amount of the damages—more than 80 or 90 per cent.—has sometimes been taken up in fees. Although 1 do not espouse contingency fee agreements, at least they motivate the lawyer involved to maximise the client's damages.
Mr. Dismore: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's point. He is referring either to the conditional fee agreements that predate the reforms that the Government introduced, under which, unlike under present arrangements, the success fee was recoverable from the client, or to the Claims Direct scheme, which, he will recall, I criticised only a few moments ago because I believe that it rips off clients, which a legitimate conditional fee agreement does not do.
Contingency fees would take us down the American road. I have reservations about that because, unlike conditional fees, contingency fee arrangements put pressure on lawyers to maximise damages. It is their professional job to do that anyway, but there is always
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the risk that the client could lose out if the case is pushed too far in that direction through, for example, failing to beat a part 36 offer or payment. For those reasons, I find the concept of a contingency legal aid fund scheme abhorrent.
At the last election, I spent a lot of time researching the concept, because I believed that it might provide a way forward for legal aid reform. I ultimately concluded that it was a non-runner. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough must be about four years behind where I was when I was researching the scheme.
My first concern about the CLAF scheme is that the client loses money that he or she can ill afford. My second is that I cannot see how a CLAF system could run alongside the conditional fee agreement system. There would always be a risk of adverse selection, which would weaken the financial viability of any CLAF. The fund would try to attract the stronger cases to ensure that contributions would be received from damages awarded. The figures that I have seen suggest that there would have to be a 90 per cent. success rate, because under the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposals, on average, 10 successful cases would be needed to pay for each case lost.
If solicitors were to decide, as they often would, to take stronger cases on a CFA basis, the claimant would not have to make a contribution from damages and the solicitor would earn fees commensurate to the risk taken, and so stand to earn more. The CFA system, therefore, is a win-win situation whereas the CLAF system is a lose-lose situation for both client and solicitor. There are ways of trying to prevent adverse selection, but they are far worse than the benefits that they create. The only sure way to prevent it would be to make use of the system compulsory in every case, and that is a non starter.
Mr. Burnett: I agree with the tenor of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. It is very difficult to run a conditional fee agreement system alongside a CLAF system, because the CFA system will, in effect, cherry-pick all the best cases. The hon. Gentleman said that adverse selection could be overcome. How?
Mr. Dismore: The only way to overcome adverse selection would be to make it compulsory for every case to go through the CLAF system. That would be unacceptable, and might breach human rights legislation on the right to a fair trial. There is no other way round the problem.
Adverse selection has been largely overcome in relation to conditional fees, because solicitors who undertake conditional fee agreements, through schemes such as Accident Line Protect, undertake not to operate on an adverse selection basis. That means swings and roundabouts for the insurers. Some adverse selection probably still goes on through the back door, but in practice it has been overcome by contractual arrangements. Those would not be operable in a nationwide CLAF scheme. Choice and the opportunity to have a case funded on a genuine no win, no fee basis would be lost under the Tories' scheme to take people's damages away and rob Peter to pay Paul.
The scheme is just another Portillo black hole, which has been dropped into the lap of the hon. and learned Member for Harborough. It is an attempt to find

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£0.5 billion to cut from the legal aid budget. Despite being challenged to do so, the hon. and learned Gentleman still has not come up with a sensible idea of where to find such a cut without seriously damaging advice services. Such services include those for women seeking injunctions to prevent domestic violence, for parents seeking court orders for custody of, or contact with, their children, and for parents challenging local authorities' decisions to take their children into care. Those matters are all currently funded through the community legal service system, which would fall by the wayside should the hon. and learned Gentleman get his way.
That is all that I want to say about conditional fees, but I will not disappoint the hon. and learned Member for Harborough by failing to refer to Queen's counsel. I am sure that he was eagerly anticipating such remarks, in the light of the report that the Office of Fair Trading published yesterday on the internet. The issue is fundamental to how civil justice is funded in the UK. In the Committee that debated the Access to Justice Bill, and on other occasions, I have argued at length that the Queen's counsel system is an anti-competitive, price-rigging cartel, whose sole purpose is to line lawyers' pockets at the expense of the public. I am pleased that the OFT's report agrees with me.
I was pleased to be invited to give evidence to the inquiry conducted by the OFT. Its fat and detailed consultants report makes some cogent criticisms of the QC system. I have advanced the case that it is not a genuine accreditation scheme, that it is not objective, and that the Government should play no part in it, should it continue—it should be run by the profession. I cannot see why we should have Queen's counsel when we do not have Queen's plumbers, Queen's electricians, Queen's accountants, Queen's lecturers or Queen's anything else. One of the criticisms in the OFT report is:
"Although no area of work is formally reserved to QCs, in practice major litigation almost always requires the use of a QC. This is partly because of a perception that judges are more likely to take notice of a QC and partly because, if one side hires a QC, the other feels at a disadvantage if it does not do the same.
Given this, we think that the system as currently operated restricts competition because:
There is anecdotal evidence of a quota on the number of new appointments, and the numerical evidence is consistent with the anecdotal:
Selection is done by government, rather than by any market-based process; and,
There is dissatisfaction among solicitors and some barristers about the fairness and accuracy of the selection process."
It goes on to say:
"We do not think that a mark of quality or experience is necessarily anti-competitive so long as award is governed by transparent and objective criteria and restrictions are on a qualitative, rather than quantitative, basis. On the evidence available to us, however, the current system does not pass these tests."
That is another indication of the fact that legal costs are higher as a result of the QC system.
The report continues, at paragraph 276:
"Even if there is no quota in operation (and we do not have sufficient information to establish with certainty whether there is or is not), the appointments system (despite recent reform following the Peach report)"—
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which hon. Members have debated before—
"does not appear to operate as a genuine quality mark. The system is secretive and, so far as we can tell, lacks objective standards. It also lacks some of the key features of a recognised accreditation system, such as examinations, peer review, fixed term appointments and quality appraisal to ensure that the quality mark remains justified. We were told that many solicitors and some barristers criticise the lack of objectivity of the system."
In its conclusions, the report states:
"In our view, therefore, the existing QC system does not operate as a genuine quality accreditation scheme. It thus distorts competition among junior and senior barristers. Our evidence indicates that clients do not generally need the assistance of a quality mark, but if there is to be such a scheme, it should be administered by the profession itself on transparent and objective grounds. Furthermore, there is some evidence that an informal quota is in operation within the current QC appointments system, and that it appears to have the effect of raising fees charged to litigation clients.
We do not think that a mark of quality or experience is necessarily anti-competitive, so long as the award is governed by transparent and objective criteria, and restrictions are based on qualitative, rather than quantitative, factors. On the evidence available to us, however, the current system does not pass these tests."
That is virtually a complete precis of a speech that I made at greater length in the Committee on the Access to Justice Bill, as my hon. Friend the Minister and other hon. Members who sat on the Committee can confirm. I know that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough is a member of the cartel, and may therefore have an interest in maintaining it, but I feel entirely vindicated by the excellent work done by the OFT and its consultants.
When my hon. Friend the Minister replies to the debate, I hope that he will assure me that the Government will bear in mind the need to deal with competition within the legal profession to break down the restrictive practices that make justice more expensive and less accessible. That will ultimately provide a better and much fairer system for the public. I end with a plea to my hon. Friend that the Government implement in full the OFT recommendations.
4.23 pm
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: My comments will be briefer and somewhat more modest than those of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). I certainly do not intend to take on Queen's counsel. His contributions on that subject have been consistent, and it seems that that may bring rewards.
I applaud the Government on the concept and application of the new legal services arrangements through the community legal service. It is still developing and has not yet reached its goal, but it is certainly going in the right direction.
Like many hon. Friends, I was one of those country solicitors who entered the House in 1997. I should declare an interest in that I have retained my practising certificate, although in the hope that I will not need it. If I need it again—the theoretical possibility always exists—I know for sure that the profession to which I shall return will, with the advent of the CLS, be that much more robust and efficient in the service it provides to its clients and the opportunities it provides to practitioners who want to offer a service to the public.

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I should add the caveat that if the Conservatives come to power, God forbid, their public service cuts would result in the virtual end of legal aid, which would be regrettable. Forgive me, Mr. O'Hara, for wasting time on such a remote scenario.
I congratulate the Minister on the way in which the CLS has performed during the past year and the changes that will be introduced in April. The CLS has scored well in three essential areas. First, it has ensured higher quality services. Secondly, it has made better use of the professional time that is paid for out of the public purse and has reduced unnecessary red tape. Thirdly, as a consequence, it has provided better value for public money than was achieved previously.
On quality of advice, there was a time when solicitors of limited knowledge advised on any matter under the green form system. Someone came to me once asking for complicated advice on admiralty law. I turned him away, but many solicitors would have failed to do so. My area of experience is employment matters, but I know that many solicitors have signed a green form and given advice of questionable quality. The problem is that many folk of modest means do not know when they have received bad advice, so they lose out. Better off folk often have contacts and know the professions, and experience shows that they often go to experts through recommendation. The average person—I do not like the phrase "working class"—does not have experience of the legal system and does not know any lawyers. People on the Broomgrove estate in my constituency do not know where professionals hang out. They certainly do not know who to go to beyond the legal aid sign in the window. They have been short-changed in the past. The care that the CLS takes in approving and auditing solicitors who can offer legal help is admirable, and gives a seal of approval which is often a better guarantee than that available to clients who pay but who enter a lottery when deciding from whom to seek advice.
Some criticism may be made of the new system, and one disadvantage of allowing only those who have been approved to offer advice is that folk sometimes have to travel. That is particularly troublesome in areas of lower population, as in Hastings in my constituency and along the Sussex coast. I suspect that it is an even greater difficulty in other parts of the country, but it is a price worth paying. However proximate, helpful and charming my general practitioner may be, I would rather go to King's hospital for my heart bypass than have him deal with it in the surgery. The same applies to legal advice. It is surely worth travelling to obtain the expertise to ensure quality legal advice.
I want to comment on the problem of unnecessary bureaucracy. Red tape has a bad name. I read recently that the Opposition were complaining about red tape, but they were talking about the minimum wage, the working family tax credit and so on. I am referring not to that sort of red tape, but to the interminable blue forms—which were covered by the green form—that I used to have to fill in to obtain legal aid for clients. The public purse paid not only for legal advice, but for form filling.
The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) will not know about filling in legal aid forms, but I do not expect him to, because he is not a solicitor. Solicitors did not intend to cheat the legal aid system, but that is how it was abused. Standard practice
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entailed filling in a green form and spending the next two hours dealing not with the issue, but with a blue form that went to the Legal Aid Board. During the process, one would receive telephone calls from people asking what had happened to their application. Applicants would often receive no advice for six weeks before discovering whether their application had been accepted.
I acknowledge that the previous Government started contracting through their franchise system, but the Government have developed that through the CLS, so they are putting their faith in expert practitioners. Those solicitors are not only expert practitioners, but they audit themselves in that they are allowed to determine which cases should proceed. The process admittedly occurs under strict guidelines, but it does not require form filling and red tape.
The new system provides better value because people are going to experts. We no longer pay people for looking up the law. When solicitors were paid by the hour, the less they knew—
Mr. Burnett: I must confess that I have never done legal aid work and I have not had much to do with getting costs. However, I thought that one could never recover costs for looking up the law because a lawyer, regardless of his or her speciality, is presumed to know the law.
Mr. Foster: Indeed, if that were true there would not be a problem. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman from both my experience in a legal aid practice on the south coast and my contacts in the profession that that is not the case. When expertise was not a prerequisite for giving advice, solicitors of wide experience but no particular expertise would take on legal aid cases without an audit. They would listen to clients' pleas, give the best advice they could and tell them that they would write as to the rest. I am assured that that no longer happens when contracts are in place, because only lawyers who are expert in a certain field are contracted to provide advice. Furthermore, it is more satisfying for the legal profession to give good advice rather than floundering around wondering whether they are exactly correct or whether they need to check. Experts who know that they are giving correct advice waste less time.
The changes have been good for both the profession and the public. Earlier in the debate I put it to the hon. and learned Member for Harborough that the litmus test we should use to determine the success of the Government's changes is what our constituents say. In the past year, I have had not a single complaint from a constituent about the non-availability of legal assistance, and nor, I suspect, has he. Other hon. Members would doubtless express concern if they felt that there was a problem. In the past year, no one has complained about an incompetent contracting solicitor, the non-availability of legal assistance, or the non-availability of assistance in pursuing personal injury claims through conditional fee agreements. For me, that is the litmus test. People write to me about all manner of other matters, but they do not write to say that legal services are falling short. I believe that the Government are doing an extremely good job, and I should like to thank them.
Mr. Burnett: I do not want to be disputatious, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that many of my

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constituents have complained about not being able to get legal representation. I should add that I have not examined the merits of their cases, but there is no doubt that a number of people feel that they do not have access to justice.
Mr. Foster: This is perhaps not the time to ask such a question, but I should be interested to know how many people felt that way and the relevant circumstances. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, he does not know whether their complaints were merited and involved non-accessibility. Certainly, none of my constituents has complained about non-availability of legal assistance.
It has been argued that conditional fee arrangements—I do not want to go too far into this issue—lead solicitors to give different advice from that which they would have given under the old system, but that cannot be right. Under the old system, if there was no good case to pursue, a solicitor was bound to say so. The same constraints apply under the conditional fee arrangements, although it is true that there may be a personal interest. As we know, the reality was that solicitors often said, "We'll have a go because legal aid is involved." That is a different practice, and although it was not widespread, it certainly occurred and should not be encouraged. The conditional fee arrangements will merely require greater thought to be given to the answer to a question that should always be put.
I congratulate the Government on the proposals, which are working well. I also congratulate the Minister on working hard to ensure a justifiable outcome for ideas that used to be criticised.
4.37 pm
Mr. Lock: With the leave of the House, I shall speak for a second time.
This debate has been interesting in some senses, because it has dealt with issues other than those relating to its title. It has also been somewhat tetchy and bad-tempered in places. Unfortunately, all the places were those where the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) intervened. He began with a rather personal attack on the Lord Chancellor, and proceeded to attack my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. However, when he himself was attacked by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore)—who has worked in this field for 20 years, and whose knowledge is considerable—he tetchily replied that such complaints reflect badly on the person who makes them.
Mr. Garnier: What is the Minister talking about? He should get on with the debate.
Mr. Lock: Yet again, the hon. and learned Gentleman fails to appreciate the effect of his comments. I accept that he is entitled to make such attacks—they are what we would expect in a low form of politics—but we are here to discuss the funding of public legal services, not to attack the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary.
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I agree that making remarks that have nothing to do with the funding of public legal services reflects badly on the person making the attack.
Mr. Garnier: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lock: No.
Mr. Garnier: On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. I assume that had you not thought that the remark made by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) should be withdrawn, you would not have asked him to withdraw it.
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): That is not a point of order. The matter has been resolved satisfactorily. Hon. Members whose remarks caused offence have addressed it.
Mr. Lock: I am grateful to you, Mr. O'Hara.
We have had a strange debate. I raised what happened in 1993 concerning eligibility for legal aid with the hon. and learned Member for Harborough because it was interesting example. Year zero did not begin in 1997. Time and Government existed before then—a different party was in Government. In 1993, when the hon. and learned Gentleman was in the House, there was a drastic reduction in eligibility limits. In particular, eligibility for what was then green form advice was slashed, which meant that millions of people could no longer benefit from public legal services. Millions of people who had been able to get help on the range of issues mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) suddenly found that their modest income—and very modest it was—could no longer receive legal assistance. One intention behind my announcement earlier this week was to put right the damage that was done in 1993.
Despite the fact that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough was a Member of Parliament in 1993, and a lawyer, albeit not a legal aid lawyer—legal aid has never been available in defamation cases—he is entirely unaware of the radical changes that then led to the reduction in eligibility. Those changes are the recent history of the legal aid system, creaking as it was with bills going up year on year—[Interruption.] I note that from a sedentary position, the hon. and learned Gentleman is attempting to change the subject. That sums up his attitude.
This Government has made a forensic attempt to examine access to justice. There have been difficult balancing acts and the Government have faced difficult issues. It is true that we can only spend money once.
It is fascinating that at no stage was the hon. and learned Gentleman prepared to say that these are important services for the public. He would not say that it was important that people who have housing cases should have access to a lawyer who can advise them when they are threatened with unlawful eviction, or that those who suffer domestic violence should be entitled to go to a lawyer to get an injunction for protection from their partner. He would not say that taxpayers' money should be invested in such an important area.
The reason for his attitude is that, worse than slashing eligibility, as proposed in 1993, the Opposition propose to take £525 million out of the legal aid system as part

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of their effort to appeal to the electorate with tax-cutting proposals. Their proposals would drastically affect access to justice, but the hon. and learned Gentleman is not prepared to debate them. He will not explain or defend them, or say what effect they would have on clients. He only repeats the concern of the Law Society that the extent to which the Govt have increased eligibility is not enough. From the lawyers' perspective, I am sure that it is not enough, but they are not carrying out the balancing act of government in determining how much money goes to health and education and how much to legal services.
One person who should not cite the Law Society in support of his argument is an Opposition Member whose party is proposing to remove £500 million from legal services and who would deny access to important services to those who are currently eligible for them.
It was remarkable to hear a bitty attack on small parts of the Government's scheme, given that my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye and for Hendon, who have practical knowledge of the development of the community legal service, can say that it is working well, and bedding down well in its early stages.
The hon. and learned Member for Harborough expressed a concern about insurance. As I mentioned in an intervention on the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett), some 100,000 litigation policies have been written to support CFAs and we think that Claims Direct has taken on a further 60,000 cases. Last November, the Law Society published facts and figures on different insurance products, and I commend it for that. The insurers that it mentioned included Accident Line Protect, which provides insurance for personal injuries and criminal negligence at premiums of above £300, and the Motor Accident Solicitors Society, which provides insurance for road traffic cases at a premium of £195.
Some policies now available provide that premiums are payable only on settlement of the case or at the trial. Other policies provide that the premium is to be paid only if the case is successful, so it is a disbursement at the end of the case, like any other. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough asked about the development of a mature insurance market. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon explained, that is happening only because of the removal of personal injury cases—the money can be spent better elsewhere—combined with the recoverability of both the success fee and the insurance premium. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough did not mention the latter point, but anybody who understands the operation of the insurance market knows that it is crucial. Without that recoverability, money that has to be paid to lawyers cuts into damages, which in our system are purely compensatory. That is the defect both of the system of conditional fees that we inherited and of the CLAF system that the hon. and learned Gentleman's party wants to use to replace the current legal aid system.
Mr. Burnett: The Minister referred to Claims Direct. Does he believe that its conduct is governed by sufficient rules and disciplinary procedures? If he thinks that it
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should be governed by more stringent rules, what should they be, who should provide them, and who should regulate the company's activities?
Mr. Lock: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government established the Blackwell Committee to examine the provision of non-qualified legal advice, especially in the fields of personal injury and employment. It has never been illegal in this country to provide legal advice outside court proceedings, and the process has never been regulated.
It is very important that the market for people with personal injury claims should be vigorous and active. People must have a means of asserting their rights. Claims Direct is part of that market. Lawyers who want to encourage business, and who have specialisms that non-lawyers do not have, can learn from the marketing techniques, advertising and client care that some non-lawyer organisations have developed. It is important to note that the Blackwell Committee found no evidence of substantial abuse—although there were some areas of concern—nor a sufficient case for regulating free action. The Government are considering that report, but I encourage lawyers who want to operate in the personal injury sector to look at their own client care and advertising, and to market their own expertise. If they believe—what is undoubtedly true—that they have expertise that Claims Direct and other claims management companies do not have, they must sell their benefits to the public. Now that insurance premiums and success fees are recoverable, there is no reason why clients should recover anything less than the full amount of damages to which they are entitled.
Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his last comment that no one should lose anything out of the damages. Did the Blackwell Committee consider the issue before or after the new arrangements came fully on stream? That would make a big difference to the outcome in terms of protecting the public. Will he also consider how a firm of solicitors could advertise on an equal basis with Claims Direct, which is a multi-million pound organisation which is floated on the stock exchange?
Mr. Lock: My recollection is that the Blackwell Committee reported in February last year and that the new arrangements were implemented in April. It is therefore important that the Department should continue to monitor the operation of the market. As for the relative size of some claims management companies and some associations of solicitors' firms, there are 100,000 solicitors in the country. The profession is diverse, but not poor. There are considerable benefits of solicitors joining together to market their expertise. I am sure that they will do so effectively. They have a skill to sell. They are a proper regulated body and the Government want to encourage the maintenance of a strong and independent legal sector. However, it is up to solicitors themselves to organise their own marketing and not complain if other companies come into an unregulated part of the market and advertise effectively.
I can provide the assurance sought by the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon in respect of equity in homes. When assessing an applicant's eligibility for funding, the first £100,000 of equity in a

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home is disregarded. That has been the position for several years. It is about the average cost of a home. Contributions from equity will not be introduced as was proposed in the consultation paper last year. It was never proposed that equity below £100,000 would be taken into account for determining eligibility. It was only proposed for contributions and that is a step, which, thanks to other controls that the Government have taken within the funding of legal services, we now do not need to take. We have listened to those people who have responded to our consultation and have noted their reasons for objecting to that change.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon for his supportive comments. I noted with interest what he said about the anti-competitive, fee-fixing cartel, as he described the Queen's counsel system. Clearly, the Government will be reflecting carefully on the report from Office of Fair Trading, "Competition in professions". It has only recently been received and it would be inappropriate to give any concluded views now.
My hon. Friend also asked what would happen if the case that is presently proceeding to the Court of Appeal in Chester is reversed. I am sure that he appreciates that I cannot comment on individual cases. The Government's view is that it is entirely reasonable for solicitors to take out insurance at the commencement of a case that, because of the highly successful operation of pre-action protocols, will inevitably be before the issue of proceedings. It would not be inappropriate, nor is it the intention of the legislation, for there to be any bar on recoverability on insurance premiums that are paid at the commencement of a case.
Indeed, if the insurance premium were recoverable only when insurance was taken out at the point when the proceedings were issued, a substantially smaller number of insurance premiums would be issued and the risk associated with each one would be substantially higher. Therefore, each individual premium would involve considerable cost and the benefit of scale—which we have at the moment and which is why Accident Line Protect and the Motor Accident Solicitors Society can purchase premiums for a few hundred pounds—would be entirely lost. There are sound policy reasons for supporting pre-action protocols and for taking out insurance at the commencement of instructions, but the exact terms of the individual case would have to be determined by the court. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on an individual case.
Mr. Garnier: Is the Minister coming to the point about the numbers of county courts that will be closed—a point about which he intervened on me? Will he tell us whether the suspicions expressed by the writer of the
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letter to which I referred are unfounded? Will he tell us the precise number of county courts that the Government intend to close?
Mr. Lock: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for reminding me about that. Although it is not strictly within the terms of the debate, I am more than happy to respond. I was surprised when he said that he had read the "Modernising the Civil Courts" consultation document. As he has read it, he must understand the distinction between a proposal to close an entity known as a county court and a proposal to move to a system of centralising. In that system, one would have the benefit of scale in the administration of the paperwork associated with county courts and the maintenance of a large number of hearing centres at which cases may be heard.
It is not important to the public that there should be a single building in which both hearings and paperwork are dealt with. They simply need to know that when they seek an injunction for domestic violence, or when there is a possession hearing, the hearing will be heard in a place accessible to them. The division proposed in the "Modernising the Civil Courts" paper between the traditional county court unit and the administration—between business centres and hearing centres—will not lead to the sort of the radical closure of courts, in the sense of the removal of hearing centres, described in the letter quoted from the Public and Commercial Services Union. I was surprised that the hon. and learned Gentleman, having read the paper, did not understand that that position had a fundamental lack of logic.
Mr. Garnier: Can I test the Minister on that?
Mr. Lock: No, I have answered the point and, besides, the hon. and learned Gentleman on several occasions refused to give way either to me or to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon.
Mr. Garnier rose—
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (in the Chair): Order. It should be clear to the hon. and learned Member for Harborough that the Minister will not give way.
Mr. Lock: The real issue for the debate is the public funding of civil legal services. The development of the community legal service over the past year has been a great success, and I pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of people involved. We have expanded the concept of legal services, so that they no longer involve lawyers alone. We acknowledge, for the first time, the valuable role played by law centres, citizens advice bureaux, housing advice centres and a myriad of other organisations that provide important advice and help to those that need it. I hope that through this debate and the work of the community legal service partnerships, the spread of funding will increase so that the community legal service continues to thrive and we have better legal services.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Five o'clock.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Waste Regulation
  Ms Bridget Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what checks the Environment Agency makes before providing individuals with waste management licences and waste carrier licences. [148730]

  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  Under section 36(3) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Environment Agency may reject an application for waste management licence if it is not satisfied the applicant is a "fit and proper person" or if rejection is necessary to prevent pollution of the environment or harm to human health. There are three components to the "fit and proper person" test: conviction for a relevant offence, technical competence and financial provision. Guidance on these provisions has been provided to the Environment Agency in Waste Management Paper No. 4 "Licensing of Waste Management Facilities"; and Waste Management Paper No. 4A "Licensing of Metal Recycling Sites".

  Under section 3 of the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989, and Regulation 5 of the Controlled Waste (Registration of Carriers and Seizure of Vehicles) Regulations 1991, the Environment Agency may reject an application for registration as a carrier of controlled waste if, among other reasons, the applicant has been convicted of a prescribed offence, and in the opinion of the Agency it is undesirable for the applicant to be authorised to transport waste. Guidance on the refusal by the Environment Agency of applications for waste carrier registration has been provided in DOE Circular 11/91 (paragraphs 1.27–1.47).

  The Coastguard
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if it is his policy to allow the coastguard to use public funds for non-operational purposes, including publicity; and if he will make a statement. [151445]

  Mr. Hill
  The Maritime and Coastguard Agency is responsible for the operation of the Coastguard service. The Agency uses public funding for non-operational purposes such as publicity and educational material to raise safety awareness, promote maritime safety generally and to protect the marine environment.

  Mobile Telephone Masts
  Mr. Levitt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what weight will be given to health risks when deciding on planning permission for mobile telephone masts. [151656]
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  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Health considerations and public concern can in principle be material considerations in determining applications for planning permission and prior approval. Whether such matters are material in a particular case is ultimately a matter for the courts. It is for the decision-maker (usually the local planning authority) to determine what weight to attach to such considerations in any particular case. However, it is the Government's view that if a proposed development meets the guidelines of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) on limiting public exposure to electromagnetic fields it should not be necessary for an authority, in processing an application, to consider health effects further.

  Road Works
  Mr. McDonnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to review the provisions of the New Roads and Streetworks Act 1991 in relation to the control of roadworks undertaken by private telecommunications contractors. [152048]

  Mr. Hill
  Regulations under section 74 of the New Road and Street Works Act 1991 were laid before the House on 26 February. These will come into force on 1 April and allow highway authorities to levy charges on utilities, including telecommunications companies, who fail to complete street works by an agreed deadline. The Government also took powers in the Transport Act 2000 to make regulations permitting highway authorities to levy daily charges on utilities from the outset of works (so-called "lane rental"). The lane rental powers are being kept in reserve at this stage. However, we will activate them if it becomes clear that the section 74 powers have failed to reduce sufficiently the disruption which works cause to road users. We have also made it clear that we are prepared to introduce further measures, including revisiting other provisions of the 1991 Act.

  Bus Vehicle Inspectors
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many licences have been withdrawn from bus companies by bus vehicle inspectors in each of the last three years. [152003]

  Mr. Hill
  Vehicle Examiners from the Vehicle Inspectorate notify the results of their maintenance inspections to Traffic Commissioners who are responsible for licensing operators of public service vehicles. The numbers of licences revoked by Traffic Commissioners as a result of operators failing to maintain their vehicles adequately are:

  1997–98:—21

  1998–99:—20

  1999–00:—18.

  All figures relate to Great Britain.

  Turnham Green Tube Station
  Mr. Hilary Benn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 26 February 2001,Official Report, column 317W, on Turnham Green tube station, on how

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  many occasions Piccadilly Line trains have made special stops at Turnham Green tube station since the current engineering works began. [152156]

  Mr. Hill
  This is an operational issue for London Underground who inform me that between 3 February and 6 March 2001 there have been 12 special stops in the morning and five special stops in the afternoon of Piccadilly Line trains at Turnham Green tube station. The majority of these stops were made outside the peak hours.

  LUL have also informed me that there have been three additional periods, two in the morning peak and one between 8pm and 10pm when Piccadilly Line trains have stopped but the actual number of trains that have stopped during each period has not been recorded for those occasions.

  London Underground
  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 23 January 2001 to the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Coleman),Official Report, column 525W, on London Underground, what factors underlay the difference between (a) the original figure for London Underground's gross operating margin for 1999–2000 and the revised figure, (b) the original operating loss of London Underground Ltd. for 1999–2000 and the revised loss, (c) the original budgeted gross operating margin of London Underground Ltd. for 2000–01 and the revised figure and (d) the original budgeted investment programme for London Underground Ltd. in 2000–01 and the revised figure. [152370]

  Mr. Hill
  As was made clear in the Answer referred to in the Question, these differences result from London Underground's adoption of the accounting standard Financial Reporting Standard 15, which governs the treatment of tangible fixed assets. The underlying figures are unchanged.

  Motorway Safety Signs
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the criteria governing the siting of Tiredness Kills notices on motorways. [152263]

  Mr. Hill
  Decisions on the provision of signs at specific locations are made locally and, based on conditions at the site concerned. In most cases, however, "Tiredness Can Kill" signs are provided no more than around two miles in advance of a motorway service area. This ensures that motorists who take the advice to have a break from driving do so at a motorway service area, where they can park safely.

  Vehicle Excise Duty
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many road fund licences were unpaid in(a) Essex and (b) Kent at the end of February; what the procedure for collecting the moneys due for unpaid road fund licences is; and what the penalties for non-payment are. [152595]
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  Mr. Hill
  A roadside survey conducted in 1999 estimated that there were 43,000 unlicensed vehicles in Essex and 44,000 in Kent.

  Vehicle excise duty (VED) evaders are required to pay an out-of-court settlement or in more serious cases face prosecution. Some 612,000 were penalised last year. In addition a scheme is in place to wheelclamp, impound and dispose of unlicensed vehicles. Over 333,000 motorists have been encouraged to relicense thus far as a result of the scheme over the three and a half years it has been in operation.

  The maximum fine for VED evasion is a £1,000 or five times the annual rate of duty, whichever is the greater. In addition a penalty equal to the amount of duty owed must be paid, together with costs.

  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what action the Government are taking to enforce the requirement for all vehicles to display a valid tax disc. [152489]

  Mr. Hill
  Following a roadside survey in 1999, it is estimated that the level of Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) evasion has been cut for the first time from 4.1 per cent. in 1994 to 3.9 per cent., representing a saving of £17 million a year.

  The payment of VED is enforced by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). Action includes offering out-of-court settlements and prosecuting where appropriate. Last year over 612,000 motorists were penalised and some £86 million in total was recovered in fines, penalties and relicensing revenue.

  Part of DVLA's enforcement role is to administer a nationwide scheme to wheelclamp, impound and dispose of unlicensed vehicles. The scheme has encouraged over 333,000 motorists to relicense their vehicles voluntarily bringing in over £39 million in increased revenue over the last three and a half years. The police work closely with DVLA on VED enforcement and take part in a programme of high profile VED enforcement campaigns throughout the country. Last year, 26 such campaigns were undertaken.

  A new initiative to detect and deter unlicensed vehicles will make use of mobile automatic number plate readers. A trial is due to take place shortly. It is planned to introduce this camera technology on a nationwide basis later this year.

  Combined Heat and Power
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what action the Government are taking to meet its target of 10,000 megawatts of CHP by 2010. [152638]

  Mr. Meacher
  We have introduced a range of incentives to stimulate CHP growth, including exemption of Good Quality CHP from the Climate Change Levy, subject to EU clearance and eligibility for enhanced capital allowances. Electricity generating plant and machinery will also be exempted from business rating from 1 April 2001 A comprehensive strategy will be
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  launched in the coming months to ensure that our 2010 target is achieved with the help of the measures already announced and other new measures designed to stimulate CHP growth further.

  Construction Industry (Health and Safety)
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many(a) fatal accidents and (b) accidents requiring an overnight stay in hospital there were on construction sites in each Government region in the last three years. [152640]

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–20001

  Region

  Fatal

  Major/Non-fatal

  Fatal

  Major/non-fatal

  Fatal

  Major/Non-fatal

  North

  5

  282

  0

  287

  2

  311

  North West

  15

  576

  12

  546

  9

  559

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  7

  430

  5

  484

  8

  426

  West Midlands

  7

  331

  7

  365

  3

  378

  East Midlands

  4

  347

  3

  336

  5

  284

  East Anglia

  0

  142

  4

  188

  3

  164

  South West

  5

  365

  4

  380

  10

  419

  South East

  12

  761

  11

  799

  13

  824

  Greater London

  12

  635

  9

  744

  15

  815

  Wales

  7

  285

  6

  261

  3

  273

  Scotland

  12

  511

  7

  644

  14

  587

  Total

  86

  4,665

  68

  5,034

  85

  5,040

  1 The figures for 1999–2000 are provisional.

  Average Mortgage Payments
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what the average mortgage payment was in London(a) in 1996 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available. [152192]

  Mr. Raynsford
  Based on data from the Family Resources Survey, the estimated average mortgage payment for owner occupiers in London with an outstanding mortgage was:

  £ per week

  1996–97

  64

  1999–2000

  82

  Notes:

  1. These figures are a combination of interest payments only, for those with interest-only mortgages, and interest payments plus capital repayments for those with repayment mortgages. It is not possible to separate the two.

  2. Any insurance payments (eg endowment, mortgage protection or buildings insurance) are excluded.

  3. The estimates are rounded to the nearest pound.

  4. The period covered, in each case, is 1 April to 31 March.

  Source:

  Family Resources Survey (Department of Social Security)

  Greater London Authority
  Ms Oona King
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what level of grant he will set for the Greater London Authority for 2001. [153069]
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  Mr. Meacher
  The following table displays, for each of the past three years1, reported fatal and major injuries to workers and fatal and non-fatal injuries to members of the public in the construction industry.

  The statistics are compiled from reports by employers and others under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases, and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR). Major and non-fatal injuries are defined as major injuries to workers (e.g. amputations, fractures and injuries which lead to 24 hours stay in hospital) and to members of the public, which lead to immediate transfer to hospital. Overnight stays in hospital are not reported.

  1 Data covers period 1 April to 31 March.

  Mr. Hill
  GLA Transport grant is determined annually after consultation with the Mayor of London under section 101 of the GLA Act 1999. The Secretary of State has today determined the level of grant for 2001–02 at £707,088,000.

  Transport for London
  Ms Bridget Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what major land assets were transferred to Transport for London on 3 July 2000. [153068]

  Mr. Hill
  I have today placed a list in the Libraries of both Houses, which details all the major land assets that TfL inherited on 3 July 2000.

  Heathrow
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when the inspector's report on the inquiry into the fifth terminal at Heathrow will be published. [152660]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The Secretary of State plans to publish the Inspector's Report when he issues the decision on Terminal 5. This is in accordance with the usual practice for planning decisions.

  Regional Planning Guidance
  Mr. Leslie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he intends to publish his response to the recommendations of the
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  panel that conducted the public examination of draft regional planning guidance for Yorkshire and the Humber; and if he will make a statement. [153125]

  Mr. Raynsford
  My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is today publishing for public consultation Proposed Changes to the Draft Regional Planning Guidance (RPG 12) for Yorkshire and the Humber. They are largely based on the recommendations of the independent Panel that held a public examination into draft RPG last summer.

  In October 2000, my right hon. Friend published new guidance on regional planning in Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) Note 11. This followed the announcement of a new approach to planning for housing provision last March which was taken forward in more detail in the revised Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) Note 3. Important issues for the region to take forward are contained in the Urban and Rural White Papers, issued last November. The Proposed Changes to the draft RPG for Yorkshire and the Humber reflect the principles and priorities set out in these statements. They aim to achieve urban and rural renaissance, support economic growth and regeneration, while at the same time protecting and enhancing the region's environment.

  Draft RPG was prepared by the Regional Assembly for Yorkshire and Humberside. Its overall spatial strategy aims to create a more sustainable region and achieve urban and rural renaissance by focusing development on the region's main towns and cities and making best use of previously-developed land. We support this, and, as recommended by the Panel, we are proposing changes to ensure that the strategy is more clearly expressed and so that its implications for development plans and other programmes are clearer to make a real difference on the ground.

  A key issue for the region is to encourage economic growth and regeneration in a sustainable way. To achieve this we are proposing changes which set out priority areas for regeneration, a clear strategic framework for choosing where future industrial and business development will take place, and a sub-regional growth study covering West Yorkshire and Barnsley.

  We are proposing that the first priority for regeneration in the region be South Yorkshire and the Coalfields, particularly the Dearne Valley. This reflects South Yorkshire's Objective 1 status and the importance of regenerating the Yorkshire Coalfields. The strategy also aims to build on the success of the Leeds economy and spread the benefits further afield. To help this process, it is proposed that the Regional Assembly leads a growth study involving the local authorities, Yorkshire Forward and other stakeholders. The study would look to examine the potential for plan-led growth, and determine the distribution of additional housing land. It offers the opportunity to take a more strategic and collaborative approach than in the past and will provide a valuable input to an early review of RPG.

  We are proposing a modest increase in the amount of additional housing in the region as recommended by the Panel in order to reflect the region's aims of economic regeneration and growth. The new proposal is for 14,650 additional dwellings per year, compared with the 13,980 previously proposed by the region's local
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  authorities. We agree with the Panel's recommendation that 60 per cent. of this should be provided on previously-developed land and by re-using existing buildings.

  We are proposing some changes to the distribution of the housing provision as recommended by the Panel in order to ensure that it is concentrated on the region's main towns and cities, avoids unnecessary development in the countryside, and helps to create a better balance between where people live and work.

  There will now be a twelve week consultation period on the Proposed Changes, ending on Friday 1 June 2001. Copies of the relevant documents have been placed in the House Library and provided to all of the region's MPs.

  Ports Police
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on port police forces. [153353]

  Mr. Hill
  We are setting up a review of the current arrangements for ports police, as proposed in "Modern Ports—A UK Policy", published in November last year. My Department is aiming to review the powers, duties and functions of ports police forces; the advantages or disadvantages of alternative arrangements that have been implemented at those; ports that no longer have port police; how the port police forces compare to Home Office police forces in terms of accountability i.e. management, inspection, complaints procedures, disciplinary matters and training; and report on the current situation and make recommendations for future options for the port police. We will be consulting the ports police forces, the ports industry and users and other Government Departments.

  Municipal Ports
  Mr. Rapson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on his Department's proposed study of municipal ports. [153354]

  Mr. Hill
  The ports policy paper noted our intention to look at the existing management structures and practices and financial arrangements for municipal ports to make sure that they are playing a full and accountable part in the local and regional economy. We are keen to ensure that municipal ports have an opportunity to benefit from the same changes as are now being made in the trust port sector following out review of trust ports and publication of national standards of accountability and good practice in "Modernising Trust Ports—A Guide to Good Governance" (which we launched last year).

  We are now about to commence the study and will be looking at: how effectively the Best Value initiative and the Modern Local Government White Paper are impacting on municipal ports: what, if any, constraints are posed to development, accountability and effective operation by municipal ownership and how these might be addressed; the advantages of municipal ownership for non-commercial municipal ports;

  The study will also seek to benchmark performance of the municipal sector against other UK ports and will examine options and opportunities for the future role and status of municipal ports in England and Wales.
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  There will be full consultation with the relevant local authorities, the ports sector, and port users. We aim to report the findings of this study and any recommendations by the end of the year.

  Ferries
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when more rigorous safety checks for roll on/roll off passenger and high-speed ferries operating in UK waters will be introduced. [153355]

  Mr. Hill
  Regulations implementing Council Directive 1999/35/EC on a system of mandatory surveys for the safe operation of regular roll on/roll off and high speed passenger craft operating a service to or from the UK came into force on 16 February.

  The Regulations require Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) surveyors to:
  Inspect a vessel's documentation;
  Verify a vessel's operating company and flag state;
  Check for the presence of a voyage data recorder (required on all roll on/roll off ferries by January 2003);
  Survey each vessel once a year, or where the vessel's circumstances have changed;
  Prevent a vessel from operating if it does not meet stringent EU safety rules; or else require any safety defects to be remedied.

  These new, tougher safety measures will result in greater safety on all roll on/roll off and high speed passenger ferries operating in UK waters, regardless of which flag they might fly.

  Local Transport Plans
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he intends to issue guidance to local authorities on local transport plan annual progress reports. [153356]

  Mr. Hill
  In order to provide the guidance on local transport plan annual reports to local authorities as early as possible, my Department is today arranging for local authorities to receive copies of the guidance by electronic mail. This will be followed shortly with printed copies and the posting of the guidance on my Department's website.

  Departmental Policies (Clwyd, South)
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to the Clwyd, South constituency, the effects on Clwyd, South of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997. [150912]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I have been asked to reply because, prior to 1 July 1999, responsibility for most aspects of transport, environmental and local government policy in Wales fell to my Department. Since the impact of departmental policies and actions is not normally examined by constituency, it is not practicable, in most cases, to provide statistical information which is specific to Clwyd, South. However, I can say that, between 1 April 1997 and 31 March 2000, central Government grants were 278W
  paid under the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme towards the cost of domestic insulation measures for some 4,200 households in my hon. Friend's constituency.

  A range of all-Wales policy initiatives and other action taken during this period will also have impacted on Clwyd, South and its residents. Some of the more significant ones are listed and fuller details are contained in the Welsh Office Departmental Reports for 1998 (Cm 3915) and 1999 (Cm 4216), copies of which are in the Library:
  "A Strategic Review of the Welsh Trunk Roads Programme"—setting Wales' highway needs in the context of a balanced integrated transport policy (July 1997);
  "Wales for the 21" Century"—providing guidance to local authorities on the preparation of Agenda 21 plans (January 1998);
  "Transporting Wales into the Future"—examining ways of developing integrated transport solutions which would meet the particular needs of Wales (July 1998): and
  "Driving Wales Forward"—identifying a new core network of nationally important strategic roads and setting out key criteria to be used in assessing options for addressing problems on the road network (July 1998).

  In addition, two substantial pieces of primary legislation—the Local Government Acts 1999 and 2000—have implemented the Government's vision of revitalised local government in both Wales and England. The best value provisions in the 1999 Act, and the new political management structures, ethical framework and powers to promote the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of communities in the 2000 Act, have given local authorities the tools they need to be more efficient, transparent and accountable in serving their local communities.

  Other developments since 1 July 1999 are matters for the National Assembly for Wales.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Public Relations (Expenditure)
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the total expenditure and the breakdown of expenditure was in his Department for the financial years(a) 1996–97. (b) 1997–98, (c) 1998–99 and (d) 1999–2000, and what the planned expenditure and breakdown of expenditure for 2000–01 is on (i) public opinion research, (ii) television, radio and newspaper advertising and
  (iii) direct mail. [149259]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 8 February 2001]: (i) Public Opinion Research: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on 17 December 1998, Official Report, column 721W. In the present financial year, the FCO has spent £43,000 on preliminary public opinion research on consular matters.

  (ii) TV. Radio and Newspaper advertising: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on 17 December 1998, Official Report, column 721W, and to the answer given to the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) on 9 January 2001, Official Report, column 504W. There have been no further consular publicity campaigns on TV or Radio or in the newspapers. The FCO has advertised in the region of 200–250 recruitment campaigns since

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  1996. It would involve disproportionate costs to establish a breakdown of expenditure. The European Union Command advertised its Europe Day 2000 in Metro at a cost of £8,539.

  (iii) Direct mail: Since the answer given to the hon. Member on 17 December 1998, Official Report, column 721W, approximately £200 has been spent on direct mail by the European Union Command.

  Minority Ethnic Liaison Officer
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what has been the cost to date of hiring a consultant minority ethnic liaison officer. [152408]

  Mr. Wilson
  Since 1 December 1999, £43,724, including VAT has been paid to a consultancy company for the services of the FCO's Minority Ethnic Liaison Adviser.

  Sri Lanka
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations to the Sri Lankan Government he has made about the possible introduction of capital punishment in Sri Lanka. [152480]

  Mr. Wilson
  The UK opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and, together with EU partners, calls upon all states to abolish the death penalty. At the World Bank Development Forum in December 2000, the EU expressed their concern about Sri Lanka's plan to bring back the death penalty. The EU Troika in Colombo are currently seeking a meeting with the Sri Lankan Minister for Justice to make a formal demarche on this matter.

  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action he is taking to encourage peace in Sri Lanka. [152479]

  Mr. Wilson
  The Government remain fully committed to supporting the peace process in Sri Lanka. We will continue to give our wholehearted support to Norway's efforts to facilitate peace talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE. We stand ready to play a role, if asked.

  We urge the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to intensify their efforts towards seeking, with the help of the Norwegian Government, a peaceful negotiated settlement to this tragic conflict which has claimed over 65,000 lives.

  Logos and Branding
  Mr. Tyrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much has been spent by his Department on departmental and agency logos and associated branding since 1 May 1997. [152657]

  Mr. Wilson
  We have spent £127,333 on departmental and associated branding since 1 May 1997.

  Mrs. Ingrid Chare
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he will 280W
  reply to a letter dated 7 November 2000 concerning Mrs. Ingrid Chare, a constituent, whose address has been supplied to him. [152457]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 7 March 2001]: My noble Friend Baroness Scotland of Asthal, FCO Minister responsible for consular matters, replied to my hon. Friend's letter on 7 March.

  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with representatives of the Saudi Arabian Government on the efforts of Mrs. Ingrid Chare to obtain compensation following the death of her husband, Mr. John Bernard Chare. [152459]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 7 March 2001]: Our Consulate in Jeddah has raised this matter with the Saudi authorities on over six occasions in the last 12 months. Compensation matters such as these do take some time to resolve. Our Consulate will continue to press the judge for a decision on the Blood Money in this case. We are waiting for confirmation of the exact date the papers to be served on Mr. Chare's former company were passed to the Saudi authorities. Our Embassy in Riyadh and our Consulate in Jeddah are currently closed for the Eid holiday. However, my noble Friend Baroness Scotland of Asthal, FCO Minister responsible for consular matters, will write directly to my hon. Friend once we have this information.

  Afghanistan
  Mr. Ennis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if any goods subject to strategic export controls have recently been approved for export to Afghanistan. [153209]

  Mr. Wilson
  The Department of Trade and Industry recently issued two export licences for mine-clearance equipment for use by the HALO Trust to assist their demining activities in Afghanistan. These goods appear on the Military list. However, UNSCR 1333 (2000) which imposes inter alia an arms embargo on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, it provides scope for the UN Sanctions Committee to approve of non-lethal military equipment intended solely for humanitarian or protective use to Taliban-controlled territory. The Sanctions Committee has given its approval in these cases.

  The granting of these export licences are fully consistent with the UN Security Council resolutions and does not affect the Government's continued support for the EU common position on arms exports to Afghanistan.

  South Georgia
  Mr. Ennis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made towards establishing a fully civilian presence on South Georgia. [153210]

  Mr. Battle
  In 1998 the Government announced their intention to establish a fully civilian presence on South Georgia. From the end of March, the small military detachment will be withdrawn. The Commissioner for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and the Commander British Forces, based in the Falkland Islands,
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  will continue to have responsibility for ensuring the security of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

  At the same time, the British Antarctic Survey will be opening a new scientific base on South Georgia. The scientific and support team will augment the existing civilian presence on the island. New accommodation and science facilities have been built. BAS will undertake a programme of scientific research, under contract to the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The aim will be to support the Government in environmental management and sustainable development of the Territory.

  The opening of this new facility, with funding from the British Government, the Government of the Falkland Islands and the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands demonstrates our commitment to the Overseas Territories, in accordance with the Overseas Territories White Paper 1999, in particular to sound environmental management of a territory with a unique and sensitive ecosystem.

  Our commitment to the maintenance of British sovereignty over South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and to ensuring their security, remains as firm as ever.

  Liberia
  Mr. Pound
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what changes there have been in United Nations sanctions in relation to Liberia. [153352]

  Mr. Wilson
  UN Security Council resolution 1344 (2001), imposing mandatory UN sanctions in relation to Liberia, was adopted on 7 March. The resolution was co-sponsored by the UK and US in response to the findings of the UN Expert Panel on Sierra Leone on violations of the Sierra Leone arms embargo and the link between the trade in diamonds and arms. The Security Council determined that the active support provided by the Government of Liberia for armed rebel groups in neighbouring countries, and in particular the RUF in Sierra Leone, constitutes a threat to international peace and security in the region.

  The new measures are as follows:
  an embargo on the export of arms and related material to Liberia, and a ban on the provision to Liberia of related technical assistance and training;
  a ban on the import by UN member states of any rough diamonds from Liberia, whether or not such diamonds originated in Liberia.
  a travel ban on senior members of the Liberian military and their spouses and any other individuals providing financial and military support to armed rebel groups in countries neighbouring Liberia, as designated by the UN Sanctions Committee.

  The diamond embargo and the travel ban will enter into force on 7 May, unless the Security Council determines before that date that Liberia has complied with its demands. These include the key demands that the Government of Liberia should cease all financial and military support for the RUF and should cease all imports of Sierra Leone rough diamonds in breach of UN sanctions.
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  The arms embargo and the ban on the provision of related technical assistance and training, which entered into force immediately upon the adoption of the resolution, are established for a period of 14 months. The other measures will be established for a period of 12 months. At the end of this period, the Council will decide whether the Government of Liberia has complied with its demands and, accordingly, whether to extend these measures for a further period.

  The resolution lifts the former arms embargo imposed on Liberia by UN Security Council resolution 788 (1992) in response to concerns regarding the civil war in that country.

  New Orders will be made to implement the new measures in the UK, the Crown Dependencies and the Overseas Territories under the United Nations Act 1946 and by other legislative and administrative means as necessary.

  Iran
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Iranian Government on the exclusion of the(a) Simon Wiesenthal centre and (b) Bahái international community from the United Nations world conference against racism, xenophobia, racial discrimination and related intolerance hosted by Iran. [152667]

  Mr. Wilson
  We have not made any representations to the Iranian Government in this instance. However, we and our EU partners take every opportunity to raise such issues, particularly those concerning discrimination and human rights, in Tehran and in London.

  In conjunction with our EU partners we also table twice-yearly UN resolutions on human rights in Iran. The most recent resolution, reflecting both positive developments and remaining concerns, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 4 December.

DEFENCE

  Defence Events
  Angela Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has for major future defence public events; and if he will make a statement. [153202]

  Mr. Hoon
  In 1999 my predecessor announced a series of events, now under the umbrella title Defence 2000, which would follow the ending of the Royal Tournament. The spirit of the Tournament would be taken forward with an event in London and a military festival held annually outside the capital at different military locations. The Royal Military Tattoo 2000 held on Horse Guards Parade last summer was a major undertaking for the Armed Services. It was the Ministry of Defence's principal contribution to the Millennium celebrations and was an outstanding success. London will continue to be well served with military pageantry not least in terms of State occasions, the annual Beat Retreat and Queen's Birthday Parade. We intend to identify possible future occasions where an event on the scale of RMT 2000 would be both appropriate and practicable.
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  In 2001, the Royal Navy will host the first regional event in Portsmouth. It will build on the very successful International Festival of the Sea format, held previously in Bristol in 1996 and Portsmouth in 1998. This year's International Festival of the Sea will feature significant contributions from all three Services under the title Defence 2001. These regional events will allow our Armed Services to display their latest equipment, as well as providing a glimpse into the future. There will be no regional event in 2002 because of the involvement of the Armed Services in the celebrations for The Queen's Golden Jubilee, in particular the Royal Visit to the Armed Services at Portsmouth and the Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's Cathedral. The Royal Air Force will host the regional event in 2003 and the Army in 2004.

  Performance Targets
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what performance targets have been set for the Medical Supplies Agency for 2001–02. [153204]

  Dr. Moonie
  Key Targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Medical Supplies Agency (MSA) for financial year 2001–02. The targets build on the progress already made by the Agency since it formed in March 1996 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1—composite medical materiel
  To build, completely, to schedule and within budget, by 31 March 2002, 100 per cent. of all modules on the mutually Operational Build Programme, as authorised by the Director Medical Operational Capability (D Med Op Cap).

  Key Target 2—the operational requirement
  To meet demands from units on active operations for blood products and scaled medical material within new and more challenging MSA Charter Response Time.

  Key Target 3—the exercise and training requirement
  To meet 100 per cent. of the Services requirements for modularised medical material, First Aid Kits, blood and blood products in support of exercises, training, Air Shows and other major events.

  Key Target 4—response to demands
  To meet the stated percentages of all demands for Category B items (commonly used items with a unit cost of less than £100 and approved by D Med Op Cap) within the agreed timescale, expressed in working days.

  Key Target 5—stock issued to stock held ratio
  To improve the ratio of stock issued to stock held from 2 to 2.25.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what performance targets have been set for the Defence Medical Training Organisation for 2001–02. [153205]

  Dr. Moonie
  Key Targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Defence Medical Training Organisation (DMTO) for financial year 2001–02. The targets build on the progress already made by the Agency since it formed in April 1997 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1—academic success (quality and quantity)
  To achieve the following academic success rates:
  Phase 2 Training—96 per cent.
  (Formerly entitled Common Core Course (CCC)).
  Specialist Registrars (SpR)—96 per cent.
  Pre-Registration Nurses (Pre-Reg Nurses)—96 per cent.
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  Key Target 2—academic success (timeliness)
  The following percentage of trainees achieving academic success to be delivered on time, as agreed with the customer:
  Phase 2 Training—96 per cent. (at first attempt, remainder at second attempt (which is normally within three months)).
  SpR—96 per cent.
  Pre-Reg Nurses—98 per cent.

  Key Target 3—external individual medical services training
  Confirm with customers the baseline requirement for external medical services training by 31 March 2002.

  Key Target 4—corporate efficiency index
  To achieve a 3 per cent. efficiency improvement demonstrated by the DMTO corporate efficiency index for 2001–02.

  Ms Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what performance targets have been set for the Defence Dental Agency for 2001–02. [153206]

  Dr. Moonie
  Key Targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Defence Dental Agency (DDA) for financial year 2001–02. The targets build on the progress already made by the Agency since it formed in March 1996 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1—The Operational Requirement
  From within personnel resources allocated to the DDA by single Services, to achieve 100 per cent. of personnel called forward, trained to required professional and military standards, at the specified readiness for deployment with the Joint Rapid Reaction Force (JRRF) and all operations.

  Key Target 2—Overall Dental Fitness
  For each Service, to achieve the dental fitness level targets, representing a significant improvement in Army dental fitness, as follows:

  (a) RN—at least 75 per cent.

  (b) Army—at least 70 per cent.

  (c) RAF—at least 75 per cent.

  Key Target 3—Treatment Needs
  To reduce the Treatment Need Index (TNI) for each Service to the following:

  (a) RN—at or below 470.

  (b) Army—at or below 670.

  (c) RAF—at or below 330.

  Key Target 4—Dental Fitness Category D
  To limit the number of personnel in dental fitness Category D4 (those personnel who have not received a dental inspection and charting for 12 months or more) representing a significant improvement in the Army position in particular, to the following percentage of the total Service population:

  (a) RN—13 per cent.

  (b) Army—16 per cent.

  (c) RAF—10 per cent.

  Key Target 5—Military Training
  To ensure that 80 per cent. of all DDA personnel, whose medical category permits, are released to undertake annual military training as specified by respective single Services.

  Key Target 6—Personnel for Exercises
  To ensure that 100 per cent. of all DDA personnel nominated to established posts in the operational core requirement of their parent Service are released to attend appropriate exercises.

  Ms Blears
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what performance targets have been set for the Defence Secondary Care Agency for 2001–02. [153207]
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  Dr. Moonie
  Key Targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Defence Secondary Care Agency (DSCA) for financial year 2001–02. The targets build on the progress already made by the Agency since it formed in April 1996 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1—The Operational Requirement
  From within the personnel resources provided to the DSCA by the single Services, to meet 100 per cent. of the requirement of the Commanders in Chief's (CinCs) for secondary care personnel for operational deployments.

  Key Target 2—Outpatient Waiting Times
  To ensure that 45 per cent. of Service patients referred to the Agency are offered a first outpatient appointment within four weeks of receipt of a referral and 90 per cent. within 13 weeks.

  Key Target 3—Inpatient Waiting Times
  To ensure that 80 per cent. of Service patients are offered a treatment date which is within 13 weeks of the decision to give inpatient treatment.

  Key Target 4—Efficiency
  To review medical equipment management policies and make savings of 10 per cent. or more in the costs of procurement, support and associated training.

  Key Target 5—Quality (Clinical Governance)
  To demonstrate measurable improvement in military patient satisfaction and risk management and introduce the agreed NHS procedures of appraisal for doctors and clinical supervision for nurses, by 31 March 2002.

  Key Target 6—Military Training
  To ensure that 80 per cent. of all DSCA personnel, whose medical category permits, are released to receive their respective Service's annual mandatory military training.

  Key Target 7—Personnel for Exercises
  To ensure that 80 per cent. of DSCA based personnel nominated to established posts in their Service's operational core requirement are released to attend appropriate exercises.

  Reserve Forces
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to call out members of the reserve forces to support UN operations in(a) Siena Leone and (b) the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [153203]

  Dr. Moonie
  Our policy remains that, reservists who volunteer to serve with our regular forces on such operations will be called-out as and when required. The first call-out order made under section 56 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 expired on 1 March and a further order effective from that date has been made to permit members of the reserve forces to continue to be called out for operations in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  Gulf War
  Mr. Hendrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he plans to resume the programme of voluntary immunisation against anthrax for armed forces personnel deployed to the Gulf. [153378]

  Mr. Spellar
  We plan to resume the anthrax immunisation programme for personnel deployed on operations to the Gulf shortly. Immunisation was last offered in 1998, but had to be suspended due to manufacturing difficulties at our supplier. We have now 286W
  received the first new supplies of licensed anthrax vaccine and will be in a position to resume the voluntary immunisation programme in April.

  Anthrax immunisation is safe and effective. As in 1998, it will be offered to personnel on the basis of voluntary informed consent. By accepting it alongside other defensive measures, armed forces personnel will have the very best protection possible against anthrax used as a biological weapon.

  Scottish Service Personnel
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) Scots and (b) non-Scots are serving in the UK armed forces. [152405]

  Mr. Spellar
  Examination of available personal records of currently serving personnel1 has revealed the following information:
  1Place of birth and nationality for personnel serving in the Naval Service is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Army details are based on nationality at birth, RAF on place of birth. The figures are for combined trained and untrained strengths.

  Number

  Scots

  Army1

  12,956

  RAF2

  5,688

  Non-Scots

  Army3

  96,953

  RAF

  48,221

  1 At 1 February 2001

  2 At 5 March 2001

  3 The non-Scots army figure includes 2,636 personnel with a recorded nationality at birth as 'British' with no further breakdown available.

  Mines
  Mr. Frank Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what alternatives to anti-personnel mines are being researched by DERA; and at what cost. [152599]

  Dr. Moonie
  In response to the Ministry of Defence requirement, DERA has been asked to pursue research into replacing the capability previously provided by anti-personnel mines. Any such capability will comply fully with the Ottawa Treaty. The research programme is to look at various sensor systems, such as acoustic, infrared and seismic, which when combined together can detect intrusion into a defined area. The cost of the proposed work is approximately £0.25 million to £0.5 million.

  Operational Tour Intervals
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the average interval between tours and the average length of operational tour was for(a) Army field ambulance units and (b) Army field hospital units in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [151802]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 7 March 2001]: The tour length for Field Hospitals, or main elements of Field Hospitals, was extended from six months to one year in 2000. The average tour interval for Field Hospitals

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  between 1995 and 1999 was nine months. The usual tour length for all Field Ambulance units is six months, although in the last five years some units have deployed on short notice deployments for less than this. The average tour interval for Field Ambulance units between 1995 and 2000 was 26 months. It is not possible to break these averages down by year as requested, as many deployments span more than one calendar year and the reorganisation of nine Field Ambulance units into five Medical Regiments between 1999 and 2000 further complicates the issue.

  Tour lengths and intervals for individuals do not necessarily match those for units. For example, individuals in Field Hospital units would not normally deploy for more than six months, and some only for much shorter periods, even though the unit tour length is now one year.

  Depleted Uranium
  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his Department's policy is on the call by the European Parliament for a suspension of the use of depleted uranium munitions. [147411]

  Mr. Spellar
  Based on the results of many years of scientific study already available to us, we see no basis for any moratorium on the use of depleted uranium (DU) based ammunition. This ammunition provides a battle-winning edge. We have no intention of denying this capability to our troops, thereby placing them at unnecessary risk. DU based ammunition will therefore remain part of our arsenal for the foreseeable future.

  NATO has recognised the concerns raised from the use of DU munitions and has acted swiftly in its responsibility to ensure Alliance members, Partners and other troop contributors are fully informed of DU risks. As announced by the Secretary General on 10 January, measures have been put in place to pool and share scientific analysis and information to best inform decision making, and in response the UK has contributed information for consideration and will continue to do so.

  Viral Warfare
  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what research he undertakes on(a) defence against viral warfare and (b) the foot and mouth virus. [152057]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: The remit of the Chemical and Biological Defence Sector of DERA at Porton Down is to provide safe and effective protection for the UK and its armed forces should chemical and biological weapons be used against them. In order to achieve this, research involving a range of pathogenic viruses is undertaken.

  This research is aimed at understanding the hazard posed by these agents, developing rapid methods for their detection and diagnosis of the diseases they cause, identifying suitable physical protection equipment, and developing medical countermeasures against them. These later measures include the development of safe and effective vaccines and therapies for use of the UK and its armed forces.
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  There is currently no research being undertaken involving the virus which is the causative agent of foot and mouth disease.

  Ministry of Defence Police
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will review the decision to withdraw the Ministry of Defence Police from policed sites. [152745]

  Dr. Moonie
  The decision to withdraw Ministry of Defence Police was taken after full consultation with the Home Office and Licensing Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the relevant Home Department Chief Constables, and after careful consideration of the security threat to the sites I can see no grounds for reviewing it.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Money Lenders
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the penalties which are applied to unlicensed money lenders. [152407]

  Dr. Howells
  The Consumer Credit Act 1974 set up a licensing regime for individuals, companies and firms carrying on regulated consumer credit or consumer hire business. Therefore, generally, a money lender is required to obtain a licence in order to carry on its business. Licences are issued by the Director General of Fair Trading and it is a criminal offence to engage in regulated consumer credit (or consumer hire) business without one.

  Section 167 of, and Schedule 1 to, the Act set out the penalties for this offence, which are:

  (a) Summarily—The prescribed sum within the meaning of the Magistrates Court Act 1980 which is currently £5,000.

  (b) On indictment—Two years imprisonment or a fine or both.

  Arms Exports (Iran/Iraq)
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the companies which supplied artillery equipment to both Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. [151854]

  Dr. Howells
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: Licences to export arms and other goods whose export is controlled for strategic reason; have been issued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and his predecessors acting through the export licensing authority (current13 the Export Control Organisation) within the Department of Trade and Industry since before the Iran-Iraq conflict started in 1980.

  In his report entitled "Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq" Sir Richard Scott included details of export licence applications to Iraq in the period 1984–90. The report also breaks down into categories the goods licensed to Iraq in that period, one of which is "1A: Arms and military equipment", which would include artillery equipment. It is not possible to establish precisely which of these entries

  289W
  covered artillery equipment without searching the relevant paper files which would entail disproportionate cost. Also as the report notes, records of licence applications did not go back beyond 1985. We do not therefore have records from the start of the Iran-Iraq war.

  It would also entail disproportionate cost to search through the paper records to establish which licences issued to Iran between 1985 and the end of the war in 1988 covered the export of artillery equipment.

  Moreover, information about whom particular export licences were granted to is commercial in confidence, and the companies concerned would therefore need to be approached to establish whether they objected to the disclosure of such information.

  While the Department of Trade and Industry maintains records of licence applications, it does not compile records of licensed exports. Some licences are only used in part, while others may not be used at all. The extent to which the exports permitted by a licence are made is dependent on various factors; for example the customer's requirements may be less than originally expected or the expected contract may simply not materialise.

  National Missile Defence
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations have been received from BAE Systems and other British companies regarding participation in US National Missile Defence. [152669]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has not received any representations from UK industry regarding the US National Missile Defence.

  Foot and Mouth
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has made to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the spread of foot and mouth disease. [152413]

  Mr. Byers
  I and my Department are in regular contact with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food over this issue.

  Working Time Regulations
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the number of employees in London who were not entitled to paid holidays as a result of the coming into force of the Working Time Regulations. [152206]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The available information relates to the number of employees in London who, before the introduction of the Working Time Regulations were receiving less than the minimum stated in the Regulations. When the Regulations came into force it is estimated that 270,000 employees in the London area were receiving less than three weeks' paid leave per year. A further 70,000 are estimated to have been receiving more than three weeks but less than four weeks paid leave, and would therefore benefit when the amount of paid leave was increased from three to four weeks it November 1999.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Ministerial Visits
  Sir Brian Mawhinney
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will list the Ministers in her Department who visited any of the constituencies which are in the Peterborough Unitary Authority area between 1 January 2000 and 14 February 2001, indicating in each case(a) the date of the visit, (b) the constituencies included in the visit and (c) if the local hon. Member met the Minister. [151028]

  Clare Short
  Neither I, my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development, or my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) in his role as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development visited the Peterborough Unitary Authority between 1 January 2000 and 14 February 2001.

  Medicines (South Africa)
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she discussed with the South African Government the legal action being pursued by GlaxoSmithKline concerning the amended South African Medicines Act during her recent visit to South Africa; and if she will make a statement. [152137]

  Clare Short
  I did not have the opportunity to discuss this legal action with the South African Government during my recent visit to South Africa. I believe that negotiations with pharmaceutical companies on price and licensing offers the best way of balancing the need for affordable access to drugs with the need for intellectual property protection to encourage future research. The legal action is regrettable, but it is a matter between the pharmaceutical companies and the Government of South Africa.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what meetings she had during her recent visit to South Africa with the pharmaceutical companies pursuing a legal action against the amended South African Medicines Act; and if she will make a statement. [152138]

  Clare Short
  I did not have the opportunity to meet pharmaceutical companies during my recent visit to South Africa. I believe that negotiations with pharmaceutical companies on price and licensing offers the best way of balancing the need for affordable access to drugs with the need for intellectual property protection to encourage future research. The legal action is regrettable, but it is a matter between the pharmaceutical companies and the Government of South Africa.

WALES

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Tyrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if the special advisers working for him will relinquish their posts when the next general election is called. [149306]
  291W
  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 13 February 2001,Official Report, column 130W.

  Departmental Policies (Clwyd, South)
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to the Clwyd, South constituency, the effects on Clwyd, South of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997. [150914]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  As this question was originally addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my response relates to the effects of Government policies and actions on industry and the economy. Such effects are not normally measured by reference to constituencies, so it is not practicable to give information in the form requested. However, prior to the transfer of functions to the National Assembly on 1 July 1999, a range of all-Wales policy initiatives and other actions taken by my Department will have impacted on Clwyd, South and its residents. Details of these are set out in the Welsh Office departmental reports for 1998 (Cm 3915) and 1999 (Cm 4216), copies of which are in the Library.

  Part of my hon. Friend's constituency is included in the west Wales and the valleys area, for which the Government secured objective 1 status at the Berlin European Council in 1999. Subsequently, in the July 2000 spending review, we made available additional funding, outside the Barnett formula, for the Welsh structural funds programmes. This also included provision for objective 3, which applies in the parts of Clwyd, South not covered by objective 1, and objective 2 which also applies in some parts of Clwyd, South.

  Our new Assisted Areas map for the UK, which was formally approved by the European Commission in July 2000, also includes tier 1 coverage for that part of my hon. Friend's constituency which falls in Denbighshire.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to the Clwyd, South constituency, the effects on Clwyd, South of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997. [150913]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  As this question was originally addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, my response concentrates on the effects of my Department's policies and actions on health services prior to 1 July 1999, when responsibility for their provision transferred to the National Assembly for Wales.

  Because of the way in which health services are organised, it is not practicable to provide information which is specific to my hon. Friend's constituency. The timing of financial and statistical exercises also means that some of the figures quoted relate to periods ending shortly before or shortly after 30 June 1999.

  In October 1997, an additional £2.2 million was made available to North Wales Health Authority, over and above its financial allocation for the year, to provide enhanced patient care. The authority's basic allocation for 1998–99, at £381.3 million, represented a year-on-year cash increase of £14.2 million. This was further enhanced
  292W
  by £4.1 million in April 1998 to address waiting list issues, and £2.6 million in November for dealing with winter pressures.

  Between annual counts taken in September 1997 and September 1999, the number of directly employed NHS nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff in the area of the North Wales Health Authority increased by 267.4 in full-time equivalent terms. Over the same period, medical and dental staff increased by 29.8.

  Health services in the Clwyd, South constituency will also have benefited from a range of important all-Wales policy initiatives which were developed between May 1997 and June 1999. These included:
  Delivering Care—Meeting Need—a comprehensive package of measures for primary and community health care (1997);
  Putting Patients First—which promoted a series of reforms for the NHS in Wales, such as the abolition of the internal market and GP fundholding, and the introduction of new structures such as Local Health Groups and Health Improvement Programmes (1998);
  Better Health, Better Wales—a strategy for improving public health (1998);
  Quality Care and Clinical Excellence—a programme for clinical effectiveness (1998);
  Reconfiguration of NHS Trusts—a programme of mergers which reduced the total number of NHS Trusts from 29 to 16 (1999).

  Forestry
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the transfer of responsibilities for forestry to the National Assembly for Wales. [150647]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Policy responsibility for Forestry Commission activities in Wales transferred to the National Assembly for Wales on 1 July 1999.

  Expenditure (Wales)
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate to he has made of the total sums projected to be spent in Wales in(a) this financial year and (b) each of the next two financial years (i) by the Welsh Assembly and (ii) through direct spending by the Government of the UK. [152092]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  It is currently estimated that total expenditure by the National Assembly for Wales will be £8,957.9 million in this financial year, £9,689.5 million in 2001–02, and £10,396.7 million in 2002–03, in resource terms.

  There are no current estimates of the total direct UK Government expenditure in Wales during these years, but historical information for aggregate identifiable government spending by country/region is published in the annual public expenditure statistical analyses, which are placed in the Library of the House.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Correspondence
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the hon. Member for Greenock
  293W
  and Inverclyde will receive a response to his letter of 9 February, concerning the Winter Fuel Payment scheme. [152424]

  Mr. Rooker
  A reply was issued on 6 March 2001.

  Lone Parent Families
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many children in lone parent families were on Income Support in(a) London and (b) each London borough (i) in 1996 and (ii) at the latest date for which figures are available. [152198]

  Mr. Bayley
  The information is in the table.

  Number of children in lone parent families on Income Support— Greater London

  Thousand

  May 1996

  November 2000

  City of London

  0.1

  10.1

  Barking and Dagenham

  8.6

  8.9

  Barnet

  8.6

  8.4

  Bexley

  6.8

  6.5

  Brent

  14.5

  11.1

  Bromley

  6.7

  6.3

  Camden

  9.6

  8.3

  Croydon

  14.6

  12.9

  Ealing

  12.5

  11.0

  Enfield

  12.7

  11.0

  Greenwich

  13.7

  13.2

  Hackney

  17.6

  15.3

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  7.8

  7.3

  Haringey

  14.1

  14.3

  Harrow

  5.7

  5.4

  Havering

  5.9

  5.7

  Hillingdon

  7.7

  8.9

  Hounslow

  8.9

  8.2

  Islington

  12.5

  12.2

  Kensington and Chelsea

  4.3

  3.5

  Kingston upon Thames

  2.8

  3.1

  Lambeth

  19.4

  17.1

  Lewisham

  16.1

  14.0

  Merton

  6.4

  5.3

  Newham

  20.1

  19.4

  Redbridge

  7.1

  6.9

  Richmond upon Thames

  2.7

  2.5

  Southwark

  19.1

  16.3

  Sutton

  5.2

  4.0

  Tower Hamlets

  12.7

  10.7

  Waltham Forest

  13.6

  10.5

  Wandsworth

  10.4

  8.9

  Westminster

  6.5

  5.1

  Total

  335.1

  302.1

  1 Figures below 500 are subject to a high degree of sampling error.

  Notes:

  1. Lone parents are defined as single claimants with dependants who are not receiving the disability or pens oner premiums.

  2. Based on 5 per cent. sample, therefore subject to sampling error.

  3. Figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred and quoted in thousands.

  4. Children are defined as aged 0–15 years

  Ms Harman
  To ask the secretary of state for Social Security how many lone parents on Income Support there were in(a) London and (b) each London borough (i) in 1996 and (ii) at the latest date for which figures are available. [152202]

  Mr. Bayley
  The information in is the table.294W

  Number of lone parents on Income Support—Greater London

  May 1996

  November 2000

  City of London

  10.1

  10.0

  Barking and Dagenham

  4.6

  4.8

  Barnet

  5.4

  5.1

  Bexley

  4.1

  3.4

  Brent

  8.4

  6.2

  Bromley

  4.0

  3.9

  Camden

  5.9

  4.7

  Croydon

  8.0

  7.2

  Ealing

  7.1

  6.0

  Enfield

  7.3

  6.5

  Greenwich

  7.7

  7.1

  Hackney

  10.2

  8.6

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  4.7

  3.8

  Haringey

  8.4

  8.1

  Harrow

  3.1

  2.9

  Havering

  3.7

  3.2

  Hillingdon

  4.6

  4.5

  Hounslow

  5.1

  4.7

  Islington

  7.5

  6.9

  Kensington and Chelsea

  2.7

  2.2

  Kingston upon Thames

  1.7

  1.8

  Lambeth

  11.6

  9.8

  Lewisham

  9.2

  7.8

  Merton

  3.7

  2.8

  Newham

  10.7

  9.6

  Redbridge

  4.0

  3.8

  Richmond upon Thames

  1.7

  1.6

  Southwark

  11.3

  9.5

  Sutton

  2.9

  2.1

  Tower Hamlets

  6.8

  6.0

  Waltham Forest

  7.5

  5.5

  Wandsworth

  6.1

  5.0

  Westminster

  4.0

  3.1

  Total

  193.7

  168.3

  1 Figures are below 500 and are subject to a high degree of sampling error.

  Notes:

  1. Lone parents are defined as single claimants with dependants who are not receiving the disability or pensioner premiums.

  2. Based on 5 per cent. sample, therefore subject to sampling error.

  3. Figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred and quoted in thousands.

  War Veterans
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the War Pensions Agency made an assessment of the report produced by the US Institute of Medicine in 1993 entitled "Veterans at Risk—the health effects of mustard gas and lewisite". [152000]

  Mr. Bayley
  The War Pensions Agency received and considered the report in 1994.

  Cohabitation
  Mr. Viggers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what definition of cohabitation his Department uses for the purpose of deciding whether a widow's pension should cease. [152027]

  Angela Eagle
  Widow's Benefit is not payable if a person is in a relationship which constitutes "living together as husband and wife". The term "living together as husband and wife" is not defined in legislation. Guidance on what points need to be considered by a Decision Maker when deciding whether a relationship between a man and a woman is the same as that of
  295W
  husband and wife is set out in Volume 3 of the Decision Makers Guide, copies of which are available in the Library, or on the internet at www.dss.gov.uk/hq/dmg/.

  Invalid Care Allowance
  Ms Buck
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he plans to take to ensure that carers who will become entitled to Invalid Care Allowance as a result of the new package of measures for carers being introduced in April are made aware of their potential entitlement and encouraged to claim Invalid Care Allowance. [152331]

  Mr. Bayley
  There are two elements of the carer package which will be implemented in April—the increase in the carer premium and the increase in the Invalid Care Allowance (ICA) earnings limit.

  The increase in the carer premium which is paid with Income Related Benefits has been publicised along with the details of benefit uprating. This will be paid automatically and additional claims will not be required.

  The earnings limit in ICA will increase to £72 a week, after allowable expenses, in April. This will enable more carers to retain their benefit while working. The change in the limit was announced last autumn and a further reminder to carers will be issued in a Press Release nearer the date of the change.

  In addition, all working carers who make claims for ICA in the six months period from 2 January 2001 to 2 July 2001 and are disallowed, regardless of the reason, are being advised of the earnings limit increase.

  Ms Buck
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to ensure that carers who have an underlying entitlement to Invalid Care Allowance

  Average clearance time between date of receipt at the Appeals Service and date cleared expressed in weeks

  Leeds

  Cardiff

  Birmingham

  Glasgow

  Liverpool

  Salford

  Nottingham

  Newcastle

  Sutton

  1 October to 1 December 1997

  16.7

  24.5

  20.8

  20.0

  34.0

  50.5

  22.1

  16.7

  14.1

  1 January to 31 March 1998

  20.1

  26.1

  29.9

  25.6

  30.5

  38.0

  28.3

  20.9

  22.9

  1 April to 30 June 1998

  21.0

  33.6

  30.5

  30.7

  37.5

  42.7

  31.4

  25.7

  24.6

  1 July to 30 September 1998

  22.6

  35.8

  32.5

  29.8

  34.0

  37.8

  36.6

  27.4

  27.5

  1 October to 31 December 1998

  24.7

  32.4

  32.9

  32.6

  33.7

  37.1

  35.4

  26.3

  34.3

  1 January to 1 March 1999

  23.4

  33.7

  36.4

  33.8

  32.9

  35.3

  41.8

  26.4

  45.6

  1 April to 30 June 1999

  22.3

  32.3

  33.8

  36.1

  31.1

  36.3

  42.1

  25.6

  39.1

  1 July to 30 September 1999

  16.9

  30.1

  30.7

  35.7

  25.3

  31.5

  35.9

  24.3

  34.1

  1 October to 31 October 1999

  14.3

  32.0

  22.5

  31.2

  20.6

  32.8

  41.6

  18.6

  34.7

  1 November to 30 November 1999

  14.1

  33.2

  25.5

  30.8

  18.4

  35.3

  30.6

  20.8

  29.6

  1 December to 31 December 1999

  11.2

  30.5

  27.9

  32.9

  16.3

  24.8

  31.3

  18.8

  32.0

  1 January to 31 January 2000

  14.2

  29.4

  29.8

  27.6

  21.6

  20.3

  33.1

  20.0

  30.6

  1 February to 28 February 2000

  12.9

  27.6

  27.7

  28.8

  15.0

  20.5

  29.6

  18.8

  25.5

  1 March to 31 March 2000

  9.7

  24.9

  26.8

  24.5

  13.1

  28.1

  26.2

  20.1

  23.5

  1 April to 30 April 2000

  10.1

  21.4

  20.1

  24.0

  11.4

  19.7

  25.1

  16.2

  27.1

  1 May to 31 May 2000

  10.2

  27.9

  17.5

  21.8

  14.0

  18.5

  20.7

  15.2

  22.3

  1 June to 30 June 2000

  11.1

  19.1

  16.0

  20.4

  16.1

  18.2

  20.1

  18.2

  20.3

  1 July to 31 July 2000

  11.5

  21.0

  15.3

  16.7

  15.7

  18.7

  20.1

  14.5

  24.4

  1 August to 31 August 2000

  11.6

  20.3

  16.3

  17.1

  15.6

  18.7

  22.8

  12.5

  19.4

  1 September to 30 September 2000

  11.7

  21.7

  15.1

  15.1

  15.1

  17.2

  17.1

  13.3

  17.4

  Notes:

  Source: 100 per cent. download from the Appeals Service GAPS computer system.

  2. All figures are provisional and are subject to change.

  3. The statistics do not cover the period from the date the appeal was lodged at the first tier agency or from issue of decision to the date the first tier agency received it.

  4. Clearance times include appeals that took more than one hearing to reach a decision.

  I hope this information is useful.
  296W
  but who do not receive any payment due to the overlapping benefits rules are made aware that they may qualify for income support as a result of being eligible for the carer's premium. [152332]

  Mr. Bayley
  Since its inception in 1976, Invalid Care Allowance (ICA) has been subject to the overlapping benefits rules and will continue to be so.

  Customers who are entitled to ICA but have another income maintenance benefit which overlaps, are advised in the decision letter that they may be entitled to carer premium paid as part of the income related benefits, and that it could be in their interest to claim such benefits, even if recently refused.

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what the(a) target and (b) actual clearance times were for Disability Living Allowance appeals in each of the nine appeals service centres in each quarter from 1996 to October 1999, and monthly from November 1999 to date. [152024]

  Mr. Bayley
  The administration of Disability Living Allowance appeals is a matter for Neil Ward, Chief Executive of the Appeals Service. He will write to the right hon. Member.

  Letter from Neil Ward to Mr. Dafydd Wigley, dated 8 March 2001:
  The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question. You asked what the (a) target and (b) actual clearance times were for disability living allowance appeals in each of the nine appeals service centres in each quarter from 1996 to October 1999, and monthly from November 1999 to date.
  There are no targets for clearance times. Information on average clearance times only is available from 1 October 1997 to 30 September 2000 and is below.

  Social Fund Payment
  Mr. Todd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what the value was of Social Fund payments made in each of the last four years. [152262]

  Angela Eagle
  Social Fund expenditure is given in the Secretary of State's Annual Reports on the Social Fund. The reports are available in the Library.

  Benefit Fraud Inspectorate
  Mr. David Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he will publish the inspection report of the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate in respect of the City of Bradford metropolitan district council. [153400]

  Mr. Rooker
  The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate report was published today in respect of City of Bradford metropolitan district council and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.

  The report makes recommendations to help the authority address weaknesses and to improve the administration of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, as well as its counter fraud activities.

  Inspectors report the authority introduced the Verification Framework to improve its poor verification of claims, and early indications are that levels of verification have improved. The report also notes the authority is struggling to cope with backlogs of assessment work, and inspectors consider it is important that it not only clear arrears, but prevents them from recurring. The authority has introduced measures to resolve the backlogs but these measures need to be consolidated into one overall plan.

  Inspectors were particularly pleased with the number of high quality customer service initiatives, including good use of the Internet, the sharing of good practices with other local authorities and many good examples of joint working with the BA and other organisations.

  The authority needs to improve its administration with regard to Rent Officer referrals, notices of determination, the setting of benefit period's timescales for appeals and review boards and benefit appeals.

  Counter fraud work was reported to be good, including commendable risk analysis of local fraud. Investigations were well conducted in a sound, ordered and methodical way. The authority has a sound prosecution policy and has successfully issued administrative penalties. The authority needs to increase the use of its inspectors' powers.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering the report and will be asking the Authority for its proposals in response to the findings and recommendations of the BFI.

  Mr. David Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he will publish the inspection report of the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate in respect of the Metropolitan borough of Wirral. [153402]

  Mr. Rooker
  The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate report was published today in respect of the Metropolitan borough of Wirral and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.
  298W
  The report makes recommendations to help the authority address weaknesses and to improve the administration of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, as well as its counter fraud activities.

  Inspectors found the authority had a customer orientated benefits service with strong focus on claimant's rights. Significant changes had been made to the benefits section which together with a loss of experienced staff, had caused backlogs of work. This had significantly reduced the responsiveness of the benefits service and the level of assurance the authority could give on the accuracy and validity of its benefit payments.

  The BFI reports that standards of verification for new and renewal claims was very poor. There was scope for improvement in liaison arrangements with private sector landlords.

  The report notes that counter fraud activity had taken a back seat to changes made in the benefits section. Investigation work was found to be of poor quality and insufficient to tackle the estimated level of fraud in the authority's area. The control and management of overpayment recovery was also found to be poor leading to a low recovery rate.

  Despite having a number of well-written strategic and policy documents, these had not been put into practice. Inspectors recommend the authority reviews its internal audit coverage of administration and counter fraud activities as they were found to be insufficient to give an assurance on the integrity of the benefits system.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering the report and will be asking the authority for its proposals in response to the findings and recommendations of the BFI.

  Discretionary Social Fund
  Mr. David Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what changes he plans to make to the discretionary social fund. [153401]

  Angela Eagle
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be making minor changes to the discretionary social fund, with effect from 19 March 2001 and 2 April 2001, to take account of new legislation in other benefit areas being introduced on those dates. A number of other minor improvements, identified during the course of routine monitoring, will also be included in this annual amendment to directions and guidance.

  Details of the changes have been placed in the Library.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Warrington Local Education Authority
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what resources have been allocated to Warrington local education authority for provision for under fives in each year since 1997. [149486]

  Ms Hodge
  [holding answer 8 February 2001]: The table shows the amount of funding made available through the Nursery Education Grant, Childcare Grant,

  299W
  European Social Fund and the 0–5 sub-block of the Education Standard Spending Assessment to Warrington LEA since April 1998.

  £

  1998–99

  5,918,135

  1999–2000

  15,579,655

  2000–01

  6,693,733

  1 The drop in funding between 1998–99 and 1999–2000 is due to a fall in the amount of Nursery Education Grant that the authority was able to claim for new places created in local authority provision. This funding would have been compensated for by a relative increase in the funding available through Education Standard Spending in the following year

  As Warrington became a new unitary authority only from April 1998, it is not possible to provide data for the 1997–98 financial year.

  From September 1998, all four-year-olds have been able to access a free, part-time, early education place. By April 2001, all three-year-olds in Warrington will also have access to a free early education place. Up to December 2000 Warrington Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership reported the creation of 1,327 new child care places.

  Wildcat Corporation
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to his answer of 13 February 2001,Official Report, column 95W, what the origins were of the private funds used to make payments to the Wildcat Corporation to provide consultancy services to his Department; what the amount of each payment was; and on what terms the payments were made. [150957]

  Ms Jowell
  [holding answer 26 February 2001]: The employer-led New Deal Task Force has been working in partnership with the Wildcat Corporation to develop a demand-led strategy. To date a total of £175,000 has been received from employers and paid to Wildcat to test this innovative approach. Funding came from companies within the financial sector in this country who had seen the results that the Wildcat Corporation had achieved in the US and who were keen to see the same methods applied in this country.

  Departmental Policies (Clwyd, South)
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to the Clwyd, South constituency, the effects on Clwyd, South of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997. [151910]

  Mr. Wills
  Outlined are details of the effects of a range of the Department's policies on the Clwyd, South constituency. The Welsh Assembly will be able to provide details of education policies.
  300W
  Modern Apprenticeships.

  Since 2 May 1997, we know of 444 starts on Modern Apprenticeships in the Clwyd, South constituency (as at 30 November 2000). Broken down by financial year these are:

  Financial year

  Foundation modern apprenticeships1

  Advanced modern apprenticeships2

  Total

  1997–98

  1

  106

  107

  1998–99

  60

  130

  190

  1999–2000

  49

  39

  88

  2000–013

  38

  21

  59

  Total

  148

  296

  444

  1 Foundation Modern Apprenticeships, formerly known as National Traineeships, were introduced nationally in September 1997.

  2 Advanced Modem Apprenticeships, formerly known as Modern Apprenticeships, were introduced nationally in September 1995.

  3 To date.

  Notes:

  1. The Trainee Database System (TDS), from which these data are taken, is less complete than Management Information Supplied to the Department by Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) (around 95 per cent.).

  2. In addition, the postcode information on the TDS, from which parliamentary constituency data are compiled, are 95 per cent. complete.

  3. TEC Management Information does not provide information at parliamentary constituency level.

  Source:

  WBTYP trainee database

  New Deal for Young People

  In the Clwyd, South constituency, 562 young people have joined the New Deal to end December 2000. 292 have found jobs, 239 of which are sustained.

  Labour market statistics

  The working age employment rate in Denbighshire unitary authority in autumn 2000 was 72.7 per cent. below the UK rate of 74.7 per cent. The rate in autumn 1997 was 72.2 per cent.

  The claimant unemployment rate has fallen from 9.5 per cent. in January 1997 to 5.4 per cent. in January 2001 in the Clwyd, South constituency.

  Employment zone

  The North West Wales Employment Zone began operating in May 2000. The zone covers 5,236 square kilometres of North West Wales including areas of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy and Denbighshire.

  From May until December 2000, 881 people started on the Employment Zone. Of these people 36 had entered employment in December.

  Timber
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how much certified timber has been purchased by his Department over the past six months; and what proportion of total timber purchases this represents. [152144]

  Mr. Wills
  The information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  SATs
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the average cost of a SATs test per pupil tested(a) nationally and (b) in East Sussex. [151853]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: The average cost of a National Curriculum assessment test per pupil per subject nationally in 2000 was £5.30. This covers the costs of developing, printing and distributing test papers across Key Stages 1–3; and costs of external marking and data collection for tests at Key Stage 2 and 3. The figure excludes the cost of supply cover for teachers

  Central Government support to capital investment in London schools 1996–97 to 2000–01

  £000

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Total

  Barking

  3,812

  1,376

  3,163

  3,537

  5,501

  17,389

  Barnet

  3,055

  1,763

  5,417

  3,894

  10,695

  24,824

  Bexley

  1,789

  4,299

  6,304

  6,598

  9,169

  28,159

  Brent

  194

  889

  3,047

  3,316

  8,353

  15,799

  Bromley

  1,614

  1,400

  2,591

  3,776

  8,921

  18,302

  Camden

  350

  623

  1,859

  2,497

  5,331

  10,660

  City of London

  37

  1

  1

  40

  73

  152

  Croydon

  2,380

  2,697

  5,483

  6,643

  11,257

  28,460

  Ealing

  719

  5,164

  9,515

  7,042

  10,019

  32,459

  Enfield

  7,350

  8,807

  7,210

  7,459

  9,611

  40,437

  Greenwich

  1,658

  4,394

  5,310

  4,444

  6,554

  22,360

  Hackney

  993

  2,369

  3,615

  4,170

  5,940

  17,087

  Hammersmith

  1,088

  1,443

  3,219

  3,837

  3,764

  13,351

  Haringey

  2,713

  4,729

  7,291

  6,202

  8,519

  29,454

  Harrow

  3,529

  1,739

  2,240

  3,885

  6,087

  17,480

  Havering

  291

  1,012

  2,021

  2,355

  7,521

  13,200

  Hillingdon

  3,879

  2,828

  4,573

  5,361

  10,734

  27,375

  Hounslow

  3,104

  3,786

  4,489

  3,791

  7,287

  22,457

  Islington

  250

  869

  2,443

  2,760

  7,306

  13,628

  Kensington and Chelsea

  581

  471

  1,253

  829

  2,158

  5,292

  Kingston upon Thames

  1,023

  4,060

  4,483

  5,772

  6,680

  22,018

  Lambeth

  761

  1,662

  4,281

  3,121

  6,371

  16,196

  Lewisham

  2,804

  4,614

  6,690

  5,084

  8,373

  27,565

  Merton

  345

  583

  1,987

  3,291

  5,888

  12,094

  Newham

  4,435

  3,631

  6,770

  10,611

  14,940

  40,387

  Redbridge

  9,876

  9,374

  5,008

  5,201

  11,637

  41,096

  Richmond

  221

  628

  2,876

  3,595

  6,110

  13,430

  Southwark

  593

  2,501

  2,251

  2,986

  8,268

  16,599

  Sutton

  4,174

  5,691

  5,269

  4,673

  9,572

  29,379

  Tower Hamlets

  11,169

  7,963

  5,789

  4,330

  6,662

  35,913

  Waltham Forest

  2,451

  1,838

  2,798

  4,640

  7,392

  19,119

  Wandsworth

  1,182

  861

  1,897

  3,476

  6,980

  14,396

  Westminster

  1,206

  1,741

  2,126

  1,572

  4,454

  11,099

  London Total

  79,626

  95,806

  133,269

  140,788

  248,127

  697,616

  Central Government support for private finance initiative investment in London schools 1997–98 to 2000–01

  £000

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Total

  Lewisham

  4,000

  —

  —

  —

  4,000

  Enfield

  —

  16,000

  —

  —

  16,000

  Hillingdon

  —

  19,000

  —

  —

  19,000

  Westminster

  —

  25,000

  —

  —

  25,000

  Brent

  —

  —

  23,000

  —

  23,000

  Haringey

  —

  —

  62,500

  —

  62,500

  Lambeth

  —

  —

  11,500

  —

  11,500

  Tower Hamlets

  —

  —

  68,500

  —

  68,500

  Waltham Forest

  —

  —

  18,500

  —

  18,500

  Brent

  —

  —

  —

  9,000

  9,000

  4,000

  60,000

  184,000

  9,000

  257,000

  302W
  administering the national curriculum tests, audit costs and the administration costs incurred by schools.

  It is not possible to identify costs below national level.

  Capital Investment (Primary Schools)
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how much capital investment there has been in primary schools since 1996 in(a) London and (b) each London borough. [152194]

  Jacqui Smith
  This information is not readily available. The following tables show the total central Government support to capital investment in all schools made in London and each London borough since 1996–97.

  Infant Classes
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many children there were in infant classes with over 30 children(a) in 1996 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available in (i) each London borough and (ii) London. [152197]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  Class size data were published in a Statistical Bulletin "Class Sizes and Pupil Teacher Ratios in England 2000" on 20 December 2000, copies of which are available from the Library, or alternatively can be accessed from the

  303W
  Department for Education and Employment statistical website: www.dfee.gov.uk/statistics. Figures from this release show that in September 2000, there were just 30,000 infants in classes of over 30 compared with 485,000 in January 1998. Just 2 per cent. of infants are now in such classes compared with 29 per cent. in January 1998.

  Number of pupils in infant classes over 30

  January 1996

  January 2000

  September 2000

  London

  47,752

  22,110

  3,642

  Inner London

  6,004

  2,766

  757

  Camden

  127

  93

  93

  City of London

  0

  0

  0

  Hackney

  413

  93

  95

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  313

  93

  0

  Haringey

  566

  124

  32

  Islington

  443

  162

  159

  Kensington and Chelsea

  62

  62

  31

  Lambeth

  381

  249

  63

  Lewisham

  567

  344

  64

  Newham

  734

  503

  0

  Southwark

  707

  409

  31

  Tower Hamlets

  349

  35

  31

  Wandsworth

  1,118

  568

  1158

  Westminster

  224

  31

  0

  Outer London

  41,748

  19,344

  2,885

  Barking and Dagenham

  734

  284

  31

  Barnet

  730

  217

  62

  Bexley

  3,984

  1,135

  379

  Brent

  786

  515

  0

  Bromley

  5,121

  2,139

  188

  Croydon

  3,497

  1,065

  93

  Ealing

  2,499

  968

  124

  Enfield

  3,621

  1,782

  382

  Greenwich

  470

  406

  0

  Harrow

  1,929

  746

  224

  Havering

  2,439

  1,804

  604

  Hillingdon

  1,378

  317

  0

  Hounslow

  2,354

  1,051

  296

  Kingston upon Thames

  3,430

  1,935

  62

  Merton

  1,958

  1,469

  0

  Redbridge

  3,307

  1,342

  196

  Richmond upon Thames

  1,414

  888

  282

  Sutton

  1,077

  680

  31

  Waltham Forest

  1,020

  601

  31

  1 Less than 95 per cent. of expected returns were received from these Local Education Authorities

  Pupil Literacy
  Mr. Tony Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what percentage of pupils gained the expected level of literacy in(a) 1997 and (b) 2000. [152497]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  In the 2000 Key Stage 2 tests, 75 per cent. of 11-year-olds achieved the expected standard for their age in English, an increase of 12 percentage points since 1997. The 2000 results are clear evidence of the success of the National Literacy Strategy.

  City Academies
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the names and location of city academies(a) established to date and (b) in the process of being established together with, for each city academy, (i) the private sector investors, (ii) the
  304W
  total private sector financial contribution, (iii) the total public expenditure contribution and (iv) the total number of pupils in attendance and the admission limit. [152502]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  To date we have announced City Academy partnerships in Brent, Lambeth, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Haringey and Hillingdon. Further announcements will be made shortly. Private and voluntary sector sponsors announced to date are Frank Lowe of the Lowe Group of Advertising Agencies and Octagon sports management, Barry Townsley, of stockbrokers Insinger Townsley, BT, Marconi, Amey plc, the Church of England and the Grieg Trust. These partnerships are developing detailed project plans to establish City Academies. The total public sector and private and voluntary sector financial contributions, and the total number of pupils and the admission limits will depend on the plans developed for each City Academy

  Free School Meals
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many and what percentage of pupils are eligible for free school meals in each English local education authority. [152503]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The numbers of full-time pupils of up to maximum compulsory school age 'known to be eligible for free school meals' and expressed as a percentage of all full-time pupils of that age group in mainstream, maintained schools in each English local education authority are shown in the table. The data are as collected by the Department's Annual Schools' Census.

  Mainstream, maintained schools in England—January 2000

  Full-time pupils of up to maximum compulsory school age known to be eligible for a free school meal

  Local education authority

  Number

  Percentage1

  Barking and Dagenham

  7,230

  27.9

  Barnet

  7,480

  18.0

  Barnsley

  8,450

  26.6

  Bath and North East Somerset

  2,500

  10.8

  Bedfordshire

  6,630

  12.0

  Bexley

  5,400

  15.2

  Birmingham

  55,900

  34.6

  Blackburn with Darwen

  6,850

  28.7

  Blackpool

  4,960

  25.4

  Bolton

  8,130

  18.9

  Bournemouth

  2,270

  11.6

  Bracknell Forest

  1,010

  7.4

  Bradford

  21,310

  27.8

  Brent

  9,580

  28.8

  Brighton and Hove

  5,880

  21.5

  Bristol, City of

  10,950

  23.5

  Bromley

  5,880

  14.2

  Buckinghamshire

  4,350

  6.7

  Bury

  4,520

  16.0

  Calderdale

  5,860

  18.6

  Cambridgeshire

  7,030

  9.8

  Camden

  7,780

  39.7

  Cheshire

  12,840

  13.2

  City of London

  80

  36.9

  Cornwall

  9,770

  14.7

  Coventry

  9,340

  20.8

  Croydon

  10,400

  22.9

  Cumbria

  11,100

  15.8

  Darlington

  2,910

  19.6

  Derby

  7,750

  22.6

  Derbyshire

  14,150

  13.5

  Devon

  10,670

  11.9

  Doncaster

  10,440

  22.8

  Dorset

  3,350

  6.7

  305W

  Mainstream, maintained schools in England—January 2000

  Full-time pupils of up to maximum compulsory school age known to be eligible for a free school meal

  Local education authority

  Number

  Percentage1

  Dudley

  7,780

  16.6

  Durham

  15,100

  21.2

  Ealing

  10,850

  29.3

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  5,120

  11.3

  East Sussex

  9,300

  15.4

  Enfield

  10,220

  24.2

  Essex

  22,620

  12.3

  Gateshead

  7,050

  26.1

  Gloucestershire

  7,730

  9.8

  Greenwich

  12,130

  39.1

  Hackney

  11,270

  46.5

  Halton

  5,600

  28.1

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  6,390

  43.0

  Hampshire

  14,270

  8.3

  Haringey

  12,840

  42.9

  Harrow

  3,940

  14.2

  Hartlepool

  4,480

  29.3

  Havering

  4,470

  12.8

  Herefordshire

  1,750

  7.6

  Hertfordshire

  14,660

  9.8

  Hillingdon

  5,160

  15.1

  Hounslow

  7,620

  24.9

  Isle of Wight

  3,510

  19.8

  Isles of Scilly

  10

  5.2

  Islington

  10,310

  45.4

  Kensington and Chelsea

  3,910

  39.7

  Kent

  25,250

  13.3

  Kingston upon Hull, City of

  11,700

  29.8

  Kingston upon Thames

  1,540

  9.0

  Kirklees

  12,300

  20.8

  Knowsley

  12,250

  46.8

  Lambeth

  10,910

  43.8

  Lancashire

  29,560

  17.3

  Leeds

  22,290

  21.7

  Leicester

  10,990

  24.9

  Leicestershire

  7,120

  8.2

  Lewisham

  11,740

  37.4

  Lincolnshire

  7,330

  8.1

  Liverpool

  29,080

  41.5

  Luton

  7,280

  25.3

  Manchester

  29,570

  45.4

  Medway

  5,590

  13.6

  Merton

  3,890

  19.3

  Middlesbrough

  7,810

  34.9

  Milton Keynes

  4,380

  14.6

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  11,550

  32.3

  Newham

  19,310

  43.9

  Norfolk

  15,090

  14.5

  North East Lincolnshire

  6,330

  24.0

  North Lincolnshire

  3,640

  15.0

  North Somerset

  2,560

  10.1

  North Tyneside

  6,330

  23.0

  North Yorkshire

  7,360

  9.2

  Northamptonshire

  11,300

  11.9

  Northumberland

  6,520

  14.6

  Nottingham

  14,320

  39.2

  Nottinghamshire

  16,920

  15.8

  Oldham

  9,860

  25.3

  Oxfordshire

  7,590

  10.1

  Peterborough

  5,930

  22.3

  Plymouth

  7,320

  20.2

  Poole

  1,530

  8.5

  Portsmouth

  4,520

  17.8

  Reading

  2,400

  16.1

  Redbridge

  6,620

  18.4

  Redcar and Cleveland

  6,560

  27.8

  Richmond upon Thames

  2,530

  13.8

  Rochdale

  9,170

  27.2

  Rotherham

  8,810

  21.7

  Rutland

  260

  5.5

  Salford

  10,130

  29.2

  Sandwell

  12,330

  26.3

  Sefton

  9,780

  22.8

  306W

  Mainstream, maintained schools in England—January 2000

  Full-time pupils of up to maximum compulsory school age known to be eligible for a free school meal

  Local education authority

  Number

  Percentage1

  Sheffield

  16,420

  23.9

  Shropshire

  3,830

  10.2

  Slough

  3,080

  18.6

  Solihull

  4,610

  13.4

  Somerset

  7,150

  10.7

  South Gloucestershire

  3,220

  8.7

  South Tyneside

  6,840

  29.0

  Southampton

  6,510

  22.1

  Southend-on-Sea

  4,370

  19.0

  Southwark

  14,470

  45.6

  St. Helens

  6,020

  22.2

  Staffordshire

  14,580

  12.1

  Stockport

  6,070

  14.7

  Stockton-on-Tees

  6,900

  23.5

  Stoke-on-Trent

  10,350

  27.9

  Suffolk

  11,750

  13.1

  Sunderland

  13,550

  30.4

  Surrey

  10,140

  8.1

  Sutton

  3,010

  12.2

  Swindon

  3,410

  12.0

  Tameside

  7,570

  21.3

  Telford and the Wrekin

  5,350

  22.4

  Thurrock

  3,620

  17.3

  Torbay

  3,480

  20.4

  Tower Hamlets

  20,970

  62.6

  Trafford

  6,350

  19.3

  Wakefield

  9,640

  20.3

  Walsall

  9,010

  20.9

  Waltham Forest

  9,860

  30.9

  Wandsworth

  7,920

  31.7

  Warrington

  3,650

  12.2

  Warwickshire

  7,070

  10.0

  West Berkshire

  1,390

  6.6

  West Sussex

  8,520

  8.9

  Westminster

  6,380

  39.6

  Wigan

  8,210

  17.2

  Wiltshire

  5,130

  8.5

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  1,170

  7.0

  Wirral

  15,240

  31.1

  Wokingham

  960

  4.5

  Wolverhampton

  8,820

  24.1

  Worcestershire

  7,510

  10.1

  York

  2,650

  11.7

  1 Numbers of full-time pupils of up to maximum compulsory school age 'known to be eligible for free school meals' expressed as a percentage of all full-time pupils of that age group

  Source:

  DfEE Annual Schools' Census, January 2000

  Ex-GM Schools Funding
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list those former grant-maintained schools which(a) have and (b) do not have protected funding. [151239]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  All former grant-maintained schools have protected levels of funding per pupil, which were raised by 2.5 per cent. in 2000–01 and again for 2001–02. Those schools whose formula budgets are lower than their protected levels of funding receive transitional funding, which is supported by a grant from the Department. The names of schools which are and are not in receipt of transitional funding in 2000–01 are listed in a table, copies of which have been placed in the Library.

  Departmental Policies (Worcester)
  Mr. Michael J. Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to the Worcester parliamentary constituency, the effect of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997 on this constituency. [151860]

  Mr. Wills
  The information requested has been placed in the Libraries.

  Departmental Policies (Ilford, North)
  Ms Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what initiatives embarked upon since May 1997 have benefited IIford, North; and if he will make a statement. [152035]

  Mr. Wills
  The information requested has been placed in the Libraries.

  Specialist Schools
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list, for each English local education authority, how many(a) applications have been received for specialist school status and (b) which schools are designated as specialist schools, with the date of designation, the specialism, the percentage of children eligible for free school meals, the percentage of children with five or more GCSE grades A-C, the status of the school, the admissions policy of the school and if the school is designated as a Beacon School. [152478]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The information on(a) the number of specialist school applications received since 1994 is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The information requested in section (b) with the exception of data on Free School Meals is contained in tables, copies of which have been placed in the Library. Information on the percentage of children known to be eligible for Free School Meals in individual schools is regarded as confidential and not published centrally by the Department.

  £ million

  Provision for three-year programme for 1999–2002

  Budgeted provision for 1999–20001

  Actual expenditure for 1999–2000

  Budgeted provision for 2000–011

  Reducing Burglary

  59.88

  13.8

  2.067

  19.83

  Locks for the over-60s

  8

  0

  0

  5.15

  Summer Schemes

  1.5

  0

  0

  1.5

  Prostitution—What Works

  0.5

  0

  0

  0.5

  Targeted Policing

  32.45

  6

  0.509

  12.45

  'On Track'

  31

  0.5

  0.169

  12.5

  Innovation Fund

  9

  0

  0

  9

  Vehicle Crime Publicity

  8

  0

  0

  8

  Treatment of Offenders

  20.8

  5.3

  2.298

  8

  Drug Arrest Referrals

  20

  2

  0.306

  9

  Schools Intervention

  12

  4

  0.205

  6

  Violence Against Women

  7

  0

  0.090

  5

  Vehicle Crime

  6

  0

  0

  4

  Youth Inclusion

  5.5

  0

  0

  2.75

  Sentencing Practices

  4.65

  0.675

  0.332

  0.575

  Neighbourhood Wardens

  4.5

  0

  0

  1.5

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the detention centres being used for holding asylum seekers. [152678]

  Mrs. Roche
  Immigration detainees, including those people who have sought asylum, are currently accommodated in the following dedicated immigration detention and reception centres:

  Campsfield House

  Tinsley House

  Harmondsworth

  Oakington Reception Centre.

  Dedicated Prison Service facilities are also utilised at:

  Rochester

  Lindholme

  Haslar.

  As a short-term measure, until additional dedicated immigration detention centres come on line later this year, immigration detainees are being accommodated in the following Prison Service establishments:

  Belmarsh

  Liverpool

  Holme House

  High Down

  Wandsworth

  Winchester

  Bullingdon

  Lincoln

  Cardiff

  Elmley.

  Crime Reduction Fund
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list each initiative to date in each year since the start of the Crime Reduction Fund indicating(a) the current amount budgeted in each year to date, (b) the initial amount budgeted in each year to date and (c) the total expended in each year of the initiative to date; and if he will make a statement. [151624]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Announced annual provision and expenditure on the Crime Reduction Programme are as follows:
  309W

  £ million

  Provision for three-year programme for 1999–2002

  Budgeted provision for 1999–20001

  Actual expenditure for 1999–2000

  Budgeted provision for 2000–011

  Design Against Crime

  3

  0.5

  0.589

  1.5

  Arson Control Forum

  0.165

  0

  0

  0.165

  Offenders Index

  0.150

  0.075

  0.075

  0.075

  Suzy Lamplugh Trust

  0.455

  0

  0

  0.205

  CCTV Initiative2

  150

  20

  0.005

  60

  Total3

  384.55

  52.85

  6.645

  167.7

  1The voted provision for 1999–2000 and 2001–01—as published in the Home Office Annual Report for 2000—was £60 million and £160 million respectively. The figures in the table differ from those in the report because they reflect updated profiles of planned expenditure

  2 Provision comes from the Capital Modernisation Fund

  3 The total figure excludes central and regional programme support costs, which are not allocated to particular initiatives.

  Note:

  The third year of the programme (2001–02) is covered by Spending Review 2000

  The table shows actual expenditure for the first year of the programme (1999–2000) and the budgeted provision for the second year (2000–01). Although not reflected in these expenditure figures, over £250 million has now been committed to over 1,100 projects under all programme initiatives and further bids are under consideration. Action is continuing to expedite the allocation of the remaining funds and implementation of projects through the Crime Reduction Directors and other measures in support of partnerships.

  Criminal Investigations
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many criminal investigations are current where the crime in question was committed more than five years ago. [151760]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is not available.

  The National Crime Faculty at the Bramshill Police Staff College has a Serious Crime Analysis Section which collates details of both solved and unsolved serious crime in the United Kingdom (mainly murders, rapes and abductions). The crimes are recorded on a database, and the details of new crimes are searched against the existing crimes on the database to look for commonalties. This ensures that unsolved crimes are at least being reviewed regularly. Currently, there are 418 crimes committed before 31 December 1995 on the database. In the same way, crime scene stains on the National DNA Database are regularly compared against new suspect samples as they are loaded onto the system.

  Examples of old cases where advances in DNA technology have recently resulted in convictions include the murder of Louise Sellars in 1995, whose killer was convicted after DNA was obtained from a cigarette butt, and the murder of Mary Gregson, which had occurred in 1977.

  The Association of Chief Police Officers issued Major Incident Room Standardised Adminstrative Procedures (MIRSAP) guidelines in April 2000. These gave guidance on the review process in relation to murder investigations, and where appropriate, other major crime inquiries. Each undetected murder is reviewed after 28 days and thereafter at least once every two years. Each force therefore has its own policy for dealing with reviews based on these guidelines, including cold case reviews.

  Police (Cardboard Cut-outs)
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police forces have used cardboard cut-outs of police officers and police cars as an aid to crime fighting. [149461]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  This information is not collected centrally by the Home Office. I understand that mock-ups are used on a limited basis in some crime prevention initiatives, but that mock-up vehicles at the roadside have not been judged practical by the Association of Chief Police Officers Road Policing Committee.

  The police have a wide range of equipment to ensure speed limits are rigorously enforced. The Vehicles (Crime) Bill, now proceeding through Parliament provides for a new funding mechanism for speed and red-light cameras. Better investment in this area of road safety will ensure even greater compliance with speed limits and will therefore contribute directly to the prevention of deaths on the road.

  London Crime
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many reported crimes there were in(a) each London borough and (b) London as a whole in each category in (i) 1996 and (ii) the latest year for which figures are available. [152207]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The available information, for the calendar years 1996 and 2000, has been provided by the Metropolitan police, and is given in the tables. The 1996 figures may differ from the previously published overall and offence group totals because they have been compiled using a new computer system (CRIS) which interprets historical data differently from the previous system.

  It should be noted that there was a change in counting rules for recorded crime on 1 April 1998. This expanded the coverage of offences, changed the basis of counting more towards one crime per victim, and introduced the new category of drugs offences. Previously drugs trafficking was the only drugs offence recorded in these statistics, and it was included in the "Other" category. Also, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan police area changed on 1 April 2000, so as to be coterminous with the boundary of the Greater London area. These changes mean that recorded crime statistics for these two years are not directly comparable.
  311W

  Calendar year 1996

  Major category description (pre-April 1998)

  Borough

  Violence against the person

  Sexual offences

  Robbery

  Burglary and going equipped

  Theft and handling

  Fraud and forgery

  Criminal damage

  Other notifiable offences

  Grand total

  Barking and Dagenham

  693

  170

  238

  3,192

  6,077

  439

  3,713

  129

  14,651

  Barnet

  957

  152

  516

  4,955

  10,312

  913

  4,508

  158

  22,471

  Bexley

  856

  136

  183

  4,191

  6,992

  624

  3,459

  177

  16,618

  Brent

  1,611

  210

  2,043

  5,185

  9,324

  1,360

  4,473

  265

  24,471

  Bromley

  897

  147

  391

  4,624

  10,689

  791

  4,766

  191

  22,496

  Broxbourne1

  60

  6

  16

  581

  1,052

  29

  431

  7

  2,182

  Camden

  1,691

  256

  1,271

  6,020

  18,509

  1,857

  5,714

  586

  35,904

  Croydon

  1,899

  332

  936

  6,480

  12,618

  1,354

  6,002

  245

  29,868

  Ealing

  2,092

  236

  1,059

  5,530

  11,506

  1,677

  5,937

  293

  28,330

  Elmbridge1

  137

  35

  19

  762

  1,612

  116

  915

  19

  3,615

  Enfield

  964

  145

  603

  6,224

  11,211

  790

  4,440

  119

  24,496

  Epping Forest1

  247

  25

  29

  811

  1,744

  121

  988

  32

  3,997

  Epsom and Ewell1

  251

  40

  39

  1,209

  1,768

  165

  1,315

  35

  4,822

  Greenwich

  1,920

  355

  643

  5,678

  11,182

  1,339

  6,173

  354

  27,644

  Hackney

  1,868

  331

  2,108

  5,862

  12,254

  1,034

  4,628

  379

  28,464

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  1,105

  140

  852

  3,840

  10,268

  786

  3,659

  206

  20,876

  Haringey

  1,434

  252

  1,918

  5,922

  11,258

  1,422

  4,621

  285

  27,112

  Harrow

  791

  101

  357

  3,202

  6,349

  775

  3,389

  97

  15,061

  Havering

  604

  93

  121

  2,924

  7,848

  648

  3,495

  141

  15,874

  Heathrow

  30

  7

  3

  68

  3,870

  748

  261

  942

  5,929

  Hertsmere1

  259

  76

  39

  1,124

  3,022

  332

  1,590

  52

  6,494

  Hillingdon

  1,618

  240

  277

  5,223

  9,325

  741

  5,392

  141

  22,957

  Hounslow

  1,162

  178

  380

  3,999

  9,315

  1,934

  4,281

  261

  21,510

  Islington

  2,122

  212

  1,170

  5,187

  12,587

  884

  5,027

  463

  27,652

  Kensington and Chelsea

  920

  116

  864

  4,052

  15,330

  1,290

  2,865

  223

  25,660

  Kingston upon Thames

  604

  117

  137

  2,299

  6,055

  568

  2,539

  109

  12,428

  Lambeth

  2,700

  340

  2,733

  8,594

  15,541

  1,558

  6,296

  558

  38,318

  Lewisham

  1,418

  269

  1,371

  6,213

  11,211

  1,169

  5,187

  362

  27,200

  Merton

  747

  75

  217

  2,973

  6,580

  744

  3,509

  145

  14,990

  Newham

  1,327

  247

  1,147

  5,750

  11,713

  1,015

  5,038

  234

  26,471

  Redbridge

  652

  115

  381

  3,410

  7,520

  881

  3,150

  167

  18,478

  Reigate and Banstead1

  78

  14

  24

  476

  794

  60

  430

  16

  1,892

  Richmond upon Thames

  515

  77

  128

  3,281

  6,420

  561

  2,631

  95

  13,708

  Southwark

  3,054

  384

  1,706

  7,261

  16,462

  2,432

  7,188

  682

  39,169

  Spelthorne1

  328

  74

  41

  1,046

  3,354

  255

  1,567

  40

  6,705

  Squads2

  —

  —

  —

  3

  47

  82

  7

  29

  168

  Sutton

  653

  119

  130

  2,304

  5,218

  434

  2,864

  84

  11,806

  Tower Hamlets

  1,137

  175

  803

  4,460

  10,962

  755

  4,300

  284

  22,876

  Waltham Forest

  1,116

  144

  744

  4,808

  8,442

  1,008

  3,830

  176

  20,268

  Wandsworth

  1,437

  212

  1,025

  5,240

  14,106

  1,424

  5,364

  321

  28,129

  Welwyn and Hatfield1

  —

  —

  4

  18

  36

  1

  11

  —

  70

  Westminster

  1,776

  280

  2,083

  7,890

  39,024

  2,616

  5,066

  593

  59,328

  Total

  43,930

  6,633

  28,749

  162,871

  379,527

  37,730

  151,019

  9,695

  820,154

  1 Areas outside Greater London policed by the Metropolitan police

  2 'Squads' refers to crimes that were reported by Specialist Operations groups such as the flying squad

  Calendar year 2000

  Major category

  Borough

  Violence against the person

  Sexual offences

  Robbery

  Burglary

  Theft and handling

  Fraud or forgery

  Criminal damage

  Drugs

  Other notifiable offences

  Total

  Barking and Dagenham

  3,596

  203

  679

  2,058

  6,894

  2,202

  3,871

  403

  175

  20,081

  Barnet

  4,654

  251

  1,011

  4,190

  11,451

  3,311

  5,078

  495

  315

  30,756

  Bexley

  3,291

  165

  370

  2,734

  7,862

  1,234

  4,700

  411

  204

  20,971

  Brent

  5,693

  370

  1,900

  4,534

  10,486

  4,502

  4,335

  832

  328

  32,980

  Bromley

  3,554

  174

  644

  3,346

  10,633

  1,541

  5,771

  452

  216

  26,331

  Camden

  5,316

  357

  1,814

  5,184

  24,051

  3,602

  4,725

  1,433

  351

  46,833

  Croydon

  6,250

  354

  1,516

  4,073

  13,017

  3,273

  6,680

  708

  262

  36,133

  Ealing

  6,465

  354

  1,597

  4,787

  14,962

  3,554

  6,453

  873

  386

  39,431

  Enfield

  4,750

  238

  1,225

  4,376

  10,510

  3,049

  3,836

  607

  309

  28,900

  Greenwich

  6,417

  358

  480

  3,138

  10,638

  1,405

  5,191

  968

  258

  28,853

  Hackney

  6,383

  364

  2,361

  4,443

  16,175

  2,463

  4,759

  992

  372

  38,312

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  4,341

  219

  851

  2,997

  12,980

  1,715

  3,617

  712

  309

  27,741

  Haringey

  5,223

  467

  2,373

  4,363

  12,741

  2,213

  4,662

  1,105

  370

  33,517

  Harrow

  2,431

  153

  603

  2,815

  5,943

  1,793

  2,790

  460

  191

  17,179

  Havering

  2,838

  175

  358

  2,341

  7,973

  1,719

  3,356

  462

  156

  19,378

  312W 313W

  Calendar year 2000

  Major category

  Borough

  Violence against the person

  Sexual offences

  Robbery

  Burglary

  Theft and handling

  Fraud or forgery

  Criminal damage

  Drugs

  Other notifiable offences

  Total

  Heathrow Airport

  326

  30

  10

  54

  4,428

  607

  173

  37

  982

  6,647

  Hillingdon

  3,924

  224

  485

  4,264

  10,685

  1,761

  5,048

  398

  251

  27,040

  Hounslow

  5,407

  234

  680

  3,646

  11,586

  2,431

  5,112

  554

  243

  29,893

  Islington

  5,336

  297

  1,530

  4,319

  16,347

  2,963

  4,615

  864

  375

  36,646

  Kensington and Chelsea

  3,416

  155

  882

  3,477

  16,865

  3,190

  2,466

  571

  290

  31,312

  Kingston upon Thames

  2,363

  123

  227

  1,365

  5,337

  1,432

  2,589

  485

  147

  14,068

  Lambeth

  8,055

  553

  4,498

  6,118

  19,988

  4,278

  6,713

  1,456

  429

  52,088

  Lewisham

  5,269

  418

  1,541

  3,624

  10,196

  1,915

  4,690

  686

  280

  28,619

  Merton

  2,957

  123

  387

  1,716

  5,689

  1,642

  3,553

  248

  156

  16,471

  Newham

  7,483

  342

  2,091

  3,470

  15,046

  3,345

  6,455

  605

  401

  39,238

  Redbridge

  3,752

  205

  817

  3,036

  10,527

  3,118

  3,659

  378

  231

  25,723

  Richmond Upon Thames

  1,959

  94

  201

  2,311

  5,755

  1,017

  2,970

  252

  154

  14,713

  Squads

  6

  5

  —

  —

  32

  517

  2

  1

  37

  600

  Southwark

  7,289

  431

  2,180

  4,379

  15,050

  3,870

  5,279

  1,443

  419

  40,340

  Sutton

  2,102

  106

  262

  1,463

  5,167

  1,102

  3,477

  299

  121

  14,099

  Tower Hamlets

  5,850

  371

  1,731

  3,648

  14,803

  3,088

  4,704

  987

  385

  35,567

  Waltham Forest

  4,842

  241

  1,186

  3,257

  9,131

  2,917

  3,495

  541

  261

  25,871

  Wandsworth

  4,921

  271

  1,322

  4,155

  14,907

  4,109

  4,614

  661

  255

  35,215

  Westminster

  8,660

  529

  2,341

  5,350

  53,538

  7,402

  5,277

  2,723

  880

  86,700

  Total

  155,119

  8,954

  40,153

  115,031

  421,393

  88,280

  144,715

  24,102

  10,499

  1,008,246

  Malicious Communications Act
  Mr. David Heath
  To ask the secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions prosecutions have been brought against persons or companies under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 for communications distributed in respect of commercial purposes. [151414]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Number of persons or companies prosecuted under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 for communications distributed for commercial purposes are not separately identified on the Home Office's Court Proceedings and Cautions Database.

  Involuntary Manslaughter
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to bring forward legislation on involuntary manslaughter. [152670]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Government published their proposals for the reform of the law on involuntary manslaughter in May 2000. Among the proposals was the creation of an offence of corporate killing to hold undertakings to account for serious wrongdoing. We are considering in detail the responses to the consultation exercise and will publish our final proposals shortly. We will legislate as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

  Driver Prosecutions
  Mr. Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to ensure that drivers prosecuted as a result of crashes in which there has been a fatality are tried in a Crown court. [151416]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Drivers who cause a fatality by grossly negligent driving, dangerous driving or careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs must currently be tried in the Crown court. If convicted of manslaughter they are liable to a maximum penalty of life imprisonment; the other relevant offences carry a314W
  maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment. Where a vehicle is taken without the owner's consent and causes a fatality the driver must also be tried in the Crown court and is liable, if convicted, to a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.

  There is currently no offence which reflects a fatality occurring as a result of careless driving. In these circumstances the driver would be charged with the summary-only offence of careless driving which attracts a level 4 fine (currently £2,500).

  The Government are aware of concerns about the powers of the court to deal with fatalities that occur on the roads. Accordingly, the Transport Research Laboratory has carried out research on behalf of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions into the way in which "bad" driving cases proceed through the criminal justice system. The report is due to be published in the near future. We will then be in a better position to judge whether any changes in this area of law and its operation are necessary.

  Magistrates Courts
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list, for each of the last five years for which figures are available, the results of trials in magistrates courts, including cases that were withdrawn or dismissed. [152691]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Information covering the period 1994 to 1999, showing the number of defendants prosecuted at magistrates courts by type of offence and result is published in Table 6.3 of "Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1999" (Cm 5001).

  A copy is available in the Library.

  Homicides
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) murders and

  315W
  (b) other homicides were committed in England and Wales, broken down by specific offence, in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available. [152748]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The available information relates to initially recorded offences of homicide (murder, manslaughter and infanticide) in England and Wales and is given in the table. Those offences subsequently decided at court to be murder, manslaughter and infanticide are

  Convicted of homicide2

  Year

  Offences initially recorded as homicide1

  Total

  Murder

  Section 2 manslaughter

  Other manslaughter

  Infanticide

  1990

  661

  443

  186

  70

  183

  4

  1991

  725

  502

  197

  76

  224

  5

  1992

  681

  504

  215

  78

  205

  6

  1993

  675

  501

  224

  62

  210

  5

  1994

  727

  491

  228

  69

  191

  3

  1995

  753

  553

  272

  54

  224

  3

  1996

  679

  530

  258

  50

  218

  4

  1997

  735

  499

  247

  46

  203

  3

  1997–98

  731

  506

  228

  47

  227

  4

  1998–99

  745

  490

  241

  38

  204

  7

  1999–2000

  761

  232

  121

  13

  98

  —

  1 A separate offence is recorded for each victim of homicide, so that in an incident in which several people are killed, the number of homicides counted is the total number of persons killed.

  2 As at 11 September 2000; figures are subject to revision as cases are dealt with by the police and by the courts, or as further information becomes available.

  The initially recorded figure includes all homicides because when an offence is discovered and recorded by the police, it is not generally known whether an offence of murder, manslaughter or infanticide has been committed.

  Press Releases
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many press releases were issued by his Department in the financial years(a) 1996–97, (b) 1997–98, (c) 1998–99 and (d) 1999–2000; how many have been issued in the current financial year; and what his estimate is of the total number for the current financial year. [149247]

  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 8 February 2001]: The information for my Department is as follows:

  Year

  Home Office

  Prison Service

  Forensic Science Service

  Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons

  Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation

  1996–97

  411

  78

  —

  —

  —

  1997–98

  399

  89

  16

  —

  —

  1998–99

  512

  93

  13

  —

  —

  1999–2000

  417

  78

  9

  11

  1

  Current financial year to 6 March 2001

  Number

  Home Office

  402

  Prison Service

  93

  Inspectorates

  31

  It is difficult to estimate the total number of press releases likely to be issued by the end of this financial year but on current projections we would anticipate it to be in excess of 400 for the Home Office, 110 for the Prison Service and 35 on behalf of the Inspectorates.
  316W
  also shown. The latest figures are an unreliable guide as in a large number of cases court proceedings were still pending as at 11 September 2000 when recording was closed for publication purposes. The outcome may result in some offences being reclassified when final data are available.

  Offences of homicide initially recorded by the police and the outcome of those subsequently decided at court:

  Dr. Ali Dizaei
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the(a) most serious and (b) least serious discipline matter is for which Dr. Ali Dizaei has been warned of action. [152387]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis considers that it could potentially be prejudicial to reveal in this, or in any other case, the details of alleged misconduct before any decision has been taken to institute disciplinary proceedings.

  Superintendent Dizaei himself has been informed of the nature of the allegations against him.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in relation to the investigation of Dr. Ali Dizaei, how many of those interviewed are(a) white and (b) non-white. [152393]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me that a total of 185 persons have been interviewed and statements taken:(a) 144 were white and (b) 41 were non-white.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the requirements of suspicion are for a section 8 warrant; [152392]

  (2) which papers of Dr. Ali Dizaei relating to his position as legal adviser to members of the National Black Police Association in cases relating to possible unfair treatment by an employing police service have been (a) seen and (b) taken by the police; who authorised such action; and what protocols have governed the confidentiality of the documents; [152390]

  (3) what warrants have been (a) applied for, (b) refused and (c) executed in relation to the investigation of Dr. Ali Dizaei, indicating the dates and the authority signing each warrant. [152391]
  317W
  Mr. Charles Clarke
  In order to obtain a warrant under section 8 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to enter and search premises, a constable must satisfy a Justice of the Peace that there are reasonable grounds for believing:

  (a) that a serious arrestable offence has been committed; and

  (b) that there is material on premises specified in the application which is likely to be of substantial value (whether by itself or together with other material) to the investigation of the offence; and

  (c) that the material is likely to be relevant evidence; and

  (d) that it does not consist of or include items subject to legal privilege, excluded material or special procedure material; and

  (e) that any of the following conditions applies.

  The conditions referred to in (e) above are:

  (a) that it is not practicable to communicate with any person entitled to grant entry to the premises;

  (b) that it is practicable to communicate with a person entitled to grant entry to the premises but it is not practicable to communicate with any person entitled to grant access to the evidence;

  (c) that entry to the premises will not be granted unless a warrant is produced;

  (d) that the purpose of the search may be frustrated or seriously prejudiced unless a constable arriving at the premises can secure immediate entry to them.

  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me that 14 warrants were applied for. Of these, 12 were issued at Bow street magistrates court on 15 January 2001 by District Judge Mr. Workman, one was issued at Horseferry road magistrates court on 20 January 2001 by District Judge Mr. Pratt, and one was issued at Bow street magistrates court, on 8 February 2001 by District Judge Mr. Evans. No warrants were refused. 13 warrants were executed with one warrant returned to Bow street magistrates court unexecuted.

  Dr. Dizaei's home address and office at Kensington police station were both searched and papers, computer and discs were seized. The offices of the Black Police Association were not searched. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me that no matters subject to legal privilege or other matters relating to Dr. Dizaei's position as legal adviser to the National Black Police Association have been taken by police.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criminal offences were alleged against Dr. Ali Dizaei; and if he has been arrested. [152394]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me Superintendent Dizaei has been served with notices outlining criminal allegations against him. These include attempting to pervert the course of justice, deception, pecuniary advantage and fraud. Superintendent Dizaei has not been arrested.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department who is responsible for the investigation into Dr. Ali Dizaei. [152395]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me that the allegations into misconduct are being investigated by Commander Hayman, Director of the Directorate of Professional Standards of the Metropolitan Police Service; and criminal allegations are being investigated by Detective 318W
  Superintendent Norman, Head of Intelligence in the Directorate of Professional Standards of the Metropolitan Police Service.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many officers have been working on the surveillance and investigation into the case of Dr. Ali Dizaei. [152386]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me eight police officers have been employed on the investigation during the year 2000. However the surveillance operation would have involved an additional 13 police officers. Since January 2001, when Superintendent Dizaei was suspended, a further 21 officers have been engaged in the investigation. It is anticipated that half those police officers will resume other investigations after Easter 2001.

  Jill Dando Murder Inquiry
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many officers have been working on the Jill Dando murder. [152385]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me that the number of officers engaged in the investigation of the Jill Dando murder has fluctuated according to the progress of the investigation and the particular demands at the time. I refer the hon. Member to the answers given on 15 July 1999,Official Report, column 319W, 2 November 1999, Official Report, column 114W and 21 March 2000, Official Report, column 484W. There is no record of the overall number of police officers who have been involved in the case from the start of the investigation.

  A total of 10 officers are currently involved in the preparation of the court case. In addition, two officers have been dedicated to assisting witnesses and dealing with the publicity surrounding the trial.

  Conviction Rates
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many convictions there were(a) in each police force area and (b) in total in the last year for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [152371]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Information taken from the Home Office's Court Proceedings Database showing the number of persons convicted in(a) each police force area and (b) in total during 1999 is given in the table.

  Offenders convicted1 by offence type and police force area, England and Wales 1999

  Offence type

  Police force

  Indictable offences

  Summary non-motoring offences

  Summary motoring offences

  Total all offences

  Avon and Somerset

  7,531

  10,921

  18,467

  36,919

  Bedfordshire

  2,905

  3,967

  6,054

  12,926

  Cambridgeshire

  3,689

  1,573

  7,027

  12,289

  Cheshire

  6,641

  6,607

  11,098

  24,346

  City of London

  581

  1,753

  4,122

  6,456

  Cleveland

  5,742

  6,646

  5,185

  17,573

  Cumbria

  3,662

  4,971

  7,337

  15,970

  Derbyshire

  4,701

  6,559

  12,187

  23,447

  Devon and Cornwall

  6,930

  10,178

  13,908

  31,016

  Dorset

  3,572

  4,259

  5,486

  13,317

  Durham

  4,329

  3,805

  6,763

  14,897

  319W

  Offenders convicted1 by offence type and police force area, England and Wales 1999

  Offence type

  Police force

  Indictable offences

  Summary non-motoring offences

  Summary motoring offences

  Total all offences

  Essex

  7,062

  16,198

  20,691

  43,951

  Gloucestershire

  2,901

  3,700

  6,036

  12,637

  Greater Manchester

  22,360

  27,307

  54,835

  104,502

  Hampshire

  11,068

  14,631

  22,577

  48,276

  Hertfordshire

  3,331

  7,324

  10,203

  20,858

  Humberside

  6,327

  8,736

  9,056

  24,119

  Kent

  8,817

  4,653

  11,445

  24,915

  Lancashire

  12,044

  13,495

  21,249

  46,788

  Leicestershire

  5,561

  8,509

  14,245

  28,315

  Lincolnshire

  3,682

  5,355

  10,589

  19,626

  Merseyside

  11,200

  11,552

  13,499

  36,251

  Metropolitan Police

  51,538

  79,401

  63,387

  194,326

  Norfolk

  4,293

  4,410

  7,627

  16,330

  North Yorkshire

  4,558

  5,037

  7,317

  16,912

  Northamptonshire

  3,969

  5,705

  6,614

  16,288

  Northumbria

  12,712

  16,629

  16,375

  45,716

  Nottinghamshire

  7,747

  10,160

  8,504

  26,411

  South Yorkshire

  10,459

  9,846

  15,564

  35,869

  Staffordshire

  5,535

  4,040

  19,987

  29,562

  Suffolk

  3,362

  4,337

  7,202

  14,901

  Surrey

  2,687

  3,018

  8,766

  14,471

  Sussex

  6,693

  8,732

  12,241

  27,666

  Thames Valley

  8,020

  6,217

  26,307

  40,544

  Warwickshire

  2,216

  3,193

  7,316

  12,725

  West Mercia

  5,814

  6,519

  11,727

  24,060

  West Midlands

  21,835

  27,071

  33,391

  82,297

  West Yorkshire

  19,976

  22,176

  34,916

  77,068

  Wiltshire

  2,983

  4,190

  11,579

  18,752

  England

  319,033

  403,380

  590,879

  1,313,292

  Dyfed Powys

  3,527

  4,828

  5,428

  13,783

  Gwent

  4,482

  6,279

  12,662

  23,423

  North Wales

  4,325

  5,266

  6,524

  16,115

  South Wales

  10,628

  13,857

  17,363

  41,848

  Wales

  22,962

  30,230

  41,977

  95,169

  England and Wales

  341,995

  433,610

  632,856

  1,408,461

  1 Data in this table are based on a person's principal offence as persons may be convicted of more than one offence.

  Clear-up Rates
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the crime clear-up rate was(a) in each police force area and (b) in total in the last year for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [152372]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information, which has been published in "Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1999", is given in the table. It should be noted that the basis for the collection of clear-ups changed on 1 April 1999, and consequently no direct comparison should be made between these figures and those for previous years. The major changes were in respect of offences "taken into consideration", with only those offences of which the police were previously aware now being counted, and clear-ups resulting from admissions of prisoners serving a sentence for another offence no longer being counted.

  Recorded crime: clear-up rate by police force area England and Wales—year ending March 2000

  Police force area

  Percentages

  Avon and Somerset

  22

  Bedfordshire

  25

  Cambridgeshire

  25

  Cheshire

  31

  Cleveland

  22

  Cumbria

  39

  320W

  Recorded crime: clear-up rate by police force area England and Wales— ending March 2000

  Police force area

  Percentages

  Derbyshire

  28

  Devon and Cornwall

  35

  Dorset

  26

  Durham

  32

  Essex

  30

  Gloucestershire

  31

  Greater Manchester

  23

  Hampshire

  32

  Hertfordshire

  27

  Humberside

  19

  Kent

  33

  Lancashire

  29

  Leicestershire

  30

  Lincolnshire

  28

  London, City of

  32

  Merseyside

  26

  Metropolitan Police

  16

  Norfolk

  30

  Northamptonshire

  33

  Northumbria

  31

  North Yorkshire

  31

  Nottinghamshire

  21

  South Yorkshire

  25

  Staffordshire

  22

  Suffolk

  36

  Surrey

  32

  Sussex

  25

  Thames Valley

  20

  Warwickshire

  22

  West Mercia

  29

  West Midlands

  27

  West Yorkshire

  25

  Wiltshire

  33

  Dyfed-Powys

  65

  Gwent

  53

  North Wales

  36

  South Wales

  31

  England and Wales

  25

  Child Abuse
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if a representative of the Government will participate in the Second World Congress on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children to be held in Japan in December; and what preparations Her Majesty's Government are making in advance of the Congress. [152101]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Government attach particular importance to the Second World Congress and will be represented at ministerial or official level. I understand, however, that formal invitations to the World Congress have not yet been issued. The Home Office, Department of Health and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have preparations for the Congress in hand, which will include publication of a National Plan for Safeguarding Children from Commercial Sexual Exploitation.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to launch a national public information campaign to heighten awareness of child abuse in the UK. [152099]

  Mr. Hutton
  I have been asked to reply.
  321W
  We are committed to improving safeguards for children and have taken firm action to help and protect the most vulnerable children in our society. This commitment is evidenced by the wide ranging programme of new child protection legislation that we have enacted and our ground breaking £885 million Quality Protects Programme to transform the management and delivery of children's social services. In addition, we welcome the work that is done by the voluntary sector to heighten awareness of child abuse in the United Kingdom.

  The recently reissued "Working Together to Safeguard Children" guidance raises awareness of child abuse among all those with child protection responsibilities, and gives them the framework they need to improve safeguards for children.

  We have no current plans for a national public information campaign to heighten awareness of child abuse.

  Sexual Offences
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to take forward the Sexual Offences Review following the end of the consultation period in March. [152100]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  We have to date received over 650 responses to the publication "Setting the Boundaries" which set out the recommendations of the Sex Offences Review to Government. Over the coming months we will be considering in detail each of the 62 recommendations contained in Volume 1 of "Setting the Boundaries" in the light of those responses.

  Following this we intend to bring forward proposals for legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.

  Timber
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his Department's annual report on timber procurement to the Committee of Green Ministers will be published. [152105]

  Mr. Straw
  The key information on the Department's procurement of timber will be published in the Green Ministers' Annual Report.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much certified timber has been purchased by his Department over the past six months; and what proportion of total timber purchases this represents. [152145]

  Mr. Straw
  The Home Office does not have a system in place to provide data on the proportion of certified timber purchased.

  The inter-departmental working group on timber is working to develop a common reporting template, which will form the basis of future reporting on timber procurement.

  Lay Visitors
  Ms Ward
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of(a) lay visitors to police
  322W
  stations and (b) members of lay observers' panels in England and Wales were aged (i) under 30, (ii) between 30 and 40, (iii) between 40 and 50, (iv) between 50 and 60 and (v) over 60 years in each of the past five years. [152592]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Information is not collected centrally about the proportion of lay visitors within each given category.

  As at 1 March 2001 there are no lay observers under 30 years of age. 2 per cent. are aged between 30 and 40; 8 per cent. between 40 and 50; 25 per cent. between 50 and 60; and the remaining 65 per cent. are over 60 years of age. Historical data about the composition of the lay observers panels are not kept and it is not possible to provide information in respect of the years 1997 to 2000.

  Ms Ward
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what proportion of places on schemes for lay visitors to visit police stations are not filled; [152590]

  (2) what the (a) gender and (b) ethnic breakdown was of lay visitors to police stations in England and Wales in each of the last five years. [152591]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  This information is not collected centrally. Updated Home Office guidance to police authorities on the organisation and operation of lay visiting schemes will be issued shortly and strengthened administrative arrangements should enable better monitoring and record keeping.

  Lay Observers
  Ms Ward
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what proportion of places on lay observers' panels are not filled; [152593]

  (2) what the (a) gender and (b) ethnic breakdown is for members of lay observers' panels in England and Wales in each of the past five years. [152594]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  As at 1 March 2001 the eight Lay Observers Panels covering all of England and Wales had a total of 169 members. There were also 12 vacancies.

  The membership comprises 122 males and 47 females. 10 Lay Observers are from the minority ethnic communities. Of these eight are of Afro/Caribbean background and the remaining two are Asian.

  Historical data about the composition of the Lay Observers Panels are not kept and it is not possible to provide information in respect of the years 1997 to 2000.

  Crown Court Trials
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the results of trials in the Crown court where the defendant made a plea of not guilty to all counts, for each of the last five years for which figures are available. [152692]

  Mr. Lock
  I have been asked to reply.

  Figures showing the results of trials where the defendant made a plea of not guilty to all counts are set out in the table.

  323W

  Results of trials in the Crown court where the defendant pleaded not guilty to all counts

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  Acquitted

  Discharged by judge

  6,232

  6,844

  8,404

  8,800

  9,563

  Directed acquittal

  2,469

  2,455

  2,517

  2,490

  2,404

  Jury acquittal

  5,466

  5,812

  5,815

  5,663

  5,588

  Total acquittals

  14,167

  15,111

  16,736

  16,953

  17,555

  Convicted

  Changed plea to guilty

  212

  143

  157

  126

  115

  Unanimous verdict

  7,944

  7,908

  7,482

  7,029

  6,714

  1 dissentient

  827

  826

  727

  777

  696

  2 dissentients

  1,274

  1,282

  1,202

  1,157

  1,195

  Total convictions

  10,257

  10,159

  9,568

  9,089

  8,720

HEALTH

  Correspondence
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to the letter of 13 December 1999, acknowledged on 16 December 1999 (Ref. POH(2)5303/85) faxed to his Department on 20 November 2000, on the subject of midwives' pay. [150565]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 15 February 2001]: A reply to the hon. Member's letter was sent on 2 March 2001.

  Mr. Gill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to the hon. Member for Ludlow's letters of 27 July 2000, 11 November 2000 and 6 December 2000. [150870]

  Department of Health Vacanies Survey—Three month vacancies1 for Radiographers, within National Health Service trusts, for each health authority area, as at 31 March 2000

  Total radiographers

  Diagnostic radiographers

  Therapeutic radiographers

  England

  430

  330

  100

  Northern and Yorkshire

  20

  2—

  20

  Bradford HA

  0

  0

  0

  Calderdale and Kirklees HA

  0

  0

  0

  County Durham HA

  0

  0

  0

  East Riding HA

  10

  0

  10

  Gateshead and South Tyneside HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Leeds HA

  10

  0

  10

  Newcastle and North Tyneside HA

  2—

  0

  2—

  North Cumbria HA

  0

  0

  0

  North Yorkshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  Northumberland HA

  2—

  0

  2—

  Sunderland HA

  0

  0

  0

  Tees HA

  0

  0

  0

  Wakefield HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Trent

  30

  20

  10

  Barnsley HA

  0

  0

  0

  Doncaster HA

  2—

  0

  2—

  Leicestershire HA

  10

  2—

  2—

  Lincolnshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  North Derbyshire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  North Nottinghamshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  324W
  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 26 February 2001]: A reply to the hon. Member's letter was sent on 5 March 2001.

  Mrs. Roe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to the letters from the hon. Member for Broxbourne of 4 December 2000, 3 January 2001, 1 February 2001 Ind 1 March 2001, relating to her constituent, Mrs. M. Childs of Hoddesdon. [152746]

  Mr. Hutton
  I replied to the hon. Member's letter of 4 December 2000 in 22 January 2001.

  Tinnitus
  Ms Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what support his Department is giving to the establishment of a UK tinnitus research centre; and if he will make a statement. [152151]

  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to set up a tinnitus research centre. [152157]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Department was asked for advice concerning sources of support for a tinnitus research unit in July 2000. Given the emphasis of the proposal on identifying neuronal and molecular changes and translation research the Department advised that the researchers involved should approach the Medical Research Council (MRC) with this proposal. The MRC is the main Government agency for research into the causes of and treatments for disease and it receives its funding via the Department of Trade and Industry.

  Radiographers
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many vacancies there are for radiographers in each health authority. [152499]

  Mr. Denham
  The information requested is shown in the table.
  325W

  Department of Health Vacanies Survey—Three month vacancies1 for Radiographers, within National Health Service trusts, for each health authority area, as at 31 March 2000

  Total radiographers

  Diagnostic radiographers

  Therapeutic radiographers

  Nottingham HA

  10

  10

  2—

  Rotherham HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Sheffield HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  South Humber HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Southern Derbyshire HA

  2—

  2—

  2—

  West Midlands

  40

  30

  10

  Birmingham HA

  20

  10

  2—

  Coventry HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Dudley HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Herefordshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  North Staffordshire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Sandwell HA

  0

  0

  0

  Shropshire HA

  10

  2—

  2—

  Solihull HA

  0

  0

  0

  South Staffordshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  Walsall HA

  0

  0

  0

  Warwickshire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Wolverhampton HA

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Worcestershire HA

  0

  0

  0

  North West

  40

  40

  2—

  Bury and Rochdale HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  East Lancashire HA

  0

  0

  0

  Liverpool HA

  10

  10

  0

  Manchester HA

  10

  10

  0

  Morecambe Bay HA

  0

  0

  0

  North Cheshire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  North West Lancashire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Salford and Trafford HA

  0

  0

  0

  Sefton HA

  0

  0

  0

  South Cheshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  South Lancashire HA

  0

  0

  0

  St. Helens and Knowsley HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Stockport HA

  0

  0

  0

  West Pennine HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Wigan and Bolton HA

  0

  0

  0

  Wirral HA

  10

  10

  2—

  Eastern

  50

  40

  20

  Bedfordshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  Cambridge HA

  20

  10

  10

  East and North Hertfordshire HA

  10

  10

  0

  Norfolk HA

  10

  10

  2—

  North Essex HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  South Essex HA

  0

  0

  0

  Suffolk HA

  10

  2—

  2—

  West Hertfordshire HA

  10

  2—

  2—

  London

  130

  100

  30

  Barking and Havering HA

  10

  2—

  2—

  Barnet HA

  10

  10

  0

  Bexley and Greenwich HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Brent and Harrow HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Bromley HA

  0

  0

  0

  Camden and Islington HA

  20

  10

  10

  Croydon HA

  10

  10

  0

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow HA

  10

  10

  2—

  East London and The City HA

  10

  10

  2—

  Enfield and Haringey HA

  2—

  0

  2—

  Hillingdon HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster HA

  20

  10

  10

  Kingston and Richmond HA

  10

  10

  0

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham HA

  10

  10

  10

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth HA

  10

  10

  0

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest HA

  10

  10

  0

  South East

  90

  70

  20

  Berkshire HA

  10

  2—

  2—

  Buckinghamshire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  East Kent HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  East Surrey HA

  0

  0

  0

  East Sussex, Brighton and Hove HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Isle Of Wight HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  North and Mid Hampshire HA

  10

  10

  0

  326W

  327W

  Department of Health Vacanies Survey—Three month vacanies1 for Radiographers, within National Health Service trusts, for each health authority area, as at 31 March 2000

  Total radiographers

  Diagnostic radiographers

  Therapeutic radiographers

  Northamptonshire HA

  0

  0

  0

  Oxfordshire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Portsmouth and South East Hampshire HA

  10

  2—

  2—

  Southampton and South West Hampshire HA

  10

  10

  2—

  West Kent HA

  20

  20

  10

  West Surrey HA

  20

  20

  0

  West Sussex HA

  10

  10

  0

  South West

  30

  30

  2—

  Avon HA

  10

  10

  0

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly HA

  0

  0

  0

  Dorset HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Gloucestershire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  North and East Devon HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  Somerset HA

  0

  0

  0

  South and West Devon HA

  10

  10

  2—

  Wiltshire HA

  2—

  2—

  0

  1 Posts that had been vacant for three months or more as at 31 March of each year

  2 Denotes less than 5 or greater than zero

  Notes:

  1. Figures are whole-time equivalents rounded to the nearest 10

  2. Due to rounding totals may not equal the sum of component parts

  Source:

  Department of Health 2000 Vacancies survey

  Paediatric Pathologists
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many specialist paediatric pathologists are employed by each health authority; and how many specialist paediatric pathologist posts are vacant in each authority. [151945]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: The information requested is not held centrally.

  Body and Organ Disposal
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will give guidance to health authorities on the disposal of bodies and organs in the health service. [152425]

  Mr. Denham
  Following the publication of the Royal Liverpool Children's Inquiry Report, the Retained Organs Commission has been established to oversee the cataloguing and return of organs and tissue retained at post mortem. Guidance will be issued to National Health Service trusts shortly which will enable them to begin to provide information to relatives once the Commission has validated their information systems.

  Air Quality
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his Department's total spend has been in the last three years on research into the health impact of outdoor air quality. [152541]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Department has contributed around £1.4 million to research on the health impact of outdoor air pollution over the last three years.

  The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), Air and Environment Quality Division have also contributed around £25 million to research on air pollution over the past three years. Other Divisions
  328W
  within DETR, as well as other Government Departments, have also contributed to air pollution research programmes.

  Asthma
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many deaths were caused by traffic-related air pollution in the last year for which figures are available; and, of those, how many were related to(a) asthma and (b) other respiratory disease. [152543]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Department's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) published a report "Quantification of the Effects of Air Pollution on Health in the United Kingdom" in 1998 that included estimates of the number of people affected by the effects of air pollution each year. One of the pollutants studied in the report was particulate matter (PM10), a major pollutant related to traffic. The report concluded that 8,100 people in 1995 were likely to have their deaths brought forward as a result of exposure to this pollutant. Levels of particles have fallen since 1995 and not all particulate matter is derived from traffic so this will be an overestimate of current effects.

  The above calculations relate to deaths from all causes. COMEAP did not recommend separate calculations for different causes of death.

  New Lymington Hospital
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what criteria will be used to determine whether the New Lymington hospital project proceeds as a wholly publicly funded or a PFI project. [151383]

  Mr. Denham
  Before a decision on the funding of a new hospital can be made we must determine which approach presents the best option for the local community. We must consider whether a scheme would be better value for the National Health Service and the taxpayer
  329W
  under private finance initiative than it would be under the equivalent publicly funded alternative . Support for the scheme from key local stakeholders and the ability of local health authorities and those that commission services to meet the overall cost of that scheme would also be key factors.

  A project board has been established to oversee the process of reviewing the service and funding options for the new hospital.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Athletics Facility (Pickett's Lock)
  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what timetable he envisages for the completion by autumn 2004 of a new international athletics facility at Pickett's Lock. [152518]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: The Lee Valley Athletics Centre is timetabled to be ready in good time for the 2005 World Athletics Championships.

  Athletics Championships (Funding)
  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when he last met representatives of Manchester 2002 Ltd. to discuss the funding of the Commonwealth Games 2002. [152517]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not had any meetings with Manchester 2002 Ltd. specifically to discuss funding. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office heads the Government's liaison with Manchester 2002 Ltd., the organisers of the Games. He is in regular contact on a wide range of issues. I have met the Chairman of Manchester 2002 to discuss sporting aspects of the Commonwealth Games.

  Wembley Project
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much money the Government have contributed to the new Wembley project through(a) Sport England or (b) National Lottery money. [152511]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: No exchequer funding has been committed to Wembley National Stadium Ltd. Sport England have awarded £120 million from the Lottery Sports Fund to the stadium project. Wembley National Stadium Ltd. and the Football Association have agreed to return £20 million of the lottery funding following the removal of the obligations to stage athletics events.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what role Ministers played in the appointment of the Wembley board. [152631]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: None; the Wembley National Stadium Ltd. board comprises 12 non-executive directors, seven of whom are nominated by the Football Association with the remaining five nominated by the English National Stadium Trust.
  330W
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what discussions his Department has had, with which organisations, about the re-opening of Wembley Stadium for future major sporting events. [152512]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I met Sir Rodney Walker on 10 January and 1 February and on each occasion received a progress report from him on the redevelopment of Wembley Stadium.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if his Department was consulted in relation to financial payments being made to the new Chairman of the Wembley Holding Company; and if he will make a statement. [152510]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 6 March 2001]: My Department was not consulted about payments to the new Chairman of Wembley National Stadium Ltd.

  Television Licences
  Mr. Browne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when regulations will be laid to bring into effect the television licence fee increases due to come into force on 1 April. [153351]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  On 26 October 2000,Official Report, columns 176–77W, the Government announced that, from 1 April 2001, the fee for a colour television licence would increase from £104 to £109 and the black and white licence fee would rise from £34.50 to £36.50. I have today laid before the House the regulations necessary to bring these fees into force.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMISSION

  National Audit Office
  Mr. Love
  To ask the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission if the Commission has appointed new auditors for the National Audit Office. [152876]

  Mr. Sheldon
  Yes. The Commission has appointed the firm of BKR Haines Watts. The appointment will be for a fixed term of three years from 1 April 2001. The appointment is renewable for a further two years at the discretion of the Commission.

PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

  People's Peerages
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Council how many meetings of the Appointments Commission have been held since its establishment; and how may of these were used to interview applicants for a people's peerage. [151660]

  Mrs. Beckett
  I understand that the Appointments Commission has held 10 formal full meetings since its establishment in May 2000. Interviews have not taken place at formal full meetings of the Commission.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Council, pursuant to her answer of 28 February 2001,Official Report, column 714W, on people's peers, for what

  331W
  reason the provision of information including the first part of the post codes of applications would breach the requirement to treat applications in confidence. [152277]

  Mrs. Beckett
  I have nothing to add to my answer of 28 February.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Council if she will list(a) the publications and (b) the costs of the advertisements soliciting applications for a people's peerage and the responses generated by each title. [152501]

  Mrs. Beckett
  The Appointments Commission decided to use other methods than newspaper advertising for publicising its work and soliciting applications. It set up an easily accessible website and produced 15,000 information packs, many of which were distributed to organisations and individuals who might be interested in making a nomination, at a cost of approximately £25,000. It also undertook four regional roadshows, at a cost of about £12,000. There were just over 3,000 applications by the deadline of 17 November.

TREASURY

  Unemployment (London)
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what the percentage was of the workforce in(a) London and (b) each London borough which was unemployed (i) in 1996 and (ii) at the latest date for which figures are available; [152199]

  (2) how many people were (a) unemployed and
  (b) unemployed for over two years in (i) London and (ii) each London borough (A) in 1996 and (B) at the latest date for which figures are available. [152201]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from John Pullinger to Ms Harriet Harman, dated 8 March 2001:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent questions about the percentage of the workforce that is unemployed in London and unemployment figures for London and London Boroughs. (152199, 152201). I am replying in his absence.

  Table 2: Number of ILO unemployed in Grater London by borouth

  Thousands1

  Average December 1995 to November 1996

  Average December 1999 to November 2000

  All unemployed

  Unemployed for more than 2 years

  All unemployed

  Unemployed for more than 2 years

  Greater London

  403

  106

  262

  40

  Barking and Dagenham

  9

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Barnet

  16

  2—

  11

  2—

  Bexley

  10

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Brent

  15

  2—

  15

  2—

  Bromley

  10

  2—

  7

  2—

  Camden

  12

  2—

  7

  2—

  Croydon

  17

  2—

  9

  2—

  Ealing

  16

  2—

  11

  2—

  Enfield

  11

  2—

  9

  2—

  332W
  The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the main source of labour market data on individuals used by National Statistics. The tables below show the International Labour Organisation (ILO) unemployment rates and the number of people unemployed in Greater London and by Borough. Both tables show the averages of December 1995 to No November 1996-to represent 1996-and December 1999 to November 2000-to provide the latest available annual average.
  The measure of unemployment derived from the LFS is defined on a consistent and internationally recognised basis set out by the ILO. It counts as unemployed people who are (a) without a paid job, (b) available to start work within the next two weeks and (c) have either looked for work in the last four weeks or are waiting to start a job already obtained.

  Table 1: ILO unemployment rates for people in Greater London by Borough

  Percentage1

  Average December 1995 to November 1996

  Average December 1999 to November 2000

  Greater London

  11.3

  7.2

  Barking and Dagenham

  11.7

  2—

  Barnet

  10.0

  6.3

  Bexley

  8.7

  2—

  Brent

  12.3

  11.4

  Bromley

  6.5

  4.5

  Camden

  11.9

  8.1

  Croydon

  9.7

  5.2

  Ealing

  11.0

  7.7

  Enfield

  8.1

  6.4

  Greenwich

  13.9

  9.6

  Hackney

  22.1

  15.2

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  11.6

  2—

  Haringey

  13.4

  10.9

  Harrow

  8.0

  5.3

  Havering

  8.0

  2—

  Hillingdon

  5.6

  4.5

  Hounslow

  12.3

  2—

  Islington

  14.7

  2—

  Kensington and Chelsea

  9.9

  9.8

  Kingston upon Thames

  2—

  2—

  Lambeth

  18.3

  8.7

  Lewisham

  15.5

  5.5

  Merton

  2—

  2—

  Newham

  20.2

  16.4

  Redbridge

  8.7

  7.3

  Richmond upon Thames

  2—

  2—

  Southwark

  22.6

  12.9

  Sutton

  6.3

  2—

  Tower Hamlets

  19.3

  12.3

  Waltham Forest

  11.8

  7.3

  Wandsworth

  9.7

  4.6

  Westminster

  13.9

  7.6

  1 Not seasonally adjusted

  2 Figure too small for reliable estimate

  Source:

  ONS Labour Force Survey
  333W

  Table 2: Number of ILO unemployed in Greater London by borough

  Thousands 1

  Average December 1995 to November 1996

  Average December 1999 to November 2000

  All unemployed

  Unemployed for more than 2 years

  All unemployed

  Unemployed for more than 2 years

  Greenwich

  14

  2—

  10

  2—

  Hackney

  17

  7

  13

  2—

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  10

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Haringey

  13

  2—

  12

  2—

  Harrow

  9

  2—

  6

  Havering

  10

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Hillingdon

  7

  2—

  6

  2—

  Hounslow

  12

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Islington

  13

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Kensington and Chelsea

  8

  2—

  8

  2—

  Kingston upon Thames

  2—

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Lambeth

  28

  7

  12

  2—

  Lewisham

  20

  2—

  7

  2—

  Merton

  2—

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Newham

  19

  2—

  15

  2—

  Redbridge

  10

  2—

  8

  2—

  Richmond upon Thames

  2—

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Southwark

  23

  8

  15

  2—

  Sutton

  6

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Tower Hamlets

  14

  2—

  10

  2—

  Waltham Forest

  13

  2—

  9

  2—

  Wandsworth

  14

  2—

  7

  2—

  Westminster

  14

  2—

  9

  2—

  1 Not seasonally adjusted

  2 Figure too small for reliable estimate

  Source:

  ONS Labour Force Survey

  Pay (London)
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the average pay was in London(a) in 1996 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available. [152203]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Karen Dunnell to Ms Harriet Harman, dated 8 March 2001:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question on average pay in London (152203). I am replying in his absence.
  The NES shows that in London, the average weekly pay was £455.5 in 1996 and £529.8 in 2000, the latest date for which figures are available. The figures provided are for full-time employees on adult rates of pay, whose pay for the survey period was not affected by absence.
  The New Earnings Survey (NES), carried out in April of each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in Great Britain. However, it underestimates the number of low pay jobs since it does not provide a comprehensive picture of the lower end of the earnings distribution.

  Jobs (London)
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many jobs there were(a) in 1996 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available in (i) London and (ii) each London borough. [152193]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
  334W
  Letter from Len Cook to Ms Harriet Harman, dated 8 March 2001:
  As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question on the number of jobs in the economy in London and each London borough in 1996 and at the latest date for which figures are available.
  The Annual Employment Survey (AES) gives an estimate of the number of employee jobs in September of each year. Estimates for 1996 and 1998 (the latest year for which comparable figures are available) may be obtained from the NOMIS database in the House of Commons Library.

  Children (London)
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many children aged under 16 years there are in(a) London and (b) each London borough. [152195]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Karen Dunnell to Ms Harriet Hanman, dated 8 March 2001:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question concerning the number of children in London (152195). I am replying in his absence.
  An electronic copy of the data that you require can be found at the Office for National Statistics website: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ nsbase/downloads/theme—population/PE2POPEsts99book.pdf
  A paper copy of the data can be found in Table 8 in the ONS volume 'Population Estimates, Mid-1999, England and Wales' (Series PE No.2; ISBN 1 85774 381 4). This publication is in the House of Commons library.

  Financial Services Authority
  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to include(a) term assurance, (b) mortgage protection and (c) clinical illness cover within the remit of the FSA. [152950]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Companies that provide these forms of insurance in the UK are prudentially regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

  Duty Free
  Barbara Follett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will publish the findings of the post implementation review of the duty free successor regime for intra-EU journeys; and if he will make a statement. [153212]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Sales of duty-free alcohol and tobacco on intra-EU journeys, for passengers to take away, were abolished from 1 July 1999. On 24 October 2000 I announced that a post implementation review of the successor regime would take place. Customs have completed that review and copies of the findings have now been placed in the House Libraries.

  The review focused on how well the successor regime was working and what further technical improvements could be made. The report makes a number of deregulatory recommendations, which I support. The administrative and operational simplifications to the system will make the regime easier for Customs and the trade to administer.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

  Crown Prosecution Service
  Mr. McCabe
  To ask the Solicitor-General in what ways the additional funding recently announced for the Crown Prosecution Service will affect the funding of local offices. [151421]

  The Solicitor-General
  The additional finding for the Crown Prosecution Service, from the Spending Review settlement and the Criminal Justice Reserve represents a significant increase in the resources available to the CPS's 42 Areas in 2001–02. On average the local offices will receive an additional 19 per cent. from April as well as benefiting from the central CPS initiatives on which the remaining extra money will be spent. Areas will be able to recruit up to 500 more front-line lawyers, caseworkers and administrative staff. There will be more training so staff will be better equipped and they will have modern IT facilities to do the job. The additional resources mean that the CPS will be able to deal with more cases, improve its performance and deliver key initiatives including informing victims about prosecution decisions.

  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Solicitor-General if he will make a statement on the impact of his plans to fund the Crown Prosecution Service on reducing the length of time for bringing prosecutions. [151422]
  336W
  The Solicitor-General
  The increase in funding for the CPS from April of 23 per cent. in real terms is likely to have a substantial effect on the time taken to bring prosecutions. In particular more resources will be focused:towards the delivery of Youth court targets;
  in attendance at an increased number of Early First Hearings and Early Administrative Hearings in the magistrates courts;
  on better administrative support at the Crown court;
  and in the wider deployment of Higher Court Advocates to improve the throughput of Crown court cases.

  Additional resources from the Treasury's Capital Modernisation Fund are being used to assist in the establishment of Criminal Justice Units. A Performance Improvement Programme fund aimed principally at improving individual Area performance concerning quality and timeliness has been established.

  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Solicitor-General what assessment he has made of the Crown Prosecution Service's performance in giving advice on criminal charges to the police. [151423]

  The Solicitor-General
  A thematic report on the provision of advice to the police by Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) was published in September 1998 and concluded that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) provides good quality written advice. There is also no ongoing programme of Area inspections, each of which covers the issue. I consider each report prepared by the Inspectorate.

  Apart from this, the Attorney-General and I regularly see CPS files which enables us to assess the performance of the CPS in giving advice on criminal charges to the police. Often, the files contain good quality and timely case specific advice as well as tackling wider issues such as explaining general prosecution policies. I have also been impressed on my frequent visits to CPS offices by the involvement of CPS lawyers at the pre-charge stages of police investigations, often in large and complex cases.

  Treasury Solicitor's Department
  Mrs. Ellman
  To ask the Solicitor-General what plans he has to review the work of the Treasury Solicitor's Department. [153211]

  The Solicitor-General
  I am pleased to announce that, in accordance with the Government's commitment that all agencies should be reviewed regularly, a review of the work of the Treasury Solicitor's Department is now being launched. The review, which will be conducted in accordance with the Cabinet Office Guidance published in January 2000, will be in two stages: first to assess the Department's performance as an agency and to consider whether agency status is the right organisational model and second to assess the scope for improving performance. The review will be supervised by a Steering group chaired by Mr. George Staple and conducted by Sir Quentin Thomas.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Hill Farming
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to increase the incomes of hill farmers; and if he will make a statement. [151395]

  Ms Quin
  Hill farmers benefit from the full range of CAP support payments, including agrimonetary compensation. Later this month they will receive payments of Hill Farm Allowance totalling almost £44 million. They also have access to the ERDP whose funding will build up steadily over the next few years.

  Agrimonetary Compensation
  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on agrimonetary compensation. [151397]

  Ms Quin
  Last week this Government announced that they intend to draw down £171 million in agrimonetary compensation for the beef, sheep and dairy sectors, including all of the £156 million in optional compensation. These funds have become available as a result of movements in the euro/sterling exchange rate during 2000.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much agrimonetary compensation was provided in each year since 1997 for each sector; and, for each figure, how much was funded by(a) Her Majesty's Treasury and (b) the EU. [150334]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 13 February 2001]: The figures are set out in the table . The 2001 figures include the compensation announced on 27 February which is subject to Commission approval.

  £million

  Year eligible

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  Total

  Beef

  EU1

  72.5

  48

  62

  44

  46

  272.5

  UK

  —

  —

  —

  —

  21

  21

  Total

  72.5

  48

  62

  44

  67

  293.5

  Sheep

  EU1

  12.5

  —

  32

  32

  22.5

  99.0

  UK

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2.5

  2.5

  Total

  12.5

  —

  32

  32

  25

  101.5

  Arable

  EU1

  —

  —

  170

  74

  28

  272

  UK

  —

  —

  —

  17

  —

  17

  Total

  —

  —

  170

  91

  28

  289

  Dairy

  EU1

  —

  —

  —

  11

  39.5

  50.5

  UK

  —

  —

  —

  11

  39.5

  50.5

  Total

  —

  —

  —

  22

  79

  101

  All sectors

  EU1

  85

  48

  264

  161

  136

  694

  UK

  —

  —

  —

  28

  63

  91

  Total

  85

  48

  264

  189

  199

  785

  1 EU figures include UK Exchequer contribution of around 71 per cent.

  Note:

  Agrimonetary compensation paid/to be paid.

  Agricultural Imports
  Miss Kirkbride
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on agricultural imports from France. [151398]

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on recent trends in food imports from France. [151401]

  Organic Farming
  Mrs. Betty Williams
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he has received concerning an organic stewardship scheme. [151400]

  Mr. Morley
  As my hon. Friend will know, the Agriculture Committee has recommended that the Government devise proposals for such a scheme. I have also received representations to that effect from within the organic sector.

  Animal Welfare
  Mr. Bill O'Brien
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on his policy priorities with regard to animal welfare. [151402]

  Mr. Morley
  One of MAFF's objectives is to ensure that farmed animals and fish are protected by high welfare standards and do not suffer unnecessary pain or distress. Our policy priority is to negotiate for high welfare standards on an EU-wide basis.

  BSE
  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he has taken to ensure that scientific advice to Ministers relating to BSE is placed in the public domain. [151403]

  Ms Quin
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) on 1 February 2001,Official Report, column 290W.

  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what investment he has made into research for a diagnostic test for BSE. [151410]

  Ms Quin
  Since 1992 my Department has spent £17.7 million on research projects on producing diagnostic tests for TSEs. This includes work on background science which may lead to the development of a new test, collaborative work in which the approaches of scientists overseas are being further developed and evaluated, and the production and collection of tissues from animals infected with TSEs for use by researchers who are developing diagnostic tests.
  339W
  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many(a) contracts have been let, (b) different contractors have been let contracts and (c) contracts have been withdrawn by the Government for the disposal of rendered specified risk material and over-30-months scheme material. [152070]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 5 March 2001]: Four contracts have been let to three contractors (Fibrogen Ltd., Prosper de Mulder Ltd. and Shanks Chemical Services Ltd. (two)) to burn meat and bone meal (MBM) arising from the rendering of material, including SRM from the OTMS. None have been withdrawn.

  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what the total UK stocks of rendered specified risk material and over-thirty-months scheme material were on(a) 1 May 1997, (b) 1 January 1998, (c) 1 January 1999, (d) 1 January 2000 and (e) 1 January 2001; and how much was disposed of, and by what method, in the years (i) 1998, (ii) 1999, and (iii) 2000. [152068]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 5 March 2001]: The total UK stocks of rendered OTMS material (which includes SRM from over thirty month cattle) on the dates in question were as follows:

  £ million

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  UK

  EU

  UK

  EU

  UK

  EU

  UK

  EU

  UK slaughter programmes:

  BSE suspected/confirmed cases compensation

  5

  0

  3

  0

  2

  0

  1

  0

  Calf slaughter scheme

  51

  0

  53

  0

  51

  0

  10

  —

  OTMS

  205

  469

  86

  202

  79

  185

  79.5

  185.5

  Selective cull1

  0

  0

  115

  0

  19

  0

  1

  0

  Total excluding1

  261

  469

  142

  202

  132

  185

  90.5

  185.5

  Additional EU compensation:

  Suckler cow premium

  31

  46

  3

  4

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Beef special premium

  17

  26

  -3

  -4

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Beef marketing payment

  23

  35

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Veal marketing payment

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Promotion

  0

  0

  1

  2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Total

  71

  107

  1

  2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Gross total excluding1

  332

  576

  143

  204

  132

  185

  90.5

  185.5

  1 Not possible to provide the EU/UK split in given time

  Note:

  Final figures for 2000–2001 not available

  EU Enlargement
  Fiona Mactaggart
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what discussions he has had with his counterparts in central and eastern Europe concerning the effect of enlargement of the European Union on agriculture. [151404]

  Ms Quin
  Over the past 12 months, my ministerial colleagues and I have held discussions with our counterparts from Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania. Further meetings are planned.
  340W

  Tonnes

  Year

  MBM

  Tallow

  1 May 1997

  198,173

  115,026

  1 January 1998

  297,098

  159,457

  1 January 1999

  372,369

  190,955

  1 January 2000

  450,815

  205,821

  1 January 2001

  444,480

  214,615

  Rendered OTMS material is disposed of only by incineration at authorised premises. The totals incinerated for the years in question are as follows:

  Tonnes

  Year

  MBM

  Tallow

  1998

  15,640

  15,896

  1999

  15,165

  28,187

  2000

  84,455

  37,607

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much money has been paid to date by(a) the EU and (b) the UK Government to farmers as compensation for BSE; and if he will make a statement. [152164]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 5 March 2001]: The information is provided in the table.

  Dairy Supply Chain
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the work of the dairy supply chain working group. [151405]

  Ms Quin
  My right hon. Friend the Minister set up the Milk Task Force in November last year to look at ways of improving efficiency and co-operation within the dairy supply chain. We have asked the Task Force to report with recommendations by the end of March.

  Fish Stocks (Conservation)
  Mr. Wilkinson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the
  341W
  effectiveness of the fish stock conservation measures required under the European Union's common fisheries policy. [151406]

  Mr. Morley
  Under the Common Fisheries Policy a range of measures are available to assist with fish stock conservation: the annual setting of Total Allowance Catches for the main commercial stocks based on the best available science; technical conservation measures on mesh sizes and gear selectivity to improve protection for juvenile fish; constraints on fleet capacity and effort; and, more recently, stock recovery plans, including closed areas at spawning time, for stocks at risk of collapse. Taken together these measures can, when properly enforced, make an effective contribution to stock conservation.

  Livestock Products (Exports)
  Dr. Palmer
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what the value of livestock products exported to the European Union was in the last financial year. [151407]

  Ms Quin
  Overseas Trade Statistics show that between April 1999 and March 2000 the total value of livestock products exported to the European Union was £1,250 million.

  Beef Exports
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress his Department has made in promoting British beef in export markets. [151408]

  Ms Quin
  We have been actively engaged in raising the profile of British beef at a number of Food Shows in Europe, during Ministerial visits to a number of countries, by making representations to third countries' Ambassadors to get import bans lifted. This is a part of an ongoing strategy to raise the profile of British beef.

  Fruit and Vegetables
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what total tonnage of fruit and vegetables was destroyed under EU regulations in 2000. [151409]

  Ms Quin
  Provisional figures show that just over 1,300,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables were withdrawn from the EU market in 2000. Some 10,000 tonnes were withdrawn in the UK, 10 per cent. of which was used for animal feed distributed free.

  CAP (Dairy Regime)
  Mr. Russell Brown
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has for the reform of the dairy regime of the common agricultural policy. [151411]

  Ms Quin
  We will continue to seek an orderly end to the milk quota system which unfairly constrains our producers.

  Organophosphates
  Mrs. Gorman
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent research he has commissioned into the effects of organophosphates in farming. [151412]

  Mr. Morley
  A database of Government funded OP research generally since 1995 has been prepared and is available on-line to the public at www.csl.gov.uk/ops (passwords are 'public' then 'access'.).

  Farm Woodlands
  Mr. Burgon
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to promote farm woodlands in the Yorkshire and Humber area. [151413]

  Mr. Morley
  There are a number of initiatives in the area to promote farm woodlands, including grants under the England Rural Development Programme (ERDP) for new woodlands and for short rotation coppice. The latter, for example, is planned to provide supplies for the UK's first wood fuelled electricity plant at Eggborough. Further details are in the ERDP, Appendix for Yorkshire and the Humber Region, published by MAFF in October 2000.

  Farmers' Administrative Load
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the increase in paperwork issued by his Department to farmers since 1990; and what steps he is taking to reduce the administrative load on farmers. [149076]

  Ms Quin
  No official estimate has been made of the increase in the level of paperwork since 1990 and the burden depends on the nature and size of individual enterprises. Furthermore, the number, scope and type of schemes have changed to meet new needs and priorities, and continue to do so.

  The Department is committed to reducing paperwork. All forms issued by the Department are reviewed for need and content at least once every three years. In many cases this is done in consultation with industry. All new forms require ministerial approval, and are trialled with users before being issued.

  Implementation of the Red Tape Review recommendations, made in response to concerns identified by farmers themselves, have already achieved reductions worth £3 million as well as reduced time spent on form filling. Further savings, for example, through the introduction of electronic forms and co-ordinated inspections are well under way. We continue to work both at home and in Brussels to secure further regulatory reform where possible consistent with the need to protect public and animal health, the environment and taxpayers money.

  Over-30-months Scheme
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the effects
  343W
  of his decision to lift the weight limit in respect of Over-30-months Scheme payments. [150989]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  Removal of the weight limit on payments under the Over-30-months Scheme delivered a key measure in the Government's Action Plan For Farming. It has provided important financial relief for UK beef and dairy farmers.

  000 tonnes

  Beet sugar production

  Sugar consumption

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  Austria

  466

  477

  387

  326

  310

  309

  Belgium/Luxembourg

  794

  1,091

  917

  519

  521

  544

  Denmark

  531

  553

  504

  237

  238

  245

  Finland

  120

  166

  153

  192

  210

  223

  France

  4,266

  4,522

  4,270

  2,161

  2,166

  2,177

  Germany

  4,016

  4,380

  4,341

  2,706

  2,711

  2,752

  Greece

  199

  232

  367

  320

  310

  306

  Ireland

  219

  216

  219

  134

  136

  135

  Italy

  1,596

  1,705

  1,544

  1,481

  1,475

  1,411

  Netherlands

  825

  1,117

  1,061

  623

  622

  642

  Portugal

  66

  76

  57

  330

  332

  327

  Spain

  1,149

  1,097

  1,075

  1,211

  1,240

  1,268

  Sweden

  399

  430

  412

  323

  378

  375

  UK

  1,442

  1,546

  1,300

  2,076

  2,124

  2,187

  Total EU 15

  16,088

  17,608

  16,607

  12,639

  12,773

  12,901

  Notes:

  1. Production includes over-quota production but excludes all sugar made from EU-grown or imported cane and molasses.

  2. Beet sugar production figures for 2000–01 are estimates.

  3. Breakdown between consumption of beet and cane sugar not available.

  Source:

  European Commission (February 2001)

  England Rural Development Plan
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his oral statement of 1 February 2001,Official Report, column 518, on ERDP funding, on what basis the figure of £300 million was calculated. [150988]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  The £300 million was calculated on the basis of matching the estimated receipts from modulation in England.

  Composting
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what powers he has to regulate the use in compost of(a) cooked crab waste, (b) cooked shell fish and fish waste, (c) uncooked shell fish and fish waste, (d) cooked meat waste, (e) uncooked meat waste, (f) mixed cooked catering waste, (g) mixed uncooked catering waste and (h) domestic kitchen waste for use on (i) grazing and (ii) growing land. [151740]

  Ms Quin
  The use of those materials listed in the question which contain products of animal origin (including fish and crustaceans) is regulated by the Animal By-Products Order 1999 which is enforced by local authorities.

  In addition, the recovery and disposal of waste are subject to control under the Framework Directive on waste. Section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires that waste is recovered or disposed of in

  Beet Sugar
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what the(a) production and (b) consumption of beet sugar was in each EU country in each of the last three years. [150986]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  Beet sugar production for the years 1998–99 to 2000–01, and sugar consumption for the years 1997–98 to 1999–2000, for each member state, are as follows.

  accordance with the conditions of a waste management licence, or within the terms of an exemption, and in a way which does not cause pollution of the environment or harm to human health. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions is responsible for the Directive and the Act and the Environment Agency is responsible for enforcement.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions regarding the Government's Waste Strategy, with regard to composting and the implications of the Animal By-products Order 1999. [151744]

  Ms Quin
  No such discussions have taken place. However, officials of the two Departments are in regular contact over the relationship between the Animal By-Products Order 1999 and environmental controls. On 31 January 2001, this Department issued a guidance note on the disposal of animal by-products and catering waste. The note was prepared in liaison with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and other interests. It explains that, in general, the composting of such material is not a permitted disposal route.

  Pig Industry
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he has received concerning the impact on marketing and sale of British pork
  345W
  products of the decision by the Advertising Standards Agency to ban Meat and Livestock Commission newspaper advertisements for the British pig industry. [151669]

  Ms Quin
  No representations on this specific issue have been received, although there has been general comment on the Advertising Standards Authority's ruling in this case.

  Abattoir Closures
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what his estimate is of the number of abattoirs closed since 1984; and what the effects of these closures are on the average kill and throughput at surviving abattoirs and the average journey time to slaughter of animals. [151873]

  Ms Quin
  The information available relates to England. The numbers of abattoirs in 1984 and 2000, together with the total numbers of animals slaughtered in those years is as follows:

  Number of abattoirs1

  Slaughtering2 (Thousand)

  1984

  860

  Cattle

  32,934

  Sheep

  11,207

  Pigs

  12,929

  2000

  316

  Cattle

  3,41,476

  Sheep

  11,485

  Pigs

  10,645

  1Source: Food Standards Agency

  2 Source: MAFF Slaughterhouse survey

  3 Excludes cattle slaughtered under the OTMS and the Selective Cull

  4 Provisional

  Information on average journey times is not collected.

  GM Crops
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will publish the report his Department has completed on the review of separation distances for GM field trials. [151540]
  346W
  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 1 March 2001]: The only report produced in connection with the separation distance review was that by the National Institute of Agricultural Botany setting out the available scientific evidence. This was deposited in the House Library last August and is available on the Ministry website at www.maff.gov.uk.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if the National Institute of Agricultural Botany report presented to his Department as part of their review on separation distances has been peer-reviewed. [151541]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 1 March 2001]: This is being done.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will publish the report received from the Canadian authorities on the causes of the Advanta seed contamination last year; and if the Government have used the information in the report to reach conclusions in its review of separation distances. [151542]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  [holding answer 1 March 2001]: The Canadian authorities have yet to publish their report on this matter. When they do, we will consider very carefully any information the report contains of relevance to the separation distances applied here for GM trials.

  Farm Inputs
  Mr. Dobbin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he is taking to promote cost-effective utilisation of farm inputs. [151393]

  Ms Quin
  My right hon. Friend the Minister announced on 23 November the setting up of a Government/industry task force to examine the scope for increasing the effective use of farm inputs and reducing input costs. This is one of several task force initiatives which we have taken in partnership with farming and food interests. The inputs task force published an interim report in late January. Its work is now focused on the issue of market transparency and differences in business practice and regulatory frameworks. The task force expects to report in late March.

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by Lord Bishop of Bristol): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

FV432 Armoured Ambulance Radio
Earl Attleeasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will review their decision to withhold, on the grounds of national security, the range of the FV432 armoured ambulance's Clansman radio, given that the information concerned is printed on page 424 of Volume I of the 1986 British Defence Equipment Catalogue.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, I have reviewed the decision to withhold the information on security grounds. I still cannot answer the noble Earl's original Written Question of February 2000, which was about the maximum reliable range of the radio when mobile. It is too variable and to go into detail might, in some circumstances, compromise security. What I can tell the noble Earl is what he already knows from the British Defence Equipment Catalogue: that the typical range of the radio fitted to the FV432 armoured ambulance is 30 kilometres. The operating range will, however, vary depending on the operational environment and the type of antenna used.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for that reply and remind the House that I have a peripheral interest in this context. I think that the Minister recognised the difficulty of her position, but her Answer shows why she is held in such high regard in your Lordships' House.
We all know about the Personal Role Radio—it has none of the Bowman-type security features and it does not need them. Can the Minister give the House an update on Bowman? I believe that she is at last making some progress in that regard, although it has taken nearly four years.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I do not feel in any difficulty with regard to any of the Answers that I have given the noble Earl. If he is genuinely interested in these matters, I shall try to arrange for him to have a personal briefing on them.
I turn to the points that the noble Earl made about Bowman. We have received bids from three companies that have entered the competition. The companies are TRW, Thales and Computing Devices Canada. The analysis of those bids is currently being undertaken and presentations will be made to Ministers in the early summer. A decision on the preferred bidder is
304
expected during the summer. I hope that whoever happens to be Minister at that point would be able to move to contract very quickly.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, what is the estimated date by which Bowman will actually be available to the Armed Forces? Its absence is currently a very serious lack, as the Minister well knows.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I do indeed know that. As I am sure the noble Lord will acknowledge, the project was some 75 months behind in its programme when the Government came to office. The feasibility studies originally took place in 1988 and the original in-service date was 1995.
The personal radios, which we have separated from the contract, will start to come into service towards the end of this year and their in-service date is March 2002. I would like to see an in-service date for the full Bowman contract within about two years of the contract's being signed. However, I shall be better able to update your Lordships when the in-service date is firmed up, which we will be able to do when we sign a contract. As I have already told the noble Earl, I hope that that will be before the end of this year.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, is it really helpful to our armed services for us to debate the technical specifications of their equipment in public in this manner?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope that I always err on the side of caution when discussing the operational capability of any equipment that is used by our Armed Forces. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, would be the first to acknowledge, and that all noble Lords would agree, that it would be inappropriate to discuss in such an open forum as your Lordships' House anything that would compromise the security of our Armed Forces.

Winter Fuel Payments: Severely Disabled People under 60
3.4 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stokeasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will extend the winter fuel payment to severely disabled people under 60 years of age.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, winter fuel payments are paid to older households as they are most at risk of fuel poverty. For younger disabled people, disability benefits are available in recognition of their extra costs.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the needs of severely disabled people under pensionable age are just as great as those of old age

305
pensioners, because severely disabled people also suffer from cold and immobility? Every time I raise that matter with Ministers, they say that disabled people get the disability living allowance. So they do, but the fact is that pensioners who qualify also receive an allowance whose tenets are similar to those of the disability living allowance; that is, attendance allowance. The Government's justification for discriminating against younger disabled people in that way is totally without foundation. Is it not time that my noble friend changed the tune a little?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we are concerned with a targeted payment for older people who are at risk of fuel poverty. By "fuel poverty", we mean people who spend more than 10 per cent of their income on heating. Of those fuel poor, 50 per cent are pensioners. Despite what my noble friend said, only 4 per cent of them are severely disabled people.
Lord Addington: My Lords, does the Minister agree that people who are so severely disabled that they are unable to move around their home to generate heat through exercise should be considered in this context? She will be aware that my party fully supports that idea.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, yes. However, the noble Lord will know that severely disabled people are likely to enjoy both the higher rate disability living allowance for care and the mobility component, which from April represents almost a further £94 a week, from which they can meet their heating costs. That is one reason for the existence of the DLA.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, will the Minister clarify the amounts concerned? I am not clear whether the winter fuel payment is simply the £20 that everyone gets or whether we are talking about a much larger payment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the winter fuel payment, as reinforced by the Chancellor in the Budget, is £200 for a household or £100 for individuals in a household; for example, a single pensioner would get £200 and a couple would get £200. A couple and an elderly brother or sister in a household would get a lump sum of £300.
Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, while naturally I welcome the Budget's new help for many disabled people, has my noble friend seen the very disturbing findings of a recent survey by the newspaper Disability Now, showing that severely disabled people under 60 in fuel-poor households have had to sleep downstairs, to skimp on food and to stuff windows with newspapers to keep warm during the winter months? How do we answer the 48 year-old polio survivor, who is painfully affected by poor circulation in her affected limbs, when she asks why payments cannot be based on need and not on age?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, fuel poverty relates to the cost of heating, income and the size of
306
property. We targeted it at pensioners because we know that 25 per cent of pensioners are in the bottom 20 per cent of income, whereas only 6 per cent of severely disabled people are in that category. So pensioners are much poorer than disabled people and, compared with disabled people, are much more likely to be living in older, poorly insulated and under-repaired housing. I hope that the person in the examples that my noble friend gave would be claming the maximum disability living allowance and taking advantage of the New Home Energy Efficiency Scheme, and the grant of up to £1,000 for insulation. I also hope that that person will be taking advantage of the help available from local authorities, which have been allocated £2.5 billion to renovate homes. No severely disabled person should live in a home in which he or she has to put paper in the windows.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that she is mistaken in believing that the Chancellor confirmed yesterday the position regarding winter fuel payments? The Pre-Budget Report suggests that the figure may go down from £200 to something less. Paragraph 541 in the Red Book suggests that the level of future payments will be set by the Secretary of State for Social Security later in the year. When the Chancellor makes promises of largesse that extend to 2003, why cannot we be told what the current position is?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, all of the statements that the Chancellor made in yesterday's Budget are confirmed in terms of the small print and the additional statements that are made by the relevant Secretaries of State. It is no different in this case.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I observe that the Minister did not challenge the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, who said that vulnerability to cold can result from limited mobility, which may be a consequence of age or disability. If she is to dispute the proposal in the Question, does she agree that she must either challenge that assertion or concede that the spending figure for people with disability to which she referred is the result of unmet need? That was discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we are talking about fuel poverty. I have tried to suggest to the House that pensioners are poorer than severely disabled people. The degree to which they are in fuel poverty is significantly higher. Half of those who are fuel poor are pensioners. Only 4 per cent of severely disabled people are fuel poor. Pensioners are more likely to be living in houses which are hard to heat.
Perhaps I may respond to the noble Earl by giving him information on which he has pressed me on previous occasions. The extreme consequence of fuel poverty is demonstrated by hypothermia; that is, the number of people who die additionally between the months of December and April compared with the months of August to November. He will know that,

307
unfortunately, the national figure for last year was something like 50,000. That is roughly three times higher than the figure for Scandinavia, France and Germany. Of those 50,000, 45,000 were people over 60. Only 4,000 of those excess deaths were in the age range of nought to 60, which includes, of course, small babies. That suggests that severely disabled people do not suffer at the acute end of winter cold, as the noble Earl suggested.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I declare a family interest as I have a very severely disabled daughter who cannot walk. She is in her 40s. She suffers from cold far more than most people over 60; indeed, far more than some people over 90.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord's daughter is taking full advantage of all the disability living allowances to which she is entitled. Equally, if the noble Lord's daughter were in permanent residential care, she would be in the same position as elderly folk over the age of 60 in permanent residential care who are not eligible for the winter fuel payment in any event because that is already being met through their supported accommodation.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, the noble Baroness has demonstrated that the bulk of people in fuel poverty are aged over 60; nevertheless, there are quite a number below that age and who are severely disabled. As that number can be identified, is it possible for her department to make absolutely sure that those people are specially assisted to receive such benefits as are available?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, yes. We have taken active steps to ensure that people know of their entitlement to the full range of disability benefits. As I am sure the noble Lord will know, the Chancellor has again announced the new figures for the disability income guarantee which will ensure that disabled people will have, in my view, an adequate and decent income on which to live their lives. It is important that those severely disabled people who live in houses which are draughty, cold and poorly insulated know about and take up the grants which are available because fuel poverty results not only from how much healing is needed and how low your income is but also from the state of your housing. The noble Lord's point is relevant and I shall make sure that disabled people are fully aware of those grants and opportunities.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, will the Minister give the House the total extra cost to the Exchequer of the extension of the winter fuel payment to severely disabled people under the age of 60 as requested by her noble friend Lord Ashley? How much money are we talking about?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, it is between £200 million and £250 million per year.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, in the narrow gap between us winning the general election and the
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Chancellor bringing forward a new Budget, and if the noble Baroness is promoted because of her many talents, will she come with me to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ask him to provide winter fuel payments for the severely disabled, which request is supported on all sides of this House?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Um, my Lords! I am always willing to go anywhere with my noble friend.

Health Action Zones: The Morning After Pill
3.14 p.m.
Baroness Youngasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many health action zones have been established which will permit girls as young as 12 to have the morning after pill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, we have been notified of 12 schemes which have been established by health action zones and health authorities. Although they are open to women of all ages, experience has been that there are very few requests from under-16s. Supplies can be made to an under-16 within the legal framework established for health professionals in 1986.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. What measures are to be taken to monitor the effect of all this, particularly as regards the number of girls under the age of 16 who are likely to receive those particular pills? Will be monitor also the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases as a consequence of the availability of the morning after pill?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, certainly I accept that it is important to monitor the progress of health action zones. I assure the noble Baroness that the issues which she has raised will indeed be monitored. My understanding is that in the Manchester health action zone, the average age of women presenting in the Manchester pharmacy scheme was 24 and only 4 per cent were under the age of 16.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that sex between children, adolescents and unmarried young people should be discouraged by government action?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the House is always asking the Government to take action. We wish to do everything that we can to reduce the degree of teenage pregnancy, which is very much associated with the question asked by my noble friend. Our national media campaign in relation to sexual health and teenage pregnancy focuses on giving young people,

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first, the facts about the risk of unprotected sex and also, importantly, helping them to face down the pressure to have sex before they are ready to do so.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, in view of the fact that the morning after pill is available to young people under the age of 16, what protection is there in relation to the culpability of a teacher or a head teacher who refers a girl to a nurse and/or a pharmacy if something goes wrong?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, if the contraceptive was issued under a patient group direction, the professional prescribing that contraceptive would be open to regulation and discipline by his regulatory body. In addition, the medical doctor who was concerned with and signed the patient group direction would himself be accountable if an error were made in that patient group direction.
On the question of the supply of contraception by school nurses, the noble Baroness will recognise that that occurs only after a decision by the governing body of the school after consultation with the parents.
Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is overwhelming evidence to show that very few girls of 12 are having sex in the first place and that the vast number of women who use emergency contraception are in the age range of 30 to 40? Does he further agree that it is better to use emergency contraception than for a child to have a child?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I agree with all those statements in my noble friend's question. Indeed, the evidence from the Manchester scheme confirms that.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, will the Minister also agree that in the majority of the other health action zones—particularly the one of which I am aware, the Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark health action zone—the figures are very similar to those referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, yes; that is why I responded positively to the original Question by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. Clearly, it is extremely important for us to monitor the figures and make them known because that will inform other potential schemes up and down the country.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, will the Minister say what warnings his department issues to reach those very young girls to ensure that they know about the now known danger of starting a sexually active life very early?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, as I said to my noble friend, in relation to the overall sexual health strategy, the Government are keen to ensure that the risks of having under-age, unprotected sex should be
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brought home to young people. We seek to do that. At the same time, I believe that when unprotected sex has taken place it is absolutely right that contraceptive advice is available to those young people, as long as the legal framework is followed.
Baroness Uddin: My Lords, can the Minister inform the House what data are kept in relation to women taking the morning after pill, not only in respect of the age of the children and women but also in respect of their ethnicity and race?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that it is important that we keep as much information as possible in order to inform our future polices and programmes. The Government's sexual health strategy, which will be launched in due course, will focus on information requirements.
Earl Howe: My Lords, the Minister will remember from our debate at the end of January that one of my concerns in relation to the morning after pill being available in pharmacies is that continuity of healthcare can be compromised. What is the situation in the health action zones where a young person under the age of 16 requests the morning after pill from a pharmacist? Does the pharmacist have an obligation to refer that young person to a GP? What transfer of information takes place?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: No, my Lords, I do not believe that a pharmacist has an obligation to refer such a young person to a general practitioner. But whatever conversation takes place between the pharmacist and the young person, that provides an opportunity for information to be imparted about safe sexual health practices. I believe that that happens.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, does the Minister agree with the observation made once in this House by a distinguished member of the party opposite, Lady Summerskill, that the best contraceptive was the word "No"?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, there are those who believe that "Just say no" policies will lead to a reduction in sexual activity among young people and reduce teenage pregnancy rates. I do not believe that there is any evidence to show that.

Electromagnetic Fields and Cancer
3.22 p.m.
Baroness Northoverasked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have for further research into the association between electricity pylons and an increased risk of childhood leukaemia, in the light of the National Radiological Protection Board's study published on 6th March.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the NRPB's advisory group on non-ionising radiation has assessed

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the potential risks of cancer from electromagnetic fields. The NRPB state, that the question of whether exposure to electromagnetic fields can influence the development of cancer cannot at present be completely resolved. However, the NRPB consider, that the report provides no additional scientific evidence to require a change in the guidelines to limit exposure to electromagnetic fields. The Government will consider carefully the recommendations of the NRPB and commission appropriate research in the light of that which is already under way.
Baroness Northover: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Sir Richard Doll's report concludes:
"the possibility remains that intense and prolonged exposures to magnetic fields can increase the risk of leukaemia in children".
Does the Minister agree that an increase of one case is one too many and that questions must now arise about the safety of pylons near homes and schools? Does he also agree that that research shows how vital it is that Britain's cancer registries have access to all information on every cancer case? Can the Minister assure the House that further research, here and in the EU, as requested by Sir Richard Doll, will now be undertaken as a matter of urgency?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I looked with great interest at the work undertaken by Sir Richard Doll, but the conclusion of the report was that the epidemiological evidence is currently not strong enough to justify a firm conclusion that such fields cause leukaemia in children. Therefore, it is clearly important that we redouble our efforts in relation to research, which I can confirm is being done. In discussions with the DTI and the Department of Health, we are looking at work on how homes with a high EMF level can be identified. On the point about information for the cancer registries, I agree with the noble Baroness. That is the purpose of Clause 67 of the Health and Social Care Bill.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether the Government will look at research connecting air pollution and electricity pylons, as suggested by work at the University of Bristol? Will they also assess the risk and cost of alternative measures and review practice in other countries which have stronger regulations with regard to planning and pylons?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am aware of the work to which my noble friend refers. My understanding is that that was considered as part of this study. I shall certainly ensure that the remarks of my noble friend are drawn to the attention of the officials taking work forward in research. Based on the evidence so far, we do not believe that that warrants any change in terms of the planning controls and
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regulations in regard to the erection of overhead power lines. All of that revolves back to the availability of robust research. At the moment I believe our focus must be in relation to developing more research in this area.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, following on what the Minister has just said, Sir Richard Doll is no mean epidemiologist. Many years ago he established the link between cancer and smoking; therefore, it is right to take this report seriously. Can the Minister say whether he intends to have discussions, based on this report, with the DETR, the DTI and the relevant electricity companies as a precautionary step? In the circumstances, would that not be wise?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I have already referred to discussions with the DTI in relation to further research. Of course, we are happy to have discussions with the undertakers as well. I agree with the noble Lord about the quite outstanding contribution that Sir Richard Doll has made over many years. However, his report says that at the moment there is no evidence to warrant any change in current guidelines, but we are certainly not complacent and that is why we want to focus on more research.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether there is an increase in childhood leukaemia and can he give an assurance to the House that there are adequate specialised places of treatment for them?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the figures that I have available come from a study undertaken by the United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study, which found that there is no evidence of an association between childhood cancer and residential proximity to power lines. In relation to services in the NHS generally, we are concerned to see that they are of the highest order and that is why we recently published the national cancer plan.
Baroness Hogg: My Lords, does the Minister understand the blight that such uncertainty inflicts on all properties in the neighbourhood of pylons? What does the Government propose to do to help those areas of the country affected by this issue?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I have already said that from the evidence available at the moment, there does not appear to be any evidence at all in this country of a direct link between living near pylons and suffering from cancer. That is why the recommendation that we have received is that there should be no change to current guidelines.
It is also worth pointing out that people living in homes that are large distances away from pylons may well suffer from higher levels of what is called EMF, which is the risk factor. The reality is that as yet we do not know enough to draw firm conclusions, and that is why at this stage it is surely right to focus on research.

Foot and Mouth Disease
3.30 p.m.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, namely:
What is the latest development in the foot and mouth epidemic?
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, it might assist the House if I answer the Question in the same terms as my right honourable friend answered a similar Question earlier today in another place.
At noon today, there were 104 confirmed cases in the United Kingdom—103 in Great Britain and one in Northern Ireland—with a number still under investigation. The pattern is still consistent with Heddon-on-the-Wall as the oldest known outbreak, with subsequent spread mainly through movement of animals, particularly sheep. About 90,000 animals have been identified for slaughter, of which 61,000 have been killed so far. Plans are in hand to render some of the carcasses as an alternative to burning on farm.
More than 260 abattoirs have been approved for the scheme by the Meat Hygiene Service as licensed to slaughter. Of those, 168 were operating yesterday. The Meat and Livestock Commission estimated yesterday that British pork production was back to 50 per cent of normal, with beef at 40 per cent and lamb at 30 per cent.
In order to relieve animal welfare problems, officials are urgently working on arrangements to allow licensed local movement of animals within farms in uninfected areas only, where this would not increase disease risk. We hope to have proposals prepared very shortly.
The EU Standing Veterinary Committee met on 6th March. The ban on UK exports of animals and products has been extended to Tuesday 27th March, but from 9th March the UK will be able to export unpasteurized cheeses to some countries.
The SVC also imposed a ban on all livestock markets and assembly points in the EU for two weeks, and a ban on animal movements except to slaughter or from farm to farm authorised by the competent authority. All vehicles leaving the UK will have to pass over a disinfectant bath. The Commission remains very supportive of UK action against the disease.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for updating us about this tragic incident. One hundred and four cases are 104 cases too many. Perhaps I may again express our sympathies to the families who are dealing directly with the problem and to those who have seen their lifetime work destroyed. Perhaps I may also pay tribute to MAFF, the vets and all those working at the front line. They all deserve our thanks.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Byford: My Lords, the Minister mentioned localised movement and I am aware that there is a
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safety factor in whatever restrictions on movement are introduced. However, is the Minister aware that there is increasing pressure and urgency on farmers who have in-lamb ewes?
Secondly, it is taking up to two weeks to confirm whether a suspect case is positive or negative. Can that time be shortened? Having had a case confirmed, it sometimes takes five or six days before disposal of the animals is completed. Do the Government have available to them a sufficient number of vets and so forth? Have they asked for help from, say, the Ministry of Defence?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness. She is right to point out that in any licensing scheme, whether for resumption of trade or for welfare reason, a difficult balance must be struck in weighing the risk of disease spreading by movement and the risk of compromise to animal welfare. We are looking at a localised scheme. Obviously, we are well aware of the difficulties of many animals, particularly sheep away from their home farms about to lamb. We are putting out welfare advice on animals which are away from home.
We are looking at a scheme for licensing movements but I have to say that overall the veterinary advice about minimising the risk of disease spread must take priority. The farming unions recognise that because it is in the interests of the industry as a whole.
As regards the time taken for confirmation, in many cases positive diagnosis of the disease is being made on clinical symptoms only, but when a case needs to go to a laboratory it is being confirmed quickly. Finding a negative result takes longer due to the nature of the necessary exhaustive tests. In some cases, there have been hold-ups in laboratories and we are seeking to smooth those out and deal with any backlogs.
I am aware of the concern about delay in the disposal of the animals. Dispatch of the animals must be achieved within 24 hours. They are then disinfected and the disposal of corpses is arranged. Delays have not been connected with manpower but with getting together large stocks of coal, railway sleepers and other necessary items. That is why we are looking at transport in sealed vehicles to rendering plants. However, for the avoidance of doubt I should say that there is no reason to believe that these corpses are a disease risk; they are treated with disinfectant and are not exhaling the virus.
he Countess of Mar:My Lords, I agree with the sentiments of the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, about the excellent work being done by the Minister's staff. I was most moved to hear the noble Baroness this morning expressing genuine sympathy for all the farmers. She drove me to tears at a quarter to six this morning.
I declare an interest as a specialist cheese maker and want to ask the Minister a question of which I have given her notice. I consulted my environmental health officer this morning and know that there is great concern about the fact that in restricted areas, or in

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areas in which there has been an outbreak, there is to be no movement of unpasteurised cheeses. I can tell the Minister that half an hour ago I spoke to Dr Fred Brown, the eminent expert on foot and mouth disease. He advised me that it is highly unlikely that foot and mouth virus would survive the cheese-making process, whether the milk was pasteurised or not. He also advised me that as regards cheeses already made, a spray with a 2 per cent citric acid solution would kill the virus.
What risk assessment was done by her department before that instruction was released? Will it reconsider its decision on the safety of cheese?
Baroness; Hayman: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Countess for her comments and for giving me notice of her technical question. If the unpasteurised cheese was made before an area was declared infected, it can be moved freely in and out of the area. After declaration of an infected area, one cannot process unpasteurised milk into cheese. It would not be permitted under the Dairy Products Hygiene Regulations 1995.
I note the point which the noble Countess made about the scientific evidence available. If she would give it to me, I should be happy to put it to the state veterinary service in order to see whether we need to make amendments without compromising the spread of disease.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, perhaps I may press the Minister on the time taken for testing. I listened carefully to her reply. I understand that the time taken for a positive test is four hours and that the Pirbright centre needs to undertake a further test to confirm a negative result, which takes 96 hours.
However, a test for a case near me at Badgworth near Axbridge was sent off on 28th February and the results have not been returned. Will the Minister accept that, when farmers want to know whether they can take part in a licensing scheme, that wait is very long? Furthermore, is it the target time? Six or seven days is much more than the 96 hours which the test should take.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, if every positive result was found within four hours it would take the same amount of time to find a negative result. It does take longer. While 96 hours is widely quoted, it is the minimum laboratory period required to obtain a negative result in some cases. Depending on the samples submitted—sometimes additional samples have to be taken—it may take longer. I do not disagree with the noble Baroness that hold-ups have occurred in individual cases. We have tried to investigate them and make sure that if there is a systemic problem we address it. We shall continue to do that and deal with any cases that are raised with us.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it was right and proper to table this Question, but that in thanking so many people the noble Baroness forgot to thank Her Majesty's
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Government, in particular the Minister's department, for the efficient and expeditious way in which they have dealt with this matter? Will my noble friend accept from me and my colleagues, and, I believe, noble Lords on all sides of the House, congratulations on the way in which this matter has been dealt with?
Baroness Byford: My Lords, before the Minister responds, I did thank MAFF, which is the government department for which the noble Baroness is responsible.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, no one has been anything other than generous in responding to how the department has dealt with this crisis. We are not through it yet. Noble Lords have used the past tense. I believe that we should all keep our accolades until we have finished.

Social Security Fraud Bill [H.L.]
3.41 p.m.
Read a third time.
Clause 1 [Additional powers to obtain information]:
Lord Higgins Lord Higgins moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 21, at end insert—
("() Requests from a fraud inspector in a local authority for an authorised officer to obtain information from any of the bodies listed above shall be made through a central organisation.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I believe that in considering Amendment No. 1 it would be helpful to look also at Amendment No. 2, which is somewhat similar but deals with offices of the Department of Social Security rather than local authorities.
The Bill before us at Third Reading is significantly different from that which your Lordships considered at Second Reading. In many respects the Bill is a. great deal better, and a number of our concerns have been put at rest. There remain some concerns, to which I shall refer a little later this afternoon. One of the important concerns is the need to ensure that a request for information from the various outside bodies listed in Clause 1—telecommunications companies, credit agencies, banks and so on—is made at minimum cost and as effectively as possible. We have debated two particular aspects of the matter: first, whether the inquiries will be directed to a central point in the organisation which is asked to provide the information; secondly, whether the request for the information itself should also be centralised.
We made some progress in this matter at earlier stages, but concern is still expressed, for example by British Telecom, that, although there may be one central point through which inquiries are made, there may be a considerable number of authorised officers at each point. Each will need to be authorised, and that authorisation must be checked by the information providers. Therefore, a considerable burden is placed on those who give the department or local authority the information that it requires to try to detect fraud. It would be helpful, therefore, if the Minister assisted

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noble Lords, as she has in relation to many previous amendments, by explaining the extent of the problem that has been brought to our attention.
As I understand it, first, it is proposed that as far as concerns the department's own inquiries the task should be done regionally, but there will be a considerable number of regions, and authorised officers within them, to be validated. Can the noble Baroness give an idea of exactly how many are likely to be involved, and whether it is possible to centralise the whole operation rather than do it on a regional basis as far as concern the department's inquiries?
Secondly, I turn to local authority inquiries. As we understand it, some local authorities will be authorised by the Secretary of State and their own authorised officers will make inquiries. On the other hand, we understand that a number of local authorities will not be authorised by the Secretary of State. Can the Minister provide some idea of the criteria on which such authorisation will be made and the approximate scale of the problem? There are about 400 local authorities. At the moment, we are not clear what percentage of local authorities with their own officers will be authorised and the percentage which will be, so to speak, under an umbrella. At all events, it means that this system is far from the situation in which, say, a bank receives applications for information from a single central point. It will be considerably diffused over a large number of local authorities and a smaller number of DSS regional offices.
It has been suggested that there should be a central clearing office for local authority disclosure requests similar to that which is in effect—perhaps I may have the attention of the noble Baroness—with trading standards officers. Apparently, that is centralised to a greater extent than is now envisaged by the department. Obviously, it is important to reduce costs. As the noble Baroness is aware, in that respect particular concerns are being expressed by local authorities. Before we say farewell to the Bill and it goes to another place, I believe it is helpful to be clearer as to the exact extent to which the Government envisage it will be possible to centralise requests for information either within local authorities or the department itself. I beg to move.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we debated the issue of centralisation of information requests in some detail in Committee and on Report. These amendments seek to ensure that requests from local authorities and DSS to the listed bodies are routed through a central point. Amendment No. 1 has two different meanings: either that local authorities must work through a central point, which is a problem, or they must themselves offer within each local authority a central point of inquiry, with which we agree. I have two separate speeches and I am not sure which one I should make in dealing with the noble Lord's amendment.
If I understand it correctly, as worded the amendment provides that requests from a fraud inspector in a local authority for an authorised officer
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to obtain information shall be made through a central organisation. But it does not make clear what form the central organisation should take. Would it be a regional or national central organisation? Nor has the noble Lord enlightened the House as to how much it will cost to set it up, who is to pay for it, what local authorities think of the idea and how it will assist them in cutting the bill of over £600 million in respect of housing benefit fraud. I find it difficult to see how to take forward that proposal.
To pursue the implications, to route all requests through a central point, presumably in the DSS, is not a viable option, for the reasons stated during previous debates. It would impose extra costs and act as a disincentive, and it would add to the time taken to pursue and control fraud. Obviously, there is plenty of scope for local authorities to work together. We meet local authority representatives on a regular basis to discuss all the practical issues which arise from the Bill, one of which is the centralisation of requests. The noble Lord may be assisted to know that we have asked them whether there may be scope for local authorities in a particular area to band together to make inquiries from central points. But that is a matter for discussion with local authorities and for them to organise themselves in the most effective way. That may be a constructive response.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness was distracted for a moment. Do trading standards officers provide us with a model to follow?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I understand that in Gloucester trading standards officers use the local authority for inquiries. My advisers do not know of any other example. Let me follow that up because it may or may not be a helpful precedent. That is the best information we have; just the one example in Gloucester. Therefore, that is not a widespread practice.
I return to the first point. Although we would be loath to legislate in any statutory way, we will work with local authorities to get them to work together and reduce the number of contact points with business.
I turn to Amendment No. 2. The amendment seeks to make it a requirement that requests for information from DSS authorised officers be made to the listed bodies through a central organisation.
I can again reassure the noble Lord that authorised officers will not be located in DSS local offices. They will work in 13 area intelligence units or, in the case of our staff investigating organised fraud, in the National Intelligence Unit. That is because the Benefits Agency, the delivery arm of DSS, is organised into 13 area directorates. Given the large number of staff—89,000—in the BA, that is understandable.
Fraud investigators who work for the Benefit Fraud Investigation Service (BFIS) are located at offices throughout these area directorates. Additionally, fraud investigators who work for the Benefits Agency Security Investigation Service (BASIS) are located at several offices around the country. They deal with

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serious and organised crime against the benefits system. They are the equivalent of police regional crime squads. Our intention is that each of the area directorates will have an area intelligence unit. Together with the National Intelligence Unit, that makes 14.
Therefore, fraud investigators in approximately 450 Benefits Agency local offices will address their requests for information to an authorised officer in one of the intelligence units—the 13 area ones or the one national one. The authorised officer will, if he is satisfied that the request is reasonable on grounds debated previously, and that there is no other less intrusive way of obtaining the information, make the request to the listed body. I hope that that explanation proves satisfactory to the noble Lord and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, can the Minister give us sonic idea of the total figure? I understand that there are 14 regional or area offices of the DSS, but there are apparently then 400 local authorities. I am not at all clear, nor are those outside, to what extent these will be amalgamated in making requests. Obviously, if 414 individual groups of people come to a bank at some central point, the problems the bank has in validating the authorisation of all these people and so on, and then dealing with the inquiries, are much greater than if there is some central collection point.
As I understand the situation with regard to trading standards officers, there is a central clearing office. When one says "central" one means central—a single point.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we may have 500 DSS officers and 1,000 local officers. We are not certain yet what numbers we are talking about. But that is the proportion. That means that we expect that it could be five or 50 DSS area offices. My present understanding is that we are talking of authorised officers on that kind of scale. In terms of local authorities, we may be talking of two or three, according to size within each individual local authority. It is of that proportion.
The noble Lord will appreciate that we are making a distinction here between fraud investigators on the ground who actually do the day-to-day work and authorised officers. There may be a team of 20 or 30 in a medium-sized local authority with a population of 100,000, but there will be only one or two authorised officers to whom they will have to go if they require information which has to be specifically approved in terms of the Bill.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, as far as it went. I still have some difficulty in ascertaining how many individuals or groups of individuals will be applying to the central point. For example, a bank will say, "I want all the inquiries through a central point". Evidently it will get at least 14 different groups of people applying to it. I understand the distinction between fraud investigators and authorised officers. But the bank will also get
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many inquiries from groups of people—some from local authorities which have been authorised and will have their own authorised officer, but also, presumably, there will be some kind of collective of the non-local authority bodies which have not been given authority to have their own authorised officer, I am looking simply for a number. Does a hank have to validate the applications of 414 people or for a very large number?
Should there be any misunderstanding on this point, I am not seeking to intervene before the Minister sits down. I think that would be a disorderly form of conduct; I am merely saying that that number is still unclear. Perhaps she will in her usual courteous way write to us and give us some idea what that number is. When the Bill goes to another place, the numbers we are talking about will then be clearer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 2 not moved.]
Lord Astor of Hever Lord Astor of Hever moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 27, at end insert—
("() Prior to the exercise of the power conferred on an authorised officer to obtain information under this section, that officer shall obtain in writing the consent to carry out an investigation.
() Consent shall be obtained from an official of seniority of 'higher executive officer', or above, from the relevant department.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 3 relates to the level of seniority in the DSS and local authorities at which consent must be obtained for investigations to take place. We believe that authorised officers should be required to receive written consent from an official of higher executive officer status or above. On Report, the Minister said that such officials will be appointed at executive officer grade, grade B3, or its equivalent in a local authority. That is a management grade equivalent to that of a flight lieutenant or a second lieutenant.
The ranks of flight lieutenant and second lieutenant are so lowly that they do not appear on the Civil Service military grade equivalent. I, myself, was once a second lieutenant. My regiment quickly made me aware what little responsibility that grade enjoyed. Furthermore, my research assistant tells me that when she worked in the Civil Service, her executive officer did not even have the authority to sign the stationery order form for paperclips.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, under what administration was there such foolish waste of talent?
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, the electricity association, the ABI, BT and the BBA tell us that the proposed level of executive officer is too low. They will be at the sharp end of tens of thousands of inquiries each year from the substantial number of authorised officers that the Minister has just mentioned.
BT has its roots in the Civil Service. It points out that its executive officer equivalent is the first level of management within the company and does not carry

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any meaningful responsibility. Indeed, many managers at this level would be relatively inexperienced young graduates. Furthermore, it points out that under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act disclosure of lower level communications data, such as that required under the Bill, must be authorised by a police superintendent. The equivalent rank in the DSS is a senior executive officer.
Logically, authority levels for the Bill should be in line with the RIPA. If that cannot be achieved, BT would not expect the level to drop below higher executive officer.
The BBA points out that draft clauses of the proceeds of crime Bill place the level for similar powers also at the rank of police superintendent. I beg to move.
4 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the amendment seeks to impose a condition that authorised officers shall seek the written consent of an official of HEO grade before exercising powers to obtain information.
Given the admirable autobiographical contribution of the noble Lord, I shall not repeat all the matters about flight lieutenants and so on. I am sorry that the MoD was so nasty to him. I am sure that he has now got over it. I do not want to repeat that except to say that officers will be authorised by the Secretary of State in the case of DSS staff and by the chief executive in the case of local authorities. They will receive their authorisation only when they have completed specialist training courses in the Professionalism in Security syllabus or its equivalent. We shall give them a detailed knowledge of their powers under the Bill. The training will also cover human rights and data protection law, the guidance in the code of practice, and so on. Their job will be to determine whether requests for information made by the fraud staff on the ground are reasonable and justified within the framework of the Bill.
As I said in Committee, authorised officers will be staff of executive officer grade—that is B3—or the equivalent in a local authority. It is a senior grade equivalent to a level between sergeant and inspector in the police force, alongside whom they will be working. The noble Lord shakes his head. That is my information. I would point out that the analogy with police superintendent made by the noble Lord is for the exercise of very much more invasive powers. For example, they include traffic data; that is, what is said on telephones and who it is being received by, not just the reverse searches that we are talking about. Equally, some of the powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act—whether exercised by the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise—are surveillance powers, which again are much more intrusive and where one would normally have to have police support. What we are talking about with BT is for the most part the data exchange and the checking of basic information in terms of where people live and
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against their use of energy and electricity supply to see whether that is consistent with the information that we have.
I want to make a second point. I am surprised still by the belief of noble Lords opposite about the low level of responsibility presently enjoyed by executive officers. Executive officers are the grade of officer who currently use the department's powers to inspect the records of employers about their employees. They are currently expected to use their experience and training to decide when an inspection is appropriate and must carry out that inspection within the framework of the law. They have to question the employer and examine those records. I should have thought that that was a highly sensitive job, competently carried out, and requiring a degree of expertise in many ways probably more demanding than we are expecting executive officers to operate under the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will agree.
However, it may be that I can give the noble Lord some of the assurances that he seeks. Although authorised officers will normally be of EO grade, it may be that I can meet the noble Lord's concerns by assuring him about the degree of supervision that will be exercised over their work by HEOs and, where appropriate, SEOs. An HEO will manage authorised officers. That person will routinely check the work of authorised officers. There is already a comprehensive regime of test checks on the activities of fraud investigators. These checks are made by the HEO and deal with all aspects of the investigation. That includes whether the investigation has been conducted correctly, whether information and evidence have been gathered in the most appropriate way, and whether any financial savings have been recorded correctly. All cases that have been open over 13 weeks are subject to such a check. In addition, a proportion of investigations are checked when they are finalised.
The activities of fraud officers are subject to a number of other checks; for example, the use of the computers that we have described. There are also checks on the issue and use of notebooks and those are checked every 13 weeks. We have built on this regime with management checks by HEOs on the activity of authorised officers at EO level. In addition, if anyone, whether an individual or information provider, has a complaint or question about the way that these powers are applied, they can direct that complaint to the authorised officer's manager—and they will know who that is because we will tell them. Their address will be included in all requests for information.
I have tried to suggest, first, that EO is the proper level of responsibility at which authorised officer activity should be carried out. It is certainly analogous to other activities, often of an equal if not more sensitive nature, that EOs currently carry out. Secondly, they will be properly trained. Thirdly, they will be properly managed. Fourthly, there will be in place an appropriate and proper complaints system should any difficulties emerge.

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In the light of that information—it has been useful to explain the degree of supervision by HEOs—I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that reply. I must be frank and say that we are still concerned about this issue. It is an area of great concern to the outside bodies that have been in touch with us. I take her point that the EOs will be properly trained. I also take her point that they will be supervised, although, of course, they can still make decisions themselves. I disagree with one point made by the noble Baroness. She said that this is not traffic data but communications data. I hope that these points can be tightened up in the revised code of conduct. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 3, line 18, at end insert—
("() For subsection (5) of that section (protection from self incrimination) there shall be substituted—
"(5) No one shall be required under this section to provide—

(a) any information that tends to incriminate either himself or, in the case of a person who is married, his spouse; or

(b) any information in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege or, in Scotland, confidentiality as between client and professional legal adviser, would be successful in any proceedings;

and for the purposes of this subsection it is immaterial whether the information is in documentary form or not."").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 4, I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 5, which is consequential to it. I hope that the House will welcome the amendments.
On Report, I agreed to bring forward an amendment to exempt information subject to legal professional privilege from that which could be obtained under these powers. That was in response to concerns raised from both Opposition Benches about the information to which authorised officers could gain access, particularly in the context of organisations that might be added to the list of persons that could be required to provide information.
This amendment amends the current Section 109B(5), which exempts self incriminating information from that which can be required by an authorised officer. It restates the exemption that no one shall be required to provide information whereby he might incriminate himself or, in the case of a person who is married, his spouse, and includes a new exemption that no one shall be required to provide information which is subject to legal professional privilege or its equivalent in Scotland. The wording is closely aligned to that used to exempt information subject to legal professional privilege in the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The term "legal professional privilege" is well understood. It has been ruled upon over many years by the courts, and is thus well defined in case law. The
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amendment will prevent authorised officers from requiring any confidential communications between a legal adviser and his client for the purposes of giving or receiving legal advice, or any information obtained or documentation prepared for the purposes of legal proceedings. So we would be able to require details of financial information provided to a building society in the application for a loan to buy a property. But we would not be able to obtain any information which, for example, related to advice that the building society's lawyer may have given about the ownership of the property in question for the purpose of settling a property dispute.
The exemption would not extend to any information provided by a person to his solicitor for the purpose of furthering an offence. I am sure the House will understand that. For example, if a person cashed stolen giro cheques and used a "bent" lawyer to transfer the money overseas, the communication that led to the transfer would not be protected. That would depend on whether the lawyer knew where the money had come form; I suspect that in some cases the lawyer might. It would also not enable a person to hide from these provisions merely by using a bank's lawyer instead of another officer in the bank. The privilege applies only to communications arising in the context of the relationship between a professional legal adviser and client.
Thus, I think that we have protected a person's ability to communicate frankly with his lawyer for the purposes of legal advice and legal representation while ensuring that he cannot use this protection to continue committing benefit fraud by laundering information and evade punishment for doing so. I hope that noble Lords will welcome the amendments. I have done my best to meet the legitimate and proper concerns of the House and I am very glad to be bringing the amendments forward today. I beg to move.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for coming back to the House with these amendments. They meet our concerns precisely. We are grateful to her.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the Minister warmly for these amendments. She has developed a habit on this Bill of producing more than she promised. That is a good habit. I was telling the Minister only, but my remarks are addressed as properly to the House.
There is a larger problem here. I did not think that the Minister would succeed in addressing the whole of the problem, and the noble Baroness knows that. She has addressed a rather larger problem even than I hoped when we left the matter on Report. There remains the problem of the confidentiality of financial advice from, for example, one's bank. I do not see an immediate way around that, but I did say that I thought that the Minister had promised all she possibly could deliver.
I like in particular paragraph (b) of the amendment, which privileges,
"any information in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege…would he successful in any proceedings".

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That meets the fact that the common law has a capacity for growth, which it continues to exercise. That is something not always appreciated by legislators quite as clearly as it might be. In the future, it will save us a great deal of trouble. For that, too, I thank the Minister.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 3, line 19, leave out ("subsection (5) of that section") and insert ("that subsection").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3 [Code of practice about use of information powers]:
Lord Higgins Lord Higgins moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 7, line 13, after ("practice") insert ("covering—

(a) benefits administered by the Department of Social Security, and

(b) benefits administered by local authorities.

() The codes of conduct shall relate").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment relates to the code of practice, a draft of which the noble Baroness kindly provided at an earlier stage in our proceedings. If this amendment is agreed, the beginning of Clause 3 would read,
"The Secretary of State shall issue a code of practice covering

(a) benefits administered by the Department of Social Security, and

(b) benefits administered by local authorities.

The codes of conduct shall relate",
to the exercise of the various powers enumerated in remainder of the clause.
We thought it might be helpful, in the context of our discussions on Report as regards the code of practice, to bring to the attention of the Minister one or two points which might be of interest to her at this stage. The amendment as drafted reflects to some extent a misapprehension on my part. I had thought that we were to have two separate codes of practice but I now understand that there is to be a single code. The reason for the misunderstanding is that we already have a draft of the code to cover the position on inquiries made by the department. However, it appears that the Government are not yet in a position to add to it those parts relating to local authorities. Eventually, it is intended that all the elements will be brought together in a single document, which will then be authorised under this clause and thus put on to a statutory footing. The noble Baroness knows that we welcome that process.
We also understand that the remaining elements of the code covering local authorities will be made available to another place when it comes to consider the matter. It would be helpful if the noble Baroness could give an indication of whether that is likely to be around the time of the Commons Second Reading or by the beginning of the Committee stage, given that, in due course, we may be under the restraints imposed by an impending general election. It would be helpful to
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know the timetable covering when we shall have an opportunity to review the remaining parts of the draft code which she has already promised will be made available to us.
A further point which remains a little confusing in the draft is the proliferation of officials, or perhaps it is merely a proliferation of the descriptions of a relatively small number of officials. On reading through the draft code, this appears to be something of a problem. I have established that reference is made not only to "authorised officers" and "fraud investigators" but also, for example, at paragraph 3.5, to "fraud specialists". I am not in the least clear about the distinction, if any, between a fraud investigator and a fraud specialist. If all these titles refer to the same official, then that will not help matters.
Reference is also made to "managers of intelligence units". I am not clear about their functions. Furthermore, the code mentions "officers dealing with inquiries". Are those officers the same people as either fraud investigators or fraud specialists, or neither? Even more surprisingly, certain people are described as "decision makers". Are such decision makers the same people as authorised officers—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, they are not the same people.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, in that case, I am now completely confused, as will be anyone who reads the code of practice. We need to be clear about whether decision makers are separate from the other individuals to whom I have referred.
It might also be helpful at this stage, in preparation for the Bill's imminent translation to another place, to be told a little more precisely how the Bill is to operate. We understand that the fraud investigator will carry out an initial inquiry and then, provided that he has convinced himself under the terms set out in paragraph 3.6 that the inquiries he proposes to make are "legitimate and necessary", he will then approach the authorised officer and state, "Now I should like you to obtain for me the information from the banks, the credit rating offices and so forth". However, the decision on whether to pursue that course rests solely with the authorised officer. It does not rest with the investigating inspector, under any of his pseudonyms.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we do not have an investigating inspector.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, if the noble Baroness looks through our earlier deliberations in Hansard, she may find references to that title. Can the noble Baroness outline briefly the process here, in particular in the light of the points made in our previous debate as regards the level of competence at which different functions are to be carried out?
Having made those points, I acknowledge that it has been helpful to have seen the first part of the draft code. We look forward to seeing the remainder in due

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course. I imagine that we shall then have an opportunity to consider it further if the Bill comes back to us. I beg to move.
4.15 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the Local Government Association has expressed concern about this matter which I think may be appropriately repeated in this House. Yesterday, local authorities were not particularly conspicuous among the recipients of something that might be described as a little smaller than "largesse". One might refer to it as "medium-sizedess".
Local authorities have experienced a bad 15 to 20 years and are now under considerable financial pressure. The Local Government Association has said that:
"Any additional cost of administration should, however, be borne by national not local government as it is central government that will gain from the reduction in social security expenditure (estimated at between £200m and £400m per annum)".
Prima facie, that sounds like a fair point. I am sure that the Minister will say that a certain amount of additional money has been made available in line with inflation. However, she will be equally aware that a number of other tasks, which add considerably to the daily work of local authority housing benefit departments, have come in at the same time. Most notable among those are: the verification framework, which provides a much more backbreaking burden of work for local authority housing benefit departments; the change in housing benefit to payments in arrears; the single room rent; the local reference rent and a good deal more. All these changes have made the conditions covering benefit entitlement rather more onerous.
To add to this a further burden of work which will fall on local authorities and to expect them to pay for it, in a situation where, unlike a private business, they cannot increase their own prices or turnover and where they operate subject to fairly strict central government control, might, at the receiving end, look a little like a vice.
I hope that the Minister might take account of this situation and, before we go into local elections, that she will think about providing us with local authorities which are a bit more financially viable than some of them, in London and elsewhere, are at the moment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I do not think that I need to say much in terms of explaining how the code of practice will operate because the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has clarified his position on this and he is right. It is precisely because we want the training and powers of authorised officials, whether in the DSS or local authorities, and the way that they exercise those powers to be absolutely the same and to common standards that we are going for a common code of practice. This has the support of the Local Authority Association. Its view is that where DSS and local authority staff are governed by the same powers,
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it would prefer them to be governed by the same code. It supports us in drafting one code to cover both the DSS and local authorities.
The noble Lord is absolutely right in his understanding of how this system will operate. It is not yet in the draft because we are still in continuous negotiations with those bodies. The draft which embodies their views and how it will reflect on local authorities will be available, I fear, not at Second Reading but at Committee stage in the other place. None the less, it will be available in good enough time.
As to the second question of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, as regards language, I take his point. Indeed, our officials have taken his point and they will be going through the code to clarify the language and to ensure that we do not scatter words around. The noble Lord is right, for example, that "fraud investigators" and "fraud specialists" are the same people.
Perhaps I may explain how the system will operate. As in the DSS, there are in local authorities specialist fraud teams which carry out the day-to-day work of checking whether a person is living at the address from which he or she is claiming housing benefit—that is now current practice within local authorities—in the same way that we make approximately 500,000 visits every year to check on the validity of income support and JSA claims and so on. These are the fraud investigators or the fraud specialists; we need a common language.
However, in order to obtain information beyond that which they are normally empowered to gather, under the additional information powers in the Bill they will have to have authorisation from authorised officers, as the noble Lord rightly identified. Those authorised officers, in turn, are managed by the managers of the regional intelligence units in which they are grouped, who will be HEOs, SEOs or more senior.
The decision makers are those people who make the determination of benefit following this information. It is extremely important that, as with the Inland Revenue, you have a Chinese wall between the people making inquiries, the fraud investigators and so on, on the ground—and, indeed, even the authorised officials who authorise the right to pursue certain kinds of information—and the decision makers who will determine whether a benefit is to be altered or continued following receipt of the information. This is a crucial piece of independence throughout the social security system. That is their function.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, raised a third point. He will forgive me if I do not respond to his bait for a general debate on the local authority financial settlement as reflected in the Budget during the consideration of an amendment on a code of practice at Third Reading.
As the noble Earl will know, local authorities will have a settlement in line with inflation in terms of housing benefits management. They will also, of course, be enjoying a reduced caseload. They will receive an increase of 2.5 per cent to handle a reduced caseload. In that sense, there should be an

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improvement in real terms in their situation. I am sure that many local authorities will not consider this adequate, but that, I am afraid, is part of an on-going debate between another government department and local authorities when determining the annual financial settlement. I cannot help the noble Earl beyond that.
In the light of my explanation, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, will feel able to withdraw his amendment. I hope that I have been able to clarify the points he raised.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, the Minister has been typically helpful in her reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 [Loss of benefit for commission of benefit offences]:
Earl Russell Earl Russell moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 11, line 26, leave out ("shall") and insert ("may").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, in terms of wording, this is a very familiar amendment; it seeks to delete the word "shall" and to replace it with the word "may". The effect of the amendment is to make the benefit disentitlement in what is now Clause 7 no longer a mandatory sentence. We on these Benches are opposed in principle to mandatory sentences. This is a mandatory sentence; therefore we object to it as we do to the others.
I remember very vividly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, speaking on the Second Reading of the Crime (Sentences) Bill in 1996, pointing out that when you try to exclude discretion in one place it has the effect of making it creep in somewhere else. I doubt whether this will be an exception.
If the Minister looks at her reply to me on Report on Clause 6, she will see that she was herself admitting that some offences of benefit fraud are of much greater gravity than others. As soon as you admit that while at the same time giving an equal punishment to all cases of benefit fraud, you invite the response that you might as well be hung for a sheep as lamb—which, of course, was originally a response to a mandatory sentence. So a certain amount of discretion in this area could be valuable.
It is also fairly clear that between fraud and error there is a very wide grey area. Within that grey area there are a great many shades, some of them very dark indeed and some of them very pale indeed. To deprive the courts of the power to respond to these differences between shades of grey is something which, among other consequences, may have the effect of reducing the rate of conviction, which, I think, is not what the Minister intends.
Thinking again today about Clause 7 and about the appropriate penalties under this Bill, I wonder why the Government have not provided any penalty as an alternative to loss of benefit. The Minister will remember that she gave me a lot of examples on Report of social security fraudsters who never had any
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benefit entitlement in the first place; who, by losing their benefit entitlement are losing something that they will not particularly mind losing. I would rather see the Government with something else up their sleeve to use in such cases. I have not ventured to suggest any particular alternative because of some doubt about what the Minister would regard as an appropriate level of gravity on which to base it.
The Bill is not yet concluded. The Government have time to think about providing an alternative if they think that is appropriate. Meanwhile, the arguments about the mandatory sentence are familiar and I believe they stand. I beg to move.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I shall come on to the intended effect of the amendment in a moment but, for the record, perhaps I may point out what the actual effect will be. To do so, I need to set out subsection (3) of Clause 7, which this amendment seeks to change, in the context of the rest of Clause 7. I am looking to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, to tell me whether my drafting is incorrect or is fine.
Subsection (2) of Clause 7 provides that, subject to the exceptions created by subsections (3) to (5), no sanctionable benefit is payable during the 13 weeks sanction period where a person is twice convicted as defined in subsection (1). Subsection (3) of Clause 7 provides the power to make regulations providing for income support to be paid, albeit at a reduced rate, during the sanction period. By changing "shall" to "may", the application of those regulations—that is, the payment of any income support— would become optional; or, as the noble Earl would say, discretionary. However, the provision would set no criteria on which to base a decision not to pay any income support at all. I am sure that the House will agree that this would be fraught with danger, far from good legislation and very unwise.
It may even have the opposite effect to the one that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, intends. I think he intends—we are talking about wording—to seek a discretion to disapply the sanction in certain circumstances. This would mean that claimants on income support could be treated differently from those on other sanctionable benefits. It would also create the potential for disparity of treatment within the income support client group. It would be possible for two claimants, both receiving income support, both having been twice convicted of identical benefit frauds, to receive different decisions on whether the sanction was applicable.
It envisages a state of affairs where a family on income support might not be subject to the sanction because an officer felt that their circumstances did not merit it, whereas a family in identical circumstances, but receiving JSA, would automatically be subject to it. This cannot be fair, but would become a possibility were the amendment to be accepted.
It would also be unfair in another way. The sanction is designed to catch those who repeatedly cheat the benefit system. This is defined not by reference to whether there has been an over-payment of benefit or

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to the investigating officer's opinion on the claimant's motives, but by the decision of the court. The person must be found, or plead, guilty to benefit fraud not just once but twice. So it is a matter of fact that the person has defrauded the system twice. If a person disagrees that he has been so convicted, there is, of course, a right of appeal.
Having established the fact that a person has been twice convicted, the next question to be established is whether he is entitled to a sanctionable benefit and at what rate, if any, it should be paid during the period of the sanction.
As noble Lords will appreciate, and as we discussed during the earlier stages of the Bill, the effect on benefit will depend on the person's family circumstances. The standard rate by which income support will be reduced will be 40 per cent of the personal allowance—£20.90 at current rates. But that will be ameliorated where a member of the family is pregnant or seriously ill. In such a case benefit will be reduced by 20 per cent of the personal allowance—£10.45 at current rates. For those on income support and jobseeker's allowance (income based), housing costs will, if they are in rented accommodation, continue to be met through housing benefit. Again, there will be a right of appeal.
This package of safeguards ensures that application of the sanction will not put vulnerable people at risk. I believe that the element of discretion that the noble Earl is seeking to introduce in this aspect is, therefore, unnecessary. As I say, it is already the case that someone who is vulnerable will have legal protection, as we have specified, and will have a much reduced sanction as a result.
I understand what the noble Earl is seeking to achieve. However, I believe that he is turning the issue into a lottery as regards which benefit a person is receiving—for example, whether he is receiving income support or JSA—and what opinion the investigating officer might have of the claimant's motives, rather than leaving it to the independent judgment of the court. I believe that that would be an unwise route to follow. With that explanation, I trust that the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, before the noble Earl withdraws his amendment—
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I should remind my noble friend that this is the Third Reading stage of the Bill, and the Minister has already spoken.
Earl Russell: My Lords, if the noble Lord wishes to intervene before the Minister sits down, I believe that that would be in order.
Lord Bruce of Donington: No, my Lords.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, which was both careful and thoughtful. Indeed, one would expect no less of her. Some parts of her response I take very seriously; some parts of it are
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worth considerable thought; and some I take rather less seriously than others. Clearly my amendment was not correctly drafted. I returned to the House after illness just two hours before the last time for tabling amendments. I offer the Minister my apologies in that respect.
The difference between the treatment of income support and JSA is clearly indefensible. Had I been minded—which I was not—to press the amendment, that would have been sufficient to dissuade me from so doing. However, when the Minister talks about lotteries, I am slightly less persuaded than she hoped. The noble Baroness says that my proposal would mean that two cases of benefit fraud would not be treated identically. I do not have any problem with that: two cases of dangerous driving are not treated identically, as we were painfully reminded yesterday. Two cases of dangerous driving are not necessarily equally iniquitous or equally serious. The same goes for two cases of benefit fraud.
I believe that it is perfectly proper, and has been for a long time, for sentences to be appropriate to the particular case before the court. That was all that I sought to achieve. I do not believe that there is any great problem involved. The Minister invoked the categories of vulnerable people. I believe that she knows that I am not quite as impressed by that as she would wish: first, because I do not believe that there is spare fat on income support to allow sanctions below income support level to provide adequate support for vulnerable people; and, secondly, I have never been able to persuade myself that vulnerability is entirely confined to those categories that happen to have been foreseen by the DSS.
In particular, I asked the Minister a question during the last stage. I have asked her previously and, as she has raised the point, I shall take the liberty of asking her this question again: can she tell us, before I withdraw the amendment, why in DSS thinking single people cannot be vulnerable? Is the Minister prepared to help me on that point?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, single people can be vulnerable if they have, for example, a disability. I am talking in broad, general DSS terms that do not apply specifically to this Bill. They can also be vulnerable if they are suffering from a severe illness and if they are pregnant. Similarly, former offenders, and so on, can be vulnerable. So single people can be vulnerable; but being single does not make them vulnerable. People may suffer from conditions that make them vulnerable, whether or not they are single or, indeed, are living in a family household.
Earl Russell: My Lords, they may not fall into a vulnerable category; they may be destitute without being vulnerable. This puzzles me. However, I do not believe that we shall move any further on the issue tonight. We shall have to return to it on a future occasion. The point is a general one, to which we shall also return in the future. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Earl Russell Earl Russell moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 13, line 11, leave out from second ("references") to ("to") in line 13.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is another amendment that leads us to consider whether the mandatory sentence is entirely appropriate. It relates to the provision that says that references to a conviction shall include cases where the court makes an order for a conditional discharge. I made the point a short while ago that one case is not necessarily as severe as another. It is a reasonable presumption that a case where the court has ordered a conditional discharge is not as severe as one where the court has thought that something rather more serious was wanted.
I wonder whether there is a slightly "slot machine" approach in the insistence that cases involving a conditional discharge shall be treated as being of exactly the same level of gravity as anything else. I shall listen with great interest to the Minister's reply. I beg to move.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the effect of this amendment would be that any conviction resulting in a conditional discharge would not count as a "strike" for the purposes of these provisions. It would have two additional effects: first, it would exclude around a third of our successful benefit fraud convictions in England and Wales from the scope of these provisions—something like one-third of those cases where someone is found guilty by the courts in England and Wales result in a conditional discharge. Secondly, it would create a disparity of treatment in relation to the application of the provisions in Scotland. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Astor, is keeping a watchful eye on such disparities.
We have given most careful consideration to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, in Committee, which were raised again today by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. Where the court discharges the offender conditionally, we believe that that should be treated as a conviction for the purposes of these provisions. I could go into detailed argument on the matter, but it may assist the House if I give an example of the kind of situation that I have in mind.
I have before me some cuttings from the Derbyshire Times dated 22nd February 2001. One cutting describes how police were waiting when a woman tried to carry out her third benefit fiddle at a Post Office. I shall not give the woman's name, but she was given a replacement income support book after having reported her original book lost. She cashed one slip worth just under £100 from the "lost book", obtained a further £100 on a second visit and then called again for a third time at the Post Office. The police prosecuted. The woman admitted obtaining money by deception in November 1999. She had previous convictions for the same offence, for handling stolen goods and for conspiracy to defraud; and was given a one-year conditional discharge with £148 costs.
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Far be it from me to comment on the appropriateness of the sentence; indeed, like your Lordships, I do not have knowledge of the full background. All I have for reference is the press cutting from a local newspaper. I looked through the other cuttings and found several cases that resulted in a conditional discharge; for example, someone was given a two-year discharge and asked for 22 other similar offences to be taken into account, and so on. In such circumstances, where something like a third of all those people found guilty are given a conditional discharge, I honestly do not believe it to be reasonable for us not to count that as a benefit offence for these purposes. We want those who have been found guilty but are given a conditional discharge—as I say, far be it for me to say that this is not an appropriate sentence—to take it seriously and to know that a repeated offence will jeopardise their benefit.
However, there is also a Scottish dimension to this issue. In Scotland, the nearest equivalent to a conditional discharge is an admonishment. As with conditional discharges in England and Wales, around a third of our successful prosecutions in Scotland result in admonishments. An admonishment is basically a "telling off" by the court. No other penalty is applied and there are no conditions applied. But under Scottish law an admonishment is a conviction.
If, as the noble Earl suggests, a conditional discharge in England or Wales is not to be treated as a conviction, we have an inherent disparity of treatment in relation to Scotland. We face the possibility of two people being treated differently either side of the Border. We would have a disparity of treatment regarding cases where a court in Scotland makes a probation order which my amendment on Report removed. As your Lordships may recall, under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, such cases are deemed not to be convictions. However, the position in England and Wales differs in that cases where the court makes a probation order are convictions.
Therefore, not only do I think it inappropriate that conditional discharges should not be counted as a conviction—I have just referred to one case but I could have referred to many more—but the noble Earl's amendment would open up the very disparities in treatment between Scotland and Wales that previous amendments on Report sought to overcome.
However, I may be able to help the noble Earl in one respect. We have thought long and hard as to whether absolute discharges should be treated as convictions—these are a much rarer category, perhaps 10 or a dozen a year—and have concluded that they should not be so treated. It may be valuable to the House to spell that out. Although the person is undoubtedly guilty, the granting of an absolute discharge is equivalent to the court saying, "This case should not have been brought before us". It may be, for example, that the offender was suffering from post-natal depression or had recently suffered a bereavement which came to light

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only at the hearing or in a pre-sentencing report provided by the Probation Service. Although at the time of the offence someone was in good health, at the time the sentence came to be determined that person may be found to be suffering from some serious illness.
In order to ensure parity of treatment both sides of the Border, we have decided—I hope that the House welcomes this—that absolute discharges should not be treated as convictions for the purposes of the benefit sanction. It is not on the face of the Bill and does not need to be given under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. Given that we have responded to some of the earlier concerns of your Lordships and have made the decision that the very special cases of absolute discharges should be exempt, I hope that the noble Earl will feel that he has at least made some headway today and in the light of that will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the Minister warmly for those last remarks. It is a small mercy but it is a real one. For the rest, the argument is slightly less persuasive to me than perhaps the Minister hoped. I remember very vividly the farewell debate of Lord Taylor of Gosforth on the White Paper which preceded the Crime Sentences Bill. Noble and learned Lords packed the Cross Benches; they were almost solid. One speaker observed that it was impossible to know what had happened in a court case simply from reading the press reports. One could not know without reading the transcript. Every one of Her Majesty's judges nodded in unison as if the Mace had passed.
I think that applies to the case that the Minister quoted. It sounded a serious case but it raised two possibilities I have no idea whatever which of them might be appropriate. First, it is of course possible that the court may have been too lenient. Courts have been known to be so, as everyone else has. The other possibility is that there could have been a peculiar personal circumstance in the case. The remarks that the Minister made about post-natal depression in relation to the absolute discharge could, for example, perfectly well have applied in relation to the case we are discussing. I believe that neither she nor I has the first idea whether it did. It does seem to me to be inherent in just sentencing that it should be appropriate to the particular person who is in the dock as well as to the strict tariff slot-machine principle appropriate to the crime. We are not going in for a 10th century penitential in which an exact level of penance was laid down for every sin the confessor had imagined, no matter whether anyone had ever been known to commit it. There were some pretty strange sins in those days.
We are trying to do justice to individuals. There is something wrong with government thinking as a whole. However, it stretches far beyond the confines of any government or any party and, therefore, far beyond the confines of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.45 p.m.
Clause 13 [Interpretation of sections 7 to 12]:
Earl Russell Earl Russell moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 17, line 33, leave out (", credit or loan") and insert ("or credit").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the amendment seeks to delete the words "or loan" from the list of things of which people may be deprived. It invites the Minister to set out what the position is under this Bill about sanctioning of Social Fund loans. Also I hope that she will provide—I have given the Minister notice of this—some explanation of the change in the guidelines on Social Fund loans of April 1999 which resulted in many more people than before being found too poor to receive them. We have had as yet in this House nothing like a full account of that. If the Minister wishes to tell me these two matters are totally independent of each other, I shall be glad to hear it. But as there is a serious possibility of a link between them, I think it could be useful to the House to hear it. I beg to move.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I ought not to be tempted into a general debate on the Social Fund and its adequacy and success. All I would say is that since the discretionary fund was introduced in 1988 something like 17 million loans worth over £3 billion have been granted. In 1999–2000, over 2.2 million awards were made, providing help to more people than ever before. The gross budget for 2001. £596 million, was an increase of £60 million over the previous year's budget. I could go on and specify individual budgets. Both the number of people applying and the amount available to people in terms of the gross sums for the Social Fund have increased. Certainly all of the research from the CAB reports that the noble Earl will be familiar with suggests that the Social Fund by comparison with the alternatives, pawn shops, credit facilities and the like, is a safe, secure and affordable way for people to obtain a larger sum of money than they could normally have access to.
The amendment seeks to remove Social Fund loans from being counted as disqualifying benefits for the purposes of this part of the Bill, even though we know that fraud, particularly girocheque fraud, is not uncommon. I say at the outset that what we shall not do is sanction Social Fund loans. We accept that fraud may be committed against Social Fund loans, in which case it counts for the purposes of disqualifying benefit. But the cuts—that is, the sanctions—will not fall on the loan itself but on either income support or JSA in the first instance. I wonder whether I need to say more. We recognise that that threat may arise but we are protecting the loans for, I think, decent reasons; namely, that these loans are often paid in urgent or desperate situations and to sanction payment of them would be inconsistent with their purpose of seeking to prevent hardship. Therefore, we shall not do it.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the Minister has told me what I most wanted to hear. I thank her warmly and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
An amendment (privilege) made.
4.50 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Hollis of Heigham.)
Lord Higgins: My Lords, the Bill which we are now being asked to pass is very different from the Bill which the House received and debated at Second Reading. The Bill is in many respects a great deal better. I do not propose to detain the House by specifying all the various concessions which the Government have made and which I believe are entirely justified. I believe that we have greatly improved the Bill. We must hope that the Commons will continue to carry out the role of scrutiny as a revising Chamber.
Some points are still outstanding. On human rights and data protection, no outside body will validate the justification of an inquiry into whether fraud is committed. However, we have made progress with regard to the code of practice and so on. My noble friend referred earlier to the problem about the appropriate official who will consider whether an inquiry is justified, given that there is no outside body.
There are further disputes about the burden of costs which will fall on local authorities. The local authorities state that only two-thirds of the costs are covered although the Government dispute that. My noble friend Lady Noakes dealt with the issue of costs to business. There are still concerns in that respect, and with regard to the Scampion report and so on. Will sufficient resources be devoted to dealing with fraud investigations when considering the increased revenue as a result of such investigations? It seems to be substantially greater than the costs of carrying out such fraud investigations.
Overall, I believe that your Lordships' House should be satisfied with the progress of the Bill. Perhaps I may express thanks for the help of my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell. We are glad to see that noble Earl has recovered from his indisposition. Perhaps I may also thank the noble Lord, Lord Grabiner. In a sense, he is the father of the Bill. The Minister has fulfilled the role of midwife. She has done so in a quite extraordinary way. A fairy godmother descended on the House in the form of concessions about codes of practice and whether or not some groups of suspects should be suspect, although in that instance it was clear that any vote would be lost by the Government. Generally speaking, the Minister has carried through the business in an entirely impartial way. On all sides we have sought to improve the Bill which is now significantly better. I do not oppose the Motion that the Bill do now pass.
Lord Brightman: My Lords, I should be grateful if I may take up a few moments of your Lordships' time before the Bill is passed. I wish only to record certain facts and to ask, with great respect to this House, whether we are properly fulfilling our duties as a legislative chamber.
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The general purpose of the Bill is to amend Part VI of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. Since that Bill was enacted Part VI has been amended by no fewer than 15 Acts of Parliament. It has grown from 12 to 26 sections to date. Your Lordships may gauge the extent of the amendments from the fact that Part VI now contains sections which are bizarrely numbered 110ZA and 121DA. We are used to that sort of enumeration on Marshalled Lists but I think it is the first time I have ever seen it in a statute.
The history of Part VI is unprecedented. It was first amended in 1992 by the Local Government Finance Act of that year; in 1993 by the Pension Schemes Act; in 1995 by the Jobseekers Act, the Pensions Act and the Criminal Procedure (Consequential Provisions) (Scotland) Act; in 1996 by the Housing Act; in 1997 by the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) Act and the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act; in 1998 by the Social Security Act and the Magistrates' Courts (Procedure) Act; in 1999 by the Access to Justice Act, the Social Security Contributions (Transfer of Functions) Act and the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act; and in 2000 by the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act and the Child Support and Pensions Act. Those are 15 amending Acts in all.
Of the original 12 sections in Part VI, all have been repealed or rewritten. Of the 60 subsections into which the original 12 sections were divided, only eight remain intact. Those figures take no account of the further amendments intended to be made by some six clauses of the Bill before us.
What is a person to do who needs to read Part VI of the 1992 Act in its amended form? He has two choices. He can sit down with a pen, a pair of scissors and a jar of paste, turn up each of the 15 amending Acts and rewrite Part VI in its amended form. That will take him a very long time. I know that because I tried it myself. His second choice is to seek access to a properly programmed computer and obtain a print-out of Part VI as amended by the 15 statutes I have mentioned. But that is not a wholly satisfactory course. During Committee stage of the Bill I asked the House of Lords Library if it could give me a print-out of Part VI as amended. It provided a print-out from an online database but regretted that it could not give me a printout which included the eight pages of amendments made by the Child Support Pensions Act 2000.
I think we should ask ourselves whether we are legislating in a proper form. When an Act, or a part of an Act, has been amended by 15 later Acts, should we not have a new Act rather than force the reader to rely on computer print-outs to which that reader may or may not have easy access and which may or may not be up-to-date? Is there any precedent for amending an Act for the 16th time, as this will be, and for having sections which need to be numbered 110ZA and 121DA?
Part VI of the 1992 Act has become a drafting quagmire. I do not blame the drafting fraternity. I am told that it is undermanned and underfunded. But something should be done to prevent a repetition of

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this sort of thing. We do not produce Acts of Parliament for ourselves but for those who will have to read them. That is where our duty lies. To sum up, I question whether we are providing a satisfactory service so far as concerns some of our statutes. I have ascertained that there are no current plans in the Law Commission for a consolidation Bill covering Part VI of the 1992 Act. I hope that I have not unduly delayed proceedings.
5 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the House is in the debt of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, who has drawn attention to difficulties in what I described on Second Reading as the acrostic method of legislation. This is not the Minister's fault. She saw the problem coming and on Second Reading her private office generously made available to us texts of the 2000 Act. I am sure that they would have done the same for the noble and learned Lord as well had they known he was concerned. However, that is not a satisfactory answer to his problem. The Minister is not answerable. I hope that she will convey the noble and learned Lord's remarks to whoever is answerable. We should return to the issue when whoever is properly responsible—I would be glad to know who it is—is present. In the mean time, this is no criticism of the Minister.
This Minister knows that I have misgivings about the Bill. This is not the time to debate them. However, as a model of how the parliamentary process should work once we have got into the Chamber, our proceedings on this Bill have been excellent. I thank the Minister, the noble Lords, Lord Grabiner, Lord Higgins and Lord Astor of Hever, my noble friend Lord Goodhart and the staff of our Whips' Office, who have done a great deal to get everything in order for us. Within the constraints to which the noble and learned Lord has rightly drawn attention, we have done our best. To that extent, in spite of the genuine and true remarks of the noble and learned Lord, the progress of the Bill still does Parliament credit.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as the Government Chief Whip is present, I wonder whether it is proper to ask whether the very important issue raised by the noble and learned Lord could be referred to the Procedure Committee.
Lord Carter: My Lords, as I understand it, this is not a matter for the Procedure Committee as such. The team involved in the statute law electronic database—I believe that that is what it is called—has done a great deal of work on the issue and that work is not yet complete. If it is of any interest to your Lordships, I asked the same question about eight years ago when I was in opposition.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was able to give my noble friend a response.
I think that all your Lordships agree that we have made a number of important changes to the Bill, in particular on the circumstances under which
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information may be obtained under the powers in Clauses 1 and 2 and on the code of practice. Almost everyone who has taken part in the debate—although that is not a very large number of people—particularly from the Opposition Benches, owns an amendment or a change in the Bill. It is truly a House of Lords Bill, not just a government Bill.
I thank your Lordships for your unfailing courtesy and good humour and for our informed debates. Like others, I pay a particular tribute to my noble friend Lord Grabiner for his excellent report, which was the genesis of the measures in the Bill, and for his many interventions to share his expertise in our debates.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, has made a good point, to which my noble friend the Chief Whip has responded. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for explaining that we had recognised the problem and done our best to overcome it. ft is a bigger problem than the Bill can handle. We shall need consolidating legislation eventually. The electronic database of statute law that my noble friend referred to may well address those problems in future.
I am delighted that the Bill has gone through without Division, though with substantive change. I hope that it is treated in the same conciliatory and positive way in the other place.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

International Criminal Court Bill [H.L.]
5.4 p.m.
Report received.
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway moved Amendment No. 1:
Before Clause insert the following new clause—

PROTECTION AND SAFEGUARD OF PRISONERS OF WAR
(" . This Act shall have effect subject to the making of an interpretative statement on ratification of the ICC Statute by Her Majesty's Government that measures for the protection and safeguard of Prisoners of War under Article 8 taken in armed conflict of an international character, is to be reviewed by members of the Assembly of State Parties for redefinition and clarification.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment is concerned with war crimes committed against prisoners of war taken in armed conflict, as defined by the provisions of Article 8 of the ICC Statute, which the Bill will incorporate into our domestic law. There is no precedent for delaying a Bill after enactment as proposed by the amendment, which has been accepted by the Table. The procedure of your Lordships' House is a matter for the House and has never been inhibited by precedent.
The amendment would commit the Government to making an interpretative statement on ratification in the broad terms of principle proposed. Later on, they would have to make a detailed proposal, which, if accepted, would be implemented by the Assembly of State Parties under the special regime on the

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interpretation and application of Articles 6 to 8 contained in Article 9. Those articles are set out in Schedule 8. Article 9, which makes provision for the special regime, is on page 66 of the Bill.
Under Article 9.1, the preparatory commission for the ICC has already prepared a draft text of proposals to assist the court in the interpretation and application of Article 8. The document is called Draft Text of Elements of Crimes and is dated 6th July 2000. When that document has been approved by two thirds of the members of the Assembly of State Parties, it will become the substantive instrument on the interpretation and application of Article 8.
The amendment would commit the Government to making proposals for amendments to the Elements of Crimes document, covered under Article 9.2. The draft text would take effect after consideration by the preparatory commission and approval by a two-thirds majority in the assembly. It would have to be submitted some time before 2007, when the next meeting of the assembly would be convened for that purpose.
The form and content of such proposals for amendment, which the Government would be committed to making and on which they would no doubt wish to consult, is in no way pre-empted by the amendment. It may not be apparent on the face of the Bill, but our domestic courts will apply Article 8 as interpreted by the Elements of Crime document, as amended from time to time.
In a letter of 26th February, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, offered to bring the issue of measures of safeguard and protection for prisoners of war to a review committee, which I assumed to be the meeting of the assembly in 2007, if there was general concern.
At this stage, I should like to pay tribute and express my personal gratitude to the noble Baroness, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, and the officials of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office for the help that they have given me in this affair. Without it, it would have been very difficult for me to make sense of these submissions, if they make sense at all.
The spirit of that offer of an undertaking is much appreciated. However, it does not deal with the essence of the problem. For reasons that are apparent—if I may, I shall refer to those in a moment—concern already exists in relation to the Elements of Crimes, the draft of which, dated 6th July, has been approved. Curiously enough, a concern, which will become apparent later, already exists on the part of the forces with regard to the subject of prisoners of war. It was referred to in the papers over the past two days.
If the Government are unwilling to make an interpretative statement on ratification, an undertaking will be sought. It would be wholly effective and very simple to apply. In terms, it would propose amendments to the Elements of Crimes under Article 9.2 in whatever form or content the Government may choose. That would be wholly
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sufficient and wholly relevant, and would deal with the present matters of concern. On that basis, there would be no need for the Bill to be amended.
The justification for this amendment and for seeking such an undertaking is that there is a need for review by the assembly under Article 8 as to the redefinition and clarification as it stands and as it shall be interpreted by the Elements of Crimes of 6th July.
First, there is a disparity of provision—I shall come to the detail later—as between armed conflict which is of an international character and that which is not of an international character. Under the current conditions of armed conflict, there is a need for redefinition and clarification. There is a concern that account must be taken of the new dimension of armed conflict—that which is unmanned, controlled by robotics, sensors, lasers, radar, or what have you—in which people will always be taken prisoner. There is no proposal to reconvene the high contracting parties to consider amendments to the Geneva Conventions, which are also subservient to a similar ambiguity.
One finds a veritable cat's cradle of complexity under Article 8 on page 65 of the Bill and, in particular, although your Lordships do not have the document, on pages 21 and 23 of the draft Elements of Crimes document. In sub-paragraphs (v) and (vi) of Article 8.2(a) on page 63 of the Bill, one will find the only two provisions applicable to prisoners of war who are taken in armed conflict of an international character.
That is further defined at page 21 of the Elements of Crimes as referable to "armed conflict" and "international armed conflict", as if such were distinct concepts. If, as I understand it, according to public international law, armed conflict of an international character is dependent upon having been heralded by a formal declaration of war between nation states, does that govern this disparate further definition?
Again, Article 8.2(b) on the same page of the Bill appears to be of general application concerning serious violations of the law and customs of war in "international armed conflict". In Article 8.2(b)(xxi) on page 65, outrages on personal dignity, humiliating and degrading treatment are described, but there is no reference to prisoners of war as such.
Finally, at page 33 of the Elements of Crimes document, there is express reference to armed conflict as if it were distinct from international armed conflict. One will see that Article 8.2(c) on page 65 of the Bill is also of general application and applies only to armed conflict which is not of an international character. Again, there is no reference to prisoners of war as such. I shall not suggest that noble Lords should look at pages 37 to 48 of the draft text of the Elements of Crimes document; in any case, they will not have a copy of it.
This matter is incredibly complex and raises a question which requires clarification. Without seeking an answer, one may well ask: what is the concept of armed conflict, as distinct from armed conflict of an international character, as used in Article 8 and interpreted by the draft text? Which provisions apply when airmen are shot down when operating under the

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assumed authority of the United Nations or when serving under the aegis of NATO in a rapid reaction force and are taken prisoner?
Albeit that the ICC has jurisdiction to develop its own body of jurisprudence, is there not an overwhelming case for review with a view to redefinition and clarification? Is not the initiative proposed by this amendment—to seek to amend the Elements of Crimes text—worthy of being taken by our Government? Would not that be of assistance not only to the [CC but to our own courts—the protecting power—the prisoners and diplomatic intervention on their behalf?
I thank the national ex-prisoners of war association for its support. It has the merit of general ongoing permanency, which members of the Colditz Association, such as I, are unable to share. I have spoken to no one, save those in time to come, who would reap the benefits. I beg to move.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I believe that we all appreciate the concerns which underlie the noble Lord's amendment, which he raised very properly at Second Reading and again in Committee. It was on an issue to which he brings his own experience arising from a distinguished record of service.
The problem is that whatever may have been wrong with the text of the statute, that is not something which we can rectify by an amendment to this Bill, as the noble Lord very fairly recognises. What I understand troubles the noble Lord is that in Article 8.2(a) the mention of prisoners of war applies only to two very specific kinds of offence and not to the others and that in Article 8.2(c), as spelled out in the Elements of Crimes, it does not specifically protect those who are taken as prisoners of war in internal conflicts.
If they were unprotected, that would certainly be a defect which needed to be addressed. But as my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General explained in Committee, the definition of those protected is wide enough to include those who are taken as prisoners of war whether in international or internal conflicts. In Article 8.2(a) it appears that offences committed against anyone are brought within that article, and that would automatically include prisoners of war.
In Article 8.2(c) I would have thought that they would be,
"persons taking no active part in the hostilities".
Therefore, I hope that the anxieties are misconceived. But I appreciate that if a statute is effectively to protect a category of potential victim it is not sufficient that offenders may in fact be prosecuted. It must be clear in advance to potential transgresssors that offenders are liable to prosecution. It may have been better if that had been done by a clearer specific inclusion in the text.
It may very well be that had the statute been drafted by a committee of your Lordships' House, some of the provisions would have been drafted differently. But a text produced by an international conference is likely
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to reflect the give and take which inevitably obtains on those occasions, otherwise there would have been no statute.
As I understand it, what the noble Lord seeks to achieve is to ensure that his concerns, including the text of the Elements of Crimes, will be addressed at the first reasonable opportunity. I would certainly support his appeal to my noble friend, first, to set on the record for all to see an assurance that the existing text does in fact cover those taken as prisoners of war and, secondly, to give an assurance that the text will be considered at the first reasonable opportunity.
Having said that, I hope that the noble Lord is not minded to press his amendment to a Division today because it would almost certainly be defeated. That might well be misunderstood by those on whose behalf he has raised the matter as amounting to a rejection of the argument, not as regards its procedural aspects, but on the merits of the content. That would not reflect the sympathy which I am sure the noble Lord's amendment has attracted in all sections of this House.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): My Lords, I say straightaway to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that the sympathy referred to by my noble and learned friend Lord Archer of Sandwell is very much felt on this side of the House generally. We understand the importance which the noble Lord rightly places on this issue, and agree with him. The difference is that the Government's view is that any statement made in the terms suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, would in fact hinder the protection of prisoners of war rather than advance it.
The provisions of the Bill which deal with prisoners of war reflect the terms of the Rome Statute, which in turn reflects the state of international law as it is. If the law is insufficient—a point about which we are not convinced—then it is the law itself—the Geneva Convention and the additional protocols—which needs changing rather than the Rome Statute. It is our belief that the wording of that statute, linked with the additional definition provided by the Elements of Crimes to which the noble Lord has already referred, is sufficient both to meet the noble Lord's concerns and to allow the judges of the International Criminal Court flexibility to meet new circumstances as they arise. We understand the concern expressed by the noble Lord about the new forms in which those problems might manifest themselves. A statement in the terms suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, would suggest otherwise and therefore cast doubt on the efficacy of the existing provision.
However, we should like to make it clear that we share the noble Lord's concern for the plight of prisoners of war and indeed all prisoners detained in conflict situations. I can assure him that the Government will watch closely the developing jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court. Should it appear, contrary to our current belief, that there are inadequacies in the relevant provision, we shall raise the matter in all appropriate fora including

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any review conference called under Articles 121 and 123 of the statutes to ensure that the interests of prisoners of war are properly protected. With that assurance, I hope that the noble Lord will not feel it necessary to press the amendment.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell. I am extremely disappointed that the matter does not seem to be understood. Although I agree that the texts do represent the state of public international law as it is today, I disagree that it is clear and capable of ready understanding. I take the view that it quite clearly warrants clarification, review and redefinition.
The Government will not accept that, so I cannot ask the noble Baroness to give an undertaking on that basis because she will not and cannot. But I ask for an undertaking to submit proposals for amendments to the Elements of Crimes if the Government cannot give an undertaking to implement the amendment as it stands.
That leaves open the question and does not commit the Government to accept my view or they mine. But thinking about the purpose of this amendment, I ask the Government to undertake to submit proposals for amendments to these Elements of Crimes at some appropriate time before 2007 in whatever form and howsoever phrased as the Government wish without any element of pre-emption. If the Minister would give me an undertaking in those terms, I would assuredly be prepared to withdraw the amendment. If she wanted time to consider the matter, I should withdraw the amendment on the basis that on Third Reading there would be a definitive decision on the matter.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I hope that I made it clear to the noble Lord that, as I said, the Government will, if there are inadequacies in the relevant provisions—that is contrary to our current belief—raise the matter in all appropriate fora, including any review conferences. As noble Lords know, the next such conference is likely to take place seven years hence. If we need to, we will raise the issue at that conference.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, if the Minister receives representations from the Ministry of Defence on behalf of the forces, I assume that they will be considered by the Government. Is that right?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we will obviously take into account all representations that are made to us when we consider whether the rules adequately address the difficulties. I have already said that we share the noble Lord's concerns that the rules should properly protect prisoners of war. We believe, contrary to the noble Lord, that they currently do so. If we are found not to be right about that—if inadequacies are highlighted—I assure him that we should wish to address those inadequacies and that we
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should do so in any and all of the appropriate fora, including the review conference that will meet in due course.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am obliged to the Minister for that reply and for her great help and sympathy throughout. On the understanding that representations from the MoD would, with other representations, be taken into account, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Howell of Guildford Lord Howell of Guildford moved Amendment No. 2:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause—

JURISDICTION OF THE COURT
(" . This Act shall have effect, subject to the making of a declaration by Her Majesty's Government in accordance with Article 124 of the ICC Statute, with the proviso that that for a period of seven years after the entry into force of the Statute the United Kingdom does not accept the jurisdiction of the Court with respect to the category of crimes referred to in Article 8 when such crimes are alleged to have been committed by United Kingdom nationals or on United Kingdom territory.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of the amendment, quite simply, is to enable the Government to proceed in accordance with Article 124 of the Rome Statute, which is entitled, "Transitional provision". It allows a state, on becoming a party to the statute, to declare that for a period of seven years after the entry into force of the statute, it does not accept the jurisdiction of the court with respect to the category crimes that are referred to in Article 8. That purpose is at the forward edge of the amendment. That means that the amendment would not conflict with the Rome Statute. The Government have repeatedly made it clear that they are anxious to preserve in the Bill the Rome Statute's wording almost to the letter.
I want to discuss for a few moments the various wider concerns and anxieties that motivated me to move the amendment. I make it clear at the start that no Member on this side suggests that war criminals should be shielded in any way or not brought to justice for the hideous crimes that they perpetrated. I also recognise, as Ministers made clear during the Bill's Committee stage, that the jurisdiction of the ICC comes into play only if British courts—service courts or civil courts—are unwilling to investigate a particular case. I also recognize—I take a phrase from a letter that the noble Baroness kindly sent me about these matters—that the Government's aim is to achieve a delicate balance between protecting service personnel and making sure that the ICC has teeth. We must bear all of those considerations in mind.
Although we have long accepted the Geneva Convention and its protocols, we are seeking to introduce into our own statute law the long list of war crimes in Article 8. That is a major change to the legal landscape. I noticed that 10 Downing Street made a comment of a dismissive kind—it said that nothing had changed and that we had long accepted the Geneva Convention. I am afraid that that shows that

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No. 10 does not understand the situation and is misinformed: we are dealing with something new in this context. When the change goes ahead, we shall be supporting a higher jurisdiction and placing on our statute book the long list of war crimes.
Legitimate anxieties have been aired recently in newspapers; by members of the Armed Forces. Yesterday's Guardian quoted various defence personnel, one of whom—a senior defence source—said:
"Given wrong rules of engagement [British commanders] could find themselves liable to prosecution as war criminals".
He added that Ministers were "very aware" of such a prospect. The article stated that that defence source was concerned in particular about,
"conflicts and operations. short of a full-scale war, even—paradoxically—where British forces were engaged in support of the UN".
Another senior defence source, who was further identified in another newspaper as a naval defence source, said,
"future rules of engagement could…prevent a British warship from attacking a hostile vessel until it was too late".
Attention was drawn in particular to several provisions in Article 8. The Guardian referred to paragraph 2(b)(iv), which appears in Schedule 8 to the Bill. That paragraph refers to:
"Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated".
One can surely understand the concerns that lie behind that provision. I am sure that the Minister accepts that such subjective phrases would have to be given clarity and established in the heat of urgent action or battle. How can one decide what will be "excessive" damage when an operation is about to be launched or is under way? Surely such provisions place front-line personnel and their superiors—whose position we shall come to later—in considerable difficulties.
That paragraph is not the only one that appears to use highly subjective phrases. We could live with such provisions when they were part of the Geneva Convention and of international law in the broader sense. Now that they are being introduced into our own statute law it is necessary to define somewhat more clearly, if we can, exactly what is meant by, for example, "military objectives". Paragraph 2(b)(xiii) of Schedule 8 refers to:
"Destroying or seizing the enemy's property unless such destruct ion or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war".
What is meant by that? Just after the Second World War, a good deal of enemy property was being seized after the end of hostilities. If the Bill had been in place then, would such seizure have been a war crime? Our European Union partners obviously have had the same doubts about those matters. The Republic of France has placed very clearly in the ratification
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document a statement, a declaration, under Article 124 that,
"the French Republic declares that it does not accept the jurisdiction of the court with respect to the category of crimes referred to in Article 8 when a crime is alleged to have been committed by its nationals or on its territory".
It is, of course, permitted to do that for seven years or for a shorter time if it so decides under the statute. Is that not an example which we should ponder very carefully before dismissing it? Is it not an example that we should copy?
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I am sure that he would not want to mislead the House. He said that our European partners were having misgivings.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I said "partner".
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I thought the noble Lord said "partners". As long as it is clear that it is only France which has found it necessary to limit its acceptance of the jurisdiction in that way and none of our other European partners has found it necessary to do so.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble and learned Lord did mishear me. I said "European partner"—France. I hope that I was giving it the right epithet. France has indeed taken that stance. Those matters are very clearly set out in the ratification status document which I am sure that noble Lords have had time to study together with. in the French case, a number of other declarations or interpretations about items under the war crimes list, such as those concerning military advantage or the definition of what is and is not a military objective, which is obviously a highly controversial and very difficult matter to decide.
This amendment has a certain air of defeatism about it because it implies that it may not be possible to alter any of this; that it is all set in stone, despite the French readiness to make declarations; and that, therefore, the best thing would be to stand aside from that whole categorisation of war crimes until a lot more thinking has been done and until more opportunities have been obtained to understand the full implications.
If, nevertheless, the Government do not think we should adopt the same route as the French, a number of further questions arise. For example, in the heat of battle, it might lead to some dithering while people decide whether an act might lead to something which might lead to possible charges of war crimes; or that something had been done not unintentionally but intentionally which led to the killing of civilians, or whatever the unpleasant outcome might be.
In the New Zealand Parliament, it was asked whether the government were prepared to give indemnities to armed forces personnel who found themselves in those agonising situations and found they had committed war crimes. It was also asked in that parliament, and it is worth asking today, how one

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defines "excessive damage". Is there to be any attempt in declarations at the time of ratification to define "excessive damage"?
Earlier I read out a report from the Guardian. It is a newspaper report but it was in quotations from defence sources. That report said that Ministers were aware of all that. Will the Minister explain to what extent she is aware of those concerns and how she feels they should be responded to?
The Canadian nation took this through their parliament. Canadians are very keen on this measure. They see all its virtues, many of which are very clear. Nevertheless, they recognised that there was a new situation in which new crimes now existed on their own statute book and, therefore, that it was right that exceptional steps should be taken to publicise to the nation at large, to its citizens and above all to its armed forces and public servants, the nature of the possible breaches of state obligations and the nature of the new ICC legislation and to ensure that citizens were properly informed by state agencies. What is to be done about that?
Clearly, there are complex—and very complex, as my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway remarked on an earlier amendment—issues here. The law is complicated and will become more complicated. Yet, it has to be applied often in very heated, rushed, urgent and even critical situations. So the need for publicity is extremely important and this is the appropriate stage in our debates on the amendments to raise it. With those comments as to why we are tabling the amendment, I beg to move.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, in 1958, a year after the end of the not very glorious military career of Gunner Lester AP and Second-Lieutenant Lester, Royal Artillery, Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, later the British judge on the International Court of Justice, revised the Manual of Military Law that national service and professional soldiers and officers were bound by in a very important way. As far as I am aware—and my colleague, Professor Sir Ian Brownlie, QC, who is a real expert in this area believes this to be the case—the Manual of Military Law has been updated from time to time.
In Chapter 14 of that manual, under, "Means of securing legitimate warfare", Sir Hersch Lauterpacht set out in detail the Hague Rules on state responsibility and the Geneva Conventions dealing with individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and, in detail, explained the concepts, the punishments, individual responsibility, the way in which the defence of superior orders was no defence and the responsibility of commanders for war crimes committed by subordinates. All of that was in 1958.
There is nothing new in the ICC statute or in this Bill in relation to the main ingredients of these international legal principles. All that is new is that an international criminal court is being set up to have primary jurisdiction, working in partnership with
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national courts. Indeed, even that was foreseen by Sir Hersch Lauterpacht as long ago as 1944 in an article I read in the British Yearbook of International Law. That is my first point.
Secondly, I should like to refer to the extraordinary article, to which the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, also referred, which appeared in the Guardian, on its front page, no less, ascribing to top military commanders various views which were so inaccurate, incomplete and misleading that I cannot believe that any of them could really have been so ignorant.
There are often criticisms of members of the legal profession and many of those criticisms are justified. When my profession speaks on its own behalf, it often speaks in the language of self-interest masquerading as public interest. All professions and jobs tend to do that. When I read those views in the Guardian, I cannot help thinking that the honourable profession of soldier, sailor and airman or woman may be subject to the same problem; namely, confusing self-interest and public interest.
I refer briefly to the article which has already been commented upon. It suggested that the Bill could prevent British peacekeepers from carrying out their tasks effectively. I do not understand that at all. As I say, the law we are dealing with is old and well-established international law, conventional and customary.
It is said that the rules are made in places other than our capital city—a reference to Brussels, above all. I do not know whether those top brass spokespersons are thinking of rules about sex discrimination, which they do not like, as applied to the Armed Forces. Those are made in Brussels. But none of these rules can be laid at the door of the European Union or Brussels at all.
The article states:
"Given wrong rules of engagement [British commanders] could find themselves liable to prosecution as war criminals".
Again, that is a complete farrago of the accurate position. Then it is said that the safeguards are not sufficient. The article continues:
"We have got to [ensure] there is a framework that does not prevent us from doing what we set out to do".
The framework is as old as the Geneva Conventions and the Hague rules. Then it states:
"when we see bits of European legislation [the military] should not be forced to follow it slavishly".
I repeat, this is not even European legislation.
The final point is that the noble Lord is right to say that it is open to the United Kingdom to follow the bad example of France. Of the 29 countries that have so far ratified the statute, I believe that only the French Republic has taken advantage of Article 124. The seven other member states of the European Union have not taken that approach. There is no doubt that during the negotiations there was heavy pressure on the negotiating team from the French ministry to take advantage of that option. But I find it difficult to understand why on earth it would be in the interests of the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom to reject, for seven years, the beneficial provisions of the

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International Criminal Court statute on the basis of objections that are really objections to the restraints on warfare being committed in ways that engage criminal responsibility.
Last but not least, many of the war crimes defined in Schedule 8 and Article 8 of the statute are already part of our domestic criminal law, so there is nothing new in that. For those reasons we on these Benches are firmly opposed to this amendment.
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I too oppose this amendment, while entirely recognising the legitimate concerns that have been expressed. First, what does it amount to? It amounts to a proposal that for a period of seven years United Kingdom nationals should not be subject to the jurisdiction of an international court that otherwise we should support and promote with respect to one category of grave crimes against the peoples of this world with which the statute is concerned. Why should there be that escape from accountability for that category of act? Why should we allow war crimes to go unpunished by the International Criminal Court? These are not new laws.
As was made clear by the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, the provisions of Article 8 relating to war crimes are to be found in existing international law. That is clear if one looks at Article 8, which is set out at page 63 of the statute:
"(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949"—
and they are enumerated—
"(b) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict"—
that is existing law. Then particular instances of that are enumerated.
I believe that the Geneva Conventions were conventions that this country took a proud part in drafting, promoting and adopting. For many years we have accepted them. It is in our interest that others should obey them too; if our soldiers are involved in conflicts abroad, it is in our interests that they should be protected and that we should know that they are protected from war crimes, as our people will be so protected.
I ask, as I have previously during the course of this Bill, what we would say if another country, whose reputation for human rights or whose reputation for respect for individuals is not as great as we believe ours to be, were to adopt a similar course? Suppose they were to say, "We are not prepared to accept the jurisdiction of this court in relation to our conduct".
The fact that modern weapons are capable of striking deep into territory and causing untold damage is not a justification for licensed barbarism; it is more a reason why we should look for a clear standard of international law to control international war.
What are the defences and the safeguards against the concerns to which the noble Lord refers? I believe that there are three. First, the definitions in Article 8 are clear. With respect, I do not accept that they are subjective; they are objective. I take the example quoted by the noble Lord and stated in the Guardian
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newspaper of sub-paragraph (iv) of Article 8(2)(b). It contains four critical elements that must be considered. Item one relates to,
"Intentionally launching an attack";
item two is "in the knowledge"; item three is,
"that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would he clearly excessive";
and item four is that it must be clearly excessive,
"in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated".
I would refer, not to my view, but to the view of someone who knows far better than I do how such matters operate in international law and in military matters. I had the benefit of hearing from General Rogers who is a former director of the Army Legal Services, who gave a briefing some time ago on this matter. In relation to this particular concern about military operation staff he said:
"However, the qualifying words 'intentionally', 'in the knowledge', 'clearly' and 'overall' should ensure that only the most obvious eases would come before a court and that military commanders doing their best in difficult circumstances to comply with the law of armed conflict will have nothing to fear".
That is the view of someone who understands how military operations work and has the interests—as I am sure he has—of servicemen at heart. That is a view that I would accept.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Is he of the view that the bombing campaigns by the Royal Air Force in the Second World War would be clear of any possible action or would they be caught by this type of legislation?
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, it is not necessary to consider what the position would be in relation to events that took place before this statute comes into effect. As has been made clear, the statute is not retrospective. I would also say that it is not to be gainsaid that the statement in Article 8—I do not understand that the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, disputes this—represents existing international law. He rightly says that there will be a new procedure for punishing it. I say that if this is law, it should not go unchecked and unpunished.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, of course I understand that this is not retrospective, but I am trying to persuade the noble Lord to say what kind of crimes would be caught by this legislation. If he does not like the example of the Second World War bombing campaigns, would the attacks on civilian targets in Serbia, which were much more recent and could possibly happen again at any time, be caught by this statute?
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, as I recall, at Second Reading the Attorney-General dealt clearly with that point. I entirely accept his expert view. He said that the conduct in which this country was involved in relation to those problems, of which one is rightly proud, did not in any way infringe existing international law. This statute will not change that.

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I turn to the second safeguard in relation to the matters which have been raised. No procedure can take place under the statute if this country is prepared itself to investigate and if necessary to act in relation to conduct by United Kingdom nationals. The principle of complementarity, as referred to in Committee, means that unless we are unable or unwilling to deal with conduct by a UK national, it will not be for the International Criminal Court to deal with it but for our own courts.
The third safeguard is most important. No investigation will take place unless an independent prosecutor decides that there are reasonable grounds for doing so (Article 15); no investigation will take place unless that view is also shared by an independent pre-trial chamber (Article 15); no warrant will be issued unless an independent pre-trial chamber is of the view that there are reasonable grounds (Article 58); and, ultimately, there will be no conviction unless an independent court is of that view.
The noble Lord, Lord Lester, is right in saying that the only country which has pursued this route is France. Our European Union partners otherwise have not, although they, too, engage in peacekeeping activities abroad. The French example—I say nothing bad about the French and have the honour to be a member of the Paris Bar—is not one that we should follow. I do not believe that the Government want to follow it and I hope that the noble Lord will not invite us to follow it by pressing his amendment.
6 p.m.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I want briefly to support my noble friend on the Front Bench. I appreciate the good intentions behind the Bill. I do not in any way decry them but, as I indicated on other occasions, I have a number of anxieties about the Bill.
There was something missing in the contributions of the two noble Lords who spoke against my noble friend's amendment; there was not a single mention of the United States. We are told that all our European partners, other than France, will ratify the statute and pass legislation immediately. But of course the other European countries are not really greatly engaged in peacekeeping.
Surely, the important point is that the United States, which is involved in many more significant peacekeeping operations, has made it clear that it will not participate in the court. I do not know of a single Senator in the United States who has urged the ratification of the legislation. Even President Clinton, when he ratified the statute in the dying days of his presidency, said that the statute required amendment. He did not recommend to the Senate of the United States that it should ratify the legislation in its present form.
I make that point because noble Lords who have spoken hitherto sought to imply that the fears which my noble friend on the Front Bench expressed about the security of our Armed Forces are all unreal. But they are precisely the grounds on which there is very
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strong opposition to the court in the United States. We are sitting here solemnly discussing the issue and want to ratify and establish a court of which Iran is a supporter but not the United States. Is not that an utterly unreal situation?
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I wonder whether I understood him correctly. It is true that France, to the extent it has entered the declaration, and the United States are almost alone among more than 100 countries which believe that the court is an appropriate court to express the international view on these matters. However, was the noble Lord saying that our other European partners are not active in peacekeeping? Was he referring to Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Austria and Finland? Do they not participate in peacekeeping activities?
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, to some extent they have all participated. The Italians provided support in the operations against Serbia. However, it is plainly obvious that the United States carries a vastly greater burden and does far more for international peacekeeping than do all those countries put together. I do not mean to be insulting to Luxembourg, but I do not believe that its contribution to peacekeeping is on quite the scale of that of the United States. Of course, it is because of the United States' size and military capability, but the United States is entitled to be worried about what might happen to its troops when it fulfils these international duties.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. As he referred to me as one of those who spoke against the amendment and said that I omitted the United States, I wonder whether he is aware that the problem with the United States goes back to 1945. It is the problem of persuading a very conservative Senate to ratify such international instruments. That problem delayed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; it meant that the genocide convention was not part of United States law for far longer than in any other democracy; it applied also to the torture convention and to a variety of humanitarian and international human rights treaties.
Is the noble Lord then telling us that the United Kingdom's policy should be to be wagged by the United States conservative Senate in this respect?
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the United States "conservative" Senate but he knows as well as I do that it is evenly balanced. I do not know of a Democratic Senator who has voiced public support for the court in the form that it is today. Opposition to the court is extremely strong in the United States. The President has said that he is against it; Mr Rumsfeld has said that he is against it; the Secretary of State has said that he is against it; and numerous Senators have said that they are against it. They are against it because of the risk to American troops in peacekeeping operations.

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The noble Lord, Lord Lester, in his, as always, elegant and learned speech, said, "Ah, but there is nothing new in all this. The law is the law is the law. This has been with us for donkeys' years. We had the Geneva Convention and so on". But what is new is the establishment of a permanent court. What is worrying the United States is that allegations—not necessarily justified—could be made against its personnel in peacekeeping operations.
My noble friend Lord Tebbit gave some examples. These things are always arguable. I had the gravest doubt about the bombing of the Novi Sad Bridge during the action against Serbia. I could not see the military justification. All right, one can say that troops can use bridges but it was far from the site of the military action.
Perhaps I may give another example—not one which specifically involves the United States. I can easily imagine how a charge could be made against Britain and the United States in relation to sanctions against Iraq. I can easily imagine how that could be constructed into a charge of genocide. We are told that approximately half a million children are dying each year. I am not saying for one moment that I agree with that, but I can imagine how such charges could be brought.
Such fear lies behind the perfectly reasonable fears of the United States. France, in a typically cunning French way, has indicated its reservations. The United States has done so in a much more open way. I disagree with those noble Lords who say that those fears are baseless. If they were baseless, I do not believe that the United States would have taken the stance that it has—unequivocally and with a great deal of support in the United States.
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he would be kind enough to deal with two matters. First, does he accept that Article 8 represents existing international law in relation to war crimes? Secondly, is it his view that that international law should be upheld?
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I believe that Article 8 does express existing law. However, as I said in Committee, it is my understanding that several of the definitions have been altered. I am not in any way complaining about that, but I believe that what the noble Lord says is broadly right. What is completely new is the establishment of a permanent international court.
I am not sure about the noble Lord's second question—
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, my question was whether the noble Lord agrees that that international law should be upheld.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, of course I believe that international law should be upheld.
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However, for reasons upon which I shall enlarge later, I have the greatest reservations about the establishment of this court.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I apologise for my inability to take part earlier in Committee. I should like to address the attitude of the United States. The United States is a country with the greatest possible respect for law. I do not, therefore, believe that to water down the International Criminal Court is the appropriate way to deal with the current objection to it, in particular by the US Senate. It is perhaps worth mentioning that President Clinton signed the treaty as a preliminary to ratification by the Senate, which may not take place.
A substantial change in American opinion is under way, if not yet at the level of the Senate certainly in some other quarters. Noble Lords may have read an extremely important article last month in the National Journal, which is perhaps the most authoritative publication on the proceedings of Congress and activities in Washington generally. That long article dealt with how attitudes in the Pentagon and elsewhere had changed as a result of the involvement of the United States in certain peace-keeping activities, notably in Bosnia and Kosovo. Addressing the experiences in KFOR and, before that, Bosnia, the article pointed out that senior military leaders increasingly pondered how military tactics had to change, and be substantially restrained, as a result of taking part in peace-keeping activities. Many of us in this House, including myself, saw this process take place some 20 years ago in Northern Ireland when our own military personnel began to learn how not to be warriors, as it were, but essentially powerful policemen in dealing with a civilian clash—if you like, a kind of religious or ethnic conflict—between one group and another. As the article makes plain, that has been taken on board by the US military in respect of the limits within which it is free to act.
As to setting out international law once again in terms of the International Criminal Court, as the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, pointed out, it is quite clear that one must reassert the position in the face of an extremely troubling evolution of certain civil and international conflicts in other parts of the world. It is troubling that today the ratio of military to civilian deaths (1:10) is almost the reverse of the position at the beginning of the past century. The deliberate targeting of civilians, in particular children, pregnant women and some of the most vulnerable people in society, is a terrifying characteristic of some recent major conflicts, particularly internal ones. The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which begins to take in more of its African neighbours is one example, but there are many other equally troubling ones.
Many of us believe it to be of the greatest possible urgency that in relation to those who are engaged in peace-keeping activities an attempt is made to establish an international rule of law that applies to military as well as civilian actions. I believe that in the United States there is beginning to be a substantial shift of opinion in consequence of that country's own

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involvement in peace-keeping activities. It would be a disservice to those in the US minded towards international action if we watered this down and failed to provide ourselves with an example. Far from assisting those in favour of ratification of the proceedings of the International Criminal Court, we would discourage them in an extremely serious way.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, as a layman naturally I hesitate to tangle with the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, but I cannot help wondering whether his confidence that the highly subjective, and in some respects ambiguous, wording of paragraph 2(b)(iv) of Article 8 cannot be used against our servicemen is perhaps excessive. Can we be certain that judges and prosecutors will automatically take the commonsense view that he anticipates? When our forces helped to liberate Kuwait they might have been responsible for extremely serious environmental damage. In the event, happily they were not so responsible, even if the Iraqis were, but they could not have known that in advance. Take at random the much smaller provision in paragraph 2(b)(xviii) of Article 8 which outlaws the use of asphyxiating gases. I apprehend that that might outlaw the use of CS gas. I am told that that is extremely unpleasant to those on the receiving end, particularly if they are asthmatic or have other respiratory problems, but in practice its use may be the lesser of two evils at the time. I have great pleasure in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in this matter.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I had not intended to engage in this debate. I came to listen and hoped to be educated. I believe that I have been far from educated by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. No doubt inadvertently, I believe that she obscured the difference between a peace-keeping operation and total war. They are very different operations. In the former restraint is required, but in the latter restraint is of a rather different order. The use of nuclear missiles is, for example, an obvious possibility in total war. There is not much restraint in that. Even in the case of peace-keeping, I believe that there is a marked lack of understanding.
Through the medium of Questions for Written Answer, recently I tried to explore the rules of engagement given to our forces operating in Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone. Clearly, in Sierra Leone the rules of engagement permitted our soldiers to kill women and children. That is not permitted in Northern Ireland. But I am told that the rules of engagement are far, far too secret for us to be allowed to see them, or to be told in what way they differ as between those two theatres of war. Is it already contrary to international law as it applies to war to kill women and children in Sierra Leone? I do not know. But the noble Baroness does not appear to know the difference between peace-keeping and war.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he can explain his
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position. A week or two ago the International War Crimes Tribunal, in a ruling strongly welcomed by Madeleine Albright and the New York Times, decided that an act of rape committed against a small number-of Bosnian women was a very severe crime against humanity that needed to be punished. Is the noble Lord's position that such a crime, whether or not it is committed in armed conflict, should not be dealt with by an international criminal court? I do not understand the noble Lord's position. That was the judgment of Judge Florence Kumba of Zambia in a case involving three Bosnian Serbs at the International War Crimes Tribunal. That decision was widely praised in last Sunday's edition of the New York Times. I should be very grateful if the noble Lord could explain his position.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, my position is to try to understand the effect of this legislation. I slightly resent the suggestion that somehow I am against the punishment of soldiers who are guilty of such indiscipline as to rape civilians, or even military personnel, in time of war. One does not have to go into the future, or the recent past even, to look at that. But within the British armed services such acts have long been a matter subject to military discipline and to harsh punishment.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I strongly resent the imputation levelled by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, against our Armed Forces in Sierra Leone. To say such a thing in this House, when everyone admires enormously the way in which our Armed Forces have performed in Sierra Leone—the way in which they have restored stability, at least to a certain area of the country, and have earned the plaudits of everyone who lives in Freetown and well beyond—is incomprehensible and absolutely outrageous. I hope that the noble Lord will, on reflection, think better of that remark because, as far as I am aware, there has never been any accusation against a member of our Armed Forces in Sierra Leone of wilfully killing women and children.
I would be horrified if the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, stood up and told the House that was permissible within the rules of engagement. I do not believe such a rule exists. The noble Lord has somehow invented it in order to make a spurious argument in favour of his noble friend's amendment, but it is not the kind of argument that will appeal to your Lordships.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. It is an indisputable fact that, during the rescue operation of British servicemen who had been taken hostage, armed women and children were encountered and were shot dead by the British forces. That happened.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord is not changing his tack to suggest that our Armed Forces should not be able to fire back when under attack from an enemy. Everyone knows that women

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and children are employed in the irregular armed forces operating in Sierra Leone. But in the way that the noble Lord was putting the matter, they were civilians. If he cares to withdraw the accusation that our Armed Forces would fire on civilian women and children, I would be very happy.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, not at all. There is no implication that they were civilians. What is a civilian in the context of the war that has been going on in Sierra Leone? There are many armed civilians operating as guerrilla forces. We also know that on many occasions our armed services in Northern Ireland have met armed civilians. They have not been authorised to shoot at them as though it were a war.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, surely the noble Lord is not suggesting that people carrying weapons and shooting at our troops are to be treated as civilians? That is an absolutely absurd argument. He is getting himself into an even more difficult corner than he was in at the beginning.
Before I sit down, I must refer to the absurd argument about genocide in Iraq. To say that we have been guilty of genocide because Saddam Hussein has deliberately prevented his people having the medicines and the food permissible under the oil for food programme is equally a travesty of the truth. Of course such a charge would not be levelled against the United Kingdom or members of the Armed Forces. However, if one were, the amendment has nothing to say about it, because Article 124 allows us to withdraw from the treaty for seven years in respect only of war crimes. So we would still be liable in the impossible circumstances that the noble Lord postulates that a charge of genocide was levelled against this country for the operations in Iraq.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, perhaps I may go back to before Sierra Leone appeared before us and to the distinction that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, made between serious war and relatively lightly engaged peacemaking operations. Of course there is a huge difference.
But there is also a third category—all out war. That, particularly to people of my generation, is something like the Second World War. I resent deeply the retrospective criminalising of Bomber Command. We fought that war to win and to free and liberate a great part of Europe and, indeed, the rest of the world. We used all the weapons available to us because it was necessary in the interests of mankind that we should win.
There is another category of war. It is not quite total war, but it is war with which we are all familiar. I refer to what happened in Korea, in the Gulf, in Iraq, and in many other areas. We have had to fight to win. If I was to take seriously all these new listed war crimes in Article 8.2(b) onwards—all of them, not just some of them—I would say that it would be impossible to wage war effectively in the interests of the United Nations and, indeed, in coming to the rescue of other countries threatened by aggression.
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The minor suggestion made by the Opposition Front Bench is just an effort to do their best with what apparently is an inviolable convention and a Bill that must in no way be tampered with and amended, even where the most obvious sense and intelligence, based upon our own experience, tells us that some of these clauses are ridiculous. Unless one lives in a world inhabited only by international lawyers, one will recognise that without any difficulty. I am sorry to speak with vehemence on this matter.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does the noble Lord therefore believe that there is no such thing as a war crime? Does he, for instance, not recognise that we refrained from using poisoned gas during the Second World War? Does he not recognise that we refrained from using nuclear weapons in Korea when we could have done so, whatever the consequences might have been, to stop the Chinese invading?
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, I look at paragraph 2(b) (xviii) and (xix) of Article 8. I will not have our people dragged before some court because we have used depleted uranium, which many people believe to be poisonous. Have we no idea that we are engaged frequently in conflicts in which, obviously along with the Americans and to some extent the French, we are more engaged than any other country? Why are we more engaged? The reason is because we all happen to be permanent members of the Security Council. We are most active in the business of bringing peace and order to this troubled world. We are putting ourselves unnecessarily in the dock by accepting a number of these foolishly agreed clauses in the convention.
I have no worry with the general categories dealing with crimes against humanity, against genocide; indeed, the first half of Article 8.2(a). I have no trouble with that at all because I share the same purpose. But why we should put ourselves in the dock in the foolish belief that we would win an action brought against us in a British court, while at the same time we know pretty well that we would lose the battle in the cause of public opinion in the world outside, I simply do not know.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I hesitate to follow that magnificent statement, but I want some clarification. We are the only country, so far as I know, which has a serious internal problem. I refer to Northern Ireland. Paragraph 2(e) of Article 8 applies,
"to armed conflicts that take place in the territory of a State when there is protracted armed conflict between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups".
If one goes back to paragraph 2(c)(ii), one sees that some of the crimes that could be adduced against us include,
"committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating, degrading treatment",
and, in heading (iv), the,
"passing of sentences…without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court".

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I suggest that those are just the kind of accusations that the IRA would bring against us as claims of inhumanity and crimes against the statute. I just wonder whether we can take any precautions to prevent that happening. At the time that this was discussed, Mr Vaz said—it was not in relation to Northern Ireland but generally—that,
"if serious allegations were made in good faith against British citizens, we are confident that we could demonstrate that there is a remedy in British justice".
I would certainly endorse that, but I doubt whether the IRA would. It therefore seems that there is a strong argument for the retrospective clause proposed by my noble friend on the Front Bench because this is precisely the kind of thing that led to Bloody Sunday and to the inquiry, which has already cost goodness knows how many millions of pounds and is still going on. Accusations against the Diplock courts and accusations of degrading treatment are just the kind of matters that would be brought forward. I should like some reassurance from the Minister that this issue has been considered. It is a unique situation. The other European countries mentioned do not have that problem. We do.
6.30 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I should like to restore a little calm and perhaps temperance to the way in which we look at these issues. I say straight away that this country has a very noble and proud past in the way in which we stood up for the human rights not only of our own citizens but of the citizens of the world too. I should like to express confidence that the way in which our Armed Forces have been trained is such as to enable them to respond appropriately and proportionately when they are dealing with situations of war. If we look at the way in which we have behaved in the past, that has been clearly demonstrated.
I should like also to lay to rest the concerns raised by the noble Lords, Lord Monson and Lord Shore, and the noble Baroness, Lady Park. The Rome Statute of the ICC is full of safeguards. The principal safeguard is—I cannot stress this point enough—that national judicial systems will have the first claim on any investigations that affect them. United Kingdom authorities will retain the right and responsibility to investigate offences committed here or where UK nationals stand accused of committing these crimes anywhere in the world. The International Criminal Court will be able to step in only when the national judicial system is unwilling or unable genuinely to investigate. I can foresee no circumstances under which that would apply to the United Kingdom.
I turn to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Howell. He started by saying that there has been a major change in the landscape. With the greatest respect, I disagree with him. We are not supporting a higher jurisdiction, as the noble Lord outlined. The ICC will not be a higher jurisdiction. It will be a complementary jurisdiction to our own. The definitions contained in the Bill and in the statute are
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already part of English law. They reflect international and domestic law, and the armed services are already aware of them and are trained accordingly.
It is important for us to remember that the definitions of war crimes are largely drawn from the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as was highlighted by the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Goldsmith, and their additional protocols of 1977. The Geneva Conventions were incorporated into our domestic law by the Geneva Conventions Act 1957. That was done under a Conservative government—the Macmillan government. The additional protocols were incorporated into our domestic law under another Conservative government, in 1995, without waiting for the United States of America to ratify. The United States still has not ratified, although it signed in 1977.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, am I not right in thinking that it was also a Conservative government who ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and then incorporated the standards in that convention into our domestic law?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the noble Lord is correct; and it is something about which I am sure noble Lords opposite feel a degree of pride and satisfaction. It is something which we on this side of the House would openly and, I hope, generously applaud. It was right then; it is right now.
Perhaps I may say that the past hour has occasioned a little sadness. When the statute was debated in this House, there was unanimity. Virtually all Benches spoke with one voice. There was also unanimity in the other place in welcoming the statute and welcoming signature. So it is with a little disappointment that I notice the divisions between us now. But let us see whether we cannot clear some of those away.
The noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Goldsmith, were right when they referred to the basis on which paragraph 2(b)(iv) of Article 8 should be looked at. I shall not repeat all the comments that were made. However, I should like to assist the House with regard to the genesis of the breaches contained in paragraph 2 of Article 8 because, on a number of occasions, I have heard noble Lords—particularly the noble Lord. Lord Howell—mention them. The grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions appear in paragraph 2(a) of Article 8. The grave breaches of Additional Protocol I include the physical mutilation provision—paragraph 2(b)(x)—and making the civilian population the object of attack—paragraph 2(b)(i). There is also the launching of an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attacks will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects. That is a more stringent definition of the criminal offence which is now contained in paragraph 2(b)(iv).
Those provisions are all referred to in existing law—our law and not anyone else's law—which was brought into being by the Geneva Conventions (Amendment) Act 1995. So we need, my Lords, if I may respectfully say so, to take a steady look at where we are now. We are not seeking to do anything extraordinary. We are

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seeking to bring about helpful change. We are seeking to ensure that war criminals do not escape. I feel confident, notwithstanding the past hour, that all Members of the House can still join arms on that point.
This Government have never intended to take the seven-year opt-out on war crimes, which is provided under Article 124 of the Rome Statute. We see no need to do so. Indeed, there was a good deal of strenuous argument to stop Article 124 ever forming part of the Rome Statute. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, will not mind me reminding him of what he said in this House on 20th July 1998 about our failure to stop that article becoming part of the statute. During the debate, which was held after the Rome Statute had been adopted, he said:
"There is, however, one immense drawback…The drawback is that there is a seven year prohibition on the instigation of any prosecution for war crimes".—[Official Report, 20/7/98; col. 626.]
I see that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is in his place. He opposed Article 124 at the time and I hope that now he will have no difficulty in agreeing with me. Indeed, I hope that he, along with his noble friend beside him, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, will say that it would be undesirable and quite wrong to pursue an opt-out under the article and that, in due course, the amendment can be withdrawn.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I hope that I shall not sound cynical if I say that long experience has taught me that when a government put before the House an important and substantial Bill and then assert that it changes nothing and that nothing in the Bill is new, that is the time for legislators to be alert. Of course this Bill will produce a new landscape. Of course there is something new here, in the form of a higher, international jurisdiction. It may not be a primary jurisdiction—I did not say that it was; other noble Lords made those comments—but its jurisdiction will come into operation when the nation state (in this case, the United Kingdom) is unable or unwilling—that is more relevant, because we would not he unable to do so—to investigate, deal with, try or address accusations and charges of war crimes. It would come into play when this country is not prepared to investigate because we believe that public servants and military personnel have acted in their highest duty under the command of their superiors, in line with public policy and political strategy.
When that is the case, and when the ICC has considered whether that would be an admissible objection after the pre-trial procedure and an appeal, then the ICC will have the final word. Therefore, we have here a new situation in which a higher international jurisdiction may make judgments about crimes—founded in international law, which of course we want to uphold, despite the inevitably vague wording as regards our own judicial context—which have been put onto our statute book. To pretend that nothing is new here and that there are no new risks, that the matter can be rushed through smoothly and that the situation will be as it was, is not, I believe, to act fairly and squarely towards those who may be affected by this legislation. In the end, it will affect in
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particular those in the front line, those who will have to undertake the difficult tasks, tasks which necessarily are sometimes bloody and violent in order to uphold and preserve peace and do down tyrants.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for intervening. If the noble Lord does not like the wording, why did the Tories enact it in the 1995 Act?
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is referring to the war crimes legislation.
I hope that I have explained clearly that that legislation is not what is new here. What is new is that a higher, international jurisdiction is now placed in a position—not a primary position, because domestic courts are complementary to it—where it can have the final word if the United Kingdom and its authorities do not wish to investigate or to bring charges because they do not believe that any crime has been committed. The trouble lies in that, where we do not believe that a crime has been committed, other countries, in the international context, could raise a case saying that crimes had been committed. Unless we understand that basic point; namely, that two points of view must be considered here, and that what one nation may regard as an innocent pursuit of peace—
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, perhaps I may make it plain, if I did not do so earlier, that it is our belief that if a British citizen were to be accused of such an offence, then we in Britain would wish to investigate the matter and we would do so. I am sure that whichever government of whatever complexion in Britain would do the same. The situation which the noble Lord has described should not occur. If it did occur, it would be in our hands.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I understand what the noble Baroness said. But the danger remains where, as a nation, we would feel that our public servants and military personnel had performed their duties well. The hypothetical case has been raised; namely, the bombing of civilians and bridges in Kosovo. Other parliaments have gone further into the past and have discussed the decision taken during the Second World War to take out and smash the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino. It was believed to contain munitions; instead it contained priceless books and frightened monks. That was a direct and intentional attack on a civilian objective. These circumstances describe situations where the host country—it could be New Zealand or Britain—could say that, "Nothing wrong was done. There is nothing to investigate and we are unwilling to do so".
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I am a little puzzled by the noble Lord's remarks about Monte Cassino. Surely the point was that that was not an intentional attack upon a civilian objective? It was thought to be a military objective.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord will recall that a considerable dispute broke out over whether it was a military objective. Even the concept of "intentionality"—if that is an English word—is one that can be debated. Other noble Lords have pointed out that it has two sides. Indeed, the history books still argue over whether the battle for Monte Cassino was intentional, whether it was known that it was a civilian target but that it needed to be taken out, or whether it was a military target. Indeed, that is why the French have put in a ratification status declaring that they want to be able to interpret the words "military objective". Whatever the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, has said, it is a highly subjective term. One person's military objective is another person's precious civilian site or institution. It is inevitable that there will be a difference of view.
I wish only to make the point that it cannot be right to say that there is nothing new here when clearly there is something new; namely, a new and higher jurisdiction. Many matters covered in the war crimes list, which forms part of the international law, have been accepted in the past, as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. However, when those matters are put into our statute law and are considered in the context of this higher jurisdiction, they raise questions. It is inevitable that they could put some of our Armed Forces into situations where questions could be asked. That is what worries them.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. On a point of clarification, when this matter came before the previous Parliament in 1995, were the war crimes listed in the detail of the Bill, as they are in sub-paragraphs (a) and (b)? Did any serious debate take place about particular methods of war and the actions there enumerated?
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I cannot answer the noble Lord's second point because I was not here.
As regards his first point, I imagine that the Geneva Convention and its protocols were in print and available for any noble Lord to read in the Library, in the knowledge that they were a part of international law. However, they did not then form a part of the statute law of this country, nor was there in place an international jurisdiction which had the last word in their interpretation and could bring forward allegations against individuals whom we might regard as perfectly sensible public servants in our Armed Forces. However, as soon they are named in a military investigation, their careers are ruined. I think that, sometimes, the handlers of the law do not understand that point. That is the fact of the matter. At the end of this debate, I still feel very strongly that we owe a consideration—a bargain—to our Armed Forces, in the light of the immensely difficult situations they now face. I recall the references made by the noble
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Baroness, Lady Williams, to low intensity warfare and dealing with the then Provisional IRA. I was the Minister in the Northern Ireland Office at the time and I recall the great difficulties in trying to evolve new procedures. These are extremely complex and many more new procedures will need to evolve. That is all the more reason—I repeat, all the more reason—why we should have in place clear laws and statutes so that our men and women serving in the front line can understand how they are to proceed. Furthermore, they must know, along with their commanding officers, what is right and what it is their duty to do. They should not get into the terrible tangle of wondering whether an order issued by their commanding officer is or is not liable to lead them into court.
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, before the noble Lord announces what he intends to do, can he deal with one point; that is, whether or not it is his view—and, indeed, the view of the Front Bench opposite—that no one should be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court for war crimes; that no person who is guilty of war crimes should be subject to this court? If we are saying that our nationals should not be, on what basis would the noble Lord say that anyone else should be? Perhaps he can answer that question.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am saying that the International Criminal Court should come into being—we support the principle of it—for crimes against humanity and genocide; we have no problems with that at all. However, for war crimes, we have our domestic procedures where, if war crimes have been committed in our view and the view of our courts, there should be the appropriate courts martial or civilian trials. If a war crime is committed on foreign soil—and we know of the ugly and sad cases which have occurred in recent times—the soldiers concerned should be tried. All that should happen.
What I am saying is that so far as concerns the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in relation to war crimes—the elements set out in Article 8—we should hold that over for seven years. We should do that not because the French are doing so—that would be absurd—but because, as an international peace-keeping power, we want the proper protection of our own Armed Forces in the immensely complex situations in which they will increasingly become involved. As my noble friend Lord Tebbit pointed out, even the question of what is a civilian becomes ambiguous and not at all clear. It is particularly unclear at the present time in Kosovo and Macedonia.
These deep concerns have not been allayed. I am very disappointed in the Minister's reply. Our concerns have not been allayed by what she said this evening.
The Minister did not comment on the need to publicise and tell people generally that there are new crimes on the statute book. It is quite wrong that there should be a lack of publicity. I read somewhere—I

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hope that I am not making any false analogies—that when the Emperor Caligula promulgated laws, he used to ensure that they were placed at the top of very high pillars in very small characters so that no one could read them.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in this case the words are not put on very tall pillars in very small writing so that citizens cannot read them? They are put into the handbook of military law, to which every serving member of the Armed Forces has access, as I well recall from personal experience. The words are also in the law of the land, having been duly enacted by Conservative governments on several occasions.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I shall be very glad when those handbooks are amended—as I hope they will be—to explain the new risks involved: that these are not war crimes listed only in the Geneva Convention and its protocols but are crimes which are now on our own statute book; and that a higher international court may have the final word on whether these crimes have been committed and on whether investigations into them should be mounted. Then I shall be content—but I have not heard that suggestion from the Benches opposite. For these and many other reasons, I wish to test the opinion of the House on the amendment.
6.54 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 69; Not-Contents, 122.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Anelay of St. Johns, B.

Geddes, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Glentoran. L.

Attlee, E.

Henley, L. [Teller]

Baker of Dorking, L.

Hooper, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Howe, E.

Biffen, L.

Howell of Guildford, L.

Blatch, B.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Boardman, L.

Kingsland, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

Bridgeman, V.

Lamont of Lerwick, L,

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Liverpool, E.

Buscombe, B.

Luke, L.

Byford, B.

Lyell, L.

Caithness, E.

Mancroft, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Monson, L.

Colwyn, L.

Montrose, D.

Cope of Berkeley, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Craigavon, V.

Northbrook, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Northesk, E. [Teller]

Cumberlege, B.

Palmer, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Dundee, E.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Plumb, L.

Elton, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Feldman, L.

Rawlings, B.

Ferrers, E.

Rees, L.

Fookes, B.

Renton, L.

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Roberts of Conwy, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Seccombe, B.

Stewartby, L.

Sharples, B.

Swinfen, L.

Tebbit, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Trumpington, B.

Shore of Stepney, L.

Vivian, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Wilcox, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Janner of Braunstone, L.

Alli, L.

Jay of Paddington, B. (Lord

Amos, B.

Privy Seal)

Andrews, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Layard, L.

Avebury, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Barker, B.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Lipsey, L.

Berkeley, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

[Teller]

Billingham, B.

McIntosh of Hudnall, B.

Blackstone, B.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Borrie, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Bradshaw, L.

Maddock, B.

Bragg, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Brett, L,

Mar and Kellie, E.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Brookman, L.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Burlison, L.

Methuen, L.

Carter, L. [Teller]

Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Mitchell, L.

Chandos, V.

Molloy, L.

Clement-Jones, L.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Newby, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Nicol, B.

Dahrendorf, L.

Northover, B.

Davies of Coity, L.

Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, L.

Davies of Oldham, L.

Orme, L.

Desai, L.

Puttnam, L.

Dubs, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Ezra, L.

Rennard, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Roper, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Russell, E.

Filkin, L.

Sawyer, L.

Fyfe of Fairfield, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Gale, B.

Scott of Needham Market, B.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Sharman, L.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Shutt of Greetland. L.

Goldsmith, L.

Simon, V.

Goodhart, L.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Goudie, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Thomas of Gresford, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Greaves, L.

Thornton, B.

Grenfell, L.

Tomlinson, L.

Hamwee, B.

Tordoff, L.

Hardy of Wath, L.

Turnberg, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Harris of Haringey, L.

Walker of Doncaster, L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Walmsley, B.

Haskel, L.

Warner, L.

Hayman, B.

Watson of Richmond, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Whitaker, B.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Whitty, L.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Wilberforce, L.

Hoyle, L.

Wilkins, B.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord

Winston, L.

Chancellor)

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
7.5 p.m.
Clause 2 [Request for arrest and surrender]:
Lord Howell of Guildford Lord Howell of Guildford moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 23, leave out ("shall") and insert ("may").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment, with which I hope that we shall consider also Amendments Nos. 7 and 8, will be drearily familiar in form as it proposes to insert the word "may" in the Bill instead of the word "shall". Straightaway, in the light of earlier discussions and those in Committee, we can confidently predict that, given the Government's extreme anxiety to stick to the precise wording of the Rome Statute, this will be seen as an offence against that wish. In passing, before explaining why I nevertheless seek to move these amendments, I should point out that this is only a wish.
In the Canadian Parliament, I noticed that the legislation passing into that country's law varies some of the wording. They, too, wished to put the entire statute into law, but they varied the words at a number of points, one of which we shall deal with under a later amendment. I emphasise that that is the wish of the Government, but that it is perfectly possible to achieve the aims of agreeing the statute for moving to ratification—which is what the Government want—without having to put into our own law every single word, as sacred, of the statute. Other countries seem to find ways of getting around that.
The amendments all raise the question of the Secretary of State's discretion. They seek to allow the Secretary of State the option, for whatever reason he thinks fit, not to initiate the sending of documents to a judicial officer, thereby maintaining the autonomy of the United Kingdom in international matters. Amendment No. 3 starts from the point that the Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament. We believe that he should retain residual discretion to refuse to activate a request for arrest or surrender. We recognise the complex series of patterns by which the process of exchange—the dialogue, as it were—between the International Criminal Court and the party states takes place. It is complex. There are many filters and opportunities for appeal, and so on.
I obtained from the House of Commons Library a very interesting summary, when one has been through all the filters, of what would actually happen if a British soldier were accused of a statute crime. First, the ICC would have to decide whether any process was taking place in the United Kingdom, in a British service court overseas, or in the national courts of some third countries, that complied with the tests of willingness or ability. As mentioned in an earlier debate, inability does not really arise. However, if it is a question of willingness, the focus would have to be on whether the investigatory and trial processes would be considered independent, impartial and compliant with the norms of due process; and, if not, whether they were conducted in a manner consistent with the intent to bring the person to justice.
If the party state rejected the idea that these were crimes at all—echoes of our previous debate—the ICC would be in a position to regard the case as admissible.
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The process would then begin. There would, of course, be the availability of appeal against that and the permission to challenge that ruling. But, eventually, with an appeal having been heard and rejected, the ICC would decide on its own motion that it wished to pursue the case.
These amendments, which propose to change the word "shall" into "may", would provide one more block in the process. Where this nation genuinely felt that someone had done something for which no finger should be pointed at him and no investigation should take place, and where it was clear that he was acting under proper orders in a way necessary in the heat of war or even in the heat of peacekeeping, it would mean that the Secretary of State's discretion would be there to stop the proceedings.
It will, of course, be said that this is putting other words into the statute. That can be done, and is done, by other countries, although perhaps the Government do not want to do it. The "Goldsmith doctrine"—if I may call it that—will be put forward; namely, that if we set a bad example, others will follow it. I applaud the idealism behind that but I doubt very much whether that is the way this wicked world works. Clearly some countries will not sign up to the measure. I refer to the obvious "bad boys" such as Libya and Iraq. Perhaps North Korea will sign up to it. Some responsible nations have not signed up to it. However, I do not think for one moment that they will be influenced one way or another by what we do. We should uphold our international responsibilities. We should maintain our own confidence in our international reputation, but we should also protect our interests and our people. To do that we need some discretion. These amendments offer that discretion. I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, the premise of these amendments and, indeed, of the Conservative Front Bench's entire attitude towards the Bill, is that it is undesirable that there should be a supra-national international court to deal with these crimes and that what one should seek to do therefore is to give the Secretary of State as wide a discretion as possible to hamper the transfer of a suspected war criminal to the court. I think that is the premise.
I want to deal briefly with that premise. I speak from personal experience. I had the great privilege of acting on behalf of the United Kingdom, defending it in the Northern Irish state case in the late 1970s that was brought against the United Kingdom by the Irish Republic. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, will remember as I recall that he was the Solicitor-General at the time, our forces—both the Army and the police service—were accused of acts of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment of civilian suspected terrorists in interrogation centres in Northern Ireland. The case went to the European Commission and the European Court of Human Rights and eventually the court decided that we were not guilty of torture but of inhuman and degrading treatment—breaches of Article 3 of the convention.

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In arguing that case as one of the counsel on behalf of the United Kingdom, led by someone we very much miss, the late Lord Silkin of Dulwich, who was in my view a very remarkable Attorney-General, I was struck that the British civil servants who were part of that team made it quite clear—I hope that I am not breaching a confidence all these years later—that they had come to appreciate the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg court. One of them, a distinguished lawyer, said to me, "We would never have discovered exactly what had gone on in Northern Ireland if there had not been the European Commission and Court of Human Rights. That enabled the government to get to the bottom of what had really gone on". The same government lawyer said to me that the fact finding that was done by the Strasbourg Commission of Human Rights was every bit as good as the fact finding done by an English High Court. In the end we gave an undertaking to the Strasbourg court that we would not repeat the five techniques of interrogation.
I cannot remember anyone among the officials I dealt with and acted for in the Ministry of Defence, the Northern Ireland Office or anywhere else, who did not regard the process, although painful and hard fought all the way, as ultimately beneficial. I should be interested to know whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, as one of the Law Officers at the time, would agree with that. I make this point because it is not self-evident—
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, in order to avoid intervening later, I seize the opportunity to say that I totally agree.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, as I say, I hope that I am not speaking out of turn in sharing that experience. But I wish to do so because it illustrates that the premise on which these amendments are based is misguided. It goes without saying—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, knows this perfectly well—that the amendment is incompatible with the terms of the statute for the reasons that we have gone over in previous debates and which I do not need to repeat. The noble Lord knows that well, because on the previous occasion the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General explained why it was incompatible. However, I want to deal with the underlying value judgments here and, as I say, give the benefit of practical experience.
It follows from the premise of the Conservative Front Bench's approach that it would wish that we were not parties to the European Convention on Human Rights or, at any rate, had not accepted the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, which would be able, and is able, thank heavens, to take cases from IRA—
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I think that if the noble Lord examines the amendments that my noble friend Lord Howell and I tabled in Committee, he will readily
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ascertain that far from questioning the jurisdiction of the Court of Human Rights, those amendments sought to reinforce it in the context of this Bill.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said that. The point I am trying to make is that the position taken by the Conservative Front Bench is inconsistent with that, because any IRA terrorist of the worst kind possible can now bring a complaint against the United Kingdom before a European Court of Human Rights composed of seven to 15 out of 42 judges, of whom only one is British. That is the entitlement under the European Human Rights Convention. They can allege torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other things as well. Every one of the 41 countries of the Council of Europe has subscribed to that. We have also incorporated it into our domestic law. It is beneficial that there be a supra-national court that can interpret and apply the international standards in a consistent but not slavishly uniform way.
I submit that the same applies to the International Criminal Court. It is beneficial that there be an International Criminal Court that is able to give a consistent interpretation to the Geneva Conventions and the other conventional and customary international law. These amendments would give the Secretary of State discretion to decide whether or not to forward an ICC request for arrest or delivery to the appropriate judicial officer. That would allow the Minister to block an ICC request from the outset. The terms of the statute applying to the arrest and delivery of an individual subject to an ICC request leave no scope for discretion—I refer to Articles 59 and 89.
I say with great respect that these amendments are entirely inconsistent with the object, purpose and language of the statute. They are simply not permissible if we are to be able to ratify the statute. Therefore, I oppose the amendments.
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I thought that I would keep quiet on this amendment but the noble, Lord Howell, tempts me by his reference to a point which I do, and would, make. It is not so much that because we do something everyone else will do something. I do not take that view. But if we were to appear to say that the United Kingdom thinks that justice is optional but we can decide whether or not we think that someone should be prosecuted, that gives an excuse to so many others to say, "We shall protect our friends and only respond to the international court when it concerns people we do not like". I do not think that sentiment is idealist; I think that it is a valid point.
I share the views which the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, has expressed. There is a matter I do not understand which I should very much like to have explained. The provision states that if we receive a request for arrest and surrender, we shall take steps immediately to arrest. How can the United Kingdom ratify the statute, which includes a mandatory obligation under Article 59, at the same time as retaining the right not to comply with it? It is not a

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question of changing words in the statute. It is not possible to ratify the statute unless we accept that we are assuming an international obligation—and that means that we must assume it.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I respectfully agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and my noble friend Lord Goldsmith. I shall not tire the House by repeating everything that was said by my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General when we discussed this matter in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, is right: we seek compliance with the statute. The ICC Bill is designed to enable the United Kingdom to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As a number of noble Lords have said, that statute makes it clear that state parties are expected to comply with requests from the ICC for arrest and surrender.
It is important to note that Article 89 sets out that state parties shall, in accordance with the provisions of this part and the procedure under their national law, comply with requests for arrest and surrender. Clause 2 of the Bill sets out the procedure to be followed by the Secretary of State and the appropriate judicial officer when a request is received from the ICC for arrest and surrender of a person alleged to have committed an ICC crime or to have been convicted by the ICC. The clause is designed to enable us to meet our obligations under Article 89 of the statute.
Noble Lords suggest that the Bill should be amended. By doing so, that process of dealing with an ICC request is subjected to a further step which could delay or even frustrate the legitimate surrender of the persons to the ICC or the state of the enforcement. The Government say that the introduction of a discretion is not appropriate at this stage.
In the light of those comments—I do not repeat all that was said on the last occasion; all noble Lords are present—I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, the Government's answer is the one to be expected if the objective is to stick to the letter of the statute. I shall refer later to the point that other countries are able to carry forward the task without sticking to the letter of the statute. But if that is the Government's intention, clearly these amendments were doomed to be rejected.
However, there was a purpose behind the amendments. It was to establish beyond peradventure—I am not sure that it was entirely clear in Committee—who has the final word. When it comes to the admissibility of a case, and the to-ing and fro-ing of appeals and so on, we now know that in the end it is the court that shall satisfy itself that it has jurisdiction in any case brought before it. On its own motion, the court may determine the admissibility of a case in accordance with Article 17.
That is the clear view. As one eminent British lawyer put it the other day, that means that in theory we have to be prepared to have our soldiers tried by the
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International Criminal Court. This is a sobering clarification. It reinforces my belief that while upholding many of the noble principles behind this project, we must seek at every point to safeguard our own capacity to be a competent player on the international scene by ensuring that our Armed Forces and Crown personnel are protected from new risks. It is not protection from the law if they commit war crimes but protection from new and sometimes vexatious and unpredictable risks.
In the light of what I have said and the Minister's remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick Lord Lamont of Lerwick moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 24, at end insert—
("() The Secretary of State shall not transmit the request if the charges brought against the person relate to an offence alleged to have been committed in a country whose democratically elected Government had, at the time of the arrest, agreed to an amnesty for all those who might otherwise be charged with ICC crimes during the period covered by the amnesty, and where the offence was committed in that country.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the amendment, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 which stand in my name. Amendment No. 4 deals with amnesties; Amendment No. 5 deals with Northern Ireland; and Amendment No. 6 deals with the jurisdiction of the court as it applies to countries that have not ratified the statute of the ICC.
On amnesties, I accept the good intentions underlying the Bill. However, it is not sufficient to continue to underline the good intentions. It is necessary to examine the consequences. We are familiar with the doctrine of the law of unintended consequences: legislation often has consequences that we do not intend. I believe that the inflexible application of international law in certain areas will make conflict and abuses of human rights more likely.
Amendment No. 4 refers to the treatment of amnesties and states:
"The Secretary of State shall not transmit the request if the charges brought against the person relate to an offence alleged to have been committed in a country whose democratically elected Government had, at the time of the arrest, agreed to an amnesty for all those who might otherwise be charged with ICC crimes during the period covered by the amnesty, and where the offence was committed in that country".
Many countries—in Africa or South America—have had internal conflicts where they have come to their own domestic agreements about the past. It has happened in South Africa with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The dilemma was well illustrated by recent events in Sierra Leone. The British Government brought pressure for the inclusion within the Sierra Leone Government of a faction which had been involved in what would be agreed generally to be crimes of appalling barbarism—torture; crimes against humanity; and amputating people. When those crimes ceased, those people became potentially liable to legal charges. But the dilemma was well illustrated by the changing attitude of the British

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Government. They found themselves accommodating people who had done terrible things because they thought that that was the way to peace in Sierra Leone.
On another occasion I gave an example of what the former Minister of State at the Foreign Office was reported to have said in relation to Angola. In the electronic Daily Telegraph he was reported to have held out the offer of safe conduct and amnesty for Jonas Savimbi. The same Minister of State has been an extremely strong supporter of the ICC. But according to the press he was saying that a particular individual should be given amnesty because that was the way to end conflict.
This is the point which has concerned me and where I believe that the International Criminal Court could do harm. The ICC cannot stop a civil war; it cannot stop a terrorist struggle; it cannot remove a tyrant from power. But if some form of peace is negotiated locally involving an amnesty for past offences, the ICC stands ready to nullify that agreement by launching its own prosecutions. Many countries in Eastern Europe, Southern Africa or South America that have made a transition to democracy in the past decade have made provision for such amnesties. It will be left to an international civil servant or an international court to decide when and to what extent to ignore such local peace conditions.
The local equivalent of an Interior Minister or a Home Secretary might offer a pardon, believing that it was in the best interests of his country, even if it did not accord with strict legal justice. As I understand it, the ICC' prosecutor is not authorised to decide on any basis other than strict legal justice, yet he does not have the enforcement power to deliver legal justice. That results in the rigidity of untempered law without the strength of law in a sovereign state. The ICC prosecutor cannot invoke political considerations openly, because he has no accountability to an elected parliament or president. He will depend on extraordinarily politicised private advocacy groups for political support.
I have raised this issue before. I have asked the Attorney-General several times how an amnesty could be treated. In Committee, he answered:
"The noble Lord returned to the question of amnesty. These are crimes of the gravest kind. It is extremely unlikely that an amnesty could legitimately be given".
That last sentence is the most important one. However, he went on, slightly unclearly:
"But the answer to the question is that the ICC prosecutor has discretion not to institute a prosecution in the interests of justice. That might he appropriate where a fair and democratically supported amnesty had been proclaimed, but not where it was a purely bogus or cosmetic amnesty for illegitimate purposes".—[Official Report, 8/2/01; col. 1288.]
I interpreted the Attorney-General's reference to "justice" in a strict legal sense and took that answer to mean that it was extremely unlikely that a democratically elected Government could legitimately issue an amnesty within a country to excuse or forgive past crimes and undertake a process of reconciliation.
That is my greatest reservation about the new International Criminal Court. The inflexible application of law is an obstacle to reconciliation. Such an approach or doctrine leads to the idea of unconditional surrender or fighting to the last man. One of the war crimes listed in the statutes of the court is declaring that no quarter will be given. I understand why that is listed as a war crime, but that attitude will be encouraged if the court is not allowed to recognise amnesties within countries. My amendment specifies that there should be a democratically elected government—not a continuing dictatorship—and that the alleged crimes should be internal to that country. The court could do enormous harm by interfering with such processes.
Amendment No. 5 would apply that logic to Northern Ireland, because the situation there illustrates that dilemma. The Government have put strict legal justice aside in the pursuit of a political settlement. No doubt the Minister will tell me that in some way the International Criminal Court is irrelevant to Northern Ireland, but my point is logical and correct. If we are prepared to have an amnesty in Northern Ireland and believe that no one should interfere with that from outside, why do we think that it is right for the International Criminal Court to interfere in other countries that have decided to put aside strict legal justice and make a political settlement to advance peace and reconciliation? That is an important point.
A national criminal justice system always provides a safety valve—a recourse to a pardon or an amnesty issued by political Ministers to stay the effect of a prosecution in the courts. There is no provision for that in the ICC.
Amendment No. 6 provides that the Secretary of State shall not transmit the request if the person alleged to have committed an ICC crime is a citizen of a country that has not ratified the statute of the ICC. One of the most contentious points is the extension of the jurisdiction of the ICC to countries that have not ratified the statute. That is one of the United States Government's reservations. They are fearful even now that the court will be able to put American servicemen on trial. That is particularly disquieting some people in that country.
The Rome Statute extends the court's jurisdiction not only over nationals of states that are parties to the statute, but over nationals of non-party states when they are charged with aggression or war crimes against nationals of states that are party. That is bad enough, because it effectively extends the court's authority over countries that do not consent to it. That is a novel concept in international law, although there would be some protection for non-party states if their questionable military action involved other nonparty states.
I have an opinion from a professor of government at Cornell University that under Article 12.3, when a state seeks prosecution against officials of another state, even when the charging state is not a party and will not submit to prosecutions of its own officials, it

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can still bring prosecutions against non-party states. In addition to waiving traditional norms of consent, the Rome Statute also appears to waive traditional norms of reciprocity, making it easier for the prosecutor to play politics against unpopular states.
I very much hope for a clear response from the Minister on those three amendments, particularly on the amnesty in Northern Ireland. I have raised the issue on several occasions and have not yet had a clear reply.
Lord Monson: My Lords, on Second Reading I expressed the fear that much of the Bill was effectively, even if not consciously, a stepping stone on the Nay to world government. Such a prospect will not worry the minority who favour world government—quite the opposite—but it should worry everyone else. Amendment No. 4 in particular would help to diminish those fears. The same would have been true of Amendments Nos. 3, 7 and 8.
Moreover, without these amendments, any future South African-type settlement, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, pointed out, and any future Northern Ireland-style settlement, or perhaps one should say potential settlement, would not be possible. Prosecution would be obligatory in every single case. The views and the prejudices of those living hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of miles away would count for more than the considered judgments of those living on the spot. Therefore, I certainly support Amendment No. 4, moved so well by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, perhaps I may deal with each of the amendments in turn, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, has done. I shall explain briefly why we are opposed to each and all of them.
Amendment No. 4 would mean that the United Kingdom would not co-operate with an ICC request where a democratically elected government had already granted amnesty to an individual in relation to the crime committed. It is ironic that this amendment should be moved only two days after Judge Gabriel Cavallo in the Argentine ruled that amnesties in that country in relation to a case of kidnapping of children were unconstitutional and should be set aside. No doubt, if the amnesty remains overturned under the legal system in the Argentine, that case will lead to a number of prosecutions of child kidnappers and others who abuse children.
That amnesty, like many others in Latin America and elsewhere, arose as military regimes gave way to democratically elected governments. In its wake, amnesty laws were passed virtually everywhere in Latin America. They were passed as blanket amnesties, after serious crimes had occurred, without any recognition of the suffering of the victims and their families; and they were passed without any investigation into the circumstances and without any attribution of responsibility for the commission of those serious crimes.
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That is the problem which exists in relation to blanket amnesties which were granted, as I said, as dictatorships gave way to democracies. Such an approach is wholly incompatible with the scheme—
Lord Monson: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. Does he agree that if those amnesties had not been granted, the authoritarian regimes of which he speaks would not have relinquished power? Those Latin American countries might still be under the grip of dictatorship today.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, it is difficult to answer that question as a general proposition. For example, during the Second World War, the allies pursued—in my view, correctly—a policy of unconditional surrender. At the time, some argued that that was a mistaken policy because it prolonged the war. I believe that it was the correct policy. The United States—I want to place this on record in view of some of the things that have been said about the United States—opposed the view of Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill's view was that we should, in his words, simply "string up" the war criminals at the nearest lamppost without a trial.
The United States took the contrary view that due process, in every sense, should be followed at the Nuremberg military tribunal. It deputed Justice Robert Jackson from the Supreme Court of the United States to become the prosecutor on its behalf. In my view, the stance adopted by the United States was correct, and the policy of unconditional surrender was also correct. However, it was a political judgment which may well have led to a prolongation of the war. The truth is that one can only answer that question in the light of the particular political circumstances at the time.
The point that I seek to make is simply that a blanket amnesty which involves no investigation of the circumstances, nothing for the victims, and no attribution of responsibility is incompatible with the scheme of the statute. It would allow countries to shield war criminals and those who commit crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. That is why I do not support Amendment No. 4.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, is there not a great deal of difference between a situation of international conflict, such as the Second World War, in relation to which I accept what the noble Lord says about unconditional surrender, and a situation which arises internally within a country? If one applies such absolutist standards, it is not we who suffer, as we suffered in the Second World War; it is the people of that country who suffer because a regime, which otherwise would give way, is kept in power. Would it not be better if Fidel Castro was given an amnesty for the future and was exempted from charges relating to the 40,000 deaths attributed to his regime?
7.45 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, there is a difference between war among states, a situation of

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internal armed conflict, and a situation which comes within the domestic frontiers of a state alone. However, the character of the crimes with which one is concerned remains the same. Genocide is genocide, whether it is committed against German Jews by the Nazis within Germany or against Jews in Poland. The fact that, in one case, the crime transcends national frontiers and, in the other, is entirely internal is regarded in international human rights law and humanitarian law as making no difference. Those are genuinely universal crimes; they are as much the concern of the world as the old crimes of piracy and slavery, which long ago were recognised to be crimes of a universal character.
Therefore, my answer to the noble Lord is that, of course, politically there may be differences. However, in terms of responsibility for crimes of that character, that responsibility is universally international. Blanket amnesties are incompatible with the statute.
So far as concerns Amendment No. 5, which relates to the Good Friday agreement, I want to make a small, technical point and I shall make it briefly. The statute is not retrospective and therefore would not apply to offences committed before the statute came into force. Therefore, that amendment, which I do not believe is pressed seriously, would be inept.
Amendment No. 6 would mean that if, for example, Syria did not ratify the ICC Statute and a Syrian citizen made his way to Israel, where he participated in a heinous crime against humanity, he would be entirely safe from prosecution by the ICC if he made his way to the United Kingdom. Obviously that would also be in breach of the statute and, in my submission, should be opposed on that ground.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I rise simply to deal with an aspect of Amendment No. 4. I am a member of the International Commission of Jurists, which is an international human rights organisation. Quite frankly, at present one of the most serious problems in relation to international human rights law is impunity. Impunity a rises when, as a result of an amnesty or for other reasons, those who have perpetrated grave crimes against humanity, genocide or whatever, within their own country are not capable of being brought to prosecution.
In relation to amnesties, one sees in South Africa an exceptional situation. I believe that the work of Archbishop Tutu's Truth Commission has been astonishing and has been admired around the world. I do not believe that a prosecutor of the International Criminal Court would be likely to take the view that an amnesty given as a result of that commission would be in breach of human rights law. I would not in any circumstances expect to see a prosecution.
However, that is the exception and not the rule. In far too many countries elsewhere—particularly in Latin America—new governments, many of them democratic, have, under pressure from the military regimes, agreed to give amnesties for grave crimes against humanity committed by the previous military regimes. That may or may not be a necessity as regards the internal politics of those countries.
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I do not believe that that is any reason why other countries should be prevented from investigating the guilt of those who are alleged to have committed grave crimes if they come within the jurisdiction of another country or of the International Criminal Court. For that reason I feel very strongly that acceptance of Amendment No. 4, which would release from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court those who have been amnestied under pressure, would not be right and proper. I most strongly oppose it.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I wish to speak briefly to Amendments Nos 4 and 5 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lamont. These are very interesting and important amendments. Even in this brief debate they bring out the problem that we are dealing with a clash of two very noble cultures. One is that justice must be upheld and that the legal systems of the planet must be so designed to hunt down the butchers, which is completely right, and the other is that we need to seek peace. That requires sometimes statesmen and sometimes forgiveness and the blotting out of memories on an heroic scale. I am not sure that we would have peace in Europe today unless to some degree we were prepared to yield to the second culture as well as uphold the first. They do clash and there is no way round that. No one wants military governments or crimes to go unpunished, but we want peace. Sometimes these highly noble aims conflict head on.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, put his finger on it, as one would expect, when he said that no general propositions were possible over the amnesty question. There are good and bad amnesties, cheat amnesties and desperately needed ones. We are going to move into that world more and more. That reinforces the point I was unsuccessfully making in the previous debate that if we can introduce some flexibility into the statute, we might be living in a better world than if there is none. When we are told, "I am sorry, it is not possible because it is incompatible with the statute", that is the voice of rigidity and of maybe noble ideals, but making absolutely certain that in future those noble ideals will come under impossible strain. That is sad.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that discretion is built into the statute for the independent prosecutor to exercise his or her judgment in a matter. A truth and reconciliation commission investigating the sort of case my noble friend Lord Goodhart mentioned, properly investigating all the facts and acting in a completely different spirit from the type of case to which I was referring, would no doubt be taken into account by the prosecutor. It would be inconceivable to imagine a prosecution.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I was aware of that. Again, we have what from one point of view appears to be a sensible amnesty and from another it may seem to be an intolerable brushing aside of terrible crimes committed and victims ignored, to use

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the reference of the noble Lord made. Those are the kinds of issues that may need to be argued. There may be an unforeseeable situation where a different view is taken initially by the prosecutor or by the pre-trial chamber from that held by a nation state that an amnesty is needed in order to move on from some dark difficulty. I do not know.
Lord Monson: My Lords, to reinforce the point that the noble Lord was making, would he agree that in 1943 Winston Churchill decided to pardon and not prosecute Italian generals who were guilty of grave war crimes in the Balkans? He did so because he considered that course to be the lesser of two evils and that it would help to speed up the conclusion of the war against Nazi Germany, which was the greater of the two evils.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am grateful for that fascinating history lesson. I suspect that history is littered with such instances and the future will be as well, even though we want to make it a better world than anything which existed 57 years ago in Europe. I shall be very interested to hear the noble Baroness's reply to my noble friend on this matter.
As regards the amendment relating to Northern Ireland, we have all said to each other umpteen times that this Bill is not retrospective and nor is the power of the court. But the Northern Ireland problem is not yet solved. The peace process is by no means in the bag. The concessions which may have to be made on both sides have by no means come to an end. There may be many difficult decisions ahead and some of them could clash with the apparent incompatibility and the requirements of the Bill. I look forward to hearing the observations of the Minister.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I resist all three of the amendments. I shall deal with them in turn. As regards amnesties, the crimes which the ICC will prosecute are, as noble Lords know, some of the most serious imaginable for which amnesties would rarely be appropriate. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, has already said that the ICC prosecutor has a discretion not to institute a prosecution in the interests of justice. That may be appropriate where a fair and democratically supported amnesty has been proclaimed. The South African situation immediately springs to mind.
In negotiating the statute, we have constantly to strike a balance between upholding our own system, which we believe should stand up to any amount of challenge, and introducing huge gaps into the statute which could be used by dictators to avoid justice for their own people by introducing amnesties with no democratic support. We believe that we have got it right and that the principle of "complementarity" will allow us to take our own decisions in the context of our own well-respected judicial system.
The key point here is that the matter is for the ICC to determine. If the question of a domestic amnesty arose in respect of an individual whom the ICC wishes
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to investigate, the state concerned would no doubt take that up with the court at the point it was notified that an investigation was being considered. If there were to be a difference of will, it would promote reconciliation in war-torn societies by rightly placing responsibilities on individuals rather than on the communities.
I am sure that it is also of interest to the House to note that the Rome Statute provides that, if an investigation or prosecution would harm international peace and security, the UN Security Council will have the power under a Chapter VII resolution to request the ICC to defer action for an initial period of 12 months, which could be renewed. I hope that that is of some reassurance to the noble Lord and the House in relation to the substance of his amendment.
Perhaps I may touch on two other matters. The noble Lord again raised the position of my right honourable friend Mr Hain as regards commments he is alleged to have made in relation to Jonas Savimbi. I believe later he mentioned SANCO. I am surprised that the noble Lord should raise this issue for, I believe, the second time because my right honourable friend Peter Hain wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, on 24th August last year to set out his position in response to the comments made by the noble Lord that Mr Hain had called for immunity for Savimbi. In his letter Mr Hain stated that he had given no speeches calling for immunity from prosecution for Jonas Savimbi, as claimed. He made it clear in terms that,
"I consider him to bear prime responsibility for the continued conflict in Angola and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Angolans. Leaders like Savimbi are living examples of why support for the International Criminal Court is so strong".
He went on to say:
"Our first priority is and should be to stop the killing in Angola. The best outcome would be a negotiated settlement, which would inevitably include UNITA. For the higher purpose of saving lives, it may be necessary to enter into careful negotiations with Savimbi in the first instance and a safe passage may be an issue here. But that would not amount to ignoring his crimes or offering immunity".
My honourable friend made it clear that no amnesty was being suggested.
8 p.m.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I intervene because I do not wish to be accused of misrepresenting the Minister of State. I said that his comments were reported. I checked with the newspaper that reported the comments and it maintains that its report was accurate. When I wrote to Mr Hain a second time about the matter, he wrote back to me saying, "I did use the words that you quote". He confirmed that he had used them. The last part of the remarks that the noble Baroness read out was not a direct quotation.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, my honourable friend went on to say that unfortunately the newspapers did not quote all that he had said—they never do—because they did not report all of the comments that I have just read out. I am sure that the noble Lord agrees that that was made plain in the letters. I have both letters with me; if it helps the noble

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Lord to refresh his memory, I could read out all of them. I notice that I am the one wearing glasses; I do not know whether the noble Lord needs them to help him.
On the SANCO immunity, a difficult decision was made at a time when people were trying to bring to an end appalling violence. The amnesty that they gave at that stage did not relieve perpetrators of war crimes of their responsibilities under international law. Subsequent events indicate that the amnesties will not bring peace so long as those responsible for past crimes retain their evil ambitions and see the desire for peace as a sign of weakness. Justice places responsibility for crimes on individuals, not communities. If we really want reconciliation, it is important to deal in a fair and proper way with such matters.
I turn to Amendment No. 5, which the Government cannot accept. First, it would breach our obligations to the ICC. Secondly, it appears to give life-long immunity from prosecution to anyone who is released following the Good Friday agreement, whatever the crimes they may subsequently commit. That is not, I confess, an idea that we could ever countenance. Thirdly—I say this with the greatest respect—the amendment is utterly unnecessary. No ICC crimes have been committed in Northern Ireland and we sincerely hope that they never will be. However horrendous the individual terrorist atrocities have been in Northern Ireland, they are not war crimes as defined under international law. They would not therefore come under the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, will the Minister please explain why crimes committed in Northern Ireland would not come under the heading of genocide? The ICC statute states,
"'genocide' means … acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such … Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group".
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the mere recitation of that definition should dictate why the struggles and difficulties in Northern Ireland do not fall under it. It has never been suggested that the term could properly be applied to Northern Ireland; there has been a deal of agreement on that.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, why not?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, because sense usually prevails, which is appropriate.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, does the Minister agree that one answer to that question is that whatever monstrous acts of terrorism have been committed by either side in Northern Ireland, they are not directed towards the destruction of the Catholic or Protestant populations or their ethnic forebears on the Celtic or Gaelic sides? The suggestion is a sort of insult—I know that no insult was intended by the
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noble Lord, Lord Lamont—to the concept of genocide; the suggestion might devalue the concept, which is directed at, for example, the holocaust.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I most respectfully agree with those comments.
The fourth reason that we cannot agree to the amendment is that were such ICC crimes ever to be committed in the future, they would be investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate domestic authorities. As a result, the ICC would not have jurisdiction. I respectfully suggest that although the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, wishes to conflate the situation in Northern Ireland with those in other parts of the world, it is important to remember that the early release of prisoners is not an amnesty. There has been no amnesty for prisoners released under the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act. All such people have had to serve a minimum period in custody prior to release. Moreover, no outstanding prosecutions have been dropped.
Fifthly, in so far as the noble Lord wishes to raise the hypothetical argument that the ICC would wish to have jurisdiction over war criminals in another country who have been released on licence under a peace agreement, I respectfully suggest that he might with advantage glance at paragraph 3 of Article 20 of the ICC Statute. That makes it clear that there are very limited circumstances in which the ICC could try someone who has already been tried,
"with respect to the same conduct",
and that there are carefully drafted criteria on which such decisions would be made. I hope that my answers encourage the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment No. 5.
I turn to Amendment No. 6. I regret that I cannot accept that amendment either. The import of the noble Lord's suggestion was that we should not surrender to the ICC any national of a state that is not a party to the ICC, however appalling the crimes he may have committed. That is contrary to Article 12 of the Rome Statute, which states that the court may exercise its jurisdiction if either the state of nationality of the accused or the state on whose territory the crime was alleged to have been committed is a party to the court. The statute also provides that a non-party state can consent to the ICC's investigating a crime on its territory or that of its nationals. The ICC will therefore have jurisdiction over citizens of a country that has not ratified the statute only where they have committed their crimes on the territory of the state party, where the non-party state in question has given its consent or where the Security Council has referred to the court a threat to international peace and security.
The noble Lord asked about paragraph 3 of Article 12. The short answer is that a non-state party will not be able to refer cases to the ICC. The ICC Statute will enable the court to investigate crimes committed by rogue states on the territories of state parties. To take an historical example, it would have dealt with war crimes alleged during the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq if Iraq were a state party, which we might safely

385
assume it would not be. If the ICC were not able to act in such circumstances in future, the message to nonparty states would be that they may safely commit ICC crimes with impunity anywhere in the world.
I agree with those noble Lords whose spoke against the amendments. I hope that, having considered the matter, the noble Lord will not test the opinion of the House on any of the amendments.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply. However, with the exception of my second and third of my amendments, I remain extremely unconvinced.
It seemed to me that the noble Baroness's reference to international peace and the UN does not deal with the situation of a civil war. I can imagine several situations in several countries where it would be better were an amnesty to be announced and the past forgotten in order to end a conflict. I can think of the very obvious example of Colombia. The most terrible things are happening in Colombia and yet negotiations are taking place between two groups of people. The most terrible crimes have been committed on at least two sides, if not on three sides. Would it not be much better if there were an amnesty and the conflict were ended? No good would come from outside agencies deciding to intervene; deciding to haul people before some international court.
I accept some of the points which the noble Baroness made about my amendment relating to Northern Ireland. The noble Baroness can play with words and she can say that things mean what she wants them to mean. She shakes her head but she has no justification in logic. The fact is that in the name of politics we have set aside the due process of law in order to achieve a political settlement. We are so high and mighty that we think we can deny that to other countries but we do it to ourselves. That is the flaw in this whole international court: its inflexibility will apply only to the weak, to the small. When it comes to the large and powerful country, it will not apply to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said the other day, the defendants brought before the ICC will be,
"from countries with no superpower support".
That is the real difference.
When we want the court to be flexible, when it has to be flexible, it will be made flexible. But when there are little countries to be bullied and we can go round meddling in the name of justice, with support from the NGOs, then we shall interfere anywhere, even that means that a civil war will last longer and lives will be lost as a result.
I am afraid that I was totally unpersuaded by the noble Baroness's attempt to say that what has happened in Northern Ireland does not fall within the definition of genocide. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group plainly falls within that definition.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does the noble Lord not think that the whole point of the International
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Criminal Court is to deter atrocities of the kind which have been committed in Colombia? If the ICC had been in operation all those years, perhaps the atrocities that have occurred in that unhappy country would have been mitigated.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I fear that that is unrealistic. The financial gain that is at stake in Colombia is so immense that I fear that that is wishful thinking. I disagree with the point which the noble Lord is making and has made before; namely, that somehow the ICC will deter things that have happened in the past from happening in the future. I see no reason why that should be the case. It may be that a few dictators will travel rather less than they have travelled before but they will be less likely to stand down. We shall not find Fidel Castro taking a country house in Andalucia, which might be the best of all possible worlds.
I am not persuaded by what the noble Baroness said and I should like to test the opinion of the House on Amendment No. 4.
8.14 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 30; Not-Contents, 88.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Kingsland, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Lamont of Lerwick. L. [Teller]

Attlee, E.

Lyell. L.

Bridgeman, V.

Monson, L.

Buscombe, B.

Montrose, D.

Byford, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne. L.

Colwyn, L.

Newton of Braintree, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Northbrook, L.

Dixon-Smith. L.

Northesk, E.[Teller]

Dundee, E.

Onslow, E.

Fookes, B.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Geddes, L.

Renton, L.

Glentoran, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Henley, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Howell of Guildford, L.

Tebbit, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Carter, L.[Teller]

Addington, L.

Chandos, V.

Amos, B.

Clement-Jones, L.

Andrews, B.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Avebury, L.

Davies of Oldham, L.

Barker, B.

Desai, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Dubs, L.

Berkeley, L.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Billingham, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Blackstone, B.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Borrie, L.

Filkin, L.

Bradshaw, L.

Fyfe of Fairfield, L.

Brennan, L.

Gale, B.

Brett, L.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Goldsmith, L.

Brookman, L.

Goodhart, L.

Burlison, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

387

Greaves, L.

Northover, B.

Grenfell. L.

Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, L.

Hamwee, B.

Phillips of Sudbury, L.

Hardy of Wath, L.

Puttnam, L.

Harris of Haringey, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Haskel, L.

Russell, E.

Hayman, B.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Scott of Needham Market, B.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Simon, V.

Hoyle, L.

Smith or Clifton, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Chanceller)

Thomas of Gresford, L.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Thornton, B.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Tomlinson, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Turnberg, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

[Teller]

Walker of Doncaster, L.

McIntosh of Hudnall, B.

Warner, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Whitaker, B.

Maddock, B.

Whitty, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Wilkins, B.

Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Mitchell, L.

Winston, L.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 not moved.]
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned. In moving the Motion, I suggest that the Report stage begin again not before 9.20 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Rail Electrification
8.24 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw Lord Bradshaw rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the possibility of a world shortage of oil should influence strategic plans for the electrification of a greater part of the railway system.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, before speaking I must declare my interests as a member of the Strategic Rail Authority and of the Commission for Integrated Transport. Neither body has been involved in any way in preparing what I have to say. As my membership of those bodies and my membership of your Lordships' House has from time to time been a matter of contention with officials, I have informed the Minister and the chairmen of both bodies of my intention not to seek reappointment to the SRA in June when my appointment expires, and to resign from the Commission for Integrated Transport at the same time. I have always observed the Addison rules assiduously and I do not want to embarrass either chairman for whom I have the greatest respect.
I put forward tonight's Unstarred Question for debate at the time of the fuel crisis last year. At that time, it became evident that if oil fell into short supply, industry, commerce and personal journeys would quickly become adversely affected.
I do not intend to revisit the fuel crisis. It may be that the Government, through robust action, would have been able to stabilise the situation at least by directing available oil supplies to priority users so that the country would not have ground to a halt. I sincerely hope that that would have been the case because I have no desire to see the government of the country subverted by those who would use non-democratic means to achieve their ends.
The fuel crisis gave us the opportunity to consider how dependent our transport systems—road, rail and air—are upon oil. It also called to mind a conference that I attended in the late 1970s which included representatives of major oil companies, where the possibility of what they called a geo-political accident in a major oil producing area—presumably the Middle East—would destabilise world oil supplies. We have since experienced the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Middle East remains vulnerable to political destabilisation, as do other oil-producing areas, and OPEC has the potential of any cartel to exert great pressure upon dependent consumers.
My object tonight is to consider, and to invite the Government to consider, the strategic implications of a sustained world shortage of oil and particularly the implications of that for Britain. I want to focus on the part that an electrified railway system might have in mitigating those effects.
Only 38 per cent of the British railway network is electrified. In the 1999 Network Management Statement, Railtrack forecast that that is likely to grow by very little over the next 10 years. Meanwhile in Europe, where we face great competitive pressure, France has 45 per cent of the network wired up, Germany 49 per cent, Italy 65 per cent, Holland 73 per cent, Belgium 74 per cent and Switzerland 100 per cent.
Apart from the fact that a small part of our railway network is electrified, we have seen a tendency for new investment not to use the potential of that part of the system which is so equipped. Almost all new freight locomotives are diesels. The Virgin hid for the East Coast Main Line franchise includes the use of powerful diesel trains. New trains used by Anglia Railways between London and Norwich—a wholly electrified line—are diesels. So in considering whether an electrified railway has a significant role to play in providing an alternative to the use of oil as a fuel, we must consider the provision of new rolling stock as well as the infrastructure.
In 1980, when I worked for the British Railways Board, the Department of Transport and the board published a review of the case for main line electrification. That concluded that a substantial programme of main line electrification would be financially worth while, with all the larger options showing an internal rate of return of about 11 per cent. Those forecasts were based on traffic predictions well below those considered likely at the time.
That review proposed that a large fast option be adopted to be completed over 20 years. It included the East Coast Main Line as far as Edinburgh and

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Aberdeen; a trans-Pennine route, a cross-country route between York and Bristol and to Reading and most of the Great Western Main Line. Of that only the East Coast Main Line has been completed as far as Edinburgh.
In addition, small extensions to electrification have been made around Birmingham and Leeds. The review suggested that up to 80 per cent of passenger and 70 per cent of freight would be electrically hauled. Part of the proposition was that three or four teams should be assembled to carry out a continuing work programme over 20 years. Industry would equip itself and train people to carry out the work.
That programme was not adopted, and very recently Roger Ford, a pre-eminent commentator on railway affairs, wrote in Modern Railways,
"Electrification is off the SRA's agenda".
He went on:
"In 21st century Britain, extension of railway electrification is both difficult to implement and hard to pay for and in no one's commercial interest".
He goes on to explain the fact that Railtrack would have to pay compensation for the disruption caused while the work progressed and that rolling stock leasing companies would rather build versatile "go anywhere" diesel trains than electric trains, which are more limited in their deployment capability.
Roger Ford goes on to quote from the reply to a letter sent to the SRA asking about the prospects for electrification. The reply states that,
"future electrification is likely to depend on comparative prices of energy and maintenance costs".
In that case, Mr Ford concludes, that the strategic case for the extension of electrification is weak.
Investors, be they private investors or those spending public money, work within the constraint of earning a return on their investment over a relatively short time-scale. They use financial discount rates which place great emphasis on the short term. Where social benefits are involved, these must be clearly identified and costed. Where the benefit is uncertain and strategic in nature, such as defending the nation from the effects of an oil crisis, the benefits are such that they cannot be accommodated within our present systems of financial appraisal.
We now come to the nub of the argument and the reason for tonight's debate. If as a country we are prepared to spend large sums of money under our military budget to secure our oil supplies, surely there is an argument for spending a very small proportion of this money in providing for a largely electric railway which would offer an alternative means of transport to many people and to freight users if oil suddenly became short.
If the Strategic Rail Authority were told to prepare with Railtrack, the train operators, and the rolling stock companies a 20-year programme of electrification and to build that into the franchise programme, the issue to be addressed is the cost that
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would be added to the modernisation which is in prospect already. To put that clearly: what costs would arise over and above those of a mainly diesel railway?
This extra money is, in effect, a strategic supplement. We ought to know what it is and whether it is a premium we are prepared as a country to pay to defend ourselves—in part—from the effect of an oil shortage.
My purpose tonight is to ask the Government to ask the SRA what amount of money is involved and to ask themselves, in a strategic sense, whether this premium would be worth paying. I do not know whether it is, but I am sure that it would be a fraction of our defence budget. In preparing for tonight's debate, I tried hard to discover the cost of maintaining the no-fly zones in Iraq. I can assure your Lordships that it is very high, but several Questions tabled by honourable Members in another place have failed to produce a figure to put before the House tonight.
I believe that it would cost little to find out the answer to my question from within the railways. I believe that government, as they are responsible for the defence of the realm, ought to know and ought to give serious consideration to the issue.
8.35 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on securing tonight's debate. I agree with a great deal of what he said. He comes to the subject with a distinguished record of having run a substantial part of the publicly owned railway in the 1980s at the same time as I had a modest role as an adviser to the British Railways Board. Therefore, it is not surprising that he and I are at one on the issue of railway electrification.
Railway electrification and the way in which it has been handled by successive governments is a topic which demonstrates more clearly than any other what were first the weaknesses of public ownership and are now the failures of privatisation. The reason for that is because of the refusal to look beyond the very short term. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred to the review of main line electrification, which was produced jointly by the Department of Transport and the British Railways Board and submitted to Sir Norman Fowler, then Secretary of State for Transport, and to Peter Parker, chairman of BR, in 1981.
Had the review's conclusions been accepted then, and the work started in 1981, we could by last year have had 7,710 track miles and 3,410 route miles electrified, with all the principal main lines in England, Wales and Scotland served by electric trains. Towns and cities as far apart as Penzance, Swansea, Holyhead, Hull and Aberdeen would have benefited from being on an electrified InterCity network.
Furthermore, even on the most cautious assumptions about passenger and freight growth, such a programme would have produced an internal rate of return of 11.1 per cent and a net present value surplus of £255 million on 1978 money values and a 7 per cent discount rate.

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The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, rightly drew attention to the dangers of the economy being heavily dependent on oil and the joint review calculated that with 80 per cent of passenger and 70 per cent of freight trains electrically hauled, 120 million gallons of oil a year would be saved.
In addition, an electrified railway is cleaner, quieter and safer. It is cheaper to maintain. Had the programme proceeded through the 1980s and 1990s, we would also have retained an indigenous railway manufacturing industry in the UK, with substantial orders for suppliers in both the private and public sectors, and the prospect of competing successfully for overseas electrification work. As it is, virtually no industry of that kind remains.
So why did it not happen? The answer is because the British Railways Board was unable to get anything that resembled long-term planning agreed by the Treasury. The mandarins looked at the electrification review and saw that the pay-back years were well into the future—20 years or more after the programme started.
That kind of consideration did not deter the great railway pioneers of the 19th century who were willing to plan a generation ahead. Nor did it apply to the state railways of continental Europe, such as those in France, Germany and Italy, all of which electrified in the 1950s and 1960s and have invested significantly in the decades subsequently, while our investment has stagnated.
All we got in the 1980s was piece-meal electrification, such as the East Coast Main Line as far as Edinburgh, plus some suburban commuter services, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred. Virtually nothing happened in the 1990s as the industry was being prepared for privatisation and when six months ahead seemed a dangerously long time to plan.
So the wires have not gone beyond Bedford on the Midland Main Line; there are no electric services out of Paddington, except the Heathrow Express; and there are numerous gaps in the network where either it is necessary to change from electric traction to diesel and back to electric again, or—and this is happening increasingly—running diesel trains under the electric wires.
Short-termism has bedevilled railway planning for as long as I was associated with the industry and it really must not go on any longer. But with privatisation it has become much worse. No company with a franchise of seven years or less will be interested in an investment whose payback cannot be achieved until long after the franchise has expired.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, quoted Roger Ford's article in the current edition of Modern Railways. Sadly, I must agree that both he and Mr Ford are correct. I should like to think that if the Strategic Rail Authority plans to offer franchises of 20 years or more, electrification can go back on the agenda. But is the SRA promoting electrification? According to Mr Ford, no. He relates what happened when one of his friends asked the SRA about the
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prospects. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred to that. Perhaps I may refer to a further passage. Roger Ford states:
"The SRA claims that diesel trains have recently proved more reliable than electric".
Mr Ford says,
"Good grief",
and then explains in some detail how much more reliable are electric than diesel trains, pointing out as an example that the Heathrow Express runs an average of 80,000 miles per breakdown compared with 4,500 to 5,000 miles for a diesel Turbostar.
I hope that the SRA will study the report of this debate and come to the view that if it is to make a reality of the word "Strategic" in its title electrification must be part of that strategy.
8.41 p.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, I am also grateful to my noble friend for tabling this Question which I believe to be of strategic importance to the enhancement and sustainable development of our railway network and its preparation for the future. As usual, I shall speak from a Scottish perspective and a lifelong interest in railway operation. Scotland has electrified railways in the south: the East and West Coast Main Lines. These enable one to travel from Carlisle to Berwick via Glasgow, Carstairs and Edinburgh. There are also the former Blue Train routes within the area of the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive. Nor should one forget the North Berwick branch line.
It is clear that electrification is an expensive process and that prioritisation is necessary. With that in mind, I hope that the DETR and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, agree that the order of priority for electrification in Scotland is to begin with the Aberdeen line, which has always been a long and hard route. GNER, Scotrail Sleepers and Virgin run very long distance diesel trains of increasing age, from the south of England to Aberdeen. Those services are subject to late arrivals due to the length of route.
Follow that with the Edinburgh to Glasgow route via Falkirk High. That route, which is run by Scotrail National Express, now enjoys a quarter-hourly service using a mixture of new class 170 Turbostars and more elderly class 158s. I believe that that appropriately intensive service over the 44 miles between the two cities is well within the threshold for electrification on the grounds of diesel fuel use alone. To maintain the quarter-hourly service requires at least eight trains to be in motion at any one time. As each carriage is self-propelled the fuel consumption must be unacceptably very high.
After those two, I recommend the electrification of the Glasgow-Perth-Dundee route. I recognise that electrification, with all its momentary disruption and cost, will be unattractive in a free market setting at any one moment. It is unlikely to be attractive until the price differential between electricity and diesel fuel has widened substantially. Surely, that is the point of government taking upon themselves the opportunity

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to intervene in the privatised rail industry. The Strategic Rail Authority should be instructed to develop a presumption in favour of electrification and to follow that by making available investment plans to fulfil that strategic objective. It would mean that for Scotland all the principal Anglo-Scottish services would be modernised and the intensive intercity service in the central belt would be more environmentally sustainable.
I conclude by acknowledging that I have ignored the Highland main line. The railway to Inverness must be prioritised, albeit lower down the list. There are but two Anglo-Scottish trains on that line, one day and one sleeper. But I draw attention to the oil and gas exploration which is beginning to develop in the Atlantic around the Hebrides and west of Orkney and Shetland. I am impressed by the efforts of the Scrabster Harbour Board, chaired admirably by Viscount Thurso, to prepare its harbour to serve the future eastern Atlantic oil and gas fields.
I believe that the Highland main line and the far north line, albeit unwired, must be ready to handle the freight traffic in this connection. It would be tragic if one experienced something similar to the loss of the Buchan line, which denied Peterhead what should have been a very strategic rail link. To go back to my noble friend's Question, such potential traffic must not be threatened by a shortage of traction fuel. An electrified railway must be as complete a network as possible. The recent loss of the East Coast Main Line at Selby has caused a diversion via the Leeds line, which is not electrified. A complete network is one in which there is no need to change trains or mode of traction and through working is as available as practical.
8.46 p.m.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on tabling this debate which is a fitting end (if I may say so) to his period with the Strategic Rail Authority, encouraging that body to look strategically. Listening to that speech and to that of my noble friend Lord Faulkner, one begins to believe that if they had been running the railways for the past 20 years, the railways would not be in their present state. But we are where we are. I believe that the argument for electrification advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is very persuasive, provided there is a secure supply. That is the subject on which I want to focus.
I welcome electrification for passenger services. In declaring an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group, I also welcome it for freight if there is 100 per cent coverage, as in Switzerland, as the noble Lord pointed out. Half and half is not a very good thing. The problem is whether, if an oil crisis arises, electricity will be in plentiful supply. Sadly, the days when we burnt British coal to keep our electric trains running are over.
The 22nd report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, entitled Energy—The Changing Climate, provides some interesting forecasts
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about the UK's energy consumption and resources in 2010. I give them in ascending percentages: renewables, 4 per cent; nuclear, 6 per cent; coal, 10 per cent; oil, 30 per cent; and natural gas, 40 per cent. Let us consider how much of these sources of energy are imported and from where. Obviously, renewables and nuclear are UK-based. Some coal still comes from the UK, but not very much. A good deal of coal is imported, but often from politically stable countries. Most of our oil is imported from countries that are not very stable. Not much of the 40 per cent of natural gas is imported, but that will increase in future.
Paragraph 377 of the report, Electricity from Renewables, from the Select Committee on the European Communities states that there is evidence from Climate Network Europe to suggest that by 2020 70 per cent of the EU's energy requirements will be imported. Much of that will be gas from Algeria and from east of the Black Sea which is supplied by Russia. If one wished, one could comment on the political stability of those countries.
Electricity is being generated in increasing volume from gas, much of which in future will come from abroad. I am concerned about whether the supply of fuel for electricity for trains will be much more reliable than that of oil fuel for trains. If there was a secure electricity supply the position could be different. Noble Lords will recall that for many years London Underground generated its own electricity at Lotts Road. I do not believe that it still does so. Could the railways themselves do it today?
In the past few weeks Questions have been asked in your Lordships' House about renewables. Government policy is very much to encourage renewables. One wonders whether Railtrack can take a lead in encouraging the development of renewable energy, be it windmills offshore, solar energy or other sources, to assist in providing a stable supply. It could even mean encouragement of local production and delivery. I do not suggest that 100 per cent would need to come from there, but it would encourage renewables and give some long-term strategic thinking to the electrification programme. It might cost a little more, but it would certainly be a useful element in two long-term government strategies: first, to ensure transport in this country in the event of an emergency, lack of oil supplies and possibly lack of gas supplies; and, secondly, to encourage the development of renewables.
Given such a secure supply, a wide network of electrification would be highly desirable. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, if it took 20 years to complete, that would fit in quite well with some of the longer passenger franchises that one understands the Strategic Rail Authority is thinking of awarding. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. I support the noble Lord's idea that the SRA should be asked to start work on this now. I should like to see it linked to a renewables programme so that when the railways are electrified, we have a secure supply of electricity, at least for the trains.
8.51 p.m.
Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bradshaw for initiating the debate. He started the debate on the basis of the oil shortage. Other noble Lords have referred to cleanliness and reliability. Reference has been made to the different position in other countries and to the 100 per cent electrification in Switzerland.
My noble friend Lord Bradshaw asks for strategic plans. I wonder whether the Strategic Rail Authority is able to he strategic in these matters when we have the particular way in which passenger rail was privatised, with the leasing of rolling stock in a certain set of hands, operating companies in another and the almighty Railtrack as another pair of hands. How can there be a strategic intervention? I hope that the Government, after four years in office, can find a way through that because I do not believe that there has been an initiative on electrification in that period.
Being strategic is one matter. The electrification of the main line from Paddington to the West Country and South Wales, the Midland line north of Bedford to the East Midlands and to Sheffield and beyond and the electrification between York and Bristol, the cross-country route, is certainly strategic.
Operating by stealth is another way forward. It occurs to me—a matter mentioned by my noble friend Lord Mar and Kellie—that the electrification between Glasgow and Edinburgh would mean an alternative electrified route. We have the electrified route between Liverpool Street and Norwich. Were that to be extended by stealth to Great Yarmouth there would be fewer trains under the wire. It would be the same position between Preston and Blackpool. To electrify the line from Manchester to Liverpool by stealth would be another short line that would increase the amount of railway with electrified wires.
If one could electrify between Liverpool and Manchester, one could soon electrify and link up over the Pennines, and similarly to Hull. One would then have a trans-Pennines route.
One of the most interesting matters of late is that we have learned of the village of Heck. Most people had not heard of that village until a few days ago. We find that twice this year in that area—first, through floods and, secondly, through the tragic accident—trains have not been able to operate between Doncaster and York. Indeed, as we speak, there are buses flying around between Doncaster and York.
There would still be through trains between King's Cross and Newcastle and Edinburgh if the line between Leeds and York—a short 20 miles or so—were electrified. That would make a huge difference. I am in favour—yes, I am in favour—of a strategic plan of electrification. But if we cannot have that, can we have electrification by stealth so that there is still forward movement and the whole technique and possibility of how electrification is done is not lost? Furthermore, teams of people who know how to electrify a railway will be kept together.
8.56 p.m.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, this particular journey started off almost an hour late. The noble Lords dealing with the International Criminal Court Bill are queuing up behind us, but we have kept to time.
It is in the nature of all governments to find that long, medium and short-term all actually kaleidoscope into "When is the next election?" Even that relatively short horizon tends to be blurred much of the time by unforeseen events and even crises from time to time.
One matter that I much appreciate as a new Member of your Lordships' House is the opportunity sometimes to step back from that kind of political fray and take a look into the longer horizon.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Bradshaw on initiating the debate today. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to his work on the Strategic: Rail Authority. I have enjoyed other noble Lords' contributions. I have learned a great deal from noble Lords who have spent many years in the rail industry and have much practical experience.
At this early stage, I wish to record my support for the 10-year plan approach adopted by the Government. Ten years represents the medium term in transport planning. It is a marked improvement on the kind of short-termism of which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, spoke with such passion. Along with the multi-modal studies and the development of regional transport strategies, we begin to get a feeling of some significant improvement in our long-term strategic planning. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, we really should be looking at a 20-year strategy for the railway—to look at what new financial mechanisms are needed, to appraise what is required and to work out how the costs can be met.
The fuel crisis last autumn took us all by surprise: first, because we have got out of the habit of having our lives disrupted by that kind of industrial reaction; and, secondly, because the resultant fuel shortages showed us how we have become so dependent on readily available supplies of petrol and diesel. We cannot rule out such an event happening again; neither can we entirely discount the possibility of geo-political upheaval in the Middle East. That might create world shortages of oil. We all know that oil is a finite resource and should not be regarded in the long term as the underpinning source of energy in our economy. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, reminded us of the extremely complex way in which our energy needs are met. Indeed, he reminded us about the need for a more robust strategy in relation to renewable energy.
During the mercifully short fuel crisis, there was some evidence of changing behaviour on the part of motorists, not least a rapid rise in the number of people travelling by rail. Unfortunately, the terrible accident at Hatfield a few weeks later led to a rapid reversal in that trend, as services descended into chaos. But worse in the long term was the loss of confidence in the railway system on the part of the travelling public.

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There are many reasons why people choose to travel other than by rail, but safety should not be one of them. Despite the terrible events at Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield and now Selby, rail travel is still far safer than road travel. The tragedies of recent years will be much compounded if people use them as a reason to switch to a more unsafe way of travelling.
It is beyond the scope of this debate to talk about what needs to be done to rebuild confidence and how the railway industry might be structured in the future. My noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland has shown us how investment in rail infrastructure has in some ways been damaged by the fragmentation of the rail industry in recent years.
I want to speak briefly about my own home region of East Anglia and the rail network that we have at present. Anyone who visits East Anglia will know that at the moment our rail links run almost entirely north/south. That is possibly on the assumption that London would be the only place that anyone would want to go to or get away from. Part of the debate on English regionalism should centre on the need for transport links between regions that are not dependent on travel through London. A more equitable and sustainable pattern of jobs and wealth creation depends on strengthening regions beyond London and the South East.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, referred to places across the country that might have benefited from an earlier investment in electrified lines. My noble friend Lord Mar and Kellie enlightened us—he rather tested our geography—on the needs of the rail network in Scotland. In Suffolk we are fortunate to be the home of the Port of Felixstowe, one of the world's largest container ports and a major employer in the area. It currently handles some 2.7 million units, of which 22 per cent travel by rail. The port has impressive plans for expansion and is keen to increase rail use as part of that process. The current levels of congestion on the A.14 at Cambridge and the A.12 at Chelmsford make it difficult to imagine how that increase might take place on the roads. Significant investment in the rail infrastructure is needed to relieve the congestion on the trunk roads and to take some of the pressure off the rail lines to the north and east of London. In February the SRA announced plans to upgrade the route from Felixstowe to the West Coast Main Line via Peterborough and Leicester. That will provide an alternative route to the West Midlands, the North West and Scotland.
As far as concerns passenger travel, many of the same issues apply. We urgently need investment in the east/west link, which would recreate the link between Bedford and Sandy, and link into the East Coast Main Line. That would mean that people from the east of England could travel to Oxford and beyond, to the West Midlands or to Scotland without having to travel to London. We are also looking forward to the CrossRail links across London to prevent the current situation where it can take as long to transfer between stations in London as the original journey from
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Suffolk. The completion of the Channel Tunnel rail link, with an interchange at Stratford, would provide us with useful rail links.
I have spoken about the East Anglian links, but those points could apply equally apply to any of the regions of our country. The case has been made, and certainly the transport Mafia of your Lordships' House is in agreement. So I think that now we should be looking forward to the action.
9.2 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for introducing this Unstarred Question. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, regarding the timing of the debate, I think that the noble Baroness the Government Whip passed a signal at danger. I am sad that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has relinquished some of his responsibilities.
With the experience on display in your Lordships' House, I hesitate to contribute to the debate. One asks: what is the motivation for electrification of the railways? Electric traction is simple, reliable and enjoys low maintenance. Therefore, it is very attractive. The disadvantage is the high initial infrastructure cost and possibly the risk of electrocution of rail workers, trespassers and suicides. The past difficulty has been with the Treasury. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, raised that point during his interesting speech. I have some fears for the 10-year plan. If we hit a recession, the 10-year plan might experience some difficulties.
I was surprised by what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said about the new build of diesel-powered passenger rolling stock. He went on to explain some of the reasons for that. The noble Lord and others mentioned the flexibility of diesel traction. One of the difficulties of electric traction is that we have two systems. We have the low-voltage third rail system, which is particularly used on the Brighton line, and the high-voltage overhead line system. Therefore, we have something of a flexibility problem with the electric traction system.
Privatisation has meant that these decisions are much more a matter for the rail industry and the SRA. We have moved a little away from the influence of the Treasury. I hope that the industry will take a long-term view of the strategic advantages of electric traction and take note of the suggestions made by noble Lords in the debate today. However, we must recognise that many remote and regional lines have only light traffic and low revenues. Diesel traction will always be better for them in the long-run.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made a wider point. At some time in the future, fossil fuels will run out and liquid and gaseous fuels will run out earlier. When that occurs the cost of the fuel will increase. However, in terms of supply, I suggest that the railway industry will be insulated. It will be the last to feel the pinch. The Government also have the necessary powers to make sure that the railway industry has fuel.

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It is clear that electric traction is best for the environment but it is not always possible. We must remember that the electricity has to be generated. We know that coal is dirty. If it is deep-mined in the UK, it is recovered at great personal risk. Gas is clean but there are limited supplies and, unfortunately, gas-powered generation has been limited by the Government's moratorium. More importantly, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, there are worries about the security of supply.
Renewables also have their problems. We are experiencing difficulty in meeting our existing targets for renewables. Most importantly, the absolute capacity of renewables is limited. Renewables are very nice but they are not the answer. One source of power remains. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, momentarily and carefully touched on it. I refer to nuclear power. There are obvious difficulties. There is the problem of safety of operation and the potentially greater problem of the disposal of the nuclear waste. The Government are not addressing that problem.
Noble Lords will be aware that the Science and Technology Select Committee of your Lordships' House produced a report, The Management of Nuclear Waste, which was published in March 1999. The Government responded in October 1999. That response is best described as a holding document. Indeed, some noble Lords have described it as a non-response. We were told that a Green Paper would be published, but we have not yet seen it. I believe that this is another example of the Government's failure to deliver. When shall we see that Green Paper? Will the Minister be publishing the Green Paper on the management of nuclear waste before or after the general election?
Does the Minister agree that already we have a considerable amount of nuclear waste that needs to be stored for the long term, and that the industry needs to know what the policy will be? It needs to know the way ahead. Why is the Minister unable to reach a decision and to promulgate it?
Does the Minister believe that we can meet our Kyoto targets and keep to those limits in the future without new build of nuclear power? In asking that question, I am being careful not to advocate whether we should or should not do so. The question merely addresses whether we can meet and keep to our Kyoto targets.
In conclusion, the availability of fuel for our transport is an important issue which will not go away. It will get worse. There are practical difficulties and limits on how much of the railway can be electrified. I believe this to be principally, but not exclusively, a matter for the SRA and the industry. They should pursue the best option.
9.9 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for initiating this interesting debate. I appreciate all his work on behalf of the
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Strategic Rail Authority and in serving on the Commission for Integrated Transport, along with his continuing contribution in this House to issues such as the one before us tonight.
I have to say that, until the latest remarks that we have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, I had regarded the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and myself as part of the transport mafia in the House of Lords. However, I believe that he and I dissent slightly from what is the overwhelming view of most of the other contributors to the debate. My task tonight is to introduce an element of caution to the widely expressed enthusiasm for electrification.
First, the premise of this debate relates to the possibility of a world shortage of oil. The International Energy Agency produces an energy outlook, the latest of which forecasts the position until 2025. That may not be quite as far as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, wishes us to look, but nevertheless that is a fair way ahead. The agency does not envisage any shortages in reserves of crude oil over that period.
However, I recognise that there are geo-political accidents, to which the noble Lord referred. That includes political decisions and other forms of disruption and, of course, uncertainty about future prices. The objective of the Government is to try to ensure a balance of fuel supplies in order to offset such future eventualities. However, as my noble friend Lord Berkeley pointed out, other sources of energy in terms of electricity generation are also vulnerable to potential disruption. If we consider gas supplies which, by 2025, will certainly come from Russia, Iran and Algeria, they could well be subject to a degree of instability. Oil supplies from the Middle East could equally be subject to instability. That may not be the same for oil supplies corning from Aberdeen, but we shall see.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred to nuclear generation. There are, of course, deep uncertainties as regards world attitudes towards nuclear energy. The noble Earl has pressed me to reply to his questions. I understand the anxieties felt in certain parts of this House as regards the Select Committee and decisions to be reached on the publication of the Green Paper on the disposal of nuclear waste. I respect those concerns, but we are dealing with a decision which relates to the problems surrounding disposal of nuclear waste which will become acute in around 50 years' time. Furthermore, the material concerned has a half life of several million years. In that context, I think that a delay of the odd month or two in a response to the concerns of noble Lords—
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am referring to delays amounting to the odd year or two rather than the odd month or two.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I believe that I have made my point. Whether the Green Paper will be published before or after a putative election, of which the noble Earl seems to know more than I do, is not for me tonight.

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We must address the strategic problems of the future of the rail industry. The noble Lord rightly referred to the shambolic structure of the rail industry that we inherited and to the need to tighten it. The Strategic Rail Authority is central to that role. As part of its objectives, it must focus on the achievement of sustainable development. Having said that, it is not a necessary consequence that it should adopt a doctrinaire position on electrification in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and my noble friend Lord Faulkner.
Electric traction has some clear benefits, such as cleanliness, acceleration and maximum speed. It also has downsides, such as visual intrusion, the environmental impacts of the sources of electricity generation and, of course, cost-effectiveness, which feeds back into fuel efficiency. Ultimately, our concern is that we have the right mix of fuels all the way down the production line.
In regard to environmental issues, if we look, as of now, at the relative benefits of diesel traction as against electric traction, there is relatively little to choose between the most up-to-date and latest diesel trains and the electricity traction's share of power station emissions in terms of the current mixer fuels and the potential mixer fuels over the next 20 years. Improved technology and design mean that the new generation of diesel engines is significantly cleaner and quieter than the stock being replaced. Diesel traction does not face the huge fixed costs of gantries and electrical power supply.
Nevertheless, the Government recognise that there are environmental issues to be addressed in the same way as for other modes of transport. How we move to a low carbon economy in the long term will involve serious decisions on our transport system. Later this year we will issue a consultation paper, Powering Future Vehicles. This will focus on advanced battery technologies, hybrid vehicles and fuel cells. It will be mainly concerned with road transport, but these technologies will have a broader applicability across the transport sector in terms of rail and beyond. The Chancellor's statement yesterday on the green fuels challenge will provide the context for encouraging pilot projects to develop future fuels.
In this context, the environmental balance between electric traction and diesel traction is not self-evidently in favour of electricity in all circumstances. It is not the case, as my noble friend Lord Faulkner suggested, that we should always opt for electricity wherever we can. That does not mean that we are adopting a short-termism approach. The creation of the SRA, longer franchises and the 10-year plan for transport are designed to avoid short-term decisions. However, electrification proposals would need to be assessed in a way which reflected the long-term life of the assets and would need to take into account long-term environmental sustainability issues. The framework is
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there for the SRA to take such decisions, but it has to take a view on electrification proposals in the same way as on anything else.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, does the Minister accept that issues such as residual value have to be taken into account? That would require the Government giving consent, as they have to, for the SRA to allow residual values to be taken into account in letting franchises. As demonstrated in Switzerland, the benefit of electric assets lasts for about 60 years. That is much, much longer than diesel.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, without necessarily accepting those figures, clearly, as I said earlier, we should consider whole life value, whole life carbon content and whole life sustainability in the approach we adopt. I accept that.
My noble friend Lord Faulkner also referred to particular places—Penzance, North Wales and so on—which would have benefited from BR's electrification plans had they gone forward in the 1980s and beyond. I accept some of that, but we must not overlook the improvements which are shortly to be delivered, for example, on Virgin's cross-country routes, where new diesel trains will improve journey times substantially.
Of course there is concern about the reliability of some new trains, both diesel and electric. The disruption which can be caused in a particular place—whether by a tragic accident or anything else—is a real problem. However, electrifying lines does not increase the flexibility for dealing with such disruptions because electric stock can be used only on electrified lines. There is a difficulty caused by having a half and half situation, which is bound to prevail for at least a substantial period ahead even were we to adopt the noble Lord's preference for electrification over the longer term.
The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, referred to access to Felixstowe. We are committed to improving access to Felixstowe. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, referred to electrification more generally by stealth. It is quite difficult to do anything by stealth in the railway industry. He referred to the lines from Manchester to Liverpool and from Leeds to York. My noble friend Lady Farrington was particularly interested in the Preston to Blackpool line, for which she expressed some enthusiasm. I agree that access to Blackpool should definitely be improved. Whether electrification in those circumstances is appropriate would need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. It is important that some of those lines are upgraded, both for their own traffic and as alternatives to other main line routes.
The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, referred to the situation in Scotland, in particular to the routes between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and the Edinburgh to Glasgow line.
The Government—and this is also reflected in Scotland—believe that passengers are more concerned about punctual, reliable, clean and comfortable trains than about the form of traction that is actually pulling

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them. That is illustrated by the recent introduction of turbo-style trains between Glasgow and Edinburgh, which has significantly increased demand. In the not too distant future, the replacement for the Scottish passenger franchise will provide an opportunity for delivering further reduced journey times, increased reliability and frequencies, as well as wider journey opportunities. Whether some of those bids include electrification will be a matter that the SRA and the franchise director will have to consider at that point.
Tonight's debate has shown that, although there is some enthusiasm for electrification—electrification, even in my position, will undoubtedly represent value for money in particular cases—the case for large-scale, general electrification is not self-evidently clear. I accept that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is right in that had we gone forward with electrification in 1980, we would he reaping the benefits now. However, as my noble friend Lord Berkeley said, "We are where we are". I cannot argue with that.
If we take a look ahead from this point, it is not necessarily the case that in all circumstances electrification is a sensible measure. In many cases, in any assessment regarding the environment and costs, diesel traction with the improved environmental effects of diesel trains and improved fuel efficiency will continue to be better. We need to consider these cases on their merits. I welcome the interest shown by noble Lords in this debate, which will undoubtedly be conveyed one way or another to the SRA for its consideration.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, using that well-developed art called "hindsight", can the noble Lord say whether the previous government were, therefore, correct not to spend all the money required to electrify the western region?
Lord Whitty: No, my Lords. As I said, had we gone forward with electrification in 1980, as advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, we would undoubtedly be reaping the benefits now. The stock and the infrastructure would be in place, and further forward investment in electrification would, therefore, be achieved at relatively marginal cost. At that point, the environmental benefit of electricity was dramatically better than the environmental impact of diesel. The situation is much more marginal now. The decisions to be taken now are different in cost terms, because the relativity has improved in favour of diesel by about 25 per cent over those 20 years. If we had that infrastructure in place, we would not have to engage in a substantial infrastructure investment to produce an electric railway, and we would clearly be benefiting from it now.
Therefore, the Strategic Rail Authority has to take a view on what is the most beneficial form of investment as from now, given the infrastructure and the rolling stock that we inherited. Those decisions are now more finely balanced between diesel and electric. In many cases, the immediate decision will be in favour of diesel. However, we need to look at these matters on a case-by-case basis, especially for short stretches of
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line of the kind to which the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, referred. We also need to consider areas where electric traction can provide a more flexible approach. I give way.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. If we are to adopt a piecemeal line-by-line approach, can he explain to us why other European railways have decided that a network approach, and a strategic decision to electrify large parts of their network, is the right way forward? For example, all the main lines in France are now almost entirely electrified, and more electrification is planned. Is it a case of them getting it wrong, while we are getting it right? Alternatively, are they getting it right and we are getting it wrong?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the SRA still has to make some very key decisions that will become more evident within the next few months, as it produces its strategic plan. It is not self-evidently clear that, starting from now, electrification of itself is a positive benefit. Over 50 per cent of France's railways and the whole of its high-speed lines are already electrified. Therefore, that system could be improved at relatively small marginal cost. However, we are not in the same situation.

International Criminal Court Bill [H.L.]
9.25 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Clause 3 [Request for provisional arrest]:
[Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, leave out line 40 and insert ("on the application by the procurator fiscal, which shall state—").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 9, I wish o speak also to Amendment No. 10. In Committee the Government were happy to accept Amendment No. 12 which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford. We did so because we believed, as dirt the noble Lord, that it was right that equivalent procedures for applying for a provisional arrest warrant should operate in Scotland and in England and Wales. We are grateful to the noble Lord and the Law Society of Scotland for noticing the original discrepancy.
On further reflection, however, we have, with regret, concluded that fully to meet that objective a further improvement of the wording of Clause 3(3) is required. As subsection (3) now stands, the role given to the procurator fiscal is not consistent with Scottish procedure and could give rise to practical difficulties. Nor is it consistent with the procedure in place for England and Wales under subsection (2).
Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 therefore would bring subsection (3) more closely in line with subsection (2). The procurator fiscal would state before the court, when applying for a provisional warrant, that the

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request has been made on grounds of urgency by the ICC for the arrest of a person, and that the person is in, or on his way, to Scotland. He would thus carry a similar procedural function to that performed by the constable before a court in England and Wales.
I do not believe that there is any difference in aim between the amendment made in Committee and the new wording the Government suggest. I therefore trust that it will receive the support of the House. I beg to move.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for these amendments with which obviously we agree and for accepting the amendment that I moved earlier. I suppose I could argue that if they had been accepted earlier that might have saved trouble. However, we are now where we want to be. Therefore, I record my gratitude that these amendments and changes have been made.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 2, line 44, leave out from beginning to second ("officer") in line 45 and insert ("an appropriate judicial").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 5 [Proceedings for delivery order]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 4, leave out line 14 and insert—
("(5A) Whether or not it makes a delivery order, the competent court may of its own motion, and shall on the application of the person arrested, determine—

(a) whether the person was lawfully arrested in pursuance of the warrant, and

(b) whether his rights have been respected.

(5B) In making a determination under subsection (5A) the court shall apply the principles which would be applied on an application for judicial review.
(6) If the court determines—").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 11, I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 17.
In Committee the Government agreed to reconsider the procedure set out in the Bill for determining whether a person's rights had been respected. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, argued that as the Bill stood it would not be open for the court to determine that a person's rights had been respected. He argued cogently that on an application for habeas corpus the court could only determine the legality of a person's detention, and he did not believe that there was sufficient provision for a determination with regard to the person's rights. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, also asked how allegations that a person's rights had not been respected might be brought before the court.
The Government have listened. Although there is already provision for this in Clause 5(6) and Clause 12(4)(b), we agree that the matter could be made clearer. We have accordingly tabled Amendments Nos. 11, 12 and 13 which I trust will sufficiently answer
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the noble Lords' concerns while at the same time maintaining a swift and effective delivery process unencumbered by allowing both full judicial review and habeas corpus applications.
Amendment No. 11 clarifies the procedure by which the courts are to make a determination of whether the person's rights have been respected. In making its determination the court is to apply the principles applied by the court upon an application for judicial review. If a determination is made that a person's rights have not been respected, or the person has not been lawfully arrested, it will notify the Secretary of State who will then notify the ICC.
Amendment No. 12 provides that the determination is to be made by way of a declaration in England and Wales or by a declarator in Scotland, and makes it clear that the competent court may not grant any other relief. Amendment No. 13 is a consequential amendment.
Amendment No. 17 is also a consequential amendment. It makes a minor amendment to Clause 12(4) so that in the event of an application for habeas corpus the higher court can make a declaration using the same procedure as the competent court, whether or not it decides to set aside the delivery order.
I hope that these amendments meet the concerns expressed in Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, the amendments meet all our concerns. They are well constructed. They are carefully tailored. They will ensure a proper dovetailing between the remedies that can be provided by the national court and what needs to be done with the International Criminal Court. We are gratified as well as grateful.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 12 and 13:
Page 4, line 17, at end insert—
("it shall make a declaration or declarator to that effect, but may not grant any other relief.
(6A)").
Page 4, line 19, leave out ("that fact") and insert ("any declaration or declarator under subsection (6)").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 7 [Consent to surrender]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 5, line 27, after ("bail") insert ("in England and Wales").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving the amendment, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 18, 23 and 24. We are grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for highlighting the issues.
As noble Lords will be aware, bail arrangements in Scotland differ in significant ways from practice in England and Wales. In particular there is no mechanism in Scottish practice or procedure for remand into the custody of a constable and no mechanism for the police to deal with a prisoner so remanded. Further, bail with a condition to surrender

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to a police station is not normal for a bail order in Scotland which in essence requires the accused to reappear in court.
For this reason, and after careful consideration, we have concluded that the provisions in Clause 7(5)(b) and Clause 13(5)(b) which provide for notification to be given to the officer in charge of the police station at which a person is required to surrender to custody should apply to England and Wales only. That is the purpose of Amendments Nos. 14 and 18.
The Scottish Executive has considered whether any alternative provision is required for Scotland but it has concluded, in view of the different bail arrangements operating there, that no such notification requirement is necessary. In view of the different bail arrangements pertaining to Scotland, we also consider that Clause 17, which essentially deals with various cases where a person on bail may be committed to the custody of a constable, should not apply to Scotland.
Amendment No. 23 would limit, therefore, the whole of Clause 17 to England and Wales. Amendment No. 24 is a consequential amendment only. These are technical amendments which, along with other changes proposed to Clause 16, are designed to bring the arrangements for bail fully into line with current practice in Scotland. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 11 [Procedure where court makes order]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 7, line 21, leave out ("in ordinary language").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 16.
During Committee stage, the Government agreed to reconsider the provisions of Clause 11(1)(b) with respect to the language in which the court shall inform a person of his rights to seek a review of a delivery order. In Committee, amendments were tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Avebury, the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Kingsland, and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. The purpose of each of those amendments was to ensure that a non-English speaker would be informed of his rights in his own language. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, also stressed the importance of reflecting the rights provided to an accused in the ICC Statute.
Although the amendments tabled would have fulfilled that intention, we were concerned that they failed to make provision for the original intention of this aspect of Clause 11: that a person is spoken to in non-technical language that they can comprehend. We agreed to look again at the issue to see whether wording could be found that answered both objectives.
Amendment No. 16 ensures that a person is spoken to in non-technical terms in a language that they speak and understand. The amendment draws and expands
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on the wording of the statute to ensure that each of those distinct considerations is covered. The phrase,
"which appears to the court",
is included to avoid lengthy legal arguments over whether it can be proven that a person fully understands the language. I hope that we can also thereby meet the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, in Committee about including the word "fully" in the Bill. I hope that the amendments correctly reflect the will of the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, at this hour the best thing to say is probably, "Snap", but that is not parliamentary language, so instead I shall say that we are grateful for the amendments, which meet our concerns. We are glad that we have been able on this occasion to join forces with the Conservative Front Bench and Back Benches and all sides of the House.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, it is now my turn to say—or not to say—"Snap". I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has said. We are grateful that the amendments have been tabled.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 7, line 22, after ("order)") insert (", in ordinary terms and in a language which appears to the court to be one which he fully understands and speaks").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 12 [Right to review of delivery order]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 8, line 7, at end insert ("(but with the substitution in section 5(5A) for "makes a delivery order" of "sets aside the delivery order")").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 13 [Waiver of right to review]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 8, line 33, after ("bail") insert ("in England and Wales").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 16 [Bail and custody: general]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 9, line 39, at beginning insert ("if an application for bail is made to the court,").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the aim of the amendment is to align Clauses 16 and 18 and more closely to follow Article 59 of the statute. Clause 18 implements our obligations under Article 59.4 of the statute by requiring a court, when considering an application for bail under Part II, to consult the ICC and to consider the matters set out in subsection (3). To ensure that Clause 18 applies in all cases, Amendment No. 19 amends Clause 16(1) so that the court in England and Wales will consider bail only if an application is made.
Amendment No. 21 achieves the same purpose for Scotland, but, together with Amendment No. 20 and others, it also brings the bail provisions in the Bill more closely into line with current practice and procedure in Scotland. As we have already explained, bail provisions are different in the separate jurisdictions. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, helpfully raised the concerns of the Law Society of Scotland that Clause 16 did not fully reflect those differences. On further consideration, we agree. Amendments Nos. 20 and 21 have been designed to apply in Scotland the usual rules for bail. We are grateful to noble Lords for highlighting that issue.
All three amendments are technical. They ensure that the bail provisions of the Bill are workable and practicable. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 20 and 21:
Page 9, line 44, leave out subsection (3).
Page 10, line 6, at end insert—
("() Where under this Part a court in Scotland has power to remand a person and the person makes an application to the court for bail, the court may admit him to bail and shall have the like powers in doing so as it has in proceedings in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by him.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 10, line 9, at end insert (", or who is in custody awaiting trial or sentence by a national court").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, helpfully tabled an amendment to Clause 16(5). Subsection (5) of that clause provides that a court will not grant bail to someone who is already in detention or imprisonment, serving a sentence imposed by a national court. The noble Lord suggested that that should be amended also to cover persons in custody, pending trial before a national court.
In Committee we agreed that that was an important point and that we would return with an amendment which would meet the noble Lord's purpose. We believe that Amendment No. 22 does so. It provides that no one who is in custody awaiting either trial or, indeed, sentence by a national court will be granted bail under Part II of the Bill. We consider the amendment to be a sensible improvement to the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 17 [Bail and custody: supplementary]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 23 and 24:
Page 10, line 1, at end insert ("in England and Wales").
Page 10, line 12, leave out ("in England and Wales").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 23 [Provisions as to state or diplomatic immunity]:
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Ampthill): My Lords, I must warn the House that if Amendment No. 25 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 26.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill Lord Lester of Herne Hill moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 13, line 21, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 25, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 27. As it stands, Clause 23 gives the Minister discretion to refuse delivery in certain cases and adopts a very cautious approach. The clause already leaves diplomatic immunity intact for non-state parties unless a waiver is obtained by the ICC. Clause 23(4), which we would omit, effectively leaves the Secretary of State to decide to whom immunity should attach in relation to non-state and state parties alike. We suggest that that leaves the Secretary of State open to great political pressure and could prevent the United Kingdom from co-operating effectively with the ICC.
This matter was debated fairly extensively in Committee, when the Attorney-General sought to make a distinction between discretion in relation to state parties under subsection (1) and non-state parties under subsection (2). The justification for that distinction is hard to see, and I cannot improve upon what was said on the matter by my noble friend Lord Avebury. I shall not hold up the debate by quoting what he said on that occasion.
Our amendment is based on Sections 66 and 120 of the New Zealand statute. Those provide that, where the Minister is concerned that there will be a clash with the international obligations of New Zealand, including in relation to immunities, he can consult the ICC to ask whether or not it will proceed with the request.
Such a consultation procedure would remove the veto but would allow the Secretary of State to raise his concerns in relation either to state or non-state parties and to ask whether the ICC considers that an effective waiver has been issued and whether it properly applies to the individual concerned. Such a situation would arise, for example, where a dispute existed as to the effective government of a state and where an individual argued that the party which issued the waiver and accepted the jurisdiction of the court did not have the effective authority to do so. It is highly unlikely that the ICC would ask us to set aside our international obligations as regards state or diplomatic immunities except where the state concerned had accepted its ability to do so. That is the purpose of Article 98 of the statute.
We should have confidence that the ICC, once convened, would obviously respect its own statute. The ICC might make a decision with which we did not agree. In those circumstances, as in other places in the Bill, we should abide by the statute and give the ICC the necessary priority. I beg to move.
9.45 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, in responding to the noble Lord, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 25, 26 and 27. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is in essence seeking two things: first, that the Secretary of State should consult with the ICC when issues of state or diplomatic immunity arise and, ultimately, to give the final say on whether the arrest and surrender of an individiual goes ahead to the ICC.
I am afraid that I must oppose the amendment. The Government fully accept that the ICC should be consulted when there are issues of state or diplomatic immunity involved in an ICC request. That is why the clause, as drafted, provides for consultation with the ICC' and with the sending state of the person concerned. The opinions of both will be very carefully taken into account in any decision taken by the Secretary of State.
I differ from the noble Lord on the second point. We do not consider that, in the very special circumstances which would exist if a case arose under this clause, the provision which we have made in subsection (4) is necessary. We do not envisage that this is a circumstance which will arise often. The situation we are providing for will be rare. Precise details are difficult to predict. Subsection (4) was included for that reason. We consider that it should remain for that reason. I have listened with great care to the opinions and views expressed in the House about the breadth of the provision in the subsection. The Government are bringing forward Amendment No. 26 to address that concern. In the light of that, I hope that Amendment No. 25 will not be pressed.
As regards Amendment No. 26, again the Government listened very carefully to the debate on this issue in Committee. The question of state and diplomatic immunity is an important one and the Government have reconsidered Clause 23 to see whether there is any way of meeting the concerns expressed when we last considered it. The amendment that we propose would limit the category of persons to whom the subsection would apply. It is intended as a response to the concerns expressed about the breadth of the powers given to Ministers under the subsection. The amendment clarifies the extent of subsection (4) so that there will be no scope for wilful misinterpretation as to the categories concerned. We do not seek that subsection (4) applies to everyone including persons who may enjoy certain minor immunities or privileges. The subsection applies in very limited circumstances and to very limited cases; namely, those where, but for this clause, the individual would enjoy immunity from arrest and surrender to the ICC. That may include, for example, a serving ambassador in London or a visiting head of state. The position of this group of people under international law is distinct and we wish to reflect that in the subsection.
What is important is that this amendment will limit the possibility of other persons claiming immunity and thereby seeking to frustrate their surrender to the ICC. I hope that this amendment goes some way to address
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the concerns expressed by your Lordships in Committee. In the light of this, I hope that your Lordships will be able to accept the Government's amendment.
Perhaps I may touch on Clause 23 which relates to the specific category of individuals who enjoy particular legal status. The clause has been drafted very carefully and with full regard to that status and to our other obligations in international law to protect status. I hope that your Lordships will feel able to accept the government amendments and that the noble Lord will not press the other two amendments.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, since my noble friend moved Amendment No. 26, I assume that we are entitled to debate it.
The Deputy Speaker: My Lords, the Minister spoke to it.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, I stand corrected. I have often corrected other noble Lords on that point. My noble friend spoke to Amendment No. 26 but is proposing to move it and we are, I understand, entitled to debate it now. I believe I have got that formula right.
I intervene only to say that all of my sympathies are with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, but I know how hard my noble friend fought to gain this half loaf. Speaking for myself, I should seize the half loaf and give thanks.
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I am delighted to say at least once today that I wholly share the view expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell. I have every sympathy with the motives that lie behind the amendments that were moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, but on balance the noble Baroness has on this occasion got it absolutely right.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I am completely out of order—after the Minister has spoken, only the noble Lord who moved the amendment should speak.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, that is why I asked my question.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, it is clear from the statements that noble Lords have made, although they are out of order, that we are in a conciliatory and "ungreedy" state, in that we are settling for half loaves rather than no bread.
I shall obviously reflect carefully on the noble Baroness's comments. The Government are clearly open minded; they have not closed their mind at all in this context. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 13, line 23, leave out from ("Part") to end of line 24 and insert ("which, but for subsection (1) or (2), would be prevented by state or diplomatic immunity attaching to a person shall not be taken against that person").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]
Clause 39 [Production or disclosure prejudicial to national security]:
Lord Lester of Herne Lord Lester of Herne Hill moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 19, line 13, at end insert—
("() The decision to refuse to disclose a document or a piece of information to the ICC, or the decision to issue a certificate under this section, shall not be made unless the Secretary of State has consulted the ICC, as outlined in Article 72.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as the Bill stands, Clause 28 will allow the Minister to issue a conclusive certificate to the effect that documents or information could not be disclosed if they were prejudicial to the security of the United Kingdom.
The ICC statute states in Article 93, paragraph 4, that in accordance with Article 72, a state party may deny a request for assistance in whole or in part only if the request concerns the production of any documents or disclosure of evidence relating to national security. Article 72 sets out the procedure to be followed when a state refuses to produce evidence on the grounds of national security. It provides that when a state takes such an action, it should act in conjunction with the prosecutor, the defence or the trial chamber to seek to resolve the matter. Steps to avoid a clash with national security should be taken. For example, requests could be modified or the information could be provided in another form.
Article 72, paragraph 7, accepts that there may be some circumstances in which the evidence withheld might be relevant and necessary for the establishment of the guilt or innocence of the accused. It also provides that in cases involving an ICC request for assistance, the court can enter into further consultations with the state and the court may refer the state to, among others, the Security Council as being in breach of its obligations under the statute. The court may also make such inferences of fact as may be appropriate in the circumstances.
In Committee, Conservative Front Bench spokesmen tabled some probing amendments to the national security provisions and the Attorney-General accepted, as I understood it, that any decision to refuse disclosure on national security grounds would have to be made according to the procedure that is laid out in Article 72. However, the noble and learned Lord felt that the Bill would be read together with the statute without the need for a specific reference.
In replying to the suggestion that a reference was necessary, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General noted that he did not believe one was
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necessary, otherwise on every occasion, one would have references. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, noted in his reply,
"this is not any old matter in the Bill; this is one of the most crucial clauses in the Bill".—[Official Report. 12/2/01; col. 65.]
In other clauses, references have already been written in; for example, Clause 65 on command responsibility refers to the statute, Article 26, and Clause 66 on the meaning of intent refers to Article 30. The purpose of this amendment is simply to put the position beyond doubt. I beg to move.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the Government made clear in Committee that we consider that the provisions of the Rome Statute in Article 72 will come into play should the ICC request the release of information which the Government consider should not be released on national security grounds. That is also made clear in paragraph 69 of the Explanatory Notes which sets out the procedure in the statute and states explicitly that that clause must be read in light of the rights and obligations of a state party under the ICC statute. I am very happy to restate that now.
We take very seriously indeed the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. Were the situation to arise in which we considered that the release of the material sought by the ICC would prejudice national security, we should seek to resolve that matter by consultation with the ICC, in accordance with our obligations in Article 72.
I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, seeks to make an explicit reference to the provisions of Article 72 on the face of the Bill. We have considered that question since it was raised in Committee. We concluded that such a reference would not be appropriate. From a drafting point of view, it would open the question of why we were not making innumerable other references to articles in the statute on the face of the Bill. We do not think that such references are necessary or desirable. We have therefore sought to keep them at a bare minimum.
The House is aware that, in ratifying the Rome Statute, we should be bound by the provisions in it, and that applies no less in this case.
Although Article 72 is not referred to on the face of the Bill, it is referred to in the Explanatory Notes and we have placed it on record during our debates in Committee and again today that we shall consider whether reference can again be made in any post-legislative explanatory memorandum.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, will she explain why it is necessary to refer to consultations with the ICC in Clause 23(4) and not in this place in the Bill?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we have looked very carefully to see whether greater clarification in relation to each part is necessary. We

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agreed to that inclusion in the clause to which the noble Lord referred. The noble Lord will know that Article 72 is extensive and we should wish for scrutiny of the whole article to be undertaken when that issue is to be considered.
We have thought about it carefully. I assure the noble Lord that had we felt on balance that the clarity would be better served by including it, we should have come to that conclusion. On this occasion, we decided that that is not necessary. But that in no way undermines the importance of the article, and we have made that absolutely clear both today, I hope, and in Committee. As I said to the noble Lord, we shall make it clear again in any explanatory memorandum which is issued once this Bill becomes a statute and passes into law. I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and he will feel sufficient comfort to be able not to press the amendment.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, when she refers to "any explanatory memorandum", is that the admirable new procedure whereby what we used to call Notes on Clauses are then updated on the completion of the Bill through all its stages and they then form some extrinsic evidence of what is intended? Does she have that new procedure in mind?
10 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, it would be similar in as much as once this Bill becomes law it is contemplated at the moment that we would issue with it certain guidance notes that would assist those who go through the Act to understand better the way in which it is intended to work. The noble Lord will know—I believe that we saw an example of it in Committee—that sometimes there are those who find it rather challenging to track the provisions of the statute through with the Bill. It is thought that if there are such explanatory notes issued after the Bill becomes law, that may assist with that process.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. As the guilty party who won the case of Pepper v. Hart, in many ways I have always regretted that victory because I find it unsatisfactory that one has to use debates of this kind in order to make clear what ought to be clear on the face of the Bill. If this intention is to be reflected in the way that the Minister has indicated in this extremely good new procedure, which I believe is better than Pepper v. Hart statements, whereby the notes on clauses become part of the record once the Bill becomes law—even though I would have preferred to see it on the face of the Bill—I believe that that would be a strong indication for the future interpretation of what will be the Act. Therefore, I accept that gratefully and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Howell of Guildford Lord Howell of Guildford moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 61, line 44, at end insert—
("() Notwithstanding anything in the preceding paragraphs, a person convicted by the ICC and serving his sentence in the United Kingdom shall serve a sentence which is no longer than the maximum for that offence in the United Kingdom.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment concerns the length of sentence passed by the International Criminal Court. It suggests that on conviction a UK national should serve a sentence no longer than the maximum for that offence in the United Kingdom. As was said in Committee, that appears to be incompatible with the statutes, but it is not incompatible with putting down declarations at the time of ratification of the treaty because that has been done by another country, so that is not impossible. Indeed, it is possible. The country concerned is the Kingdom of Spain, which made a declaration on the ratification status document, having already ratified the treaty that,
"Spain declares its willingness to accept at the appropriate time, persons sentenced by the International Criminal Court, provided that the duration of the sentence does not exceed the maximum stipulated for any crime under Spanish law".
The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, was kind enough to write to me about this apparent quirk and the apparent freedom of the Kingdom of Spain to take a different view from that which appeared to be stipulated in the statute. She said that it reflected domestic and constitutional issues in Spain. I should certainly like to hear why our own concerns cannot also be reflected in a declaration of this kind and why a great many constitutional and domestic issues that other countries appear to be able to reflect in their declarations cannot be reflected. To put the matter another way, could we have an indication of what declarations will be met? We have heard about the explanatory memorandum that will be produced at the end of the passage of the Bill to enable easier translation or association with the statute.
I believe that in dealing with this matter your Lordships' House deserves an indication of what kind of declarations and interpretative comments the Government intend to put down because they will make a great difference. In earlier debates we have heard how the French have taken strong viewpoints that the Government apparently do not want to emulate, to my personal regret, and I believe to the regret of many people outside.
Here is a not unimportant but a less central matter and if there were to be a declaration we would not need to press the amendment. But not knowing about the declarations and not knowing how the law will be handled leaves us in a difficult position. I would be grateful for clarification on the specific matter of the length of sentence and on the broader matter of declarations, if any, that will be put down in the future. I beg to move.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I regret that the Government cannot agree to this amendment. As we said in Committee, the Rome Statute provides that

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when a state agrees to take ICC prisoners, an ICC sentence of imprisonment shall be binding on states parties, who shall in no case modify it.
What the ICC statute also makes clear is that the responsibility for deciding on, reviewing and, if appropriate, modifying a sentence of the ICC judges is that of the ICC alone. It would be odd for the statute to say anything else. If all states which were enforcing the sentences of the ICC decided that they wished to reduce ICC sentences, release ICC prisoners early or the like, they would undermine the decisions of the ICC on sentencing and could render the original sentencing decision of the ICC judges meaningless. It would be open to states, in the worst case example, to release prisoners as a result of political pressure from other states.
I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is basing this amendment on the declaration on ratification made by the Spanish government. Their position is a most particular one. The declaration is, however, worded somewhat differently:
"Spain declares its willingness to accept at the appropriate time, persons sentenced by the International Criminal Court, provided that the duration of the sentence does not exceed the maximum stipulated for any crime under Spanish law".
The emphasis was added on the word "any".
That declaration arose because of particular constitutional problems in Spain on the question of life sentences. In this country, we do not have any such prohibition on sentences of life—indeed, we are providing for them in Part V of the Bill—and I see no difficulty therefore in our enforcing life sentences if passed by the ICC. Indeed, if we were merely to duplicate the Spanish declaration it would have absolutely no effect because there is no sentence which the ICC can pass down which exceeds the maximum stipulated for any crime under UK law.
Naturally, I understand the constitutional constraints placed on Spain, but I do not think it is a model which we or other states should now follow where those constraints do not apply. The Government believe that it is right that states parties should assist the ICC in every way possible and this includes holding prisoners for the length of time that the ICC decides. There will be no great divergence between the ICC sentences and the domestic equivalents and we are prepared to accept the ICC sentence without conditions.
In the light of the very different circumstances which apply in the UK as opposed to in Spain, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, will not seek to press the amendment.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that explanation, which is helpful and elucidating. It means—and I believe that it is the Government's policy—that we shall be holding a number of prisoners here; people convicted by the court who committed monstrous crimes. It will place a heavy duty on us but one I recognise that the Government wish us to perform. Indeed, I share that view.
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In the light of the Minister's explanation, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 51 [Genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 25, line 32, leave out ("or") and insert (", a United Kingdom resident or a").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 30, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 34, 36, 37, 41, 43, 46, 48 and 49. These are, I hope, non-contentious. They give the United Kingdom jurisdiction over ICC crimes committed by UK residents. As the Bill is currently drafted, domestic courts have jurisdiction over ICC crimes committed in England and Wales or Northern Ireland and those committed overseas by United Kingdom nationals and those subject to UK service jurisdiction.
I appreciate that this issue has been the subject of considerable concern on the part of your Lordships. It is not a simple issue and it is one which the Government have considered at great length. We propose that the extra-territorial jurisdiction of our domestic courts be extended to UK residents for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it is our desire to ensure that the UK does not become a place of refuge for those accused of these vile crimes. Secondly, we wish these provisions to act as a deterrent.
The measures that we are taking to prosecute residents of whatever nationality for ICC crimes, even when committed before they came here, are a powerful weapon. We would use it to ensure that all those resident in this country, whatever their nationality, should think very hard before engaging in activities, say, as a mercenary abroad if that involved a risk of being complicit in ICC offences. It would also send a clear message to war criminals abroad that the UK is not a place where they can plan a peaceful retirement.
Thirdly, this amendment complements the provisions already in the Bill. We shall have a clear strategy to deal with war criminals found in the UK. First, the ICC can request their arrest and surrender. Secondly, if they are resident here we can bring prosecutions in United Kingdom courts. Thirdly, if a state with jurisdiction sought their extradition we would consider it in the normal way, even where the state concerned took wider jurisdiction than the UK. Where someone is a UK resident or was one at the time of the offence, we have come to the conclusion that it will often be more appropriate for our courts and prison system to deal with him or her than to arrange for another country to take over the case.
However, we remain of the view that where the person has no ties with this country, surrender to the ICC or extradition to another state is the proper and most practical course. That approach is based on a realistic appraisal of what our criminal justice system, with its strong dependency on the principle of territoriality, is organised to deliver. It is also in line with the long-standing policy of this country not to take universal jurisdiction except as required by an

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international agreement. We do not believe that the UK should unilaterally take on the role of global prosecutor. Where a crime is committed with no clear nexus to the UK, it must be for the countries concerned to prosecute and for the ICC to step in if they fail to do so. That is precisely the reason that we are establishing the International Criminal Court.
I appreciate that this change may not wholly satisfy those who ask that the UK take universal jurisdiction, but our aim is the same: to ensure that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are brought to justice. The Government believe that the amendments that they have tabled enable the UK to play a valuable and effective role in support of the ICC and the rule of international criminal law. We believe that these amendments, together with the existing provisions of the Bill, provide a robust regime which will prevent the UK being, or being seen as, a safe haven for war criminals. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will support them. I beg to move.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, in speaking to Amendment No. 30 and the other amendments grouped with it, perhaps I may speak also to Amendments Nos. 31 to 33, 35, 38 to 40, 42 and 47 which are in the names of myself and my noble friend Lord Goodhart. We welcome the Government's recognition that the initial draft of the Bill was too narrow as far as concerns UK jurisdiction. NGOs, the Bar Council, the Law Society and noble Lords from all sides of the House have expressed strong concern that the Bill is too narrow in limiting the application of domestic offences to crimes committed in the UK or abroad by UK nationals or those subject to UK service jurisdiction.
The proposed UK residence test goes some way to addressing the problems highlighted, especially in Committee. As the Minister correctly anticipated, we do not consider that the compromise is entirely satisfactory. I shall leave my noble friend Lord Goodhart to explain the legal problems of uncertainty about the residence test.
Perhaps I may add one or two comments. In Committee, the Minister indicated that the intention to adopt the residence test was to match the definition used in the War Crimes Act 1991 and to afford flexibility. The War Crimes Act was adopted in a very different situation. In the War Crimes Act the basis for jurisdiction is residence. That is beside the point for two reasons. First, by necessity, the War Crimes Act was retrospective, whereas the ICC Bill, when enacted, will apply to offences committed only after it comes into force. Secondly, the purpose of the War Crimes Act was to prosecute Nazi war criminals who, if they had not attained UK citizenship, had at least made their permanent home here.
However, the Bill and the statute are intended to create a new international legal order for the prosecution of international crimes. The cornerstone of that scheme is the principle of complementarity and
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the presumption that the state retains primary responsibility for the prosecution of ICC crime. The preamble of the statute states that,
"it is the duty of every state to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crime".
Therefore, we should not be left behind in accepting our responsibility to prosecute those responsible for the most heinous international crimes.
As has been said previously, other states—New Zealand, Canada, Belgium, Germany and South Africa—are adopting a wider universal jurisdiction than residence. The basis of our amendment is the Canadian example. That provides for a jurisdiction where a non-national suspected of crimes committed abroad is "present" in Canada. That would have the great virtue of covering, for example, the war criminal who takes an extended holiday here, or who has medical treatment in this country.
I agree with the Minister that we should not play a unilateral role as a global prosecutor, but that the contact with this country would be the presence in this country of the person concerned. We would not he a global prosecutor any more than Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany or Belgium. Each state will carry its own share of the burden. We find it difficult to understand why we should lag behind other Commonwealth countries, based on common law systems such as the ones I have mentioned, which embrace tests wider than residence.
So far as concerns the problems of legal uncertainty and the definition, perhaps I may leave those matters to my noble friend Lord Goodhart.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, Amendment No. 46 strikes me as being the most delightfully circular definition that I have ever come across. It states that,
"a 'United Kingdom resident' means a person who is resident in the United Kingdom".
It reminds me of the famous line by Gertrude Stein:
"Rose is a rose is a rose".
One might say, "Resident is a resident is a resident".
I entirely support my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill in believing that the appropriate test is not a residence test at all but is a presence test. However, the amendment assumes that a residence test is being applied and makes an attempt to clarify it to some extent. The problem is that the residence test is both highly flexible and highly uncertain. For instance, there is no single definition of residence for the purposes of the law of England or the law of the United Kingdom. Residence for tax purposes is not the same as the residence that is necessary for founding jurisdiction in divorce cases. For tax purposes, residence depends on fulfilling a number of different possible criteria. One has to look at the length of the stay, the reason for the stay and the availability on a long-term basis of a house or flat—somewhere to live in the United Kingdom.
In fact, the Inland Revenue applies a fairly detailed set of tests. For example, in normal circumstances, spending 90 days or more in this country in four consecutive years is sufficient to establish residence.

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That kind of test makes it possible to be resident at the same time in more than one country; at any rate, if another country applies a test that is similar to that which the United Kingdom applies. But in this case the residence test will be applied for the purpose of founding jurisdiction over criminal offences. In those circumstances, the court is likely to interpret the residence test strictly and in favour of the alleged perpetrator of the crime.
It is therefore at least possible that the court would say that residence for the purposes of the Bill meant something more like ordinary residence for tax purposes. In particular, a court might say that someone could be treated as resident in the United Kingdom only if the United Kingdom was his or her principal place of residence. That would narrow the jurisdiction too much. We believe that the courts of this country should have jurisdiction over someone who, for example, has a house here and regularly spends a few months a year in that house. It is immaterial that the same person might also reside in another country and might indeed spend more time in that country than he or she spends in the United Kingdom.
It would therefore be useful to have Amendment No. 47, which makes it clear that the residence test does not require the United Kingdom to be the sole or principal residence of the alleged perpetrator. Amendment No. 47 would also mean that the definition in the amended Amendment No. 46 would now serve some useful purpose and would not be entirely circular.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, at the risk of being repetitive, my position on this group of amendments is very similar to the one that I expressed in an earlier debate. My noble friend's amendment does not represent all that some of us would have wished. If I thought that the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, had any prospect of being accepted, I would have done all I could to pursue it. But I am aware of how hard my noble friend has worked to achieve this degree of progress and it would be churlish not to express my appreciation for that.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lester, remarked, the amendment does represent an improvement. It addresses what threatened to be the scandalous situation which would have arisen had a notorious war criminal or a person charged with crimes against humanity been known brazenly to be living in this country if the authorities had been unable to do anything about it.
However, I take a rather different view of Amendment No. 47, to which the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has just spoken. I should have thought that it was not impossible to persuade the Government to reconsider it. Quite clearly, the word "residence" embraces a range of ambiguities. I am clear that the definition we have at the moment is straight out of Alice in Wonderland. I seem to recall, although I cannot remember where I saw it, a definition in a piece of subordinate legislation which defined a smoked
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haddock as a haddock which had been smoked. I shall believe that there is something wrong with the processes of this House if we cannot improve on that. I venture to hope that my noble friend will be in a position to reconsider the amendment.
As for the rest of the amendments, I would have preferred a square meal but, as I said earlier, I shall accept the half loaf.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness a question which I put to her in Committee but to which I do not think I received a reply. Can she cite any other example in the whole of our criminal law where we are obliged to arrest and extradite to another country someone for acts committed which are not offences in our jurisdiction? If this is a departure from the usual practice—namely, that when we arrest someone and extradite him to another jurisdiction, we must ensure that it is an offence under our law—can she give any conceivable justification for this departure from a time-honoured practice?
That is a technical point, but I am concerned more with the practical effects of limiting our jurisdiction to persons who are resident here. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, pointed out, not only is it scandalous if we allow people to take up residence when we know that they are war criminals; it is equally scandalous if we give them permission to come and shop at Harrods, to obtain medical treatment or simply to enjoy a holiday here, as many of them would do if they knew that they had the immunity given to them under the present drafting, even with the addition of the amendment before us.
When the noble Baroness states that war criminals are on notice that this country is not a place where they can retire in peace, does she honestly think that anyone would contemplate retiring here in the knowledge that, irrespective of whether we would deal with them in our courts, they would be liable to arrest and extradition to the International Criminal Court? Is it not much more necessary for us to deal with the case when someone is only temporarily in our jurisdiction? Furthermore, when the noble Baroness states that these cases are ones where there is no clear nexus to the United Kingdom, what if the offence concerns the murder of British citizens?
At the risk of tedious repetition, perhaps I may call the noble Baroness's attention to a case which I have mentioned before; namely, the case of Colonel Yunus Yosfiah, the commander of the Indonesian troops at Balibo in October 1975, who murdered two British citizens. He has never been brought to justice for those crimes, but, unknown to us, he was a guest of Her Majesty's Government. He came here to attend college as a guest of the Ministry of Defence and spent several months within our jurisdiction. He then peacefully went back to Jakarta. If such an event were to occur in the future—namely, that someone came to this country for a temporary purpose and it was brought to the attention of the authorities that the person had been responsible for the murder of British citizens—

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does not the noble Baroness agree that it would be desirable for us to have in place the powers to arrest that person and bring him before the British courts?
I understand that over the past couple of weeks the Australians have released a great many documents which concern the events which took place at Balibo. Five newsmen, including two British citizens, who worked for an Australian TV channel were cold-bloodedly massacred by the clandestine Indonesian invasion forces. Is the noble Baroness saying that no case of that kind could ever come to our notice in the future, where such a war criminal would swim into our jurisdiction and be here for a temporary period without taking up residence, and that we would not then wish that we had taken the powers that we could have done under the Bill to arrest that man and bring him before our courts?
10.30 p.m.
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, the first thing to acknowledge is the very important principle that has been accepted by the Government in bringing forward the amendment. At earlier stages of the Bill, a number of noble Lords, including myself, expressed grave concern that someone could come and hide here; that we could have a situation where a war criminal, a despot, a tyrant, was able to make Britain a safe haven. That was our primary concern. I believe that the Government have accepted that principle by the amendment they have brought forward. I very much share the expression of appreciation that my noble and learned friend Lord Archer of Sandwell has given to the Minister.
So the principle is accepted. One then comes to the very important detail of how one identifies who should be subject to the jurisdiction of the court. First, there is the Canadian model—a model which, in Committee, I proposed as a possible solution—based on presence. The problem with presence is that it is not a perfect solution either. Presence can range from the kinds of extended stay to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred, to mere adventitious presence for a very short space of time.
One has a similar problem when the courts deal with jurisdiction in the context of civil matters. Is it right that the court should take jurisdiction over someone who is here on a very temporary basis as a tourist passing through? I can understand—I do not know whether this lies behind the Government's concerns—that there may be occasions when political pressure may be applied in circumstances where someone is on a very temporary visit. I am not convinced that presence is without its difficulties.
The alternative—
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, comes to the alternative, does he agree that one of the great problems about the residence test is that it will be bound to produce impossible anomalies? Let us take the case of mercenaries, drawn from various countries, who commit terrible atrocities in, say, the Congo; some of
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them are then resident here and some of them are present here. Only those who are resident here are able to be prosecuted. Just for good measure, let us assume that one of them is guilty of torture, where one does have jurisdiction irrespective of any residence test. Does the noble Lord agree that that would produce the ridiculous situation where we would be able to prosecute only some parties to a joint enterprise in which all parties are equally guilty of terrible crimes?
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, it is extraordinarily unfair of the noble Lord to turn against me examples that I put in Committee in arguing against the position then taken by the Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, is right: that was the initial reaction that I and other noble Lords had in Committee when my noble friend the Minister referred to the residence test and the uncertainty. It may be that a better word can be found before Third Reading.
This amendment does two things. First, "resident" hits at those people whom we want to ensure are caught by the provision, the scandal which has been referred to. I share my noble and learned friend's view; I should very much like to hear the Government's response to Amendment No. 47, which has been tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart.
One can even say that there is an advantage in the uncertainty; that is, it would be very hard for any lawyer to advise a tyrant or despot who was thinking of spending some time in this country that he could safely say that he is not resident. I was concerned, as were other noble Lords, that these people should not be able to find peace.
However, it does not fill the complete gap within which there may be cases where the international court cannot intervene. I do not believe that it is right to say that this country should be the alternative International Criminal Court. I hope that it will mean that all noble Lords—I have in mind especially those noble Lords on the Benches opposite—will help to persuade other countries, including the United States, that they should join the circle. That is the best way to fill the accountability gap.
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, in a further attempt to make myself unpopular with members of my own profession in your Lordships' House, I should like to remind noble Lords that the Opposition Front Bench supports the views expressed so eloquently by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, on Second Reading. We have no objection whatever to the Government's attempt to extend the definition in the original draft of the Bill by adding the residency test. However, I greatly sympathise with the smoked haddock of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell. If one looks at the latest edition—I believe that it is the sixth—of Stroud's Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases, which is not a publication known for its prolixity, it will be seen that it devotes nearly five pages to the definition of "residence".

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I believe that the Government owe it to your Lordships to be a little more specific about what type of residence they have in mind; otherwise—in circumstances where someone who is not a national but is a resident finds himself, or, indeed, herself, in the firing line—there is likely to be a very long and drawn-out test case about the meaning of "residence". Indeed, as issues of residence are always issues of fact, those long drawn-out arguments might recur each time a new case arises. Therefore, it should help your Lordships enormously if the Government could reach out a little further than they do in Amendment No. 46, which seeks to define "residence" in a circular fashion. Perhaps I may humbly suggest to the noble Baroness that they should try to be a little more specific.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, just by virtue of the debate that we have had so far, one can see how difficult this issue has become. Speaking for myself, I have been most grateful for the contributions that have been made by all noble Lords through the various stages of the Bill, as we have wrestled with what we all recognise to be a very knotty issue indeed.
However, a number of factors are plain. To begin with, we are all in agreement about the mischief that we seek to cure; namely, that those who are responsible for war crimes should find no comfort or succour within this jurisdiction. We are all also clear that we wish them to suffer the most acute anxiety about their well-being when they set foot—if they were to set foot—on British soil.
One comes to the issue as to how best to express that intent. "Residence" has been alighted upon as the most appropriate term to meet the needs of the situation. At the previous stage of the Bill, a number of noble Lords expressed some concern about what the Government meant by "resident" or "residence", and that concern was echoed again this evening. I referred previously to the "flexibility" that this would give us.
What I mean by "residence" being flexible is that it is not a status like nationality, which is all or nothing and can be simply defined on paper. Residence depends on a variety of criteria, and is best decided upon by a competent court in possession of all the facts of a particular case. Residence is a question of fact. A person's actions, such as purchasing a property or beginning a job in this country, would be factors that would point towards that person being resident here.
Of course, it is difficult therefore to legislate precisely for each such occasion. However, the flexibility of the term "resident" is important in itself. If we attempted to place on the face of the Bill all of the factors that we considered indicators of residence, we would almost certainly leave gaps. That would defeat our purpose.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Would this be a case where the admirable Explanatory Notes procedure
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might be used to make it clear to everyone that a flexible and generous interpretation ought to be given to the concept of residence?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, it would certainly constitute an opportunity for us to reflect on the meaning that we feel would be appropriate to residence in the broadest terms, as I seek to do in your Lordships' House this evening. Certainly we could consider how best to deal with that matter.
For example, one of the factors that could go on the face of the Bill would be the length of time that someone had spent in the country. However, it is the Government's view that this could well be a false indicator, as a person's actions may well mark him or her as resident long before any rigid time limit was reached. This could also apply to other issues. I refer to the example I gave earlier concerning someone taking out a lease. He or she could do that quickly before they had been here long. That may be an indicator that the court would be entitled to take into account in determining that the person intended to reside here.
It is certainly the Government's view that we should leave the determination on whether a person is resident to the United Kingdom courts. Your Lordships will note that we have simply used the word "resident". We have not used the terms "ordinarily resident" or "habitually resident". The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has a great deal of experience of our tax law. Different interpretations of residency—we touched on them in Committee—are used in relation to the Hague Convention as regards international child abduction.
This type of jurisdiction has been taken twice before in the War Crimes Act 1991—the noble Lord, Lord Lester, referred to that measure which we touched on in Committee—and the Sex Offenders Act 1997. I accept that the War Crimes Act has resulted in only one successful prosecution. But this was not because there was a debate over whether or not the individuals concerned were resident in the United Kingdom. As your Lordships will be aware, the small number of prosecutions had more to do with the narrow time-scale in which offences had to have occurred and the increasing age of the suspects.
Part II of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 provides courts in the United Kingdom with the jurisdiction to deal with British citizens and United Kingdom residents who commit sex offences against children abroad. There has been one conviction under Part II of that Act. On 21st January 2000, the British owner of a French campsite was extradited from France to this country and was convicted of indecent assault on a number of girls and sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
I hope that those cases taken together will demonstrate to your Lordships and to any criminals considering coming here that where we take extraterritorial jurisdiction we are not afraid to use it.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked pointedly why we are doing now that which we have not done before in relation to dual criminality. I say openly that

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after debate and discussion in this House this was the first of our two concessions on how we address this issue. It was a concession to those who, like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, spoke with such passion and sincerity about universal jurisdiction.
The second approach we have taken is in relation to introducing residency. We make no apology that we are breaking with tradition in this case to do that which the noble Lord has already outlined. Because of the importance of the offences with which we are now dealing, having been persuaded by the oratory of all Benches, it seems right and appropriate so to do.
A number of noble Lords mentioned the Canadian model and asked why we do not use "presence". My noble friend Lord Goldsmith is right when he outlines the inherent difficulties in using that term. We have thought long and hard about the issue. It is not a conclusion to which Her Majesty's Government have come with any great ease.
The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, would have the effect of extending jurisdiction of domestic courts over non-UK nationals present in the United Kingdom who have committed an ICC offence abroad. The Government consider that "resident in the United Kingdom" is the right approach.
We agree with the sentiment behind Amendment No. 47. "A United Kingdom resident" may indeed be resident in more than one state, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has set out clearly. That is proper British law. It has been interpreted in that way on a number of occasions. I am happy to make clear today that we would also be happy, if necessary, to make that clear in the Explanatory Notes to which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, referred.
None the less, we believe that it is unnecessary, even undesirable, to specify this on the face of the Bill. Perhaps contrary to appearances, our Amendment No. 47 is not an unnecessary tautology, as I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, hinted in his usual kind fashion. "United Kingdom resident" is used in the Bill as a useful shorthand to aid drafting. In due course there is a need to explain what we mean by "UK resident". By saying that it means that a person is "resident in the United Kingdom" we are deliberately using the same wording as in the War Crimes Act 1991 and the Sex Offenders Act 1997. We are deliberately saying that a simple test of residence applies, instead of more restrictive terms such as "habitually resident" or "ordinarily resident".
To accept the amendment tabled by noble Lords would be to move away from the wording used in the War Crimes Act and the Sex Offenders Act. By so doing it would cast doubt on the width of the meaning of the words "resident in the United Kingdom" where they are used in the 1991 and 1997 Acts and indeed where used elsewhere in this Bill. In all these cases we believe that someone resident in the United Kingdom can mean someone who is also resident in one or more other countries and we would not want this to be put in any doubt.
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I hope in the light of this explanation that noble Lords will not seek to press the amendments.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
10.45 p.m.
[Amendment No. 31 not moved.]
Clause 52 [Conduct ancillary to genocide, etc. committed outside jurisdiction]:
[Amendments Nos. 32 and 33 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 26, line 7, leave out ("or") and insert (", a United Kingdom resident or a").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 35 not moved.]
Clause 54 [Offences in relation to the ICC]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 27, line 10, leave out ("or") and insert (", a United Kingdom resident or a").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 58 [Genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 29, line 1, at end insert ("or a United Kingdom resident").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]
Clause 59 [Conduct ancillary to genocide, etc. committed outside jurisdiction]:
[Amendments No. 39 and 40 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 29, line 17, at end insert ("or a United Kingdom resident").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 42 not moved.]
Clause 61 [Offences in relation to the ICC]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 30, line 15, at end insert ("or a United Kingdom resident").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 65 [Responsibility of commanders and other superiors]:
Lord Howell of Guildford Lord Howell of Guildford moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 32, line 10, leave out from ("or") to ("that") in line 11 and insert ("consciously disregarded information which clearly indicated,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 65 deals with the responsibilities of commanders and other superiors, who are held responsible for offences committed by forces under their effective command and control. The change of wording proposed in the amendment returns to the theme that we have referred to earlier this evening of protection for the Armed

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Forces going about their legitimate business, which inevitably includes the use of force internationally if we are to be effective in fulfilling our international responsibilities and contributing to the peace and stability of the globe.
The alarm bells that were sounding in high military circles because of the wide and vague definitions of war crimes when brought into our statute law also sounded in respect of this clause. A senior defence source has been quoted on the subject in more than one newspaper. The clause states:
"A military commander … is responsible for offences committed by forces under his effective command and control … as a result of his failure to exercise control properly over such forces".
That applies where,
"(a) he either knew, or owing to circumstances at the time, should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such offences, and—
(b) he failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures".
We are familiar with the words. Clearly those sentiments have caused considerable alarm. We should spend some time considering the dangers that could arise from the clause.
The problem is one of subjectivity, as with many other interpretations that we have dealt with this evening. With hindsight one can say that a commander should have known something, but what is the test? What is he supposed to have known? How should he have known it? Our worry is that the clause allows for the dissection and scrutiny of the actions of commanders and other superior officers after the event, presumably by the investigatory branch and the prosecutor of the ICC. We have to ask whether the ICC is in the best position to understand the details of military actions and the pressures on commanders and senior officials and what they are supposed to have known at the time. Perhaps they should have known many things, but they may have been cut off from the facts by particular circumstances.
In one sense the proposals are not objectionable, in that they bring home the fact that responsibility will be pinned on commanders as well as on those fighting in the front lines, who may have difficulty deciding whether they are exposed to some risk and are perforce committing something that could be described as a war crime. That seems fair.
However, we have to ensure that the responsibility is placed in a reasonable and sustainable way on commanding officers. If not, there could be no end to the way in which responsibility can be piled on commanders and commanders-in-chief. One newspaper article went on to quote Mr Michael Caplin, a former lawyer to the Chilean ex-dictator General Pinochet, who questioned how the Prime Minister would have been able to defend himself had he been charged with bombing targets in Kosovo in the knowledge that civilians might be killed. It was an intentional policy decision that would appear to raise difficulties under the clause. We are all very concerned
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about the security and safety of our Prime Minister, so we have to get rid of any possible doubts about the issue in this debate.
We believe that the amendment would relieve at least one of the strong concerns that are clearly felt by the Armed Forces. Of course, it will be said that we cannot do that because it would upset the wording of the Rome Statute.
Perhaps noble Lords will take my word for it if they have not had an opportunity to study it, but I ask them to look at the legislation that has passed through the Canadian Parliament in relation to these very matters. The Canadians are very keen on the ICC; they are anxious, as we are, to be founder members; and they are anxious to make it work. The following words appear in their law:
"The military commander knows, or is criminally negligent in failing to know, that the person is about to commit, or is committing, such an offence".
That is a very different kettle of fish. It is a different and much more rigorous test. It is one that I believe could be far less subjective and much more objective. Criminal negligence is a matter that can be defined, approached, analysed and handled by the ICC, or by the domestic courts if they wish to concern themselves with it.
Therefore, it is not an argument to say that those kinds of words cannot be modified, unless it is the wish of this Government to accept the Rome Statute wording beyond necessity and to the point of total adherence to the words of the statute. It cannot be said that it is not possible to depart from those words. The Canadians have done so. They are, and we hope will be, highly effective participants in the workings of the court.
Of course, these issues are of enormous concern to the United States at many levels, not only in Congress or in the Armed Forces but in the highest legal circles, as I know from having checked the matter personally. The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, rightly said in one of his fascinating interventions that we must bring along the Americans. I agree. I believe that it is the higher purpose of the Bill and of our deliberations that we do everything possible to bring along the Americans and to break the logjam on that side of the Atlantic. If we fail to do so, the entire credibility of the court will be seriously compromised.
Those who want the Bill to work and who want the international court to operate and to carry credibility should be thinking in terms of bringing along the Americans. At the same time, they should address the concerns of the Armed Forces, which are also the concerns of the Armed Forces in the United States. It is in that spirit that I move the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, this amendment raises a serious issue. Even at this hour, I shall detain the House for a few moments upon it. It is based on a complete misunderstanding of the existing position, both in this country and in the United States.

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Clause 65 as it stands reflects Article 28 of the statute, but it does much more than that. It sets out the well known principles that have been part of our law and practice for at least a generation. I need only turn to the 1958 edition of the Manual of Military Law, to which I referred earlier, written or edited by Judge Sir Hersch Lauterpacht and, as I recall, probably by the late Colonel Gerald Draper, another great expert, as well. Paragraph 631—I remind noble Lords that this was written in 1958 and not 2000, and I hope that the generals and others will know it almost by heart, or that certainly they will read it when they look at the report of this debate—states:
"In some cases military commanders may be responsible for war crimes committed by subordinate members of the armed forces or other persons subject to their control. Thus, for example, when troops commit, or assist in the commission of, massacres and atrocities against the civilian inhabitants of occupied territory, or against prisoners of war, the responsibility may rest not only with the actual perpetrators but also with the commander".
It continues:
"Such responsibility arises directly when the acts in question have been committed in pursuance of an order of the commander concerned".
These words follow:
"The commander is also responsible, if he has actual knowledge or should have knowledge, through reports received by him or through other means, that troops or other persons subject to his control are about to commit or have committed a war crime and if he fails to use the means at his disposal to ensure compliance with the law of war.
The footnote states—this is not from some rare textbook, but from the Manual of Military Law which is issued to members of the Armed Forces:
"The failure to do so raises the presumption—which for the sake of the effectiveness of the law, cannot be regarded as easily rebuttable—of authorisation, encouragement, connivance, acquiescence or subsequent ratification of the criminal acts. In numerous war crimes trials—of which the Case of General Yamashita … is the most important example—various tribunals acted upon that principle".
Then the footnote gives the example from the United States Supreme Court. It explains how that court dismissed a case where General Yamashita was held responsible for negligently failing to ensure proper control over his troops. The judgment of the military commission came up for review on a question of law before the Supreme Court of the United States on a petition of a writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition. Its judgment—this is not in the ICC statute, but in the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court—contains an authoritative exposition of the law applicable to the responsibility of miltary commanders.
11 p.m.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, would the noble and learned Lord also like to tell the House that there was an extremely strong dissenting judgment in that case?
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am not learned and I am not sure about being noble. I have
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never held office as a Law Officer or a judge, but I am delighted to be thought to be that by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont.
I am not concerned with the validity of the Yamashita dissent or the majority judgment. The point is that the Supreme Court of the United States, in dismissing a petition in that case, gave an authoritative exposition of the relevant law which is in British military law handbooks for all our troops and it is entirely consistent with the ICC Statute. Therefore, I beg the Conservative Front Bench and the generals to read that handbook and tell our American friends that they might also look at their own jurisprudence where they will find the same principles on American constitutional jurisprudence as there are in English law and in the ICC Statute.
Were one to do what is suggested in the amendment and take out the words in Article 65(2)(a) and include instead a stricter test, that would be entirely inconsistent with the vital principle of responsibility which has been recognised since at least Nuremberg. Indeed, in German law, as pointed out in another passage, it was recognised in pre-Nazi Germany as well. Indeed, some of it goes back to the American Civil War. So let us not keep harking on about slavishly following some new-fangled ICC standard. This is old-fangled, thank heavens. It has been well established. It is time that the Conservative Opposition accepted a long-standing principle which goes back to the time of the Second World War.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I too would like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I know that he has expressed a great deal of anxiety about this issue. I hope that it will be of comfort to him to know that the Americans were very heavily involved in drafting this part of the statute. They had no problems with it and were content.
The noble Lord, Lord Lester, is quite right when he says that the rules of engagement outlined in the ICC Bill and the Rome Statute are long and well established. I believe that earlier at Report stage we went through in some detail the benefits that accrued as a result of successive Conservative governments rightly bringing in appropriate legislation to enforce the Geneva and other conventions.
I make it absolutely plain—the noble Lord said that this was an opportunity for us to be clear about command responsibility—that a commander is responsible for offences only if he fails properly to exercise control over military forces under his effective command and control. A commander must have known or, owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known, that the crimes were being committed or were about to be committed. A commander is responsible for offences only if he failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his power. Command responsibility as defined by the statute is, as we have already said, an established concept in international law and relates to the concept of neglect of duty, which already appears in the Service Discipline Acts. I hope that I can give the noble Lord comfort on that point.

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Although there has been much vaunting in the press of the concerns of the Armed Forces, the MoD has been assiduous in its duties—it has crawled all over the Rome Statute and the Bill and it is content, as are the higher echelons of each of the services. They said that they are satisfied that the legislation should not lay the Armed Forces open to prosecution when they are undertaking their legitimate duties as directed by a democratically elected government. We all know that we can get excited about press stories and how much reliance we put on statements that we read. However, I hope that tonight we have put to rest some of the concern and anxiety that has been wrongly generated.
In moving the amendment, the noble Lord is seeking to protect service personnel. I agree completely with his intention and his motives. However, I fear that the amendment that he proposes would have the opposite effect. It seeks to create a difference between the standards applied under the law of England and Wales and those applied by the ICC on the question of command responsibility. By doing so, the noble Lord would, unintentionally I am sure, create a gap in the complementarity regime. There would be an increased risk that the ICC could claim jurisdiction over cases involving military commanders, even where the case had already been investigated under domestic law, on the basis that differing standards apply. It is precisely to avoid that risk that we have chosen to adopt almost verbatim the wording of Article 28 of the statute.
Command responsibility should not cause concern within the military. As the wording makes clear, that is a form of neglect of duty, not a test of strict liability. Commanders at all levels already take responsibility for the actions of their subordinates. A commanding officer who permits his subordinates to use unsafe practices on a training range, for example, will find himself liable to disciplinary action when an accident occurs. The provision merely reflects that principle on a wider canvas.
I would like to refer to a comment that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, in a debate on the ICC in this House on 20th July 1998. I hope that I will not make him blush by doing so. The noble Lord referred to the trials at Nuremberg, and, with great persuasion, said:
"The great strength of the Nuremberg trial was the fact that it caught the big fish; it did not just catch the 'bit part players'. That is what gave the Nuremberg process its real credibility".
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. What lay behind that remark in 1998 was my sadness that, despite the intense deliberations leading up to the Rome Statute, the negotiating states were unable to agree on the insertion of a crime for the offence of aggression which was absolutely central to the prosecution at Nuremberg and, indeed, whose absence is one of the reasons why my noble friend Lord Howell has such fears about the consequences for military commanders.
We should have been much happier, on the Opposition Front Bench, had the crime of aggression been included in the Rome Statute. That would have
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provided a proper framework against which the actions of military commanders would have been judged. Perhaps I may say, humbly, that the speech which I made in 1998 should be read in that context.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I certainly take on board fully what the noble Lord says about that. But I still say, with great respect to him, that what he said then, he said well. That comment accurately reflected what we are trying to do now.
The Nuremberg process had real credibility. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland went on to say that,
"unless the big fish can be caught … the major object of an international court…will never be achieved".—[Official Report, 20/7/98; col. 626.]
We agree with the noble Lord. We consider that the principle of command responsibility serves exactly that purpose: to catch the big fish. I empathise with what the noble Lord said about the act of aggression. That was not included. But noble Lords will know that in seven years' time, we shall probably be revisiting that selfsame term and it may be that unanimity will be possible then, although it has not been possible before.
In the light of those comments, not least our assurance that we have drafted this clause with the protection of service personnel very much in mind, I hope that the noble Lord will not seek to press the amendment.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I strongly agree with the words that the noble Baroness repeated earlier that she had procured from the chiefs of staff or, at any rate, senior military officials about their right to have protection so that they can pursue their legitimate aims. I cannot remember the Minister's precise words but they sounded admirable to me. I wholly agree with them.
I also agree wholly with the principles behind the clause; that senior military commanders shall be held to account. I was very interested in the wording which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, produced from the longstanding rules of engagement. Of course, those words are correct and good and they are clear enough to commanders. He mentioned the additional phrase "through reports received by him". If that was in the Bill, it would be a slight improvement on what we have here.
But, of course, in a sense, the past is the past. The noble Lord quoted the Yamashita case. I may be using words which are too blunt at this late hour but that is a fairly rotten example. To this very day, there is resentment in Japan about whether that was justice or merely victor justice, even though it was under United States' law. I am not sure that that is something that we want to see elevated and repeated in the context of the higher jurisdiction which we are seeking to create.
In any event, the point was that it was under United States' law, and the past rules of engagement under which senior commanders have operated in the British Army have been in the context of British law. But the whole point now is that we are creating a new and higher jurisdiction not with primary but with extensive

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powers which may, in the last instance, have the last word on who shall be investigated and charged. Of course, if it is a senior commander, the very whiff or suggestion of investigation is immediate ruin and that is very nearly the end of the matter for the public servant concerned.
I am left uneasy by what the noble and learned Lord has said and by what the noble Baroness has said. I still do not begin to understand why the Canadians, who are much more strongly—or at least equally as strongly—i n favour of this than the present Government, can manage to finesse this matter. Why is it that they can change the words and we cannot? That has not been explained.
This is a wholly undesirable note on which to come to the end of Report stage. We are simply left without an explanation of why other countries, great democracies that are totally committed to the creation of a permanent court, can apparently change the words to adapt to their domestic and constitutional needs and be more effective and fair when we cannot. This is an unhappy and unsatisfactory ending to our discussions and one that leaves many important questions in the air. The hour is late and I shall not test the opinion of the House, but I want to record firmly that at Third Reading we need to return to these matters in detail. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.15 p.m.
[Amendment No. 45 not moved.]
Clause 67 [Meaning of "UK national" and "person subject to UK service jurisdiction"]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 33, line 30, at end insert—
("(1A) In this Part a "United Kingdom resident" means a person who is resident in the United Kingdom.").
[Amendment No. 47, as an amendment to Amendment No. 46, not moved.]
On Question, Amendment No. 46 agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 48:
After Clause 67, insert the following new clause—

International Criminal Court Bill [H.L.]

  PROCEEDINGS AGAINST PERSONS BECOMING RESIDENT WITHIN THE JURISDICTION
  (" .—(1) This section applies in relation to a person who commits acts outside the United Kingdom at a time when he is not a United Kingdom national, a United Kingdom resident or a person subject to UK service jurisdiction and who subsequently becomes resident in the United Kingdom.
  (2) Proceedings may be brought against such a person in England and Wales or Northern Ireland for a substantive offence under this Part if—

  (a) he is resident in the United Kingdom at the time the proceedings are brought, and

  (b) the acts in respect of which the proceedings are brought would have constituted that offence if they had been committed in that part of the United Kingdom.

  (3) Proceedings may be brought against such a person in England and Wales or Northern Ireland for an offence ancillary to a substantive offence under this Part (or what would be such a substantive offence if committed in that part of the United Kingdom) if—

  (a) he is resident in the United Kingdom at the time the proceedings are brought, and

  (b) the acts in respect of which the proceedings are brought would have constituted that offence if they had been committed in that part of the United Kingdom.

  (4) In this section "substantive offence" means an offence other than an ancillary offence.
  (5) Nothing in this section shall be read as restricting the operation of any other provision of this Part.").
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 80 [Index of defined expressions]:
  Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 49:
  Page 40, line 37, at end insert—
  ("United Kingdom resident section 67(1A)")
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 81 [Commencement]:
  [Amendment No. 50 not moved.]
  Lord Lamont of Lerwick Lord Lamont of Lerwick moved Amendment No. 51:
  Page 40, line 42, at end insert—
  ("() An order may not be made under this section until all those countries which have ratified the Statute of the ICC have made their assessed contributions required under Article 115 for the operation of the Court.).
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 51 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 52. Amendment No. 51 is a commencement provision and suggests that an order should not be made under paragraph 5 of Schedule I until all those countries that have ratified the statute have made their assessed contributions required under Article 115 for the operation of the court.
  Technically this may not be the right way to make this point, but I make the suggestion that for this court to operate universally and to command respect it has to be backed, and backed with resources from all those who can afford to pay—those who have been assessed as being required to make a contribution. This great institution is supported by the freedom-loving countries of Zimbabwe and Iran but not by the United States. Will Zimbabwe and Iran make their contributions before the court is up and running?
  This institution is not one that will be backed by the United States, so funding will have to come from other countries. My point is that I believe that the credibility of the institution will be at stake—I wonder whether I can have the attention of the Minister—if those who support it, with all the high declarations, are not actually prepared to put money into it.
  There are concerns about the Yugoslav war tribunals, but they have been financed only by a minority of states and disproportionately by Muslim states. Some people have been concerned about that. The principle in this amendment is that for the court to have credibility the financing should be provided by all

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  those who lend their authority and the names of their countries to the great declarations that we have been discussing.
  Amendment No. 52 refers to voluntary contributions. Under Article 116 of the statute, most extraordinarily, provision is made for voluntary contributions from individuals, corporations and other entities. I ask the Minister, what kind of court is it that is partly privately financed? How can one have a court which is to some extent financed by NGOs, by pressure groups? The Minister will know that I previously raised the question about the Yugoslav war tribunals. Some of the equipment in those courts has been provided by private organisations. Mr Soros provided some of the money and some of the equipment. I have nothing against him but I ask whether it is appropriate for a court. What kind of court will be financed by private individuals, corporations and other entities?
  I have sought a limit of 5 per cent because to have a court that is financed to a greater extent by private sources would call into doubt the impartiality of the court. It should not be captured by private organisations. I beg to move.
  Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, no state will pay an assessed contribution until the court is up and running. Even more fundamentally, no state will pay an assessed contribution until a first assembly of states parties have adopted the financial rules and regulations of the court, determined at the first budget of the court and agreed on the scale of assessment.
  In practice, therefore, the effect of these amendments would be to delay UK ratification until all that has happened. In other words, the amendments would frustrate the Government's intention of the UK being among the court's founding members.
  We believe it is important that we should be at the first assembly of states parties. We think that not only because we think it is right that Britain, in view of her foremost contribution to international law and the development of human rights, should be represented at the outset of this historic and noble enterprise. We believe it also because unless we are there, Britain will have no opportunity to influence the issues about which the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, has expressed concern.
  On the question of assessed contributions, Article 117 of the Rome Statute provides that the scale of assessment shall be based on the scale adopted by the United Nations for its regular budget. I do not think
  438
  that that should cause any of your Lordships any particular concerns: we of course pay our fair share of the UN regular budget and we will of course have to pay our fair share of the ICC's costs.
  The noble Lord expressed concern about other states failing to pay on time. This is not a problem which has escaped the notice of ourselves or the other states involved in the negotiation. Article 112.8 of the statute already provides that a state party in unjustified arrears will lose its vote in the assembly of states parties.
  The noble Lord was also worried about undue reliance on voluntary funding. I hope that I can set his concerns to rest. Article 115 already makes it clear that the expenses of the court will come from the assessed contributions and from funds provided by the United Nations. So the fundamental operation of the court and its prosecutor will come from assured funding. As for voluntary funding, the first assembly of states parties will determine the criteria on when and to what extent voluntary funding can be accepted. That is one more reason for the UK to be represented at that first assembly.
  It is extremely important that the ICC must indeed work in an efficient, cost-effective and independent manner, with adequate, reliable funding and proper financial oversight. As to that point, I am in complete agreement with the noble Lord. That was what our negotiators worked towards last week at the ICC preparatory commission as they dealt with the court's financial rules and regulations. They will continue to do that when the United Kingdom is a state party to the ICC.
  I hope that that puts at rest the mind of the noble Lord and enables him to withdraw his amendment. I am confident that the noble Lord does not wish to disable this country from making proper, cogent arguments to ensure the efficient operation of the new court.
  Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I am grateful for the reply of the noble Baroness, which I shall study. Obviously, my motive is not to disable the court in any way. I was puzzled about the role of private voluntary contributions. I remain somewhat puzzled and am a little disturbed by their role in the Yugoslav war tribunals. But in view of the response of the noble Baroness, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 52 not moved.]
  House adjourned at twenty-six minutes past eleven o'clock.

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