Sitting of 28 November 2001

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  The Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State was asked—
  DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

    Deregulation
    Paul Flynn: What action is planned to reduce expenditure by way of deregulation. [15969]
    The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Christopher Leslie): Mr. Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has asked me to apologise to you and to the House for his absence today. Deputising for the Prime Minister, he is undertaking a series of international meetings on a number of matters, including the coalition against terrorism and climate change.
    The Government's programme of regulatory reform seeks to reduce burdens and costs for both the public sector and the business community. For example, by reducing the burden of paperwork and form-filling in schools, the Government have saved more than 2.5 million teacher hours in primary schools this year.
    Paul Flynn: The Transport Research Laboratory has claimed that changing just one regulation would reduce casualties, avoiding the deaths of 140 people a year and 520 serious injuries. The Policy Studies Institute also claims that there would be immense benefits for the tourist trade and the elderly if we adopted European standard time and dumped the absurd practice of changing our times twice a year. Does my hon. Friend, who is in the infancy of what I am sure will be a brilliant career, do his best to bring more light to the nation and ensure that our waking hours more precisely match our working hours?
    Mr. Leslie: I am not sure whether that is a compliment. There are pros and cons on both sides of the argument about keeping British summer time. One advantage would be lighter afternoons, and I suppose that the disadvantage would be darker mornings. I understand that an experiment took place in the late 1960s to retain summer time—that was definitely before my time.
    Mr. Mark Oaten: Does the Minister believe that yesterday's Budget statement will lead to less
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    bureaucracy and red tape for business, or more? Can he give a commitment that the Cabinet Office will undertake a regulatory review and assessment on that Budget?
    Mr. Leslie: The answer is yes. The Government are always making sure that we reduce red tape and burdensome bureaucracy wherever possible. Conservative Members object to measures such as the minimum wage, family leave and working time protection. They regard them as over-burdensome pieces of bureaucracy—I regard them as essential pieces of social reform.
    Mr. Andrew Lansley: The Minister will recall that none of the initial orders under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 that were subject to consultation implied any decrease in Government expenditure. However, one would have meant an increase—the vaccine damage payment scheme consultation. Can the Minister tell the House when that order is expected to be introduced to the House?
    Mr. Leslie: I am afraid that I do not have that information to hand, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman about it. The programme of regulatory reform orders is beginning within Government so that we can use that tool as a mechanism for removing over-burdensome regulations wherever possible. I shall try and find out more information on that for the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Tim Collins: If it is the case, as the Minister claims, that the Government are deregulating and relieving burdens on business—I pay tribute to him for being able to say that with a straight face—why did the Director General of the CBI complain recently that last year more regulations had been passed than in any previous year in history?
    Mr. Leslie: We have heard this story before. I think that the hon. Gentleman is talking about statutory instruments, 95 per cent. of which have no burdensome impact on business. He needs to distinguish between measures that introduce support and help for ordinary working people in this country. He regards those as unnecessary costs, whereas the mass of working people think that they are essential.
    Sir Patrick Cormack: How many regulations have been abolished since the Government came into office in May 1997?
    Mr. Leslie: A number of changes are made all the time in terms of reducing regulation. We are genuinely engaged in an earnest effort to reduce those regulations that are burdensome. If the hon. Gentleman has specific suggestions to make to the House and the Select Committee on Deregulation and Regulatory Reform, many Members will he willing and able to listen to them.

    Government Regional Offices
    Dr. Stephen Ladyman: If he will make a statement on the operational priorities for Government regional offices. [15970]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mrs. Barbara Roche): The Government offices for the regions bring together the activities and interests of many different Departments. The operational priorities of the Government offices are to deliver programmes to specific Departments and to achieve a joined-up approach.
    Dr. Ladyman: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. From my conversations with the Government office of the south-east, I know that it is committed to adding value to the work of other agencies and local authorities. I applaud it for that commitment. However, when it administers funds, such as the European social fund, on behalf of local authorities, there are times when it issues the funds in short-term tranches. That makes it difficult to build quality projects because it is difficult to recruit people under short-term funding. Will my hon. Friend ensure that any red tape—whether UK or European—that limits the projects to short-term funding is swept away so that we can build quality projects?
    Mrs. Roche: I know of the interest that my hon. Friend has taken in the subject and that he has held constructive meetings with the Government office of his region. I understand his point. European programme funds cover a six-year period, but some of the match funding can be for all that period or it can be reviewed annually. I shall certainly consider the points that he raises.
    Mr. Jonathan Djanogly: Will not the increase of regional government lead to the death of the county councils?
    Mrs. Roche: No. The hon. Gentleman should consider the commitment on regional governance that we made in our manifesto. We said that we would examine the issue and we have already told the House that we would introduce a White Paper on it. We particularly highlighted the case of unitary authorities.
    Brian White: Will my hon. Friend ensure that, when regional development agencies adjoin each other, they work across regional boundaries in a seamless fashion and do not create new artificial boundaries?
    Mrs. Roche: Yes, absolutely. The boundaries of the Government offices of the regions are always a contentious matter, and everyone will have a view on where the boundaries should be. I think that we have now settled the matter, but it is important that Government offices of the regions work together. We have the co-ordination unit to make sure that they do just that.

    Government Policy Co-ordination
    Michael Fabricant: What steps he is taking to co-ordinate the promotion of Government policy en (a) health care and (b) transport. [15971]
    The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Christopher Leslie): Policy on health care and transport is obviously the responsibility of the respective Departments. However, the Prime Minister's delivery unit is working with those Departments to monitor effective
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    efforts towards key targets, to take stock of progress made and to help to overcome the barriers or obstacles to delivery as rapidly as possible.
    Michael Fabricant: I thank the Minister for that helpful answer. Does he agree that the job of promotion, which is what my question is about, is the responsibility of Government information officers? Will he join me in praising the work of the information officers who are employed by the civil service? Will he explain precisely why 16 out of 18 senior Government information officers have been sacked or pensioned off before their time by this Government since 1997?
    Mr. Leslie: I am very happy to pay tribute to the information officers who work for the civil service. They do a fantastic job. There is obviously a constant change of personnel in all sorts of divisions. I am not sure to what the hon. Gentleman is alluding, but it is no wonder that his question relates to promotion. I know that he is always angling on that point.
    David Taylor: Following the change in direction on health care so clearly articulated by the Chancellor yesterday and so warmly welcomed by many Labour Members, does my hon. Friend believe that greater investment will go into the promotion of what is without doubt a more democratic and more socialist agenda?
    Mr. Leslie: As a democratic socialist, I certainly share my hon. Friend's view. Some £8 billion worth of new hospitals are being built, and 17,000 extra nurses and 7,000 extra doctors have been employed since 1997. We have still a long way to go. We have to maintain progress to ensure that we deliver a health service that is free at the point of use, available to all who need it and is of a high standard fit for the 21st century.

    Regional Co-ordination Unit
    Mr. Bob Blizzard: If he will make a statement on the work of the regional co-ordination unit. [15972]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mrs. Barbara Roche): In particular, the work of the regional co-ordination unit is achieving better scrutiny of proposals for new area-based initiatives and the review of existing ones.
    Mr. Blizzard: When my hon. Friend tries to co-ordinate the work of regional public bodies in the eastern region, will she examine the East of England Inward Investment Agency, which was set up by the previous Government? Will she consider the serious under-performance of that organisation and its failure to attract any inward investment to those parts of the region that need it? Why are we spending public money supposedly attracting firms to places where they would go anyway? Is that not rather like giving grants to people to sell ice creams on a hot day?
    Mrs. Roche: I know that the agency is targeting potential investors in the oil, gas and renewable energy sector, but I will certainly consider the points that my

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    hon. Friend raises. He might also like to know that a seminar organised by Business Link Suffolk, which involves the Government office, is taking place shortly. It will also involve a number of local businesses. I am sure that my hon. Friend's interest in that matter will be greatly appreciated.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Will the Minister establish whether the unit was consulted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the distribution, as from Friday, of the exemption from stamp duty of 4,000 deprived wards in the United Kingdom? Will she also try to discover—this has astonished us in Southend—why the Milton ward, to which the Minister made an excellent visit, is not covered by those regulations, bearing in mind that it is more deprived than almost any other area of England or Wales?
    Mrs. Roche: I know of the great interest that the hon. Gentleman has in deprivation, in particular how we can get help to the most deprived wards in the country. I am grateful to him for his remarks on my visit, which I greatly enjoyed. I will certainly consider the issue and bring it to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends across the Government.
    Joyce Quin: Can my hon. Friend assure me that the regional co-ordination unit and her Department in general will work closely with regional development agencies in the run-up to the publication of the promised White Paper on regional government? Although regional government involves more than just economic development, does she agree that it will be essential for the RDAs to be at the heart of such governments when they are established?
    Mrs. Roche: I can give my right hon. Friend that assurance. I have made a number of regional visits, as has my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, to discuss that subject. We have met representatives of the Assemblies and the RDAs It is clear that a great deal of good work is being undertaken on economic regeneration.

    Public Services
    Mr. Peter Pike: What recent assessment his Department has made of the delivery of public services in the regions in England. [15973]
    The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Christopher Leslie): Delivering improved local public services across all regions of the country is our top priority, and the Cabinet Office is working to ensure that Government offices for the regions play a key role in helping to deliver results.
    Mr. Pike: My hon. Friend will know that the Deputy Prime Minister visited Burnley and east Lancashire twice recently. He will also be well aware of the problems that that north-west region faces, in particular the large number of empty private sector houses and the heavy dependence on manufacturing sector jobs. More than 30 per cent. of the work force are employed in manufacturing, which is experiencing major problems following 11 September. Will my hon. Friend make it
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    clear that the RDA will play a key role in the regeneration of that part of the north-west and in the delivery of public services and jobs?
    Mr. Leslie: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work and efforts to rebuild the community, especially that in his constituency. He voices important concerns about the need to tackle crime and housing problems, and it is essential to rebuild the local economy. The Deputy Prime Minister considered such matters during his visit. The task force chaired by Lord Clarke will publish its report in December and is considering the issues that my hon. Friend raises.
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: Does the Minister understand that if he closed down the hapless Government regional office in the south-east tomorrow there would be no tears in Bracknell or elsewhere in the region because we think that it creates unnecessary extra Government bureaucracy and is a huge waste of taxpayers' money?
    Mr. Leslie: If the regional office in the right hon. Gentleman's area is such a waste of time why did his Government set it up in the first place? The Government offices for the regions need to be enhanced and supported so that we ensure that they work not just on traditional housing and regeneration issues, but on planning, environment and anti-crime measures. The area-based initiatives—not least those started by the right hon. Gentleman's Government—need to be properly reformed so that they make a difference on the ground. [Interruption]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Once again, I call for quiet in the Chamber. It is only fair to the Minister and to those who are asking a question.
    Ms Joan Walley: May I say how pleased I am to hear that the Minister is taking joined-up thinking so seriously? Some months ago I was promised someone on secondment from the Cabinet Office to assist with urban regeneration in Burslem. Will he consider whether those resources can now be made available to assist with the regeneration that is so urgently needed in north Staffordshire?
    Mr. Leslie: It is important that there are secondments from central Government to localities where extra efforts are required. I shall certainly endeavour to look further into the case that my hon. Friend mentioned. We should not only focus on regeneration at the grass roots but delegate people from central Departments to areas where it matters most.
    Mr. Roy Beggs: Does the Minister agree that the efficient delivery of public services can be disrupted and delayed by extended staff absences? Will he initiate an in-depth analysis to determine whether Departments and public services need to put in place arrangements to prevent such disruption and delay?
    Mr. Leslie: I am responsible for overseeing the day-to-day running of the civil service, and I can certainly assure the hon. Gentleman that attention to sickness and absence levels throughout public services is central to

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    ensuring good performance by a happy and healthy work force. I shall continue to try to monitor those important factors.
    Mr. David Heath: Does the Minister agree that the effective delivery of high quality public services depends less on the grand panjandrums of Whitehall and more on the morale and enthusiasm of the civil servants who work directly with the public throughout the country? To that end, does he agree that there is a need for a civil service Act and a national framework for civil servants' pay?
    Mr. Leslie: The Government are certainly committed to introducing a civil service Bill when parliamentary time allows. On a national framework, my own feeling is that departmental managers need the flexibility to incentivise good performance in their own Department. We are in discussion with civil service unions and others about these issues.
    Mr. Tim Collins: Is it an aim of Government regional policy to reduce the north-south gap?
    Mr. Leslie: There are differences within regions just as there are differences between them, and we have to ensure that each has an opportunity to develop its economic strategies in as fair and equal a manner as possible. There are serious issues that require attention. Of course, making sure that the most deprived areas of our country get the assistance that they need is a priority, and one which I would hope the hon. Gentleman shares.
    Mr. Collins: It was a very simple question and it needed only a yes or no answer. Is it Government policy to reduce the north-south gap, or not? I have to say that if it is, Government policy is failing because the latest independent figures show that the gap is widening. Would the Minister like to try again? Is it his policy to reduce that gap—yes or no?
    Mr. Leslie: Well, if the hon. Gentleman thinks that the policy is as simple as saying that the north is poor and the south is wealthier, I really think that he needs to get a grip. There are significant pockets of poverty and deprivation in the south of England, just as there are wealthier areas in the north of the country. We need to take a more sophisticated approach to the whole question.

    Government Regional Offices
    Paddy Tipping: What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of Government offices for the regions. [15975]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mrs. Barbara Roche): Government offices contribute to the delivery of the programmes of a number of different Departments. Those are set out in the corporate plan for the Government office network.
    Paddy Tipping: Does the Minister agree that, when Government offices for the regions primarily deliver social policies, and regional development agencies primarily deliver the economic agenda, it is important that
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    their aims and objectives fit closely? Is not the best way of ensuring that to work towards elected regional government across England as quickly as possible?
    Mrs. Roche: If one looks at the different programmes, one certainly sees that some have an economic aspect and some a social aspect. It is clear that an area cannot be regenerated socially without economic regeneration A White Paper on regional governance will be published as soon as possible.

    Freedom of Information Act
    Helen Jackson: What steps he is taking to implement the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in his Department. [15977]
    The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Christopher Leslie): The Cabinet Office established a new unit to ensure open government early last year, whose tasks include specifically implementing the provisions of the Government's Freedom of Information Act in the Department.
    Helen Jackson: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. Will he try not to be too timid about this excellent legislation, perhaps considering in the Cabinet Office at least embarking on full implementation of the Act next year, so that other Departments and, indeed, the 300 or 400 quangos covered by the legislation, can follow its lead?
    Mr. Leslie: I am pleased to say that the Cabinet Office will be making progress on issuing publication schemes from—I think—next November. It is important that we get the whole area right, so that freedom of information legislation is implemented properly and thoroughly, and not in a half-hearted fashion. We want to put a greater volume of information into the public arena, and I shall certainly try not to be as timid as my hon. Friend suspects.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: If the Government are so keen on freedom of information, why is a mole hunt under way to find the identity of the public servant who leaked the existence of Jo Moore's disgraceful e-mail? Will the Minister give an assurance that if that person is found he will be promoted for furthering freedom of information, and not sacked?
    Mr. Leslie: The hon. Gentleman is discussing a conspiracy theory, which is unusual for him. If he is looking for moles, the best we can find is the one from last week's by-election in Ipswich. If that reminds him of the true moles in this place, then so much the better.
    Tony Wright: The Minister will know that there is disappointment about the Government's decision to delay implementation of the legislation. Will he ensure that the civil service does not take that as a lack of seriousness on our part and put it on the back burner, and that it is told that we are proud of being the first Government to have introduced such legislation and that we mean business with it?
    Mr. Leslie: We are certainly proud to introduce the Freedom of Information Act, but we must ensure that we actively consider the new publication schemes, putting

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    more information into the public arena. We must ensure that our commitment to open government is not only genuine but effective and efficient. Getting it right operationally is extremely important.
    Norman Baker: Is not the Government's commitment to freedom of information becoming a little threadbare? First, the Minister who was responsible for implementing it was sacked for being too radical, and then the proposals were watered down. Now we have an implementation date of 2005. Will the Minister publish the information that led him to conclude that 2005—an absurdly faraway date—would be an appropriate date for implementation, or is that too subject to exclusion from publication?
    Mr. Leslie: I feel that sometimes a little congratulation from the Liberal Democrats would be in order, particularly since the idea of a freedom of information Act was opposed by the Conservative party during the 1997 election campaign. Ensuring that we implement publication schemes from next November is extremely important, and the Government are committed to that. We will find ways of ensuring that we get right the implementation of the Act.

    Government Office for the North East
    Mr. David Clelland: When he last met representatives of the Government office for the north east. [15978]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mrs. Barbara Roche): My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister visited the Government office for the north east on 13 August, and I visited Government offices on 22 November.
    Mr. Clelland: During the discussions, was mention made of the forthcoming White Paper on regional government, in particular the role of the regional development agencies? Dees my hon. Friend agree that regional government without economic development powers would be a timid beast indeed; will she resist those forces in the Department of Trade and Industry who would retain powers over RDAs even after regional government is introduced; and will she assure me that RDAs will form an integral part of regional government?
    Mrs. Roche: There have been discussions on regional governance. As for what fiat will be, my hon. Friend will have to wait until the White Paper is published.

  The Prime Minister was asked—
  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    David Burnside: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 28 November.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
    David Burnside: Recently in Ulster, Her Majesty's Government have removed the royal title and the Crown insignia from the Royal Ulster Constabulary and prohibited the flying of the Union flag from police stations, and they plan to remove the royal coat of arms in courtrooms. Does the Prime Minister believe that those changes symbolise a deep-seated republican tendency at the heart of his Government? Do the Government intend to apply similar changes to police forces and the judiciary in England and Wales?
    The Prime Minister: Let me make two points. First, the principle of consent—that Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom as long as the majority of people there wish it—is absolute; it is the founding principle of the Belfast agreement. Secondly, the proposals are for consultation. It is important to ensure that we get the broadest possible support for a police service and criminal justice system that command support right across the communities. I hope very much that the hon. Gentleman will play his part in that effort, because it is an essential part of the new dispensation in Northern Ireland that we have both a police service—I pay tribute to the work that the RUC has done over many years—and a criminal justice system that command support and can be part of the new Northern Ireland that is being built.
    Mr. Brian Jenkins: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to update the House on the position of the 12 British tourists held in jail in Spain—[HON. MEMBERS: "Greece."]—sorry, Greece for plane-spotting, especially Wayne Groves, a resident of Tamworth? Will he pass on to the British consulate the thanks of the family for the work its staff have done? Will he also take this opportunity to assure the many British tourists who are considering booking holidays in Greece that it is a safe place to visit?
    The Prime Minister: I have spoken to the Greek Prime Minister about the issue and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to his Greek counterpart today. I hope that the case can be resolved. Whatever the difficulties, most people understand that those people are indeed tourists. I hope that the issue can be resolved as swiftly and satisfactorily as possible.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: Has the number of patients waiting more than an hour in casualty gone up or down since the right hon. Gentleman became Prime Minister?
    The Prime Minister: The number of patients waiting more than an hour in casualty has gone up—that is

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    correct. However, the overall number of patients waiting has fallen by more than 100,000. In particular, the number of patients waiting more than six months has fallen.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: In that case, will the Prime Minister tell us in what areas the health service has gone backwards under his Government, as his party chairman says?
    The Prime Minister: I have just mentioned one, but perhaps I should read the entire quote from the chairman of the Labour party. He said:
    "The fact is there have been massive improvements in some parts of the NHS but other areas where we've…gone backwards".
    If the right hon. Gentleman wants to look at both sides of the equation, let me give him one example of an area in which treatment has improved. In 1997, 63 per cent. of patients urgently referred with suspected cancer were seen within two weeks. Today, the figure is 93 per cent. By the end of the year, there will be 13 new anti-cancer drugs made available to NHS patients. By the end of next month, we shall have successfully introduced the maximum one-month wait from GP referral to treatment for children and for testicular cancer and leukaemia. By the end of this year, there will be a maximum of a one-month wait from diagnosis to treatment for breast cancer patients. In this year alone, we are putting into the NHS over 100 new cancer scanners.
    Yes, in some areas there is still a very great deal to do, but in other areas where the extra investment has gone in, there have been improvements. The difference is that we on the Government Benches believe in a national health service system that is funded out of general taxation and is free at the point of use. The purpose of the Conservatives is to ensure that people are forced to pay for the treatment that they have.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: I remind the Prime Minister that his chairman said that they had "gone backwards". The right hon. Gentleman does not want to answer that part of the question. Let me tell him that the number of people waiting over a year for their operations is up; the number of people waiting over three months to see a consultant is up; the number of people waiting more than an hour in casualty is up; and the number of unfilled GP posts is up.
    The Prime Minister used to tell everybody that he had 24 hours to save the health service. Yesterday, his Chancellor said that he needed another 20 years. When did it go from 24 hours to 24 years?
    The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman wants to look at areas where the NHS has improved, we find that the number of people waiting over six months has improved. The number of people waiting for cancer treatment has improved. The number of people waiting for cardiac treatment for over a year has improved. The number of doctors is up. The number of nurses is up. The number of beds in hospitals this year is up. The number of new hospital buildings is up.
    Yes, it is true that the process will take substantial extra resources. The issue is whether those resources come from general taxation or from social insurance, which is specific taxation on employers or employees, or from forcing people to pay for private medical care. The fact is—I challenge the right hon. Gentleman directly on
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    this—that it is the policy of the Conservative party to say that those who can should pay for some of their medical services.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: The policy of the Conservative party is to improve the health service, not make excuses for it. [Interruption.] Oh yes, that is right.
    As for the Chancellor, he gave us a long lecture yesterday about consensus. The consensus that the people outside the House know about concerns why they should have to wait in pain for routine operations or die sooner than their counterparts in Europe, and the fact that the fourth largest economy should be able to offer decent treatment to its people. Those are the consensus issues for the public.
    The only consensus for the right hon. Gentleman, his Chancellor and his Government is that between him and the trade unions—[Interruption.] to make sure that there will be no change that threatens their vested interests. Why does the right hon. Gentleman always put favours to friends ahead of the interests of patients?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman denied specifically that it was the policy of the Conservative party to say that people should pay for some of their treatment. Perhaps he would like to comment on the memorandum from the shadow Treasury spokesman to the shadow Chancellor dated 12 November—just two weeks ago—in which he said:
    "As you are aware, we remain vulnerable to the irritating attack that we are the party who will be cutting back on health care expenditure to reduce taxation."
    He then goes on to say:
    "The only propositions which make sense are…
    (iii) the reforms which we will be proposing will end the NHS monopoly and will entail those who can afford it making some payment for their health care services."
    In the interests of debate, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will explain what was meant by that.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: Perhaps I ought to remind the Prime Minister that all taxpayers in this country pay for their health service. He said only a couple of months ago that reforming the NHS was
    "a vital test for the modern Labour party".
    He also said,
    "it's not reform that is the enemy of public services it's the status quo".
    Does not the Chancellor's statement yesterday prove that he has flunked that test and that there is no further reform—none at all? He has handcuffed the Government to the whole status quo and the state monopoly. He has condemned patients to wait longer, suffer more and die earlier than our neighbours in Europe. The Prime Minister does not have a clue and does not have a cure for the health service.
    The Prime Minister: There is a perfectly simple distinction between a national health service that should indeed be reformed, as the Chancellor said yesterday and as I say today, and the right hon. Gentleman's proposals to force people out of the health service to pay for their treatment—[Interruption.] There can be no other explanation of the words that he used. There are two

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    issues in the debate. First, do we need more resources for health care in this country? Answer, yes. Secondly, do we get those extra resources from general taxation payments, from specific payments like social insurance in France and Germany, which is also a form of taxation, or by making people pay directly for their health care? We believe in the first. What on earth does the right hon. Gentleman believe in?
    Mr. Robert N. Wareing: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the time has come for a much more rational airports policy? Is it not ludicrous that congestion is being increased by the building of a fifth terminal at Heathrow, when many people, business men and tourists who live in the north of England have to traipse down to London before they can start their journey abroad? Is it not time to expand airports such as Liverpool, Leeds-Bradford and Newcastle? Is that not the rational approach to airports policy?
    The Prime Minister: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I hope that he will add Teesside, in which I have a particular interest, to that list. We have to do two things. Because of the greater demands on air travel by a range of different sources, we will have to develop Heathrow, but we will have to develop our regional airports as well. That is one reason why the recent developments in Manchester are welcome. We therefore need to do both things, but I entirely agree that additional pressures on air travellers will mean that we need increased capacity.
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: In January last year, the Prime Minister gave a specific personal commitment on national television that his Administration would raise spending on health provision in this country to the European Union average by 2005. What significance should we all read into the Chancellor's statement yesterday afternoon which made no mention of that whatsoever?
    The Prime Minister: Only the Liberal Democrats could read the Chancellor's statement as being ungenerous in funding the national health service. The fact is, we need to increase substantially the resources going into the health service. The benefit of what the Chancellor said in the report that he launched yesterday is that, for the first time, we can have a serious and proper debate about where that money comes from. The one thing that is ludicrous to suppose, although there are parts of the media that did so this morning, is that the choice is between, on the one hand, a health care system funded by general taxation and, on the other, a better funded health care system that somehow comes for free. The issue in all cases will be how to fund that health care properly, given that we need a substantial increase in resources. We have made it clear that along with that increase in resources must come substantial reforms in the national health service to make it work efficiently.
    Mr. Kennedy: Methinks the Prime Minister does protest too much. I just want a straight answer to a straight question—[Interruption.] I am trying to be generous.
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    The Prime Minister committed himself to raising health expenditure in our country to the European Union average by 2005. Is that still the policy of his Government?
    The Prime Minister: Of course it is. That is precisely the point of the Chancellor's announcement yesterday. With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he is not being generous—we are. Whatever system we have, the money must come in the end from general taxation, from social insurance, or from people paying—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Prime Minister answer.
    The Prime Minister: The purpose of what the Chancellor is saying is to get additional money into our health care system. After yesterday's statement, only the Liberal Democrats could still be saying that it is riot enough.
    Mr. Tony Banks: We all share concern for the people of Afghanistan, but will my right hon. Friend show compassion for the animals of Afghanistan? Has he seen the pictures of the animals in Kabul zoo such as Marjan the lion and that poor black bear that had its nose sliced off by some barbarian? Will my right hon. Friend call to Downing street the concerned animal welfare organisations so that a relief operation could be mounted to save the animals in Kabul zoo and in Afghanistan? If he is prepared to do that, I know that millions of animal lovers throughout the country will be eternally grateful to him.
    The Prime Minister: I understand the point that my hon. Friend raises; it has been raised by many people in the past few weeks. I cannot undertake to arrange the specific meeting for which he asks, but I will consider carefully what he said, and make sure both that the issue is taken up by Government and that he is given a satisfactory reply.
    Sir Michael Spicer: Why cannot we have a proper public inquiry into the foot and mouth disaster? What does the Prime Minister have to hide?
    The Prime Minister: There are inquiries into the foot and mouth outbreak, which will indeed be public. On any basis, those inquiries must look at all the various aspects of the matter. I do not believe that a full-dress statutory tribunal costing millions of pounds and probably lasting two or three years would be helpful to the farming industry or the future of farming production.
    Dr. Brian Iddon: Some health authorities are spending well below their target funding levels—about £13 million, in the case of Wigan and Bolton. Does my right hon. Friend agree that yesterday's announcement of extra money for the national health service, along with the fact that we are setting up new primary care trusts next year, provide an excellent opportunity to tackle that problem? That, in turn, would allow the Royal Bolton hospital to increase its capacity in order to meet an ever-increasing demand for its services?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right. It is not just the additional resources that are needed in the health

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    service; we also need to carry out the reforms, in particular so that by 2004, 75 per cent. of the money in the health service will be spent through primary care trusts. That is a huge reform in itself. A series of negotiations is under way that will change the contracts of doctors, consultants and nurses to provide greater flexibility and better incentives. The national service frameworks in each main disease area will give us national minimum standards right across the piece. My hon. Friend is right. We must make sure that the money is properly spent to deliver better health care. The reform and the investment go together.

    London Underground
    Richard Ottaway: What are his plans for the financing of London Underground; and if he will make a statement.
    The Prime Minister: Our plans for the modernisation of the tube will unlock some £13 billion for investment and maintenance over the next 15 years. We believe that the public-private partnership is the best way to do that.
    Richard Ottaway: I asked the Prime Minister what his plans were, not how he is getting on. Does he recall his manifesto pledge on the underground:
    "Better transport is crucial to the future of London…Labour plans a new public/private partnership to improve the Underground"?
    That was not in 2001. That was in 1997, and nothing has happened since then. Will the Prime Minister show his commitment to devolution, stop arguing with the mayor, and fully involve the Greater London Authority in working out what is best for London's long-suffering underground passengers?
    The Prime Minister: We will proceed with the plans that we have. I say to the hon. Gentleman that he is probably in a worse position than any other Member of this House to raise the issue of the tube. If we are quoting what people said in 1997, let me quote what he said in July of that year. He referred to the
    "now glaringly obvious success of railway privatisation"
    and asked the Government to
    "admit that the privatisation of London Underground is the best way forward."—[Official Report, 29 July 1997; Vol. 299, c. 139.]

    Engagements
    Mr. Peter Duncan: Will the Prime Minister confirm that, of the 416,000 stakeholder pensions that have been sold to date, a miserable 1 per cent. have been sold to the target group?
    The Prime Minister: It is important, as we have said, that the stakeholder pensioner group is expanded, but as a result of the reforms that we have introduced, for the first time, many of the people in that group will have access to low-cost pensions; otherwise, they would simply have no access to pensions at all.
    Mr. Neil Gerrard: In the light of repeated statements by senior United States politicians and officials, including President Bush,
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    suggesting that countries other than Afghanistan may become targets for the United States, will the Prime Minister confirm that he will not support the extension of military action to countries such as Iraq, Sudan, Somalia or Yemen?
    The Prime Minister: First of all, it might be helpful to quote what President Bush actually said. He said:
    "Afghanistan is still just the beginning. If anybody harbours a terrorist, they're a terrorist…If they house terrorists, they're terrorists…I can't make it any more clearly to…nations around the world. If they develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorise nations, they will be held accountable. And as for Mr. Saddam Hussein, he needs to let inspectors back in his country, to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction."
    I totally agree with those sentiments. I have always said that this operation will have two phases. The first is in Afghanistan and our military action is focused there. The second is to take in a deliberative and considered way what action we can against international terrorism in all its forms. That has been the position from the beginning. It is the position of myself, the American Administration and everybody else in the international coalition, and that remains the case.
    Bob Russell: While I acknowledge that equality of opportunity for our young people is something that you support—[HON. MEMBERS: "He supports."] While that is something that he supports, is the Prime Minister aware that funding for young people in our sixth-form colleges is approximately 30 per cent. less than that provided for young people attending sixth forms in schools? I acknowledge that that problem arises from the formula created by the last Conservative Government, which provides roughly £1,000 a year less, but when will he increase the funding to the same level?
    The Prime Minister: What we can say is this: we recognise that there is a gap between the way in which schools and sixth-form and further education colleges are funded. It is for that reason that an increase of, I think, about 12 per cent. in real terms, will be going to further education colleges. It is also for that reason that we have changed the way in which funding is provided to sixth forms in schools, sixth-form colleges and further education colleges, through the Learning and Skills Council. What we need to do, without in any way penalising sixth forms in schools, is to lift up the funding that is given specifically to sixth-form and further education colleges.
    Ms Julia Drown: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, despite the significant additional funds given to Swindon schools under this Labour Government, it is wrong that areas with better exam results, such Chingford and Woodford Green, get £1,000 more per student than Swindon schools? Will he take steps to ensure that that inequality is addressed, not in two years' time, but in next year's settlement?
    The Prime Minister: I think that what I can promise my hon. Friend is that we will make sure that Swindon gets the extra resources that are, of course, going to schools up and down this country. I understand the arguments about the standard spending assessment and

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    how it is calculated. She will know that the Government are consulting on that now. I think that it is probably wise not to say anything more a this stage.
    Mr. Edward Davey: Does the Prime Minister think that the transportation of nuclear fuel and the production of nuclear power are more or less safe in Britain following the terrorist outrages of 11 September? What conclusion does he draw?
    The Prime Minister: The conclusion that I draw is that the very strict regulations covering the transportation of nuclear waste should continue. They are, and have been, in force and are very carefully monitored. I do not believe that there is any increased terrorist threat in this respect.
    Mike Gapes: Does the Prime Minister agree that it is time that pensioners were rewarded for saving, and got a guaranteed income and guaranteed increases? Does he think that pensioners in households that receive £200 every winter for the rest of this Parliament will agree that that is a cock-eyed way of increasing pensions?
    The prime Minister: I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) will remember that those words were used to describe, I think, the minimum income guarantee and the winter fuel allowance, but that was wrong. What was announced yesterday for pensioners is in addition to the £200 winter fuel allowance and the free TV licences for the over-75s. Almost 5.5 million pensioners will benefit from the new pension credit, and there is also the minimum income guarantee. All this is about creating a stronger and fairer country, particularly for those people who have reached the end of their working lives and who need some security in their old age.
    Mr. Graham Brady: Will the Prime Minister give a personal guarantee that there will be no change in the sovereignty of the people or the territory of Gibraltar without the self-determination of the people of Gibraltar?
    The Prime Minister: We stick absolutely by the 1969 resolution, which makes it clear that there should not be a change in the constitutional status of Gibraltar without the consent of the people there. I strongly believe that the Brussels process—which was, after all, started under the previous Conservative Government—which allows Britain and Spain to discuss these issues sensibly, should go forward. It would be very unfortunate if it did not do so. I also believe—I say this frankly to the people of Gibraltar—that it would be better if the Chief Minister of Gibraltar and the Gibraltar Government participated in that process.
    Mr. Graham Allen: My right hon. Friend spoke last week of missed opportunities in Europe. Does he agree that a European constitution which defined the rights of the nation states as well as the duties of the European Union, and which placed subsidiarity at
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    the head of that text, would place a road block in the way of those who want a European superstate and reassure those who see Britain and Europe's future together?
    The prime Minister: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that an important part of the debate on the future of Europe is to try to draw up a proper list of the competencies of the European Union. It is also important to ensure that when Europe needs to co-operate more effectively, it can do so, and to identify areas in which Europe may decide to do less. What was interesting about the paper prepared by France and Germany at the end of last week was that there was widespread acknowledgement across Europe that there may well be areas in which we need to work more closely together—for example, the single market, immigration and asylum, organised crime, and defence policy. There are, however, other areas—notably those relating to the regulation of the European Union—in which it is important that we take powers back from Brussels to the nation states.
    Mr. Dominic Grieve: Seeing that it is now clear that taxes are going to have to rise, will the Prime Minister give an assurance that the zero rate on children's food and on clothes will be maintained?
    The prime Minister: They are fine ones to be telling us about VAT being extended. We have made those commitments quite clear, and they remain our commitments. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have to address this issue. If we believe that more resources are needed for health care, there are only three sources for those resources: general taxation, specific taxation such as social insurance, or forcing people to pay for private medical care. At some point, Conservative Members are going to have to say where they stand on this issue, and not simply in internal memorandums in the Opposition Treasury team.
    Paul Flynn: Following the sad decision in the case of the terminally ill woman, Diane Pretty, who was told that the law would not allow her to die with dignity at the time of her choosing, does the Prime Minister think that it is time for a review of the Suicide Act 1961?
    The prime Minister: I am not in favour of reviewing that legislation. I understand the strong feelings it arouses, but this is a matter of conscience for hon. Members on both sides of the House. I am afraid that I am not in favour of amending the Act. I am sorry to give my hon. Friend the reply he does not want, but that is what I believe.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is the Prime Minister prepared to meet me later today to discuss yesterday's announcement by BAE Systems of 1,669 redundancies, a thousand of which are at Woodford on the periphery of my constituency? BAE Systems—British Aerospace that was—is ending regional jet production in this country. That is serious; the job losses in my constituency are serious. Are the Government prepared to consider what might be done to assist in this serious situation?
    The Prime Minister: First, let me express my sympathy for the hon. Gentleman's constituents who are affected by the announcement. I understand that, later today, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will make announcements on how we
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    can achieve the right rapid reaction response to job losses such as those in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. As for meeting me, I do not know whether that can be done today, but I am happy for us to meet as soon as we possibly can.

Speaker's Statement
3.31 pm
Mr. Speaker: Last week, I undertook to consider Members' concerns about ministerial replies to questions and to make a statement. It would be unwise for me to express a view on the adequacy of a particular ministerial answer. There are bound to be two views on that, and neither is a matter for me. The same is true of complaints about the transfer of individual questions. So I cannot alter the ruling that I gave last Wednesday and sit in judgment on particular answers. Faced with unsatisfactory replies, Members should seek advice—the Table Office is always ready to help—and then they should persist. One pointed question can, in my experience, achieve more than 20 vague ones. But I believe that the House would expect me to go beyond saying that the impartiality of the Chair makes it impossible for me to deal with individual cases. The House's legitimate expectations are contained in the 1997 resolution on ministerial responsibility. It is the duty of a Speaker to do what can properly be done from the Chair in support of the resolution. It is the duty of Ministers to act in the spirit of the resolution. The resolution says:
"Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with the Government's code of practice on access to Government information."
While it is for the House at large, not the Chair alone, to hold Ministers to those obligations, I can best discharge my responsibilities by suggesting ways in which Members might help themselves. The Procedure Committee is undertaking a wide-ranging inquiry into
"the extent to which the current system of questions contributes to effective parliamentary scrutiny".
I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) will be happy to receive chapter and verse if any Member feels that the system is ineffective and scrutiny is being thwarted. The Committee has already sent round a questionnaire, and I am sure that many Members will want to take the opportunity to contribute to the inquiry.
Secondly, when Ministers refuse to answer questions, they are expected to indicate in their reply why they have refused by reference to the Government's code. The Public Administration Committee regularly looks into the pattern of answering and makes a report to the House. Again, Members aggrieved at a ministerial refusal to answer might get in touch with the Committee Chairman, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright).
If Members individually take the appropriate steps to focus their experience through those Committees, and in other ways that may occur to them, the House collectively can make real progress towards better accountability.
Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I will take points of order later. First we must hear the statement from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Benefits Uprating
3.35 pm
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Alistair Darling): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on the annual uprating of benefits and pensions, on the pension credit, and on new measures to help more people into work.
As a result of the reforms that we have made, we are again able to do more to give more security to those who are unable to work and to those who have retired. This year, we will again increase some benefits by more than the usual uprating. We are also making fundamental reforms to reward savings. I will explain how the pension credit provides a radical departure from the social security system that we inherited, and announce further measures to provide a greater employment opportunity for those who can work.
First, let me deal with uprating. Most national insurance benefits will rise in the normal way, according to the retail prices index—which is 1.7 per cent.—and most income-related benefits will rise by the Rossi index, which is also 1.7 per cent. Details will be placed in the Vote Office, and will be published in the Official Report.
We are also doing more to help parents, so that families can balance their work and home lives. The standard rate of maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay will rise from £62.20 to £75 next April. That is the largest increase in maternity benefit since 1958, and will help about 340,000 families a year. In 2003 it will rise again, to £100 a week. Moreover, the sure start maternity grant will rise from £300 to £500 next year. In 1997, a new mother on income support would have received just £100 to pay for essential items; from next year, she will receive £500. That is a substantial increase for mothers on lower benefits.
This year we want to do more to help families who are bringing up children with disabilities. When we came to office, the extra money paid to low-income families with a disabled child was just £21 a week. Last year we increased it by more than £7 a week; this year I can go further. I propose to increase the disabled child premium by another £5 a week—on top of the normal uprating—to a new rate of £35.50. In 2003 it will rise again by £5 over and above inflation, to more than £40 a week on top of basic income support or tax credits. That will benefit about 80,000 children. It will give extra help where it is most needed: it will help families on low incomes, both in and out of work, with disabled children.
I want to announce a further change. In the past, people with the most severe disabilities found that if they or their partners were in work—often against all the odds—they lost entitlement to the independent living fund, which paid for their essential care. From April next year, the earnings of disabled people and their partners will no longer be taken into account in the independent living fund. That is worth an average of £130 a week to those families. At the same time, we will increase the capital limits in relation to the fund, to extend help to people with savings of up to £18,500. That is a £10,000 increase on the current figure.
We are also determined to boost pensioner incomes. In 1997, the poorest pensioners were expected to live on just £68.80 a week. Last year we increased the minimum income guarantee to £92 a week; from April next year,

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the guarantee for a single pensioner will rise by £6 to £98.15 per week. That is an increase of £23 a week for the poorest pensioners, over and above inflation, since we came to office. For couples, the new rate will be £149.80.
So that all pensioners can share in the rising prosperity, the basic state pension will rise by £3 in April—by £4.80 for married couples. Widows' and bereavement benefits—which, because of the changes we made in 1998, are now paid equally to men and women—will also rise by £3.
As we promised in our manifesto, the basic state pension will remain the foundation of retirement income. That is why we have announced guaranteed rises for the future of at least £100 a year for single pensioners, and at least £160 a year for couples.
We also promised to do more to reward pensioners who have saved for their retirement. A year ago, I published a consultation document that set out our proposals to reward thrift. Today, I am publishing our response to that consultation, setting out how the pension credit will work. Copies will be available in the Vote Office. Tomorrow, I shall also publish the Pension Credit Bill.
All of us have met pensioners who struggled through their working lives to put something by for their retirement, but who then found that they are little or no better off than those who saved nothing. The pension credit will ensure that, in future, it pays to save. The credit works in two ways. First, it will bring pensioners' entitlement up to a guaranteed minimum level of at least £100 a week—or £154 for couples—in 2003, and it will increase in line with earnings for the rest of the Parliament. Secondly, the credit will provide an additional top-up to reward pensioners aged 65 or over who have saved for their retirement. So pensioners with modest second pensions and savings will receive more as a result of their thrift.
A further change is essential to reward savings. We shall abolish the rule that excludes pensioners with £12,000 or more in savings from any help and introduce a fairer system for taking into account income from savings.
About half of all pensioners stand to gain from the pension credit: more than 1 million pensioners from increased guaranteed income, and more than 4 million pensioners from the savings reward and the improvements to the rules on the treatment of savings. Two thirds of hose who stand to gain from the pension credit are women, half of them over 75. On average, pensioners will gain £400 a year, with some receiving up to £1,000 a year. That is the difference that the pension credit will make.
Any pensioner with an income below about £135, or couples with an income below £200, will see their hard-earned savings rewarded with extra money, not penalised as in the past. We are also going to make it easier for pensioners to receive all their entitlements. Last year, I said that we would end the weekly means test and the endless form filling, and we shall. The pension credit will be calculated at the same time as the basic state pension, when people retire. For those over 65, whose incomes tend to be more settled, in most cases we shall reassess their income only every five years. Each year, they will see an automatic increase in their pension credit, after the uprating, and that will take account of any changes in their second pensions.
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The pension credit will increase guaranteed income, end the weekly means test and reward thrift. It will also remove an injustice in the system: for the first time, it will pay to have saved. More than 5 million pensioners stand to gain from it.
I now turn to employment. In the past four years, we have introduced more help than ever before to make work pay and to make work possible. Today, with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am also publishing a paper that demonstrates the need to provide more employment opportunities to those who have missed out in the past. The analysis shows very clearly what happened when we did not have a system that actively helped people into work, and when the then Government took a hands-off approach to unemployment, leaving it all to chance. Between the 1970s and the mid-1990s, the number of lone parents and sick and disabled people on benefits trebled. A whole generation was written off.
Three immediate conclusions follow from that paper. First, we have to do more to help everyone of working age to get into work wherever possible. That is why, starting next year, we are extending the single gateway to the benefits system—Jobcentre Plus—across the whole country. Everyone of working age will have work-focused interviews to help them into jobs wherever possible.
Secondly, when people lose their jobs, the evidence shows that the quicker we intervene, the quicker people will get back into work. As the Chancellor said yesterday, our economy is well placed to deal with global uncertainty and the labour market is in a stronger position than in a generation. However, when people do lose their jobs and there are redundancies, we have to take action quickly. In many cases, jobs are available: every month, half a million people enter work or change jobs. So we need to do more to match people with the vacancies that employers are trying to fill. The fact is that 10,000 vacancies are notified to the Employment Service every working day.
Today, therefore, I can announce that, over the next two years, I am allocating an additional £6 million to the rapid response service which offers prompt help to those who have been made redundant. The money will be used by each region to put together the right response for people in their communities, ensuring that people affected by redundancy have the information and help that they need to find new jobs. The service will work to match people's existing skills to those needed by new employers, and it will ensure that retraining is available to help people move into new industries.
Thirdly, we have the lowest unemployment level for 25 years, but there are still people who need extra help to take up available jobs in their areas. Over the past four years, the new deal has established a new welfare contract, with more help and support than ever before, in return for greater responsibility on the part of individuals to help themselves. Today, I can announce a further measure that will build on the new deal to help long-term unemployed people who need more intensive help to get into work.
We will guarantee those people who qualify a full-time job, lasting up to a year, and paid at the national minimum wage. They will have the same employment rights, and they will be entitled to the same in-work benefits, as anyone else. In return, it is not unreasonable to require

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people to take up that opportunity. We aim to give people a choice of job, but they will not be able to turn down all offers and remain on benefit.
We will start that approach in six places from April next year, in areas in Sheffield, Cardiff, Oldham, Sunderland, Lambeth and east Ayrshire. We will follow those with a second group over the summer, covering areas in Leeds, south Manchester, Sandwell, Bristol and Greenwich. In the autumn, we will start further pilots in Hackney, Great Yarmouth, Knowsley, Rotherham and Coventry, with provision starting by the end of the year in Burnley, Wrexham, Dundee and Bradford. I will be writing to hon. Members who represent the constituencies involved to ask them to become involved in the new project.
We will pay for those jobs, working in partnership with employers, local authorities and organisations with experience in offering intermediate labour market opportunities. It is an investment of more than £40 million over two years to equip 5,000 people who are currently long-term unemployed with the skills, the support and the experience of work they need as a stepping stone to jobs in the local labour market.
Britain's unemployment is the lowest since the 1970s. The new deals have helped hundreds of thousands of people into work. We are determined to ensure employment opportunity for all—including those who have missed out in the past—and these measures will help us to do that. We are doing more to help people into work, and to help those who cannot work. We are also making sure, for the first time, that pensioners are rewarded for their savings. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr. David Willetts: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. We welcome what he said about benefits for disabled people. At the heart of his statement, however, was a radical shift in policy on pensions. Hon. Members on both sides of the House used to regard the basic state pension as fundamental in determining the income of many pensioners. Those days are now over.
The minimum income guarantee is to be worth far more than the basic state pension and is to increase in line with earnings, not prices. It will provide the base for the pension credit. More than half of pensioners will therefore have their total income determined by that means test. The value of the basic state pension will be irrelevant for them. The Secretary of State made much play—as did the Chancellor yesterday—of the pledge that the basic state pension will always increase by at least £100, but he owes pensioners an answer to the following crucial question. Will those increases be passed on to pensioners who are on his means test, or is he only able to give that promise because it will cost so little—the value of the basic state pension being offset, pound for pound, against the minimum income guarantee and therefore, under the new regime, irrelevant for millions of pensioners? Will the Secretary of State confirm that, after the changes of which he is so proud, the only pensioners who will enjoy the full value of any increase in the basic state pension will be the most affluent pensioners, for whom it is a relatively modest part of their total income? Is that really what the Government mean by welfare reform?
By the time the Secretary of State has implemented his proposals, almost 60 per cent. of pensioners will be on means tests. Labour Members used to jeer at means tests,
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but today they cheer them. Surely, however, they must be concerned—I know that some of them are—by the implications of the policy for savings in general and the Government's stakeholder scheme in particular. How can the Secretary of State be so confident that he is rewarding savings when many more pensioners than ever before will face rates of benefit withdrawal of at least 40 per cent. A 40 per cent. marginal rate is bad enough, but for many pensioners it could be far worse. For a pension credit recipient who is also on housing benefit and council tax benefit, the marginal rate could be 91 per cent.
If pensioners do not lose housing benefit—I know that the Secretary of State mentions the point in his paper on the pension credit—when they receive the pension credit, it will mean that many more pensioners will be on housing benefit and will face those high marginal rates of benefit withdrawal even further up the income scale.
The Secretary of State's Department and the Treasury have made an art form of disguising true marginal rates by ignoring council tax benefit and housing benefit in the figures that they bring to the House. You, Mr. Speaker, made a very welcome statement a few minutes ago, in which you referred to the need to answer written questions fully. Last night, I tabled questions to the Chancellor about marginal rates of benefit withdrawal—[Interruption.] No, and I am giving him notice. Those marginal rates of benefit withdrawal were not merely the marginal rates of loss of pension credit, but included the loss of housing benefit and council tax benefit. I look forward to the Treasury's full answers to the questions that I tabled.
I also welcome the Secretary of State's complete climbdown on the capital rules for pensioners. When he announced that he was abolishing the old formula, he said that he would instead take account of the actual incomes that pensioners earned from their savings. We warned him then that millions of pensioners would be trapped in incredibly complicated and fine judgments with regard to reporting tiny changes in actual income. The right hon. Gentleman has now reverted to a formula almost identical to the one that he was denouncing until a few weeks ago. We welcome the fact that, instead of trying to measure the actual income from savings enjoyed by millions of pensioners, we are once more to have a far simpler formula for the treatment of savings.
Another question about the Secretary of State's pension proposals concerns the Government's promise that the pension credit would be introduced alongside the minimum income guarantee uprating in April 2003. I am glad that the Chancellor is in the Chamber today, as the table on page 170 of the pre-Budget report makes it clear that the cost of the pension credit when it is introduced in 2003–04 will be £975 million. However, that is only half the £2 billion that it is expected to cost in the following year.
That can mean one of two things—either that the Government are delaying the implementation of the pension credit beyond their original target of April 2003, or that the pension credit will be so complicated to claim that the Chancellor's forecast is that half of eligible pensioners will not be able to secure the credit in its first year of operation. I should be very interested to hear why the Secretary of State believes that the cost of the pension credit in its first year of operation will be half that of subsequent years.

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I shall look with interest at the report compiled by the Secretary of State and the Chancellor on the new deal in employment. It is striking that, although unemployment has risen recently, the claimant count has risen by only a very modest amount, despite a dramatic increase in economic inactivity. We will read the debate on the matter with interest. The Chancellor suggested that there should be a big national debate on these questions, and we look forward to future debates on economic inactivity.
However, I hope that those debates do more than analyse the problem of economic inactivity. I hope that they analyse the effectiveness of the Government's claims to be tackling the problem. The Secretary of State knows, from the evaluations published by his Department, that many of the reforms for which he claims credit—such as the new deal for lone parents and the new role for personal job advisers—are not leading to more participants in the schemes finding work. That is what was promised, and the deficit is especially notable in the pilot areas. I hope that the debate analyses the effectiveness of the Secretary of State's policy measures, not just the increase in economic inactivity.
I regret that the Secretary of State omitted to refer to the changes in family benefits. The Chancellor has introduced four new tax credits already—the working families tax credit, the child care tax credit, the children's tax credit and the baby tax credit. He has now decided to scrap them, and to introduce two other tax credits—the employment tax credit and the integrated child credit. However, just in case any family in Britain was in danger of understanding the regime, the new credits have been renamed, even before they have been introduced. They are now to be called the child tax credit and the working tax credit, and they are not to be confused with the children's tax credit and the working families tax credit.
Do the Chancellor and the Secretary of State seriously expect Britain's hard-working families to negotiate their way around a system whose structure—let alone the rates involved—changes every year that the Government are in office? Is it any wonder that the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux gave a warning last week, which I wish the Chancellor had taken to heart? It said:
"both the benefit and tax systems are complicated and intimidating to those lacking in financial literacy skills … The complexity of benefits and the claiming process is one reason why millions of pounds worth of benefits go unclaimed by people on low incomes … more needs to be done to ensure that all low income groups can claim the credits or benefits to which they are entitled".
That is the challenge which the Government must answer. The relentless tinkering with the structures of credits and tax credits does no service to the very families whom the Chancellor claims he wishes to help.
The Secretary of State and the Chancellor are still refusing to give any reliable figures for the cost of their new child benefits, although they are due to be implemented in 2003. I believe that the Chancellor is in clear breach of his own code for fiscal stability, which he published with the 1998 Budget and which was subsequently incorporated into the Finance Act 1998. The code for fiscal stability makes it clear that when the
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Government are planning measures with a fiscal impact, the cost should appear as soon as possible in the pre-Budget report or other economic statements. It states:
"where the fiscal impact of these decisions and circumstances cannot be quantified with reasonable accuracy by the day the projections are finalised, these impacts should he noted as specific fiscal risks."
That is the code to which the Chancellor bound himself to bring transparency to fiscal policy. He has failed to live up to that in his treatment of credits and tax credits in his statement yesterday. We ought to know how much they are going to cost; that ought to have been covered in the Chancellor's pre-Budget report, and the right hon. Gentleman is in breach of his own obligations for having failed to provide that information.
The Secretary of State and the Chancellor have lost their way on welfare reform. Ministers have abandoned their promise to introduce a welfare reform Bill. They published figures only last week showing that the number of people claiming income support, which is the main means-tested benefit, is for the first time above the level that Labour inherited in 1997 and has reached almost 4 million.
The Government are means-testing more and more people for benefits. I had a letter from a pensioner in Huddersfield this morning. I am pleased to see the Chancellor in his place, because the letter is quite simple:
"I seem to remember, before the 1997 election,"
Gordon Brown made a clear promise:
"'If we win, all means-testing of pensioners will end.'"
"Could you check this for me?"
What has happened to Labour promises about the abolition of means testing? Benefits expenditure is out of control, means testing is growing and the welfare reform Bill has been abandoned.
We read in the press that the Chancellor and the Secretary of State work hand in hand. It is true that they work together. The Chancellor puts more taxes on the pension funds that belong to pensioners and more taxes on families and the Secretary of State, then hands the money back in means-tested benefits for which he expects people to be grateful. The Secretary of State is no more a welfare reformer than the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a tax cutter.
Mr. Darling: I assume that that is it, Mr. Speaker.
Let me go through the various points raised by the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts). With respect, I think that it is the hon. Gentleman who has lost his way. I recall that this is the man who wanted to get rid of the winter fuel payment. He also wanted to get rid of free television licences, although his policy is now to give them even to people who do not have televisions.
The hon. Gentleman is also the proud owner of a pension reform policy that would require a 14-year-old boy to start saving £10 a week just to buy back his basic state pension. So much for the hon. Gentleman's concern about the basic state pension.
The Labour party has made it abundantly clear that the basic state pension will remain the foundation of pension provision. What is more, following my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's announcement earlier this year, we have guaranteed that the basic state pension will go up by at least £100 a year.

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What the hon. Gentleman is actually saying is that he does not like the minimum income guarantee and the pension credit and, if he were to get into power, he would get rid of them. Let us be clear about that. It would mean that the floor of £100, which we think is the minimum that pensioners should have to live on, would go.
As for pension credit, Conservative Members might come to regret the position that the hon. Gentleman has taken today. The pension credit would mean that a 65-year-old with an occupational pension of £100 a month would receive £60 a month more. If the Tories got back in, that £60 would go.
At the next election, I would love to come out with any Conservative Member as they go canvassing in the evening, knock on the door and tell a 65-year-old with a £100 occupational pension, "If you vote for the Tories, it will cost you 60 quid." It would be a pleasure to accompany any Tory party canvasser on such an expedition.
On housing benefit and council tax benefit, the response that I referred to a moment ago makes it clear that people will not lose out as a result of the pension credit being introduced.
The hon. Gentleman also had something to say about the capital rules. Yes, we have listened to what Age Concern, in particular, has said. It said that, as far as the capital rules are concerned, it would be wrong for pensioners to have to account for every single penny of interest that they might earn. Therefore, as people have asked, we have kept the £6,000 disregard—which we ignore—and we have introduced a far fairer system.
Let me illustrate the difference between us and the scheme that the Tories promoted. If someone has £10,000 in the bank, that person would have been assumed to have an income of £16 a week under the old Tory scheme. Under the simpler, fairer system that we are introducing, that same person would be assumed to have an income of only £8 a week, half what the Tories were assuming. If the hon. Gentleman wants to argue about which system is better, I am happy to have that argument.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the timing of the pension credit. I have made it clear again and again that the pension credit will be introduced from October 2003. That is why the costings are as they are set out.
The hon. Gentleman then went on to talk about employment, but I am not sure whether he is for or against our proposals. He referred to the paper on the problems that we face as a result of people of working age being economically inactive—I am sure that, as a semi-academic, he will look forward to reading it—but he should realise that there is a difference between the Labour Government and the Conservative party. We have introduced policies to deal with what is undoubtedly a major problem. Through Jobcentre Plus and other measures we are systematically getting people back into work who were not in work before.
It is worth reminding the Conservatives about the new deal for young people. More than 300,000 more young people are now in work, double the number that would have been in work had it not been for the measures that we have introduced. The new deal for 25-plus means that nearly 75,000 of that group have gone into work and the new deal for lone parents has led to more than 100,000 of them going into work None of that would have
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happened if the Conservatives had remained in office. Therefore, I take with a very large pinch of salt what the hon. Gentleman says.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned two other points. First, he said that income support levels are up. Actually, the number of people on income support is lower than it was in May 1997. He was of course including the fact that far more pensioners receive the minimum income guarantee. I will not apologise for the fact that more pensioners now get more money as a result of what we have introduced.
The hon. Gentleman then went on to complain about the complexity of tax credits and the integrated child credit. We are making sure that it is easier for people to obtain the access to the monetary help to which they are entitled. We are getting rid of the high marginal deduction rates, and it is worth remembering that, before the working families tax credit was introduced, many people faced more than 100 per cent. deduction. That has gone as a result of the working families tax credit.
Critically, in respect of the measures that we are introducing today and the child credit, we are making work pay for hundreds of thousands of people for whom it did not pay in the past. We are also making sure that we help families in a way that never ever happened under the Conservative party.
Critically, in relation to the pension credit, we are making sure that 5 million pensioners will get more money to reward their thrift. When one strips away everything that the hon. Gentleman said, the key difference between us and the Conservative party is that we want to make sure that we give all pensioners an increase in their income, that we do far more to combat pensioner poverty and, crucially, that we reward the 5 million or so pensioners in this country who have got nothing for their effort and thrift.
Under the Labour Government and under the pension credit, those pensioners will for the first time get a reward. I am willing to bet that that is another position that the hon. Gentleman has got himself into where it will not be too long before his Back Benchers come to him to say, "I think perhaps you ought to rethink your position because, once again, you've got it very, very wrong."
Mr. Steve Webb: As another semi-academic, I thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in making the statement.
On integrated child credit, will the right hon. Gentleman clarify the position of a two-earner couple, both on £20,000 a year who at present get a full child credit, who, when their incomes are added together, might get next to nothing? Those people do not know what their incomes will be the year after next. Will the Secretary of State tell them?
On pension credit, what computers underlie that complicated system? Will the Secretary of State confirm that his Department's spending on computers to run pensioner benefits has risen sevenfold, from £57 million to £432 million? Given that he will not tell us in written parliamentary answers why that has happened, will he tell us on the Floor of the House? Has it anything to do with the pension credit, perhaps?
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the pension credit is far more complicated to claim than the basic state pension? Is it not inevitable that a complicated benefit is

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less likely to be taken up than a straightforward benefit? Given that half a million people already fail to claim the safety net benefit—the poverty line benefit—will he confirm that he expects the take-up rate for the pension credit to be higher than it is for the minimum income guarantee? Is he confident that the proportion of those who claim their entitlement to the benefit will be higher—yes or no?
Finally, given that the pension credit is so straightforward, perhaps the Secretary of State can tell me one thing: how much pension credit will a single pensioner on a basic pension with an occupational pension of £40 be entitled to receive?
Mr. Darling: On the hon. Gentleman's last question, I can help by referring him to the excellent publication "The Pension Credit", which I presume he received with my draft statement. It has an extremely helpful table in the back which shows exactly how much someone gets for every pound of saving. I strongly commend it to him.
Mr. Webb: How much?
Mr. Darling: Being an academic, the hon. Gentleman should not be too hard on himself. He is after all, as we are constantly reminded in the Order Paper every day, a professor. If he cares to look at some of the evidence, he will see exactly how much someone can get from the pension credit.
The hon. Gentleman asked about computers. I will deal with that, although I cannot for the life of me understand what it has to do with the policy on pension credit. As I have told the House before, the Department for Work and Pensions computer systems are for the most part 20 to 30 years old. They are antiquated and in sore need of investment. We got that investment last year in the current spending review, which is why the figures in our departmental estimate for replacing the computers have increased. In our first term in office, just after the Conservatives had been in power, the money was not allocated to us. From this year, we have the money. We must replace the information technology systems. If we do not, they will be obsolete in about three or four years time. I understand why the hon. Gentleman, as a Liberal and a professor, would raise such a point, but it does not have much to do with the pension credit.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the complexity of the system. He will know, because he does know something about this, that the calculations behind the basic state pension are complex because of the contributions and the rest. As I said, it is the foundation of pension provision and it is important. The concept of pension credit is also straightforward. It does two things. It provides a floor beneath which pensioner incomes should not fall. If someone has a pension of less than £100, from 2003, we will top it up to £100. On top of that, we will reward their second pension or their savings, as the case may be.
I gave the example to the Conservatives and I will give ft to the Liberals because it looks as if they will be knocking on doors with the same message—that they, too, will take away the pension credit. If they knock on the door—perhaps in the hon. Gentleman's constituency—of
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someone who is 65 with an occupational pension of £100 a month, that individual will receive £60 a month on top under the pension credit. The Conservatives and the Liberals will no doubt be fighting on the doorstep to persuade that person to vote for them on the grounds that they will remove £60 a month. There will, of course, be three of us on the doorstep, because I mean to be there to listen to the argument.
Mr. George Mudie: I congratulate the Secretary of State on the many measures that he outlined, in particular the transitional employment scheme and its good tie-up with the national minimum wage. That will enable us in Leeds—I am delighted that he has included Leeds in the pilot areas—to put in work the 10,000 people in the inner-city, many of whom are from the ethnic communities, including Bangladeshis, Afro-Caribbeans and Pakistanis, and the thousands of one-parent families, all of whom have not had the opportunity to share in the nation's prosperity. My right hon. Friend deserves to be congratulated on the scheme. It seems bad after saying that, but I must draw my right hon. Friend's attention to a slight error: he has put Leeds in the second tranche of pilot areas. As we are very anxious to put those people into work, I wonder whether there is any flexibility to enable us to start earlier.
Mr. Darling: On the latter point, I did say that I would be writing to all the hon. Members who represent the areas concerned, and that will include my hon. Friend.
The first six areas are those in which we are reasonably confident that we can get the scheme up and running quickly. For the reasons that I stated, I want to set up the pilots as quickly as possible. As my hon. Friend will know, Leeds is an interesting case that shows why we need to take action. Its employment rate is about 80 per cent., one of the highest in the country, yet there are parts of Leeds—my hon. Friend highlighted those with an ethnic minority population—where the employment rate is only just over 50 per cent. If we genuinely want to provide opportunities and jobs for everyone, we need to introduce measures such as this to provide people who are not yet in work with far more intensive help than ever before.
Local leadership, including employers and Members of Parliament, is absolutely critical for this policy, as it was for the new deal, particularly in the early days. I believe that it will go a long way towards solving a problem that many people thought was intractable. I do not think that it is intractable, and it is worth putting in the extra effort to make sure that we get people into work. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support.
Mr. Paul Goodman: The Secretary of State knocked on the door of Help the Aged yesterday, and Help the Aged said of the pensioner credit that it is complex and arbitrary, and will draw half of the older population into means testing. What is his response to that?
Mr. Darling: Naturally, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman or the analysis to which he refers. The objective of our pension reform is to make sure that we help all pensioners, just as we help all children, but we give more to those who most need that help.

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As a Conservative, the hon. Gentleman may care to remember his party's legacy to us. By 1997, the gap between the better-off pensioners and the poorest pensioners was as wide as it had been nearly 40 years earlier. We believed that to deal with that problem we had to give more money to those poorer pensioners, which was why we introduced the minimum income guarantee, and the guarantee element will continue. We believed also that for those millions of people who had done everything that successive Governments told them to do—Conservative and Labour Governments told people to save for their retirement—it was important to introduce a system that supported rather than penalised thrift.
The hon. Gentleman must be aware that if he had his way, and there was no pension credit, we would return to a system in which somebody who saved money would lose out. That cannot be right, which is why we are introducing what I regard as one of the most radical changes to the social security system for 50 years and moving to the credit system, which rewards people for their thrift. I should be very surprised if, once it has been introduced, another party were to come along and offer to remove money from over half of the pensioner population—it would certainly be a courageous step.
Mr. Chris Pond: Following the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie), may I point out a further error by the Secretary of State? Gravesham is not included in even the second tranche of the pilot schemes for the transitional employment programme, although I have to admit that we have had considerable success in creating employment.
I very much welcome the fact that the scheme will include a basic minimum wage and the employment rights and in-work benefits that my right hon. Friend mentioned, so that people will not only be helped into work but be given an opportunity to move on to the next stage. Will he give a commitment that those in the scheme will also have the support of personal advisers to make sure that they can move into long-term employment and build an even better standard of living for themselves and their families in the years ahead?
Mr. Darling: I believe that unemployment in my hon. Friend's constituency has come down by over 44 per cent. since 1997, helped to a considerable extent by the various measures that we have introduced to get people into work, of which the new deal is the centrepiece. The new measure is in addition to all that, and will now be a major part of the work implemented by Jobcentre Plus. People will have their own personal adviser who sticks with them—that is central to the Jobcentre Plus approach. As my hon. Friend knows only too well from his previous occupation as well as his experience as a Member of Parliament, people who have been out of work for a long time very often need far more help and intensive engagement than those who have just come out of mainstream employment. The new measure will incorporate that feature, because it is essential to get people into work.
Lady Hermon: I warmly welcome the Secretary of State's statement, but may I draw to his attention what appears to be a slight oversight in relation to Northern Ireland? The 20 areas pinpointed for the new deal pilot schemes include areas in Scotland, Wales and
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England, but not a single one has been selected in Northern Ireland. I ask him to add at least one more area—if not two—that is in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Darling: It was not entirely an oversight, since these matters are the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The hon. Lady did not mention pension credit, but I know that the Minister concerned is keen that measures we introduce are also introduced in Northern Ireland, as has been the case for a long time. As she will know, there are other measures operating in Northern Ireland that will help. I am quite sure that we will do everything we can to work with those in Northern Ireland, share experience and so on, because long-term unemployment is a problem no matter where it occurs.
Mr. Ernie Ross: I also welcome everything that my right hon. Friend has said, particularly about transitional employment. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie), I want not flexibility but acceleration, so that my area is moved out of the last tranche and closer to the top.
My right hon. Friend is correct that, under the new deal, we have learned from the mistakes of the Conservative party and dealt with the holes as they have appeared. Today's proposal fills the last hole. With the best will in the world—with the intermediate labour market and new deal advisers working as closely as they can—there will always be one or two individuals who find it almost impossible to get a job. Someone must take responsibility for employing them in the short term in order that longer-term employment can be provided by the private sector. If the Government must take such responsibility, I fully support them in doing so. I welcome the scheme, but I want just a little acceleration for Dundee and Tayside.
Mr. Darling: Everybody wants to be first. I very much hope that, if the pilot projects prove to be successful, we can do more. My hon. Friend is right in saying that some people have substantial difficulties in entering the labour market. The advantage of what we are proposing is that people on the programme will gain experience of a full-time job, which in itself brings invaluable experience and discipline. As I have said, they will get the minimum wage and be entitled to all the rights and benefits that go with full-time employment. Long-term unemployed people, some of whom have substantial difficulties, have often missed the experience of going to work. Most of us here take such experience for granted, but many have just not had that opportunity.
If my hon. Friend has time to read the paper that the Chancellor and I are publishing today, he will see clear evidence of what happens when such measures are not taken. As he knows only too well from representing Dundee, there is now a generation of people—mostly over 50 and some in their 60s—who suffered grievously because they were abandoned. I am determined that that should not happen again.
Mr. Christopher Chope: Why is the Secretary of State ignoring the plight of 1 million pensioner households that are in council tax poverty, in the sense that they are spending more than 10 per cent. of their income on council tax each year? Do not his statement and that made by the Chancellor yesterday show

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that, as a result of Government policy, council tax next year will rise by 7 per cent—four times the rate of inflation, as set out in table B11 of the pre-Budget report—and that even more than 1 million pensioner households will find themselves in council tax poverty? Is not that totally unacceptable?
Mr. Darling: I must say that I had no idea that the hon. Gentleman was a champion of people on low incomes. That escaped my attention during all the years during which he was a Minister and I sat on the Opposition Benches. I do not recall him expressing any such concern.
The Government have done a number of things to help people living in council houses and elsewhere—principally getting people into work and ensuring through the working families tax credit that work pays, and by introducing measures to help older people. A whole range of measures have boosted the income of people on low pay. The hon. Gentleman did not of course mention that he is against each and every one of them.
Mr. Andrew Dismore: When going around my constituency explaining pension credit to my constituents, I have met pensioners who are somewhat suspicious of the programme—not for the reasons given by the Conservatives, but because they thought it was too good to be true that, at long last, a Government were recognising their long-standing complaint that they had been saving all their lives but had nothing to show for it. On behalf of the thousands of pensioners in my constituency, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. What plans does he have to make sure that all those who are entitled to it take up that important benefit?
Mr. Darling: On my hon. Friend's first point, I am sure that once pension credit starts to be paid, from October 2003, more and more pensioners will come to realise its benefit. If I were my hon. Friend, I would not worry too much about what the Conservatives say. Remember, theirs is the party that said that pensioners would not like the winter fuel payment—so certain were they of that that they intended to abolish the winter fuel payment. They have changed their mind, as they have on the minimum wage and other measures. That suits me fine: if the Tories want to take money away from people, Labour Members will be absolutely delighted to test that policy at the next opportunity.
My hon. Friend raises an important point about entitlement. When people retire, we have to write to them to say what their basic state pension is. Our objective is to make sure that at the same time we calculate their guarantee element and the credit. We intend to fix the award to pensioners over the age of 65 for five years so that we do not have to trouble them unless some major change in circumstances occurs. All that plus the IT to which the professor referred will ensure that in future we 'will have a far easier and a far better system for getting pensioners the money to which they are entitled.
Hywel Williams: We in Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party are concerned about the operation of the means test and its differential effect in areas such as ours, where incomes are low and there are many pensioners. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us,
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not the number of people who are claiming minimum income guarantee but the percentage of people who are not claiming it? Does he foresee that percentage falling as his measures are applied?
Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman is right in one respect. The effect of pension credit is differential; basically, it gives more money to poorer people as well as rewarding those who have modest savings. I regard that as a good thing. Unfortunately, Scotland and Wales have more than their fair share of poor pensioners. That is why the minimum income guarantee proved so successful and popular in both countries and why I believe the pension credit will prove successful in both countries. When the hon. Gentleman has had a chance to reflect on his party's position—no doubt, the Scottish nationalists will do the same—I think that he will see that the pension credit will be welcomed in both countries. If those parties want to take a different view and to oppose the measure, I shall be extremely happy.
Gillian Merron: I welcome the announcement of more money going into the pockets of all pensioners, especially the poorest, as well as the simplification of the minimum income guarantee claim form—a change that was warmly welcomed by Age Concern in Lincoln. May I ask my right hon. Friend to ensure that his Department increases its efforts to find new ways in which to promote the take-up of minimum income guarantee, so that we can be sure that every pensioner who is entitled benefits both from the benefit and from the recent increases that he has announced?
Mr. Darling: I certainly intend to do that. I want two things to be developed in the coming years as new and better IT is implemented. We are starting to send annual pension forecasts to the working population, but we have a problem in that no one has to tell my Department when they move, so we do not always keep in touch with them. Once more regular contact is established, it will be much easier to get in touch with people as they approach retirement and tell them what their basic state pension is likely to be, as well as asking them about second pensions and so on.
In the coming years, we will get better, but in the immediate future we will, as my hon. Friend rightly urges us to do, continue to step up efforts to ensure that people get the money to which they are entitled. It has been our experience that as we increase the amount of money available, interest tends to increase. I am pretty confident that, as the years pass, more and more people will receive their entitlement. In future, people will wonder why it took so long for any Government to start to work to eradicate pensioner poverty and, critically, to reward those 5 million people with modest means who should have been helped long ago.
Mr. Gerry Steinberg: I welcome my right hon. Friend's proposals. The greatest grievance about which I heard in my constituency was from pensioners complaining that they were being penalised for saving when they were younger. The majority of pensioners to whom I have spoken are delighted with Government policies. They tell me that they are much better off than they have ever been.

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I still have a big worry. Will my right hon. Friend assure me—I ask him to explain more fully—that his latest proposals will not mean that some pensioners will lose out in terms of council tax relief and housing benefit? When pensioners have been given increases in pensions, they often lose out in that way. They find that they are worse off at the end of the day. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that that will not happen this time?
Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend raises an important point. I can do no better than refer him to page 6 of the pension credit document, which he can send to his constituents. The passage clearly reads:
"Nobody will lose Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit as a result of the Pension Credit."
I strongly commend the paper. It is a handy size for putting into an envelope, if my hon. Friend would care to send it to his constituents.
Mr. Chris Mullin: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the fact that Sunderland is to be included in the pilots for the new programme that is aimed at the hard-core unemployed. The working families tax credit and the new deal have been of great benefit in Sunderland, where we have some of the most intractable unemployment problems.
May I put it to my right hon. Friend that the best way of dealing with the vast benefit culture that we inherited from the previous Conservative Government is to widen the gap between the world of work and the world of benefit, as we have been doing? Will he confirm that it is his intention to continue widening that gap?
Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right to say that it was necessary in the reforms that we put in place to ensure that it really did pay to work, and that people could see the difference. That is what the working families tax credit has done.
We shall keep these matters under review. Despite the fact that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is no longer sitting next to me, I do not think that I can give an undertaking on his behalf to widen or improve the working families tax credit just like that. However, my hon. Friend can take it from me that it is the Government's strategy progressively to ensure that it makes a real difference to people if they are in work.
In the programme that I have outlined, there will be a pilot in my hon. Friend's area. A single person who goes into work will be £40 better off a week than if they had stayed on the jobseeker's allowance. That is an example of how much better off people will be, but we certainly want to continue to do more.
Mr. Anthony D. Wright: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and certainly for the inclusion of Great Yarmouth in the new deal for the long-term unemployed. He will be aware that unemployment has fallen by 44 to 45 per cent. since 1997. However, we still have 5.5 per cent. unemployment. The new deal for the long-term unemployed will certainly be welcome.
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Will there be any restrictions relating to the age of those who can come on to the scheme? Will there be restrictions on the numbers of people who are eligible for it? There are more than 900 long-term unemployed people in my constituency.
Mr. Darling: These are pilot programmes. They are aimed at people who have been through the new deal and are still out of work post six months. However, many people go into work immediately after being on the new deal. To start with, and as part of the pilot programme, we want to ensure that as many people as possible can get on to the programme and benefit from it. We shall evaluate the position and see how well they do with a view to extending the programme.
I am aware that in my hon. Friend's constituency—I have visited it on a couple of occasions—he has some intractable problems. Great Yarmouth has gone through some quite substantial structural changes. I believe that the experience that we build up from the pilots will show us new approaches which work, and we want gradually to roll them out. It is critical that we ensure that we can do more, and not only in this area. It should be remembered that there is also a new deal for disabled people, a new deal and other measures for lone parents and a new deal for the over-50s. They are all designed to ensure that they help people. I hope that a combination of measures will result in people getting into work.
Paul Flynn: The Secretary of State will know of the great campaigning appeal to restore the earnings link in pensions. Had we done so from 1998 until now, the single pension in 2002–03 would be £78.25. We are close to that level, and could raise it by spending £1 billion from the national insurance scheme. If we did that, there would still be an unneeded surplus, in addition to contingency funds, of £11 billion in the national insurance scheme. I urge my right hon. Friend to take such action so that we can go back to the public with an offer. We can face the pensioners now with great pride, but if we restored the link we could offer them a great triple crown of achievements—winter fuel payments, additional payments now for those who are losing out and the restoration of the link.
Mr. Darling: It will not surprise my hon. Friend that I cannot agree with him. Anticipating that he might be in the Chamber and that he might catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, I did some research. It is a fact that 98 per cent. of pensioner families are better off as a result of measures that we have introduced since 1997 than they would have been with an earnings-linked basic pension.
The critical difference between us is that I believe we ought to pay more to the people who need it most. I have never entirely understood the argument that we should pay exactly the same to, say, Lady Thatcher and the poorest pensioner. I do not think that that approach is fair—(Interruption.] Conservative Members think that it is; we have to part company on that.
The measures that we have introduced mean that we are giving the poorest pensioners an average of £15 a week more than they would have got without the minimum income guarantee. As for the pension credit, it is our policy to encourage people to save for a second credit. The pension credit means that it pays to save; that is not the case at present. Our approach is fairer and much

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better, which is why, my hon. Friend will not be surprised to learn, we do not intend to change it. It is the right approach and, come the next election, people will see that it is.

Civil Nuclear Liabilities
4.32 pm
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I wish to make a statement about the future management of public sector civil nuclear liabilities. I would also like to inform the House of changes in BNFL's financial position and the outcome of work on the company's future strategy. I am sure that the House will forgive me for what will necessarily be a detailed statement on an important issue.
In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the Government and the nuclear industry focused on the development and application of nuclear technology for civil and weapons purposes. Sellafield, Dounreay and most other major nuclear sites in the United Kingdom date from that period. Much was achieved and the nuclear industry now makes a significant contribution to the British economy. However, the early years of the industry created substantial liabilities in the form of wastes that needed to be treated and plants that needed to be decommissioned.
The industry operates within a rigorous, robust and transparent regulatory framework that insists on the highest safety, health, environmental and security standards. The proposals that I will outline this afternoon show our commitment to deliver a clear and focused long-term strategy to address the liabilities and set the course for the next hundred years. They make it clear that the Government's priority is to ensure that the legacy is managed safely, securely and cost-effectively in a way that ensures the protection of the environment.
Responsibility for the management of the legacy currently rests with two public sector bodies: BNFL and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. In undiscounted terms, BNFL's 2001 accounts estimated the total liabilities for which it was responsible at £35 billion. £28 billion of which was linked to those historic liabilities. In addition, the UKAEA, for its part, has management responsibility for more than £7 billion of liabilities. I should stress that those liabilities do not represent a financial obligation owed to creditors.
Instead, these nuclear liabilities are redundant radioactively contaminated facilities, equipment and materials which need to be dismantled and disposed of under demanding safety and environmental regulatory conditions. In the earlier years of the nuclear programme, the standards of environmental care and regard for long-term safety were not as stringent as those that we apply today. Only limited and often superficial records of what the facilities contained were kept. Indeed, the clean-up challenges involved were not recognised as such until well into the 1980s.
As a result, those dealing with the legacy today have to wrestle not only with significant technical challenges but with the basic problem of determining what exactly they are dealing with. I pay tribute—and I am sure that the whole House would wish to pay tribute—to those working in the nuclear industry for their efforts on our behalf. The work required to deal with the legacy extends decades into the future, and the costs involved are inherently uncertain. Over the next 10 to 15 years, the work is expected to cost approximately £1 billion a year, although the level of expenditure will decrease over time.
The work, which is incredibly important to all of us, involves huge technical and managerial challenges, but offers exciting opportunities for engineers, managers and

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scientists. Nuclear decommissioning and clean-up is an environmental programme that needs the same focus, intensity and technological innovation as the original nuclear development programme. We must face up to our responsibilities for that programme and not leave them to future generations.
Our priority is that the nuclear legacy is dealt with safely, securely, cost-effectively and in a way that ensures protection of the environment. We need to build on the best efforts of BNFL and the UKAEA and the real progress that they have made in recent years. We now need a revised structure that strengthens the emphasis on converting legacy facilities, and wastes, into forms that will keep them safe for decades to come, pending their eventual disposal. We need a structure that can provide the strategic direction and influence across the UK required to sustain a clean-up programme that will extend into the next century.
Eighteen months ago, my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell), then the Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe, announced that, as part of the wider quinquennial review of the UKAEA, Government would reconsider their ability under current arrangements to ensure
"accountability and efficiency in the control (and safe discharge) of nuclear liabilities."
The reports on that review are being published today and I have arranged for copies of them to be placed in the Libraries of the House. That review and work on BNFL's future strategy both underlined the need for a sharper focus on liabilities management. We have therefore decided to make two fundamental changes to the present arrangements for managing public sector civil nuclear liabilities.
First, we are clear that it is only by managing the liabilities as a whole that we can achieve the necessary focus and strong strategic control and direction. I therefore propose to set up a Liabilities Management Authority responsible for Government's interest in the discharge of public sector civil nuclear liabilities, both BNFL's and the UKAEA's.
I see the Liabilities Management Authority as providing the driving force and incentives to get on with the job of systematically and progressively reducing the hazard posed by legacy facilities and wastes. It will have a specific remit to develop an overall UK strategy for decommissioning and clean-up.
The LMA will work in partnership with site licensees—at the outset, the UKAEA and BNFL—as well as the safety, security and environmental regulators, to achieve the most effective and safe means of discharging the liabilities. It will look to deepen the level and breadth of expertise in nuclear clean-up in the UK and to foster competition as a means of achieving that. Consistent with the need to ensure the highest safety, security and environmental standards, it will look to optimise the use of those skills by developing the opportunities for liabilities management, including the management of licensed nuclear sites.
The LMA will look to develop a strong supply chain, and a skills base capable of sustaining the clean-up programme over the long time scale that is required. In doing so, it will build on the existing industry work force whose scientific, professional and engineering skills are widely and rightly recognised. It will operate in an open and transparent fashion.
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Secondly, to enable the LMA to exercise its role across the whole public sector civil nuclear liabilities portfolio, the Government now propose to take on responsibility for most of BNFL's nuclear liabilities and the associated assets. The most significant of those will be the Sellafield and Magnox sites. Previous Administrations have accepted responsibility for all of the UKAEA's liabilities and financial responsibility for some 50 per cent. of BNFL's liabilities. Most of BNFL's liabilities represent the legacy of nuclear development programmes carried out before its establishment in 1971 and the operation of the Magnox stations in the public sector throughout the period. BNFL has currently earmarked funds for the majority of its liabilities. Our current intention is that those assets will be transferred to the Government when we take on responsibility for the liabilities. Responsibility for the assets and liabilities associated with BNFL's commercial fuel, reactor services and international clean-up businesses will remain with the company.
Expenditure on public sector civil nuclear liabilities already forms part of the Government's expenditure plans and covers non-discretionary public sector activities that Government will have to continue to finance one way or another. In other words, today's announcement will have no impact on the Chancellor's two fiscal rules. The aggregate effect on the overall public sector balance sheet will be neutral. Indeed, the new structure offers the prospect of a lower burden on the taxpayer.
The establishment of the LMA and the transfer of assets and liabilities from BNFL and the UKAEA will require primary legislation. We will introduce a Bill at the earliest opportunity. A White Paper to be published next spring will set out in more detail our overall approach to discharging the UK's public sector civil nuclear liabilities. It will spell out the role of the LMA and how it is expected to operate in practice, and address a range of associated issues. It will complement the consultation process on long-term waste management arrangements that is currently under way and draw on the responses to it.
Before the LMA is established, my Department will take steps to strengthen its existing capability for overseeing work on the nuclear legacy. That will include acquiring a more detailed knowledge of the legacy liabilities and their management, and of the Sellafield site in particular, and incentivising and monitoring performance against key performance indicators.
I should like to turn now to the future strategy for BNFL. Hon. Members will recall that the Government have been looking at the prospects of introducing a public-private partnership into BNFL's business. On 29 March last year, my right hon. Friend who was then the Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe informed the House that problems with BNFL's business had resulted in a reassessment of the prospects of PPP. She explained that the earliest possible date for the introduction of any PPP into BNFL could not be before the latter part of 2002.
Also at that time, BNFL's new chairman, Hugh Collum, and its new chief executive, Norman Askew, set out to turn the company's performance around and to carry out a fundamental review of its strategy. They have already done a great deal to refocus the company. It has met all the recommendations of two out of the three Health and Safety Executive reports and made solid progress in implementing those of the third. It has

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reshaped its management structure to provide greater accountability, including the appointment of an overall site director for Sellafield and its management as a single unified site. It has begun to win back customer confidence and is committed to delivering the highest standards of safety and environmental performance.
The board has brought a greater emphasis to liabilities management and has endorsed the need for a sharper focus on nuclear clean-up. Under its direction, the company has, over the past 18 months, been reviewing its approach to tackling the most hazardous wastes at its sites. It agreed an approach to handling highly active waste with the HSE in February this year. It has also developed a new strategy for processing its intermediate-level wastes, which the board endorsed today. Under the new strategy, which the company has discussed in outline with all its regulators, it is proposed that the wastes will be removed from existing, ageing stores as soon as is reasonably practicable and will be treated and packaged to enable them to be stored safely for decades.
That new approach means that BNFL now estimates that it needs an additional £1.9 billion to provide for its share of the liabilities. On 31 March 2001, the company's accounts were already dominated by its provision for nuclear liabilities. As a result of the increase in provisions for liabilities, the current estimated value of the company's total liabilities now exceeds the value of its total assets by some £1.7 billion. The proposals that I have made for restructuring the industry more broadly, including removal of most of BNFL's liabilities and associated assets from the balance sheet, will address that situation.
I have been kept closely informed about the company's position, which has been monitored over the past year. BNFL's chairman informed me today that the company's board has concluded that its long-term liabilities are now estimated to exceed its assets, and also that the company will continue its operations because of its strong cash position. He stressed that the position as outlined in the company's last annual accounts, in July this year, still holds good today. The accounts stated that
"the Group had more than adequate resources to continue in operational existence and to meet all liabilities as they fall due for the foreseeable future and for a period of at least 10 years."
The company has, however, called a shareholders' meeting, as it is required to do under section 142 of the Companies Act 1985. I have also been assured by the chief inspector of nuclear installations that BNFL's financial position will not in itself have any impact on the safety of BNFL's operations. He confirmed that the nuclear installations inspectorate would continue closely to monitor BNFL's activities to ensure that it continued to maintain and, as appropriate, improve its safety performance.
The company has been working on its future business strategy, the primary focus of which must be and will remain the management and discharge of liabilities at Sellafield. Without detracting from this, BNFL's strategy is to continue as a broad-based provider of nuclear products and services, exploiting for that purpose the strong nuclear scientific, technical and engineering knowledge base and resources that are the key assets of the business. Its strategy was developed to support its two groups of customers: Governments and nuclear electricity-generating
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companies. The company continues to carry out its strategy through its four business groups: fuel manufacture and reactor services; spent fuel and engineering; Magnox generation; and nuclear decommissioning and clean-up.
The company's strategy work reinforced the Government's own conclusion that a sharper focus on nuclear clean-up was needed. This is particularly the case at Sellafield, which will account for two thirds of the LMA's overall liability. Given the high level of safety, environmental and operational interdependencies, it is important that Sellafield continues to be managed as a single, unified site. The efforts of its dedicated, talented and skilled work force are key to ensuring that the site is managed effectively.
For now, BNFL remains responsible for the management of its liabilities and for the current decommissioning and clean-up programmes, including those at Sellafield. The proposals that I am outlining today will not affect the company's existing contractual commitments to its customers in any way. I know that the company is determined to continue to improve its performance and cost-effectiveness, including through greater use of private sector contractors when appropriate. The LMA will work towards placing those site management responsibilities on an incentivised basis, with appropriate performance targets.
Similar arrangements will be put in place for the management of the Magnox stations, Capenhurst, Drigg and the nuclear licensed sites for which the UKAEA is responsible. Performance will be kept under review by the LMA, in consultation with the regulators. Changes will be made where options for improving management arrangements are identified, which enhance safety and operational efficiency and secure better long-term value for money for the taxpayer.
Let me emphasise again that the Government's priority is the safe, secure and cost-effective discharge of liabilities in a manner that ensures protection of the environment. To achieve this we need to ensure that we are able to draw on the broadest pool of expertise possible, using the best of what the public and private sectors have to offer, and rewarding those who deliver. I know that the management teams at BNFL and the UKAEA share those priorities, and are determined to build on what has been achieved to date.
For BNFL as a business, it is now important that its management and staff have the opportunity to deliver on the good work already begun to improve the company's performance. Public-private partnership remains a target for the company. The Government, for their part, recognise that a PPP could, in the right circumstances, be right for BNFL's businesses and improve the management of liabilities at Sellafield. However, the company and the Government recognise that much has to be done if this is to be possible. In 2004–05, we will reconsider the scope for a PPP. In doing so, we will consider the overall performance of BNFL's businesses, advice from the LMA—which by then will have gained real experience in the best means of discharging liabilities—and the views of the industry regulators.
Management and work force have made considerable progress in their efforts to turn the company around—progress that I and, I hope, the whole House acknowledge today. They have responded positively to the challenges they faced over the past 18 months, but there is still more

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to do. We want a successful BNFL that performs better. The approach that I have outlined gives BNFL and its people the chance to demonstrate success across all its four businesses—in particular, in managing nuclear liabilities—and to seize the opportunity for PPP.
For the UKAEA, that approach provides a clear opportunity to build on its positive efforts to make progress in liabilities management. As with BNFL, it gives the UKAEA the chance to demonstrate that it can deliver the results and the performance that the LMA and the Government want to achieve. It will be incentivised to do so and its performance will be kept under review.
The proposals set out in the statement reflect discussions with BNFL, the UKAEA, the HSE, the environment agencies and the Office for Civil Nuclear Security. Much more work is needed to take the proposals forward, and further discussions are needed with those and other interested parties, including the European Commission.
The approach that I have outlined today shows that we are gripping the challenges posed by nuclear liabilities management. We have identified a way forward that will deliver the necessary strategic approach and overall control. It is a challenge for the industry, as well as for the Government, but I know that it is welcomed by the chairmen and chief executives of BNFL and the UKAEA.
The objective for us all is to ensure that this essential work continues to be carried out in a safe, secure and cost-effective manner that ensures protection of the environment.
Mr. John Whittingdale: I thank the Secretary of State for letting me have an advance copy of her statement. I also declare an interest in that my constituency contains Bradwell power station, the oldest commercial nuclear station, which is scheduled to commence decommissioning in just four months.
In principle, we broadly welcome the Government's decision to transfer the civil nuclear liabilities of BNFL and the UKAEA to the new LMA. As the Secretary of State said, the nuclear industry is unique in that the liabilities created by building and operating nuclear power stations stretch into the future for up to 100 years. As a result, any calculation of their size on a discounted basis is so dependent on assumptions that any figure is largely notional.
The restructuring announced by the Secretary of State is a book-keeping exercise to the extent that it transfers liabilities from one state-owned entity to another. I would be grateful if she made it absolutely clear that there is no additional cost to the taxpayer, either now or in the future, as a result of that change.
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the principle set out under the Conservative Government that liabilities should remain with assets has not been breached? Will the nuclear liabilities remain with the Department of Trade and Industry budget, and how will they be treated by the Treasury under resource accounting procedures?
Will the Secretary of State give more details of the amount accumulated by BNFL to meet the future cost of liabilities that will also be transferred to the LMA? Will she confirm that it is about £8 billion and that, under current estimates, it should still be sufficient to meet about 80 or 90 per cent. of the cost of the future discharge of those liabilities?
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On BNFL, will the Secretary of State confirm that the technical insolvency to which she referred results from historic liabilities that will go to the LMA and that the company should be able to operate profitably on a purely commercial basis? Will she make it clear that this is not another Railtrack and that the restructuring does not represent a handout to the company from the taxpayer?
Will the Secretary of State say what discussions have taken place with the European Commission about whether clearance is required for the changes under the rules governing state aid? Will she confirm that, having removed the liabilities from the company, there is no reason for it to remain in public ownership?
What is the justification for a public-private partnership? Does the Secretary of State accept that there is no longer any long-term strategic reason for the company not being 100 per cent. private sector owned? What is the long-term future for the UKAEA and might it, in due course, be transferred to the private sector?
Will the Secretary of State say why it was decided that the Sellafield mixed oxide plant and the thermal oxide reprocessing plant should also be transferred to the LMA? Will she state for the record that that is not related to the viability of those businesses, following the MOX data falsification problems in 1999?
What implications has the restructuring for BNFL's existing employees, many of whom are my constituents? If BNFL is to continue managing both the Sellafield site and the Magnox stations, will the employees remain employed by the company with no effect on either their conditions or their job prospects?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the LMA will put the operation, management and eventual decommissioning of the Magnox stations and Sellafield out to competitive tender? Can she say whether that will apply to Bradwell power station in my constituency, which will stop generating in March?
Will the LMA operate on an independent basis? Does the Secretary of State envisage that it could become responsible for the whole nuclear waste inventory if British Energy chose to contract with it? Can she say what arrangements will be made to ensure proper financial accountability? Will the LMA also retain responsibility for proper third-party liability insurance against the possibility of a nuclear accident at one of the plants that it owns?
The Secretary of State will know that significant liabilities remain with British Energy, relating to the power stations operated by that company. Can she say what is the Government's attitude to British Energy's request that responsibility for the pre-1996 spent fuel and waste liabilities, relating to electricity generated when its nuclear plants were in Government ownership, should also be removed?
I understand that the energy review being conducted by the performance and innovation unit has not yet been completed, but does the Secretary of State accept that her statement has considerable implications for the whole future of nuclear power generation in this country? Does she accept that one aspect of that is the need to establish a common United Kingdom solution to the problem of waste management? Does she recognise that until it is established, no decision will be made on whether replacement nuclear power stations will be built? Does she accept that the seven-year time scale proposed by the

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Minister for the Environment for the radioactive waste management review is wholly unacceptable, and is being viewed as a means of blocking any future development of nuclear power, whatever the outcome of the PIU review?
Ms Hewitt: I shall do my best to respond to the hon. Gentleman's numerous questions.
I can readily confirm that, as I said in my statement, there is no change in the overall public sector liabilities. The liabilities will indeed be held on the DTI balance sheet. We will look at resource accounting and budgeting in more detail in due course. The assets and the liabilities will be transferred together to the LMA when it is created.
I can also readily confirm—although I was surprised that the hon. Gentleman raised the issue—that BNFL is certainly not Railtrack, and that we are not in the process of bailing anyone out. Let me add that, contrary to reports that I understand featured on the BBC this morning, this is not about privatisation. As I said in my statement, a public-private partnership remains a target for BNFL. We recognise the potential benefits of a PPP for BNFL's businesses and for liabilities management at Sellafield, but a great deal must be achieved if that is to be possible—which is why we will reconsider it in 2004–05.
We do not believe that state aid issues are implicit in the arrangements, but we are discussing that with the European Commission.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Sellafield Magnox plant and THORP, and whether they should be transferred to the LMA. We have considered that carefully. It is clear that it would be immensely damaging to our prime objective—safe and responsible management of the liabilities—for the Sellafield site to be split.
We are not prepared to compromise safety by splitting the site. Therefore, THORP and the Sellafield MOX plant will transfer to the Liabilities Management Authority.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that employees' skills and expertise, and the efforts that employees are making in the company, are hugely valuable and admirable. No change for the staff at BNFL arises from the proposals, except perhaps the prospect of greater work as the company develops its business. We shall set out in the White Paper to which I referred our proposals on the detailed operation of the LMA. However, when the LMA is placing contracts for work, I should expect that to be on the basis of competitive tendering.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of British Energy. It is in a different position, and the issue of its liabilities was settled before it was put into the private sector some years ago.
Finally, on the broader issue of the United Kingdom's energy needs and our future strategy, we are undertaking in the PIU study a comprehensive review of the UK's energy objectives and how those are best met. The question of any new nuclear power stations will of course be for the generators. As I understand it, none of them has yet come forward with proposals for new nuclear build. However, the overall strategy will be considered by the Government in the light of the PIU energy review and its report.
Dr. Jack Cunningham: I warmly welcome and strongly support my right hon. Friend's important
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statement, which at long last begins seriously to address issues that have been neglected for too long. Her statement will be widely welcomed in west Cumbria, not only on the Sellafield site by employees of BNFL and of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, but much more widely across the north-west of England—in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and elsewhere—where many of the very large contracts placed by BNFL employ many thousands of engineering workers.
I welcome the decision to create a Liabilities Management Authority as an important step forward in this policy development, but I have two questions about the move. First, what nature does she envision for the authority? Will it be a public limited company or an executive agency, or will it have some other public body status? It is important that we make that decision very quickly. We certainly do not want a hiatus in the considerable improvement in dealing with those problems of historic wastes at Sellafield and elsewhere.
Secondly—this is a fairly important question as we know what Chancellors of the Exchequer are like—will the investment fund and the income that it earns be ring-fenced for the sole use of the authority? It is important that we make that clear, too.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to resist suggestions that management authority on the Sellafield site should be divided. We have been down that route once, with the previous board of the company, and as we all know that was disastrous. She must retain a unified management structure there. She must ensure that none of the changes undermines the increasingly successful management and operation of the Sellafield site, where continuing improvement is necessary.
Ms Hewitt: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his welcome for the proposals and also for his reference to the workers not only in his constituency but across Cumbria and the north-west. I hope that the assurance of their future will be particularly welcome in the light of the devastating effect that foot and mouth disease has had, in particular, on the economy in Cumbria.
I am also grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question on the precise status of the Liabilities Management Authority. It will be neither a plc nor an executive agency, but a statutory non-departmental public body that will be accountable to Ministers, and through us to Parliament, for the management of the liabilities.
The funds currently with BNFL for meeting the cost of the liabilities will transfer with other assets to the LMA, and they will indeed be ring-fenced as my right hon. Friend has requested.
Mr. Andrew Stunell: I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, which was complex and comprehensive. She confirmed that the THORP and MOX plants form part of the assets that are to be transferred to the LMA, perhaps in an implicit admission that they are liabilities rather than assets, but there is also an operating nuclear plant on that site. Is it her intention that it should also be taken over by the LMA? Would not that give the LMA a range of functions that would be inappropriate given its strategic direction?
I note that, in essence, the statement said that any plans to privatise even part of BNFL have been delayed for two years. The Liberal Democrats welcome that delay and

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hope that it will be extended. Our view is that BNFL has been a huge and expensive nuclear dinosaur. It made big losses last year and it has massive liabilities. Does the Secretary of State agree that she is fattening up the balance sheet of BNFL by taking away those liabilities and defying a central tenet of environmental policy—that the polluter pays for the mess that they create? Does she further agree that her proposals will give a massive subsidy to the nuclear industry at a time when UK energy policy is in the middle of a fundamental review? Will not any subsidy or write-off of debts now undermine that review and also possibly breach EU competition rules?
Are the liabilities now being transferred intended to be joined by additional liabilities created in the future, either by BNFL, by the UKAEA or by a future nuclear programme? Will we obscure the transparency of waste-generated costs in the future? Will the public have to bear the liabilities incurred by the Sellafield MOX plant in their entirety? In what way will the economics of the MOX plant be translated—perhaps I should say distorted—by taking them out of BNFL and putting them into the LMA? I remind the Secretary of State that the start-up of that plant will instantly generate a huge amount of additional nuclear waste that will need to be dealt with in due course.
Who does the Secretary of State intend should bear the liabilities for any additional nuclear plants that are built in this country? Will those liabilities be translated straight to the LMA or will they form part of the economic and business cases of those schemes when they come forward for consideration? Our view is that the statement should have been made after the energy review was published. Does the Secretary of State accept that once again the true cost of the nuclear industry is being lost and disguised and that the statement undermines the fundamental energy review for which we are waiting?
Ms Hewitt: I regret the tone as well as the content of the hon. Gentleman's response to the statement. I shall stress again that BNFL is a publicly owned company. We are transferring what are existing public sector liabilities, which can never be anything other than public sector liabilities, from one part of the public sector to another part of the public sector in, order that they can be more transparently, rigorously and effectively managed for all our benefits in the future. Those are historic liabilities, as took some pains to explain. They arise from the early part of the civil and military nuclear defence industry.
By explaining to the House what has happened in the company in terms of the change in the valuation of those liabilities, and by proposing to transfer the liabilities and the corresponding assets to a separate Liabilities Management Authority, we will increase the transparency and accountability of the responsibility for those liabilities.
The operation of the Sellafield MOX plant was approved on its merits. The economic case was thoroughly assessed earlier in the year by independent consultants, who concluded that the plant's operation would have a clear and positive net present value, and that no additional risk would be imposed.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about future policy. That is an important matter, and it will be considered in the energy review.
Mr. Martin O'Neill: I welcome the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of
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State. The fact that she has been able to make it today is due in no small measure to the work of the new management and staff over the past two years. It is now possible to assess properly the extent of the liabilities.
When the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, of which I am Chairman, tried to make some sense out of the books of the UKAEA and BNFL, we discovered that there had been severe operational problems and more than a suggestion of smoke and mirrors about the conduct of bookkeeping in the past. Neither company will have anywhere to hide now that the liabilities are to be placed under an appropriate authority. However, probably for the first time in their existence, both will now have a clear role and clear financial accountability.
In some respects, the LMA will be a shell operation, and the work will be performed by the same people who have performed it hitherto. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the LMA will not become another regulator in the industry? At present, as well as the local authority regulators, there are inspectorates covering the environment, health and safety and nuclear installations. All go about their business quite correctly, but it would be unfortunate if a layer of bureaucracy were to be laid on top of the activities of companies that are beginning to make their way in a positive sense. We must guard against that from the outset, so that the people who have done so well see today's announcement as a vote of confidence, and not as a question about their future capability.
Ms Hewitt: I warmly welcome my hon. Friend's remarks. We have been very grateful for the work that his Select Committee has done in the investigation of these matters. I also entirely agree with what he said about the enormous work done by the new management and staff to deal with the sorry situation that they inherited.
I agree, too, that the regulatory apparatus for the industry is complicated, but the need to ensure safety, security and environmental protection means that it has to be so. However, I assure my hon. Friend that the LMA will not be another regulator in addition to those that already exist, and neither will it be another layer of bureaucracy. It will be a customer for the effective management of nuclear liabilities.
Mr. Michael Jack: I am sure that the BNFL workers in my constituency will welcome the Secretary of State's kind words about the quality of the work force, and that they will also welcome today's announcement.
Will the Secretary of State say a little more about who will determine the performance criteria and rules for the LMA? Will she also make it clear that income from the transferred assets will continue to be reinvested in the facilities necessary to carry on the work of disposing of waste nuclear material?
In addition, will she respond to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) about the incompatibility between the time scale of the inquiry by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs into the disposal of radioactive materials, and the pace at which the right hon. Lady understandably wishes the LMA to work?

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Finally, will the right hon. Lady say a little more about how the additional liabilities worth £1.9 billion identified by BNFL will be covered? Will that be the sole responsibility of BNFL?
Ms Hewitt: First, there is no conflict between the time scale for the consultation on nuclear waste management initiated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the energy review, and the work that we are setting in train to establish the Liabilities Management Authority. As I said earlier, there are no immediate proposals from any of the nuclear generators for new nuclear power stations. It therefore makes sense for the Government to consult on the appropriate measures to be taken in future for waste management arising from nuclear electricity generation. As I said in my statement, the responses to that consultation will help to inform the White Paper that we will publish next year on the LMA.
We will have more to say about the income of the assets that will be transferred and the establishment of performance indicators for the LMA, its accountability to Ministers, and thereby to Parliament, when we publish the White Paper.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: May I strongly welcome the fact that the Government are grasping the nettle of civil nuclear liabilities? I also welcome their recognition of the clear difference between the UK's national legacy of nuclear waste arising from the early days of weapons and civil programmes in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and that from current operations. Is it not now clear that waste policy must reflect the fact that the knowledge to deal with such material already exists? Waste policy must make the distinction between the national legacy and the arisings from current operations. In fact, does not today's statement make it possible to have a proper economic assessment of the value to the economy and, indeed, the environment of the new nuclear stations at Sizewell, Hinkley and Hunterston, in which I, for one, passionately believe?
Ms Hewitt: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the need for waste policy to distinguish between the historic liabilities—which we can do nothing to get rid of but must manage as effectively as possible and ensure that the environment is protected—and the current liabilities arising from continuing operations. As I said in my statement, there will be no transfer to the LMA of the liabilities that arise from BNFL's commercial operations. That transparency, along with the continuing work to estimate the real costs of these liabilities, will assist better policy making in future, as my hon. Friend has suggested.
Mr. Michael Weir: On behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru, I give a guarded welcome to the statement. I say "guarded" because we would like to know more about the role of the LMA. The Secretary of State promised to publish a White Paper in the spring. She was asked earlier whether the LMA would be completely independent, and I do not think that she really answered the question. Can she confirm that it will be completely independent of BNFL and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority?
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The Secretary of State said that it is proposed that current wastes will be removed from existing, ageing stores as soon as reasonably practicable and will be treated and packaged to enable them to be stored safely for decades. She will be aware, as the Minister for Industry and Energy certainly is, of the problems at Dounreay and the uncertainty about what is in the shaft. Is it proposed to remove waste from the sites to other areas or will it be re-stored in new stores on the existing nuclear sites?
Ms Hewitt: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's welcome for the statement, even if it is guarded. He is right to ask me about the status and independence of the LMA. I apologise for not dealing with that earlier.
The intention is that the LMA will act on behalf of Government but that it will operate at arm's length from Government. We will exercise strategic control, but the running and development of the LMA will be down to its board and management team, which will be independent of the companies with which it will contract. A framework agreement will define the authority's aims, objectives and responsibilities, and its relationship with Government. We will have more to say about that in the White Paper.
On the question of Dounreay and other sites, I was describing the future strategic intention of BNFL when it comes to dealing with historic wastes. There are no immediate proposals of the kind to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Tony Cunningham: I very much welcome the Government's decision to reconstruct the UK's public sector nuclear liabilities. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the assets of BNFL lie very much in its work force, thousands of whom live in my Workington constituency? They have a unique technical, scientific and engineering knowledge base. The decision will mean that BNFL will be able to use the tremendous skills of its work force to the absolute maximum.
Ms Hewitt: I entirely agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. The real assets of BNFL are, indeed, its people and their extraordinary technical expertise. That expertise is recognised world wide and the management has succeeded on building on it in the period since the earlier, rather unfortunate, incidents took place. The statement and the new arrangements will give the company and its work force the chance to build on their recent successes.
Mr. Nick Gibb: Is not the truth that the statement provides a bail out of an insolvent BNFL? It is insolvent because of the transfer of Magnox Electric to BNFL in 1998; insolvent because of BNFL's bad performance in the United States; insolvent because of the Government's appalling handling of the MOX data falsification, which wrecked relations with customers in Japan; and insolvent because of the inordinate delay in the approval of the MOX plant.
Now that all the strategic decision making about reprocessing and MOX lies at the Department of Trade and Industry, with BNFL as a mere contractor, will the Secretary of State tell the House what the intentions are? Does she want more reprocessing contracts or does she want to concentrate solely on managing the liabilities and

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minimising the expense to the taxpayer? Will she commit herself to keeping the House informed about the profitability or otherwise of the commercial operations—namely, the THORP and the MOX plant operations—that will be taken over by the LMA, so that any losses generated by those operations are not simply obscured in the overall nuclear liabilities taken on?
Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy was recently in Japan, where he met not only Ministers but representatives of BNFL's customers. I do not think that they would recognise the hon. Gentleman's description of our current relations with the Japanese Government and with BNFL's customers there.
On the future operations of BNFL and the LMA, I have already said that the new arrangements will provide much greater transparency of the liabilities and the assets. I shall, of course, continue to keep the House fully informed.
Paul Flynn: Is not the statement an attempt unfairly to rig the energy market in favour of nuclear power to the detriment of other power producers? Although the military legacy is certainly a national legacy, the civil nuclear industry has always been an economic basket case and has never been viable without public handouts. If we are to discharge the nuclear industry from the legitimate legacy of the past, will we charge it for the new legacy that has arisen since 11 September?
We know that France has installed surface-to-air missiles in its power stations and that jets have been scrambled near Sellafield after an emergency there. An agency in France has claimed that if an 11 September attack took place on a nuclear-powered processing plant such as that at La Hague or Sellafield, it would produce 60 times the amount of caesium that was released at Chernobyl. Who will pay for the additional costs of defending those sites? What would we have to pay to insure against 60 Chenobyls?
Ms Hewitt: The nuclear industry in the United Kingdom provides about 25 per cent. of the electricity on which all of us—both domestic consumers and business—depend. I think that the industry has served the economic needs of the country very well.
The historic liabilities that were the subject of my statement are there regardless of the future of nuclear power generation. They have to be managed in the most effective and environmentally responsible manner possible. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that the arrangements that I set out in the statement are a real step forward in that direction.
My hon. Friend also raises the important issue of the security implications that arise from the atrocity on 11 September. We and the director of civil nuclear security have reviewed security procedures in the light of that attack, although for obvious reasons I do not propose to go into the detail of those arrangements. Each country makes its own judgment of the measures that are necessary to ensure the security of its infrastructure, including nuclear power stations. The RAF certainly maintains a high state of readiness in support of the air defence of the United Kingdom, and that readiness was reviewed in the light of the attack on the United States.
John Thurso: May I welcome one aspect in particular of the
1004
quinquennial review? It relates to the UKAEA pensions office located in Thurso in my constituency. I understand that the review praises the office for being particularly efficient and effective. As it has been the subject of two quinquennial reviews, could the Secretary of State give it time out from the next quinquennial review, because it has clearly done such a good job?
On Dounreay, significant changes will clearly be made as a result of the announcement of the new statutory body, but they should not alter the practical priorities for the UKAEA. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the Dounreay site restoration will proceed as planned, in a full and effective manner?
Ms Hewitt: First, I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the excellence of the pensions administration for the UKAEA. The office will continue to operate out of Thurso. Secondly, one reason for the recent change at Dounreay was to ensure that it was possible to focus more effectively on the management of the liabilities. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would join me in welcoming that.
Mr. David Chaytor: I welcome the statement and congratulate my right hon. Friend on getting to grips with the issue so early in her term of office. My only regret is that the statement was not made 30 years ago. Had that been the case, we might have had a better understanding of the economics of nuclear power generation and avoided some of the worst public policy mistakes of the past 50 years.
First, is it not the case that the liabilities to which my right hon. Friend referred are not the totality of historic liabilities? The sum of £42 billion—£35 billion for BNFL and £7 billion for the UKAEA—constitutes only a minority of the total sum of liabilities and decommissioning costs in the United Kingdom, which stands at £85 billion. The additional £43 billion is presumably primarily for decommissioning costs and the liabilities of British Energy. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that there will be no Government bail out of the liabilities of British Energy or other private nuclear establishments?
Secondly—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has done very well indeed.
Ms Hewitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. I agree that it would have been better had we understood 30 years ago the scale of the problems and the challenges that were building up. Our knowledge of the liabilities and the technical possibilities that are available to manage them change with each generation. The board has delivered the best available current estimate of the liabilities, which we have put before the House today. No doubt the estimates will continue to change, especially in the light of new technical expertise.
My hon. Friend is right that the liabilities that I propose to transfer to the LMA represent only part of the total liabilities of the industry. I readily confirm, as I said earlier, that there is no proposal whatsoever to transfer the liabilities of British Energy, which were dealt with when the company was privatised, to the public sector.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman: May I also express my support for my right hon. Friend's excellent

1005
announcement? In response to the few voices raised against it, will she make it clear that the nuclear power industry, alone among energy producers, has to take account of its lifetime costs, including the cost of decommissioning, in working out its figures? We have a legacy liability today because that industry alone contains and manages its environmental waste while other energy producers are allowed simply to throw it into the atmosphere and ignore it.
On a point of clarification, if the new authority is to contract for services from BNFL, how will the prices for those services be set, given that there is no market at present to set them?
Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend raises two extremely important points. I hope that one of the outcomes of the performance and innovation unit energy review will be an analytical base for a better understanding of the real costs of different energy sources, so that future decisions between energy sources can be made on a true comparison of those costs.
My hon. Friend's second point, on the non-existence of a market in the management of nuclear liabilities, is very important. Part of the remit of the LMA, and of my Department before the LMA is established, will be to try to encourage the development of a growing market in the management of nuclear liabilities so that we get a wider choice of operators and a better sense of what the price would be.

British Remand Prisoners (Greece)
5.32 pm
Mr. John Randall: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 24, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the plight of the 12 British tourists who are still being held in custody in Greece.
You will be aware, Mr. Speaker, that they have been accused of espionage although it seems that some of those accused are not certain whether any charges have been laid against them. Yesterday they were remanded in custody for at least a further week. Bail was refused. My constituent, Mr. Peter Norris, is one of those held, but many hon. Members have been expressing strong concerns about their constituents. I am particularly grateful for the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), my hon. Friends the Members for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) and for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) and the hon. Members for Twickenham (Dr Cable), for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) and for Tamworth (Mr. Jenkins).
Mr. Norris has told me, through his daughter Estelle, that the charges are ludicrous. All 12 tourists are bona fide aviation enthusiasts who have followed their hobby in many places around the world without problems for many years. As a fellow resident of Uxbridge, I know that Mr. Norris is a locally known expert on that subject and has written articles in the Uxbridge Gazette for over 20 years.
At the three air bases that the tourists visited they were officially signed in. They were told not to bring cameras, so they left them in their vehicle. There has been mention of a secret air base. Apparently, this is where a soap opera is filmed, with episodes shown weekly on Greek television. The tourists have even seen episodes showing the air base while they have been in prison. In fact they never even entered the base, but were at an adjacent go-kart track, which had a view over the film-set air base. It is hardly the stuff of John le Carré. These are ordinary people pursuing their hobby.
This incident is fast becoming a real problem in relations between our two countries, and many people now thinking about holidaying in Greece may well want to reconsider any decision in light of what is going on. This over-reaction is frankly not the behaviour that we expect from a democracy and a fellow European Union state. I know that members of Her Majesty's Government have been talking to their counterparts in Greece, and that the consular department of the British embassy in Athens has been active in trying to look after the welfare of those in prison. However, I ask for this debate now so that we in the House have the opportunity to express our views, and in my case my extreme displeasure, at this unnecessarily harsh and unwarranted treatment of British subjects by one of our European Union partners.
Mr. Speaker: I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has said and must give my decision without stating any reasons. I am afraid that I do not consider that the matter that he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 24. I cannot therefore submit his application to the House.

Point of Order
5.35 pm
Mr. Douglas Hogg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. First, may I thank you for the clarification that you have given the House with regard to the resolution of March 1997. I would very much appreciate your guidance on two points.
The first is this: you will know that, as a general proposition, the Table Office will not accept questions when an answer to it has been given in the recent past. You will appreciate that a number of right hon. and hon. Members, myself included, have recently tabled questions in respect of which they have not received satisfactory answers, and in their view have not received an answer that corresponds and complies with the guidance that you have given today. Given that, would you consider expressing the view for the guidance of the Table Office that it should be generous in the interpretation and acceptance of questions tabled, with a view to getting further and more satisfactory replies?
The second point on which I would welcome your guidance is as follows: will you confirm that any practice of burying bad news by Ministers—clipping out bits of information at times moss propitious to them—does not comply with the guidance and interpretation that you have given this day on the resolution of March 1997?
Mr. Speaker: I have nothing to add to the statement that I made today. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should submit these problems to the Public Administration Committee. That is the best advice that I can give him.

Point of Order
  BILL PRESENTED
    TAX CREDITS
    Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer presented a Bill to make provision for tax credits; to amend the law about child benefit and guardian s allowance; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 59].

  Prime Minister (Office, Role and Functions)
  5.37 pm
  Mr. Graham Allen: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to define the office, role and functions of the Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury; to make arrangements for his appointment; and for connected purposes.
  Thomas Paine argued in "The Rights of Man" that
  "a government without a constitution is a power without a right."
  Power unacknowledged is power unaccountable. Power unbounded is power uncontrolled. The time has come for this Parliament to acknowledge and define the true extent of the power of the United Kingdom prime ministership.
  We will all be stronger for recognising the central truth of British politics: the office of Prime Minister towers over our democracy. This mighty oak casts a long and chilling shadow over all of us who are drawn close to it—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—regardless of which party is in office. We all know that there is no political office like it in the democratic world—the concentration of power, the scope of decision making, the span of patronage, the control of both Executive and legislature, plus the informal abilities to set the agenda and dominate access to the media.
  I and my sponsors—all departmental Select Committee Chairs and of all parties—make no partisan or personal points. The development of the office under all incumbents over the past century has made a myth of the notion of parliamentary sovereignty, a lie of collective Cabinet government and a near terminal hollowing-out of our political parties. Our politics, once a rich and varied diet of interaction and competition, has given way to McPolitics—a dumbed-down, one-dimensional relationship between a prime ministership and an insatiable media, with the rest of us reduced to spectators, bit players and cheer-leaders.
  All of us in this House should be anxious that at some point in future—in different hands; in less wholesome hands—such awesome prime ministerial power could overwhelm and threaten our democratic culture. We cannot rely for ever on prime ministerial benevolence and self-discipline. Stronger institutional bulwarks are needed to keep vigil over our democracy. It is our duty in this House, and one that Downing street can no longer neglect, to think on those issues and propose some practical answers. Before then, a more routine and obvious obligation falls on us as parliamentarians: to define the office that is so central to our politics to give it statutory life and legalise the existing institution of the prime ministership. That is the intent of the Bill.
  So much of the office still lies in a shadow, a mystery, much of it veiled in the royal prerogative, the Crown at No. 10 Downing street—all of it outwith parliamentary consent. A handful of our statutes make passing reference to the office, all on minor matters such as the appointment of bishops and so on. None define it. None consolidate it in one place so that all can see the magnificent spread, the frightening reach, of prime ministerial supremacy. After almost 300 years that oversight should be put right, for without definition there can be no limits, and without limits the office itself will become a threat to representative democracy.

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  I recently asked the current Prime Minister to define the prime ministership. He replied:
  "The Prime Minister's roles as head of Her Majesty's Government, Her principal adviser and as Chairman of the Cabinet are not … defined in legislation. These roles, including the exercise of powers under the royal prerogative, have evolved over many years, drawing on convention and usage, and it is not possible precisely to define them."—[Official Report, 15 October 2001; Vol. 372, c. 819W.]
  Parliament can and should help the Prime Minister. If it walks like a prime ministership and if it talks like a prime ministership, let us ensure, on the hard countenance of a parliamentary Bill, that it is a prime ministership. The House has many precedents on which to draw: every other liberal democracy is meticulous in describing its key political office; in addition, the House itself has recently delineated the role of the First Ministers in Scotland and in Wales. Our will may be suspect, but our competence is not.
  Of course, the office has changed since the time of Walpole, who became the first Prime Minister in 1721 and who spent his day eating Norfolk apples on the Treasury Bench. Each incumbent has added something and the office inexorably continues the trend of accumulating power—but that is no force of nature; it is not beyond our control. I propose that we in Parliament stop spectating and make a conscious decision that the evolution has gone far enough—that we define the prime ministership as it is now in law, and that the Executive power should not grow further without the clear consent of this Parliament or a future Parliament. If Parliament does not have the responsibility to draw that line in the sand, it has no real purpose at all and our transition to the dignified part of the constitution is complete.
  Defining the prime ministership does not weaken it and it is not my intention to do that, but neither does my acceptance of a strong Executive imply acceptance of a feeble Parliament. We do not have to choose between the lyrics and the music of our democracy. Indeed, being clear about what the prime ministership can do will only help Parliament to rediscover and redefine its own destiny as we are squeezed between devolution, Europe and globalism. It will give us a sustainable role for the future.
  A healthier Parliament will be a help to the prime ministership. We in this place can add value through accountability, scrutiny, value for money and even delivery of policies. All those are reasons why the current Prime Minister and those to come should welcome—indeed, initiate—a new relationship with Parliament, rather than stand in its way.
  My unambitious Bill is designed merely to consolidate in one statute all the prime ministerial powers that already exist. The one modest innovation is to suggest that Parliament takes its part in the process of choosing our Prime Minister. Parliament has become the electoral college that briefly flickers into life on general election night, with the media left to acclaim the prime ministerial winner.
  The Bill proposes that the day after the election the House meets, just as the Bundestag in Germany meets, and elects the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister would then go to the palace in the normal way. Symbolically at least, that would acknowledge the House as the ultimate
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  source of Executive power. It would be some riposte to those who say that Parliament is just bypassed and is a rubber stamp, or that the elective dictatorship is not even elective.
  As the new century begins, knee deep in political cynicism and failing participation, we have a clear and present duty to prepare ourselves for the future and to examine our institutions without exception, however exalted, to ascertain whether they and we measure up. We cannot examine a shadow behind a veil, a Prime Minister with unacknowledged powers who is shrouded in the mysteries of an unwritten constitution. Let us now bring our mightiest office out of the darkness into the dawn of democracy, and into the light of the law.
  The contract that our society has with government must be written down. I ask, therefore, that the House consents to allow my Bill to be printed, and that an open, non-partisan debate can begin on the future of the Executive and the legislature.
  As the prime ministership approaches its 300th birthday, we might dare to assume that Walpole's experiment is here to stay. Now, our mature democracy deserves to see the office revealed honestly for what it truly is. If it chooses, this Parliament can start to bring the prime ministership, and with it itself, into the new millennium.
  5.47 pm
  Tony Wright: I shall be brief, but perhaps not as brief as one former Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, of whom it was once said that he would never use one word when none would do. Mr. Attlee would not survive for five minutes in today's world of soundbite and spin, but that is our loss and not his. He would disapprove strongly of the Bill. He was the quintessential Cabinet chairman, who said and believed that a Prime Minister must remember that he is only the first among equals. However, with people like Ernie Bevin, Herbert Morrison and Nye Bevan at the Cabinet table, that was a reminder that was unlikely to be necessary.
  I turn to the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) is a dangerous man. He has written a seditious tract, which he has been disseminating among a gullible public, and now he introduces a subversive Bill. It may seem innocuous enough. It claims only to constitutionalise the position and powers of the Prime Minister, now to preside over his own Department. The fact that it blows a hole through Cabinet government is the least alarming aspect of what is being proposed. My hon. Friend's real intention is to engineer nothing less than a constitutional revolution, though he is not honest enough to say so.
  The House will begin to understand why I describe my hon. Friend as a dangerous man and why this is a subversive Bill. He believes that the power of the personal executive has increased, is increasing and should not be diminished but recognised. That is what the Bill would do. That is surely outrageous enough. It makes a mockery of all our preoccupations about whether there are too many special advisers in No. 10, whether the Cabinet Office has been annexed to a Prime Minister's Department and whether Cabinet government is now dead. How dare he mock our concerns in this way. How can we go on warning of the dangers of a Prime Minister

  1011
  becoming a President when my hon. Friend has the nerve to suggest that a British Prime Minister with a secure majority and a unified party already has far more unchecked power than an American President could ever dream of?
  But it gets much worse. My hon. Friend seems to believe that a system of strong government needs a system of strong accountability. Again, that may sound reasonable, but does the House understand that it means an end to Parliament as we know and love it? We would have to stop being happy hamsters on a wheel and become eager beavers, required to think for ourselves in holding the Executive to account and debating the great issues of the day; nobody would write our press releases for us and there would be no collective line to save us the effort of thinking. Instead of representing Parliament to the people, we would have to start representing the people to Parliament.
  The parliamentary pantomime would have to close down and parliamentary sketch writers who lampoon us would be out of a job. Lazy journalists who are interested in us only if we depart from the script would have to start taking us seriously. Do we really want to go down that road? That only begins to touch on the enormity of my hon. Friend's proposals. We depend on the Executive. We may call ourselves a legislature, but we know that our secret dream is to join the Executive; that is what having a job in this place means. We sit by the Executive's table, hoping to touch the cloth and ready to catch any crumbs that fall. We may only become the Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Parliamentary Private Secretary, but that gives purpose to our lives.
  My hon. Friend wants to deprive us of our dreams; he wants to take nanny away from us and turn us into grown-ups. The House will understand why he has to be stopped. What is all that nonsense about the separation of powers? In the 18th century, we may have told ourselves that that was how our Government worked, but it was the secret of good government. The Americans and others may even have believed it and acted upon it, but we soon took the precaution of abolishing it. The ultimate wisdom of that course of action stands revealed today in the multi-faceted personage of our illustrious Lord Chancellor, but it also stands revealed in the glories of a supine Parliament and a passive people. We believe in strong, unchecked and unencumbered government, which has taken all the old prerogative powers of the Crown and kept them for itself. That has given us the most concentrated system of unchecked power of any democracy in the world, and we love it.
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  We pride ourselves on our strong Government; we believe in the idea of winner takes all as long as we are the winner. We do not intend to share power with anybody, certainly not a second Chamber. We like things the way they are; we like to be able to talk about the glory of parliamentary sovereignty while having the convenience of the Executive exercising it for us. If the Executive invite us to abolish habeas corpus in, say, an hour or an afternoon, we are happy to oblige. If they are kind enough to fix the membership of our Select Committees for us, it would be churlish to want to do that for ourselves. We may sometimes say that we would like things to be different, but the truth is that we need our comfort blanket and do not intend to give it up lightly.
  We do not want the Executive to be taken away from us, as my hon. Friend proposes in his Bill. Of course, it almost was taken away. In 1701, exactly 300 years ago, the Act of Settlement decreed that henceforth no placeman of the Monarch—a Minister to us—could be a Member of Parliament and all advice given to the Monarch by the Privy Council should be seen by Parliament. The Whigs rightly had nothing to do with that kind of restriction on prerogative power, and the provision was repealed before it could be implemented. So we never had a separation of powers, and the legislature and the Executive became one.
  Now the Bill wants to take us back 300 years and sever Parliament's dependency on the Executive. It does not have the courage to propose a written constitution, which is the inevitable end of the process. Fortunately, knowing the House of Commons as I do, I am confident that it will prefer to cling to the apron strings of Executive power and have nothing to do with my hon. Friend's dangerous and subversive Bill.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Graham Allen, Mr. Nicholas Winterton, Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody, Mr. Archy Kirkwood, Mr. David Curry, Donald Anderson, Mr. Michael Mates, Jean Corston, Mr. John Horarn, Mr. Chris Mullin, Dr. Ian Gibson and Mr. Edward Leigh.

  Prime Minister (Office, Role and Functions)
    PRIME MINISTER (OFFICE, ROLE AND FUNCTIONS)
    Mr. Graham Allen accordingly presented a Bill to define the office, role and functions of the Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury; to make arrangements for his appointment; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 July, and to be printed [Bill 60].
Orders of the Day

  Civil Defence (Grant) Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  5.57 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Christopher Leslie): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill is designed to apply the standard disciplines that cover public expenditure to a relatively small part of local government spending—the sum used to finance the administration of local authority emergency planning units totalling less than £20 million this financial year. It is important to stress at the outset that the Bill does not set the level of spending, but provides a mechanism for determining grants and the fair and equitable distribution of expenditure.
  The Bill is a short, two-clause measure that will formalise the Government's practice of designating a formula to allocate resources, and allow Ministers to put in place a more effective strategic framework to manage the allocation of grants to local councils for emergency planning purposes under regulations made under the Civil Defence Act 1948. The Government are now engaged on their third comprehensive spending review, the purpose of which is to match public expenditure with our policy priorities so that we can achieve outcomes that make a real difference to the people of this country. Naturally, we want to be sure that the prioritisation process is reflected on the ground and can take effect. In short, we want the money to be spent for the intended purpose and allocated in a fair and reasonable manner.
  The grants that we make to local authorities for the purpose of civil defence have always been intended for that specific purpose. The grant supports the local authority emergency planning units which prepare, train arid exercise plans that guard against the risk of a variety of emergencies and disasters. Emergency planning officers ensure that local authorities, in conjunction with emergency services, are ready to respond effectively to every potential eventuality. To do so, local authorities need certainty and the ability to plan ahead. They need to know how much the Government are going to make available in support of emergency planning activities for each financial year, and need a clear indication of what will be available provisionally for future years. They need to know how the total is going to be allocated among them so that they can make their own calculation of their share of the cake.
  With this knowledge, local authorities will be able to approach the task methodically and with a stronger commitment for the longer term, in a field which, by its nature, is all about planning ahead. Until this year, local councils had that certainty, but a recent legal challenge deprived them of it. The Bill will restore that certainty and the framework that allows local authorities to plan ahead with confidence.
  Traditionally, the Government have always distributed the civil defence grant by a formula. Until autumn last year, each authority was given a set sum, with various additions, depending on the type of authority and population. However, last year, the Merseyside fire and
  1014
  civil defence authority lodged a judicial review to challenge its own formula allocation for that year, for which it obtained leave to move in the High Court.
  It subsequently transpired that a lacuna exists in statute law, unusually inhibiting the Government's grant allocation powers in this small field of local government finance. Accordingly, the Home Office agreed to review its grant allocation to Merseyside for that year, so in the end the case did not proceed to a full judicial hearing. Nevertheless, the point had been made that the Government could no longer distribute the grant according to a pre-determined formula, and local authorities in England and Wales were thereafter able to claim any amount of money for emergency planning on an individual demand-led basis, rather than a national strategic basis.
  That has caused problems for both local authorities and the Government, and the inability to plan ahead financially is clearly undesirable. The Government need to ensure that the civil defence grant is allocated on a national strategic basis according to a fair formula, and is not soaked up in a distorted or haphazard manner. That is the purpose of this short Bill. The House may find it helpful if I set the measure in the wider context of emergency planning and civil contingencies activities currently in operation.
  Mr. Tim Collins: On the funding implications of the Bill, the Minister explained at the beginning that the Bill was about setting up a mechanism, rather than determining a level of grant. He will remember that when the Minister for Police, Courts and Drugs, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), was responsible for the measure, when it was still a Home Office matter, he issued a press release on 22 June accompanying the publication of the Bill, in which he stated:
  "This short, technical Bill would enable us to return to the previous funding levels for the Civil Defence Grant."
  The explanatory notes provided by the Home Office point out that since the legal case, expenditure in the current financial year is expected to rise from about £14 million to £19.5 million. The comments of the Minister for Police, Courts and Drugs imply that the Bill will enable a return to levels of about £14 million a year—in other words, roughly a 25 per cent. cut in the expenditure in the present financial year. I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on that and tell the House whether he expects, as a result of the passage of the Bill—assuming that it goes through both Houses—that funding would return to the previous levels, as set out by his right hon. Friend in the summer.
  Mr. Leslie: I shall deal later in my speech with the hon. Gentleman's points about the current financial situation. Suffice it to say that the Government have not yet made a decision about the next financial year, other than the usual pencilling in of the £14 million referred to in the press release.
  There are many different aspects to the subject of emergency planning and civil contingencies activities, ranging from the detection of risk, through prevention, protection and preparedness, to the response and recovery activities following an emergency situation. Spending on preparing and planning for emergencies and disasters at a

  1015
  local level—the limited subject of the Bill—is not the same thing as our expenditure on responding to and recovering from disaster.
  Let me give the House some idea of the scale of our commitment to the emergency services in England and Wales, which bear the brunt of the work tackling the consequences of disasters. Large sums of public money are being spent on front-line emergency services—for example, more than £9.000 million this year for the police, £775 million on the ambulance service and £1,650 million on the fire service.
  As one of the Ministers working closely on civil contingency issues, especially since 11 September, I know that we can take great comfort from the fact that our emergency services are among the best in the world. We have an impressive resource with a track record of dealing with extremely demanding situations in an efficient and professional way.
  Of course, much of the public expenditure spent on the blue-light emergency services goes towards preventive planning work. Avoiding and thwarting disaster in the first place is clearly preferable to the task of recovering from it, and the emergency services reflect that in their priorities. That applies also to the work of other protective agencies; for example, the efforts of those involved in coastal and flood defences, with their budget of £377 million this year. Since 11 September a further £30 million has been made available to the Metropolitan and other police forces.
  The expenditure on those principal emergency service activities dwarfs the expenditure that we are discussing today on the administration of local emergency planning units, which of course play an important role. However, the House will appreciate that it is necessary to illustrate the bigger picture—the jigsaw—in which the civil defence grant is just one small piece.
  To put today's business in context, I emphasise that this small but important Bill is not the Government's only or last word on bringing our civil contingencies arrangements up to date—far from it. As hon. Members may know, following 11 September, the Government set in hand a swift and comprehensive review of all our plans and arrangements to deal with emergency situations. Under the leadership of the Home Secretary in his capacity as Chairman of the Cabinet's Civil Contingencies Committee, significant work is under way to strengthen the resilience to disaster of the whole of the United Kingdom, with particular emphasis on key facilities in the capital and also on our ability to cope with chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack.
  Mr. Andrew Miller: My hon. Friend will know that I asked a parliamentary question yesterday that was answered today. I asked the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions whether he has any plans to restrict public access to information on major chemical sites held on public registers on security grounds. The answer that I received suggests that those registers will, understandably, be restricted, because of the sensitivity of some of the information. For the benefit of the public, will my hon. Friend reinforce the point that that does not imply that the Government are seeking to diminish those security arrangements, and are indeed increasing them?
  Mr. Leslie: I hope that my hon. Friend accepts that the Government are making sure that all our arrangements to
  1016
  protect large chemical sites and other areas of hazard are always updated and improved. In the light of the events of 11 September, we have looked again at the information that is available about key areas. Without going into detail, I can tell my hon. Friend that the Home Secretary and others involved in the Cabinet's Civil Contingencies Committee have been looking closely and making sure that extra protective measures to prevent potential attack are put in place at key sensitive sites.
  The civil contingencies secretariat, now located at the Cabinet Office—which explains why I am introducing the Bill—has been engaged in the co-ordination of efforts across all Government Departments. That is a top priority and good progress is being made in reviewing and improving systems. Simultaneously, we have pressed ahead with the emergency planning review launched by the Deputy Prime Minister with a consultation document issued at the beginning of August.
  The Government believe that we will need a new statutory framework for dealing with civil contingencies to replace the Civil Defence Act 1948. Responses to the consultation are being analysed following the closing date at the end of October, and a clear consensus is emerging.
  In drawing together the results of the emergency planning review and the wider ongoing exercise to strengthen our civil contingencies capabilities, the Government intend to consider how best to apply the lessons learned in a new piece of legislation. Naturally, I am not in a position today to anticipate the legislative programme or timetable, but the Government are looking at reform and modernisation for the longer term. Today we are primarily focused on an interim measure dealing with a small but still significant part of our much wider effort to deal with emergencies.
  Local authorities currently carry out emergency planning services under the Civil Defence Act 1948, which was introduced after the second world war and imposed on local authorities the statutory duty to plan a defensive response to hostile attack. That Act was supplemented by regulations, most notably in 1953 and 1993, which outlined more details on expenditure and provided for changes in local government and the creation of new types of local authorities. The Civil Protection in Peacetime Act 1986, which had been a private Member's Bill, provided for local authorities to use their civil defence resources not only in response to hostile attack, but for peacetime emergencies. It is now generally recognised, however, that that legislation is anachronistic and that new legislation is required. As I said, it is anticipated that the emergency planning review will recommend a way forward and that new legislation will be introduced when parliamentary priorities allow.
  The civil defence grant enables local authorities to fulfil their civil defence duties by formulating multi-agency plans to respond to any eventuality that may arise. Local authority emergency planning officers liaise with their local emergency services counterparts, other local authority departments, local NHS trusts, the Environment Agency, local business operators, voluntary organisations, faith and community groups and others in order to prepare arrangements for responding to emergencies. Thus, the civil defence grant is spent by local authorities on staff salaries and expenses, office accommodation and service costs, telephones, emergency planning team support costs, training and exercising.

  1017
  The civil defence grant does not pay for equipment for responding to emergencies or for the response itself. Local authority costs incurred during an emergency can be reimbursed under the Bellwin scheme, which is named after Lord Bellwin, the Minister in the Department of the Environment, as it then was, who introduced the system in the 1980s. The scheme allows for reimbursement at 85 per cent. for anything more than 0.2 per cent. of a local authority's annual budget. All responsible authorities will have some funds in reserve and they should be expected to utilise them, but the Government are prepared to assist them with extra costs. During the floods last year, exceptional payments were made at 100 per cent. under the Bellwin scheme. In the light of recent experiences, the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions has announced that the Bellwin scheme is being reviewed.
  The Bill contains only two clauses. It substitutes new provisions for section 3 of the Civil Defence Act 1948 in so far as it applies to authorities in England and Wales. New Section 3(1) of the Act confers on the designated Minister—currently, that is the Home Secretary—a grant-making power to every authority that has a civil defence function. New section 3(2) requires that Minister to determine the aggregate amount of grant each financial year and the specific grant for each authority, and to publish those amounts and the criteria by which they have been calculated. New section 3(3) allows the Minister to use different criteria in relation to different authorities and to vary determinations.
  New section 3A of the 1948 Act allows the designated Minister to pay a discretionary grant to any authority with civil defence functions. New section 3B provides for the Minister to determine when grant is paid, ensures recovery of any over-payment of grant and allows conditions to be applied to the payment of that grant. Those provisions are very similar to measures contained in sections 46 and 47 of the Police Act 1996, but as the amounts of grant involved are not on the same scale, those provisions have not been replicated. We hope that the Bill will have effect from the next financial year, which would allow the Government to return to the position that we were in before last year's legal action.
  Andrew Selous: The Minister has been speaking about the grants that are given to local authorities for emergency planning. Is he aware that, in Bedfordshire, the Government's intended plans would result in a 33 per cent. cut in the emergency planning budget? That would cause us to lose an emergency planning officer and an emergency planning assistant and ensure that we could not mount one of the three eight-hour operational shifts that are required in respect of an emergency planning assistant. The matter is causing great concern to my county council.
  Mr. Leslie: I shall try to find out a bit more about the situation in Bedfordshire. My understanding is that the estimate for spending in 2001–02 has increased by 53 per cent. in one year; that is, since the previous financial year. That illustrates the point about the demand-led budget that we are discussing. I entirely accept that we need to find new ways of allocating sufficient resources for emergency
  1018
  planning purposes, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that we need a nationally strategic and coherent framework in which to allocate resources.
  Mr. Collins: As the Minister is speaking about the way in which the system is working now, before the Bill completes its passage, will he address the very interesting remarks that are reported in the excellent Library note that was prepared for the purpose, among others, of this debate? The note reports a conversation between an Officer of the Library and a Cabinet Office official. The conversation deals with the way in which the system works after the Merseyside legal case and prior to the passage of the Bill. It is stated that a local authority must have conversations with central Government about what it would propose to spend, agree with central Government about what it will spend the money on and also spend the money reasonably and within an agreed budget. Will he confirm that that is how the situation works currently and that it is not the case, as might have been implied by what he told my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), that a county council can jack up spending however it likes and without any basis for doing so?
  Mr. Leslie: Clearly, that was one of the corollaries of the resolution of the legal action. The question about finance for local authorities, which have naturally increased their claims for this financial year, involves a number of criteria, including the reasonableness test. The difficulties arise for the Government when they are trying to assess the many local authority bids. For example, the process of assessing and auditing reasonableness might be disproportionate to the grant that is paid in the first place, which, at £15 million to £20 million, is relatively small. We need to find a formula system that can allocate the resources far more efficiently and a demand-led, authority-by-authority system.
  Mr. Don Foster: While the Minister is speaking about the current system—his implied criticism was almost that local authorities were flinging everything into the pot and trying to get as much money as they could—will he accept that the situation was not helped by the fact that the Home Office, which wrote to all local authorities, specifically stated in its letter of 22 December that it did not intend to issue guidelines to them about what they should include in their bids?
  Mr. Leslie: The provisions on what may or may not be paid for by civil defence grant have not changed. Local authorities have a fairly limited series of activities that can be paid for under the regulations that I mentioned—a point that I hope to develop later. The issues and subjects on which the money can be spent have not altered. It is simply a question of ensuring that the sums themselves are reasonable. It is that whole process that has been focused on the demand-led side of things and which explains why the Government feel that we need to have a more formula-based approach to these matters, such as that which applies to all other aspects of local government expenditure.
  The Government have acted responsibly in the past by advising local authorities what grant they would receive for three consecutive financial years and allowing them to budget and plan their finances accordingly. We intend to

  1019
  proceed just as responsibly in the future. As I said, the Bill does not set the level of grant, which is decided by Ministers.
  The end of the cold war saw a gradual reduction in the amount of civil defence grant allocated in the 1980s and early 1990s, largely because the original purpose of planning for response to hostile attack from a foreign power had subsided. In recent years, however, the level of civil defence grant ha reached a plateau at just over £14 million. The legal challenge has destabilised the budgeting process, leaving the Government with no way of managing expenditure. No responsible Government can stand by and let that situation continue, so the Bill will provide the remedy.
  Bids have come in from local authorities totalling approximately £22 million, and later reducing to £18.5 million, as the opportunity has arisen to use the deficiencies in the legislation. Local authorities usually contribute to their emergency planning services from their own general funds. However, this year, many authorities are naturally making the most of the opportunity to get the money from central Government and may be spending their own resources on other items. However, the distortion to the budgeting and planning process cannot be allowed to continue.
  While the Bill seeks to close the loophole in the law, the Government recognise that the financing of local emergency planning needs to be reconsidered, and that is why we are seeking to redress this matter on a longer term basis through the emergency planning review.
  Although the Bill received its First Reading on 22 June, and was therefore prepared before the tragic events of 11 September, it remains a necessary instrument in the Government's policy for a more strategic and comprehensive national resilience framework involving the work of local authority emergency planning officers. The Government recognise and applaud the work that local authorities have done in emergency planning. The result of that work over many years is that they were prepared to respond to the various emergencies that have occurred in the past year or so—the fuel dispute, the unexpectedly extensive flooding last year, and the foot and mouth outbreak this year.
  Although the events of 11 September have heightened awareness levels, local authorities have not been asked by the Government to do any significant extra work at this stage, not least because well-worked plans capable of tackling a number of eventualities are already in place. Obviously, local authorities have been reminded to ensure that their emergency procedures are up to date.
  Local authority emergency planning officers provide a valuable service, co-ordinating the planning and preparations necessary to deal with emergencies in any shape or form. Their work alongside the emergency services is of immense value, and goes a long way to ensuring that the effects of any disaster on a local community are mitigated as far as possible. The Bill will help local authorities to continue to carry out those functions by providing them with a fair, open and secure framework for funding. I commend the Bill to the House.
  6.21 pm
  Mr. Tim Collins: I am grateful to the Minister for setting out a number of the issues before us with a considerable degree of clarity.
  1020
  It is helpful for the House to have the chance to debate civil defence issues. We shall discuss in a moment whether this is the right legislation at the right time.
  Public interest in civil defence is arguably at its highest level for 15 years, since the concerns about the nuclear arms race that prevailed in the 1980s. I hope that there will be cross-party consensus on the idea that the first duty of a Government of any colour is to provide for the safety of their citizens and for protection against the consequences of armed or hostile attack. I am delighted that the Prime Minister said very much the same thing in our debate on 8 October. When commenting on the events of 11 September, he said:
  "We must safeguard our country…Our first responsibility is the safety of the public. Since 11 September, every one of our arrangements has been under scrutiny."
  He referred to
  "extensive contingency planning"
  and said:
  "We are doing all that we reasonably can to anticipate the nature of, and thwart, any potential retaliation."
  He also said that
  "we would be foolish to be anything other than highly vigilant".—[Official Report, 8 October 2001; Vol. 372, c. 813.1
  One of our contentions is that, contrary to what the Minister said, the Bill—which was prepared before 11 September—has not been adequately revised in the light of the events of that day, and of the consequent changes in Government policy and in the national security status. I should stress, as I have before in the House and elsewhere, that I have no criticism of the Government's general handling of the crisis, or of the Prime Minister's decision immediately to align this country with the United States. Indeed, I would say that the Prime Minister's conduct of these matters has been superb. It is in that constructive spirit that I hope that we can discuss the civil defence implications of what happened on that day.
  We are dealing with a crisis on an historic scale. Those are similar to the words used by the Prime Minister in his speech to the Labour party conference, when he said that
  "the events of 11 September marked a turning point in history, when we confront the dangers of the future."
  He said also that
  "every reasonable measure of internal security is being taken"
  and that those who had committed the acts on 11 September
  "will not desist from further acts of terror."
  In other words, the need for civil defence in this country is probably at its highest for many years, and the nature, imminence and seriousness of the threat to our citizenry is at its height. Yet, although the Government have not made any final decisions, the Minister confirmed in his response to my earlier intervention that they are "pencilling in" a reduction of about 25 per cent. in the amount provided by central Government to support the civil defence activities of local authorities.
  It is worth putting that in context, because the Home Secretary wrote to every hon. Member on 9 November to say that
  "the Government has been scrutinising every one of our arrangements for protecting the public … We do not believe that the overall level of threat to the UK has increased beyond the heightened levels following the events of September 11."

  1021
  It is, therefore, the judgment of the Home Secretary that the threat to the people of the United Kingdom has reached "heightened levels" since 11 September. He went on:
  "Our objective is to do everything that can be done to enhance our resilience and protect our key facilities, utilities and essential services."
  The Home Secretary has, of course, gone further still, as we heard earlier this week during our consideration of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill. He formally issued a declaration under the European convention on human rights, in relation to the provisions that he intends to introduce in that Bill. He cited article 15, which states that
  "in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation"
  it is permissible for him to act in the way that he is in relation to detention and habeas corpus.
  The Government are telling us—entirely accurately and wholly responsibly—that we are in the midst of a
  "public emergency threatening the life of the nation",
  while proposing to go ahead with legislation drafted long before 11 September—I have no criticism about the fact that it was drafted then—for the purpose of restricting and perhaps reducing the amount of money that local authorities choose to spend on civil defence.
  Mr. Leslie: It is important that the hon. Gentleman understands the scope of the expenditure that we are discussing in the civil defence grant. We are considering the administration of local authority emergency planning officers, not expenditure on response to or recovery from disasters. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put that into the context of the wider measures that the Government have taken.
  Mr. Collins: I am grateful to the Minister for saying that, because I was about to come to the importance in any civil defence of the local dimension. I shall quote from documents prepared by the emergency planning department, which used to be in the Home Office and is now in the Cabinet Office. Its website states:
  "The first response in any disaster is at the local level."
  It goes on to stress that point further, as part of a question and answer feature referring to integrated emergency management. I understand that this is the official Government policy on emergency planning:
  "The prime responsibility for dealing with disasters lies at local level where resources and expertise are best placed to provide an effective response."
  So, in answer to the Minister's point, of course we welcome the Government's announcement of additional resources for the police, the armed forces and many others who would have a role in dealing with the consequences of—God forbid—another attack, or other disaster linked to or consequent on the events of 11 September. However, the Minister must acknowledge the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that we are not talking about theoretical, "paper" or arbitrary changes in the quality of local authority responses and abilities to plan for emergencies. We are talking about local authorities contemplating making significant reductions in their staffing levels.
  1022
  My hon. Friend referred to the fact that his local authority may have to remove a member of staff without whom it cannot maintain its emergency call centre 24 hours a day. None of us knows when a disaster or problem might occur, but it would be a matter of concern if one happened in the eight hours out of 24 for which there was no cover. The Local Government Association takes a similar view:
  "Emergency planning and response are core functions of local authorities".
  Those matters are not bolt-on additions or peripheral, nor are they unimportant to local authorities in emergency planning and responding to a disaster, whether it be man-made or natural.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Surely the distinction drawn by the Minister between pre-disaster planning and post-disaster responses is false. Is it not a fact that the planning that we have to undertake is naturally on a much larger scale since 11 September and therefore requires much greater resources?
  Mr. Collins: My hon. Friend is right. I make no particular criticism, as none of us has 100 per cent. or even 1 per cent. ability to foresee everything that will happen, but a Home Office consultation document published in August—before the events of 11 September—and entitled "Future of Emergency Planning in England and Wales", which no doubt informed the Bill's drafting, says at paragraph 4.14:
  "In the last decade or so, there has been a clear reduction in the threat of war".
  That is the context in which the Government made policy relating to emergency planning.
  I shall deal with the money provided by central Government for civil defence, but before the Minister or another Labour Member points it out, let me make it clear that the reduction started not in 1997 but in 1990. That was the year after the fall of the Berlin wall and the liberation of eastern Europe from communism, so it is hardly surprising that Governments of both political colours through the 1990s operated on the assumption that war was less likely.
  Although my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) knows more of the detail than me, we remember that those of us who take an historical perspective always begin to worry when the Treasury or the Home Office says that war is unlikely in the next 10 years. Several of my hon. Friends recall that that was the Treasury assumption in the 1920s and early 1930s. Sad to say, there is recent evidence that the Treasury, as well as the Home Office, is again operating on that basis.
  Whatever people may have thought, reasonably or unreasonably, before 11 September, surely that assumption cannot be so readily endorsed post-11 September. Whether we describe the current situation as a war or not, we should be cognisant of the fact that the press spokesman of the US President, the leader of the international coalition, said on Monday that the President is conscious that the US is "a nation at war".
  If the President believes that his nation is at war, there is a serious question mark over whether the United Kingdom, as America's closest ally in those proceedings

  1023
  and other matters, should operate in similar manner. I repeat that the Home Secretary said that we are in the midst of a
  "public emergency threatening the life"
  of the state.
  Let us deal with the precise reasons behind the Bill, which, as the Minister rightly said, relate to the legal action brought last year by the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority. He set the exact position out in detail and with some clarity, but neglected to say that the Home Office chose not to contest the case. Therefore, it is perhaps no surprise that the judge upheld the authority's case and ruled that under current legislation there is no provision to introduce cash limits.
  Let me immediately make it clear that, as a Conservative Front Bencher, I am hardly likely to say that cash limits are evil and should be resisted at all times. Labour Members will be aware that my party is re-profiling its view on public services, but I hasten to add that that does not mean that we are suddenly in favour of spending any sum that anyone suggests for any public purpose whatever. Clearly, we are not.
  However, although we are dealing with serious circumstances and a context that the Minister was kind enough to confirm, the legal situation means that local authorities cannot spend under the civil defence heading money unrelated to civil defence or emergency planning. They must spend sums that are reasonable and, in the context of the crisis, then spending is not gigantic.
  We must ask whether the Bill is the most sensible civil defence measure that the Government could introduce at a time when many civil defence experts believe that there is a more urgent need for other legislation. I shall set out the possibilities in a moment, and a number of my hon. Friends want to point out that, since the introduction of the Civil Protection in Peacetime Act 1986, which slightly regularised procedures, local authorities have often used civil defence funds made available to them to deal with other emergencies and difficulties.
  We must reflect on the fact that, in the past 12 months, there have been not one, not two, but three largely unexpected but very serious public emergencies in this country—although I do not blame the Government for every aspect of those. First we had the fuel crisis, then the floods, which affected large parts of England and Wales. Then we had the foot and mouth crisis. In such circumstances, we must wonder whether the Government are acting wholly appropriately in introducing the Bill.
  I said that I would touch on the way in which civil defence grant has been reduced, and, once again, I acknowledge that it peaked and began to fall under the Conservative Government. However, it has continued to fall since 1997. Although local authorities may be mildly interested in the exchanges that take place across the Floor of the House about who did what when and what happened before and after a general election, they perhaps focus not on that but on the fact that the reduction is 38 per cent. in cash terms since 1990 and some 55 per cent. in real terms. That is clearly a substantial cut on any basis.
  Mr. Leslie: Perhaps I may re-profile the hon. Gentleman on a couple of points. He will be aware that the civil defence grant budget has levelled off at about £14 million since 1997, so there has been no reduction on
  1024
  our watch. Most importantly, it must be reiterated that the Bill is not about setting the budget for the next financial year. That is a matter for Ministers and a debate for another time. What we have to deal with is the question whether there should be a formula to allocate the grant.
  Mr. Collins: If the Minister wants to do so, he would be right to point out that the Government inherited low inflation when they came to office in 1997. We have difficulties with their economic mismanagement, but they have not succeeded in achieving high inflation since 1997, nor have they achieved zero inflation either. In 2001, £14 million does not buy what it bought in 1997, so a freeze in cash terms is the same as a continued fall in real terms.
  I come specifically to the Minister's reiteration of the centrepiece of his case: the fact that the Bill is about procedure not outcome—about creating a possibility for a Minister to set a rate rather than about determining that rate. The Minister for Police, Courts and Drugs was previously responsible for these matters and I have already put to the Minister what his right hon. Friend said in the official press release of 22 June, which described the Bill. He said:
  "This short, technical Bill"—
  no doubt that is a description with which the Minister will happily concur—
  "would enable us to return to the previous funding levels for the Civil Defence Grant."
  Let us now consult the explanatory notes accompanying the Bill, which tell us the difference between the previous and the current levels. According to them,
  "in the current financial year expenditure is expected to rise from approximately £14 million"—
  the level that the Minister mentioned—
  "to £19.5 million."
  No one needs a GCSE in maths to work out that moving from £19.5 million back to £14 million—in other words, returning to the previous funding levels—means not keeping expenditure the same or increasing it, but reducing it. In fact, it means reducing it in cash terms by about 25 per cent., and in real terms by rather more.
  When I put the point to the Minister earlier—I am happy to give way to him again if he wishes to intervene—he did not say "We do not intend to reduce spending on civil defence". Nor did he say "There may have been a one-off increase recognising the existence of past difficulties, but we do not want any further increases". What he said was "We have pencilled in £14 million—again—for the future". Those sound to me like the words of a Minister who is preparing to reduce the amount spent in the current financial year.
  Our case is this. Regardless of whether such action would be right in normal circumstances and regardless of whether it will be right in two or three years, it is difficult to see that it can be right now, after what happened on 11 September and given what the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and others have said about our present situation.
  Earlier this afternoon, I mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, that I intended to refer to the figure of 686 billion. He visibly blanched: he definitely whitened. That is, of course, an American rather

  1025
  than a British figure, but it is worth noting that since 11 September Congress has appropriated $686 billion to deal with the domestic implications of what happened then, and that it is currently discussing with the White House whether an additional $40 billion should be provided purely for what it calls homeland security—something that is in many respects, although not all, similar to civil defence as provided in this country.
  I do not suggest for a moment that we should move from £14 million to the equivalent of $40 billion. Nevertheless, it is at least interesting to note the United States belief that the present international situation requires not a small—not even a significant—but what on any terms would be described as a dramatic increase in allocations for all aspects of what it calls homeland security.
  I Suspect that the vast majority of those outside the House who knew that we were debating the Civil Defence (Grant) Bill would assume that it had been presented by the Government, in the light of a major international emergency, to improve, enhance and expand civil defence. In fact, its purpose is to constrain, limit and perhaps even reduce local authority contributions to civil defence.
  Members should note what the Local Government Association said in its submission to the emergency planning review. I am not sure whether this was said before or after 11 September, but the impact is perhaps even more powerful if it was said before that date. The association said:
  "there needs to be a real and substantial increase in financial support for emergency planning work".
  It referred to huge demands on emergency response work, and said that
  "work would need to be undertaken to identify the right level of funding",
  but expressed the view that a
  "substantial increase would…be justified".
  I am not arguing that any or all demands for increases should be granted, or that public expenditure control should be abandoned. I am saying that, according to powerful voices inside and outside the country, it is more than slightly odd that the Government should present this Bill in the present circumstances.
  Geraint Davies: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the press release to which he continually returns was pre-11 September? Does he accept that the view that a formula-driven approach could lower expenditure to normal levels was expressed in that light? Does he also accept that, by definition, a formula-driven approach can also be adjusted upwards in different circumstances? I am sure that such adjustments will be made.
  Mr. Collins: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has a hotline to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but if the Minister had said that, I would have been very interested and, to an extent, reassured. In fact the Minister, speaking long after 11 September—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present—confirmed today that the Government had pencilled in £14 million, again, for future supplies of the civil defence grant.
  1026
  The hon. Gentleman's assumptions would be entirely reasonable if the Government had reviewed the position post-11 September, and had recognised that, at least for a short time, it would seem difficult to justify a return to wholly normal peacetime grant levels; but the Government do not appear to be there yet. Perhaps they will get there as a result of the hon. Gentleman's submissions, and those of my hon. Friends and others. I very much hope so.
  Mr. Leslie: May I just clarify the issue of the grant for last year, this year and next year? When I spoke of "pencilling in", I was referring to the comprehensive spending review allocation. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we allocate resources for a three-year period, and we hope to do the same for the next three-year period. We are still engaged in discussions about the next comprehensive spending review. No decisions have yet been finalised: we are obviously looking at the whole post-11 September situation, but many other large sums are being spent on civil contingencies—not least the £30 million confirmed by the Chancellor yesterday, to be devoted to policing in London and elsewhere.
  Mr. Collins: What the Minister says is entirely right, and very reassuring. It simply reinforces my point. If the Government have recognised that they need to increase resources in all other areas, why are they producing legislation that they themselves say is likely to result in fewer resources in this connection? I realise that it is not the only aspect of civil contingency planning, but it is an important part.
  We must also ask why the Government thought it necessary to present this Bill if they were going to present legislation on civil defence. A strong consensus is emerging among those with a degree of expertise and experience that there is an urgent and increasing need for new legislation in this field, but not for this Bill. People who deal with these issues feel that what is needed is swift legislation to modernise the Civil Defence Act 1948, and to provide a new statutory basis for emergency management. Encouragingly, the Minister seemed to suggest that the Government recognised that need; indeed, it is mentioned in some of their consultation documents.
  According to the Local Government Association:
  "The current framework…does not ensure participation: that can only be secured by the imposition of a statutory duty."
  The association speaks of the need for a new duty of civil emergency planning, and describes in some detail what it would like to happen. It has also said that it
  "strongly supports a new statutory duty of civil emergency preparedness".
  It feels strongly that the present system does not deliver the level of effectiveness in terms of local response to civil contingencies—which, of course, may or may not be related to the events of 11 September—that is needed in the present climate.
  Many people are concerned about the way in which the whole business has been run. It is not just that this is not the Bill that should have been produced. The Government were entirely right to present legislation on civil defence, although many of us would argue that the legislation should have addressed the very concerns that the Minister touched on, and on which I know he is consulting. I do not doubt his personal commitment for a moment, but we

  1027
  need a degree of clarification—which, it must be said, cannot be found in the local authority world at the moment—in regard to who, in the present Government, is responsible for these matters. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and his hon. Friends have asked a number of questions about that, and I pay tribute to them. The hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) asked a very piercing question a little while ago, and the ministerial response was not all that it might have been.
  I shall give a classic example of the point. Today, I visited the Home Office website and found a statement on emergency planning. Although it is interesting that the Home Office still has an emergency planning website, the statement begins with these very reassuring words:
  "You may have been aware that since the General Election a decision has been awaited concerning the ministerial responsibility for emergency planning, and hence the parent department for the Emergency Planning Division (EPD). It has now been announced that ministerial responsibility for emergency planning is transferred from the Home Office to the Cabinet Office."
  The statement is dated August, which is apparently the last time that the Home Office emergency planning site was updated. Moreover, slightly disconcertingly, there was no link between the website and the Cabinet Office. Furthermore, in October the Home Secretary was still responding to parliamentary questions with statements saying, for example, that he is "the Minister responsible" for civil defence preparations and that all matters were still under review following the events of 11 September.
  In the face of all the uncertainty and lack of clarity about exactly where emergency planning staff had gone—although their responsibilities have been transferred to the Cabinet Office, many staff still work in the Home Office—the general secretary of the Emergency Planning Society, which has great knowledge of these matters and with which the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) is associated, said:
  "Our emergency planning is a shambles…If a disaster like the terrorist attacks on New York was to occur over here, we couldn't possibly cope. Councils and the emergency services have never planned to deal with something that big."
  That is the scale of the problem facing us, and that is the nature of the difficulty caused by the fact that the Government have chosen to introduce this Bill rather than a different one.
  Mr. Don Foster: The hon. Gentleman has been dealing with confusion about which Department is responsible. Did he, like me, note with interest that, when detailing the Bill's various provisions the Minister specifically said that the Home Secretary is the designated Minister responsible for determining the formula? What are the hon. Gentleman's thoughts on that?
  Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman is on to an extremely important point, and I did notice that slip.
  Mr. Leslie rose—
  Mr. Collins: Perhaps the Minister is about to reassure the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and me on that point. We look forward to his doing so.
  Mr. Leslie: I do so enjoy re-profiling, the joys of which I am learning minute by minute. We began the process of creating the new civil contingency secretariat at the Home
  1028
  Office precisely because we wanted to have at the centre of Government the ability to inter-relate with all Departments at a moment's notice. I think that many people have recognised the need for that. The process of creating it has reflected the responsibilities of the relevant Cabinet committee.
  The Home Secretary chairs the Civil Contingencies Committee, which has three Sub-Committees. One of the Sub-Committees deals specifically with London resilience and is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government; another specifically addresses chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear issues and is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Police, Courts and Drugs; and I chair the United Kingdom resilience Sub-Committee at the Cabinet Office. The responsibilities have been divided in that manner after 11 September. Hon. Members should, however, always bear it in mind that those matters are under the Home Secretary's leadership and that there is a transfer of functions order to establish the civil contingencies secretariat.
  Mr. Collins: I am not sure that that does clarify matters. I noticed, however, that in a slip of the tongue— I hope that he will forgive me for picking it up before it is rewritten by Hansard—the Minister mentioned the civil contingencies secretariat at the Home Office; it is of course at the Cabinet Office. Nevertheless, I pay tribute to his powers of memory in explaining the situation. When he was trying to remember who was in charge of each of the Sub-Committees, he looked a little like someone trying to do their nine-times table but grinding to a halt after reaching 81. Although there was a painful expression on his face when he did it, he got there in the end.
  The whole point that Conservative Members and, I believe, Liberal Democrat Members are making is that if the situation is not instantly clear and on the tip of the tongue for one of the responsible Ministers, how can it be clear to the public? Should we not consider having a Cabinet Minister with sole and specific responsibility for the matter, as is the case in the United States which has created the post held by Tom Ridge?
  Mr. Don Foster: Speaking of ministerial slips, did the hon. Gentleman note the interesting way in which the Minister said that some of the arrangements at the Horne Office were being made there to ensure that they were "at the centre of Government"? Is that not an odd phrase to be used by someone who works in the Cabinet Office?
  Mr. Collins: I did notice that. However, in fairness to the Minister, I think that that was a slip of the tongue and that he meant to say the Cabinet Office rather than the Home Office. We have probably had enough fun with him on that point, and I think that he understands where we are coming from.
  The final series of points that I shall make on the Bill relates to the fact that this is the House's first opportunity to debate issues arising from civil defence, emergency planning and the way in which the Administration have handled unexpected crises and difficulties. The history of those matters has been not at all encouraging. We have had, as I said, a fuel crisis. Many people in my part of the world, in Cumbria, believe that the Government might have reacted rather more rapidly to that crisis if the petrol

  1029
  stations had started running out of fuel in London and the home counties rather than in the north and north-west. There have been many criticisms of the way in which the crisis was handled.
  We can also debate the way in which the floods were handled at about this time last year. The floods produced a commitment by the Government that they would review those matters but there has not been a great deal of activity since then. I know that some of my hon. Friends may wish to develop that point in later speeches.
  Finally, and most seriously, we had the outbreak of the foot and mouth crisis. I do not propose going into that matter in any depth, other than to point out that many hon. Members will have read the very powerful Private Eye report which states that the outbreak
  "was allowed to escalate into the worst epidemic of the disease the world had ever seen."
  For my constituents and many others, not only in Cumbria but elsewhere, the Government's mismanagement of the outbreak was spectacular. At various times in the crisis, to defend themselves against the charge that they must have known the true situation before the last few days in February, when the official announcement was made, the Government said that they had contacted various people to get hold of railway timbers, for example, because that was part of "contingency planning"—which is particularly relevant to this debate. If the Government had a contingency plan, it was not a very good one. I think that emergency planning was better at local authority level than it was in central Government, but even that planning was not as good as it could have been had we had proper, adequately funded civil defence and emergency planning.
  Mr. Mark Francois: This point is in no way party political. I simply ask my hon. Friend to join me in paying tribute to emergency planning officers across the United Kingdom who have had to deal with the three crises that he has rightly outlined. Many of them have also been working extremely long punishing hours since the events of 11 September to refresh and update whatever plans their local authorities had on the books. I think that it is appropriate, especially in a debate such as this, for the House to recognise the very real effort that they have made on behalf of the communities they serve.
  Mr. Collins: My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point with which I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House will be happy to agree. Those people are at the forefront of public service. They make a huge difference to people's lives, and when they do their work well they make the difference between life and death for many of our fellow citizens. We should pay tribute to them and commend them for their work. I hope that emergency planning officers will feel that although there will necessarily be some differences between the parties in these debates, every hon. Member will wish to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to their work. I am sure that every hon. Member would also wish to give them strong backing and strong endorsement.
  Sadly, the Government—who are handling the general international situation admirably, with the full-hearted support of the Conservative party—have a record
  1030
  domestically not of resolving crises so much as creating them and making them worse. To adapt the famous insurance slogan, the Government always make a drama out of a crisis.
  Our fear about the Bill is that the Government are irresponsibly trying to reduce vital aspects of planning and public protection at the worst possible time. They have ignored the need for different, much needed and urgent legislation on civil defence by choosing to introduce the Bill instead of considering the matters it covers as part of a wider civil defence Bill. Consequently, the legislation is inappropriate and dangerously irrelevant at the moment. It has been introduced by a Government who have not demonstrated on this issue the grip and competence that we would wish.
  For those reasons, we have no choice but to oppose the Bill tonight, in the hope that it will encourage the Government to think again and to recognise that the issues are deeply important and that, especially in the crucial atmosphere prevailing since 11 September, local authorities need and deserve the strong backing of central Government. Local authorities should not feel that irrelevant and unnecessary penny-pinching will restrict them, at this of all times, in their vital activities.
  7.1 pm
  Mr. Andrew Miller: The first assurance I seek from my hon. Friend the Minister is that the emergency planning that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) mentioned—the restructuring of the Conservative party—will not be funded by the Bill. We need to examine the issues calmly and carefully. This country has a superb record, under successive Governments, of planning to avoid risk. We try to avoid putting our citizens in positions where they could face some of the serious risks that we have seen as a result of appalling accidents and human error in other countries. Of course, nothing is ever perfect and human error does creep in. Notwithstanding the military issues that have been mentioned, both acts of God and human error need to be taken into account.
  We have an exceptionally good record, and the first issue that the Minister's Committee should consider in seeking to minimise the cost to the public is the continued planning for further risk avoidance. I have spoken to the Minister about the need for a fresh look at some overfly zones and the holding patterns for areas that are, by their very nature, hazard sites. As I said earlier, a written question was answered today on the issue of access to information about major chemical sites, some of which was previously held on public registers. I am sure that the House will be glad to hear that steps are being taken to ensure that sensitive information will, at least temporarily, be held on a more restricted basis. It is, however, important to reassure our constituents that the commitment of the Government and the security services to public safety is not only maintained but enhanced during this difficult time.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale mentioned the fuel protest several times. That is a bit rich for a Conservative Member, whose party supported the fuel protesters who put my constituents' lives at risk. When the protest started, the blockade at the Stanlow refinery meant that emergency vehicles could not gain access to the site. The hon. Gentleman will know that if

  1031
  an accident occurs in an oil refinery, it requires rapid reaction. In Cheshire, we have a superb network, in partnership with the in-house fire services of some of the chemical companies, that includes the Cheshire fire authority and the other fire authorities in surrounding areas, to provide a rapid response to any emergency. Those fuel protesters prevented access and, had there been a crisis, the outcome could have been very serious.
  If that argument does not persuade the hon. Gentleman, perhaps a description of events when Friends of the Earth decided to blockade Stanlow this summer—supported, I may say, by the Liberal Democrats—will do so. When I visited the emergency planning room to see how the matter was being handled, I saw that the first comment written on the whiteboard recorded the fact that public fire vehicles could not gain access to the site. I hope that the whole House will agree that emergency vehicles must have easy access to such important sites in case of any incident occurring.
  The public information issue is especially interesting. Work is being done that may have an impact on the long-term planning undertaken by my hon. Friend the Minister. Hon. Members will recall that some years ago, under the previous Administration—I make no criticism of them on this point—the old Ministry of Defence siren systems were removed. Several concerns have been expressed in my constituency, and others that contain chemical sites, that the warning systems in place are not adequate. People do not understand what the sirens mean. They do not know whether a certain siren sound means, "Get the hell out of here", or, "Close your windows and stay indoors." They do not even know which siren signals the all clear. A generation ago, those signals were well understood because, for reasons we all know about, the siren system was in regular use.
  I hope that my hon. Friend, within the framework of the Bill and the broader study of emergency planning, will consider some of the newer technologies that could assist in the provision of warning systems. One hon. Member—I can never remember his constituency—mentioned the emergency planning officers, and they have done a superb job. Members of the Emergency Planning Society have also considered some of the newer technologies, and—to give one example, which would not necessarily be the whole solution—it has been suggested that a national alert and information system could be developed using selectively addressable digital television systems. For less technical hon. Members, I can explain that that means that digital television receivers can be programmed with a range of identifiers. As a result, any group in the population can be selectively informed of any risk that might exist. As the technology advances, the interesting question arises of whether other Departments should be included in the debate.
  Mr. Francois: For the record, I inform the hon. Gentleman that my constituency is called Rayleigh. It is in Essex, and I am honoured to represent it.
  The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. An effective warning system must be understood by everyone. For instance, in 1940, everyone knew what it meant when the church bells rang. I hope that the Minister will take that on board.
  Mr. Miller: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I hope that the Department will consider the
  1032
  application of the technology that I have described, which was brought to my attention by a member of the Emergency Planning Society.
  Some military considerations have been raised. The BBC's website is reporting what is happening in the US, where the security services are considering in what circumstances additional security will be required. I am sure that our security services will do the same.
  The space shuttle Endeavour is due to take off again on Thursday. For the first time, a 30-mile no-fly zone around the launch site at the Kennedy Space Centre has been imposed. That is based on the assessment of risk, and we in this country must consider the relationship between our civil defence on the ground and the use of military services.
  In the previous debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry gave a clear assurance that, since 11 September, the RAF has been on stand-by to deal with any problems to do with nuclear safety. That is a fresh dimension that needs to be taken into account.
  I wish to comment on the proposed funding regime, and on the review of standard spending assessments. My district emergency planning liaison officer recently sent me a copy of a document containing the local response to the review of emergency planning drawn up by the chief executives of the district councils in Cheshire, and by the chief executive of the county council. A combined response of that sort is appropriate in Cheshire, where areas of risk spread across district boundaries. 'That requires local authorities to work together.
  I commend the document to my hon. Friend the Minister. In response to the question of whether funding should be delivered through the SSA, it states that
  "Cheshire Chief Executives have grave concerns over the proposal to support emergency planning activities through the SSA, and would like to see a continuation of a specific grant."
  That contrasts with the removal from SSAs of ring-fenced sums of money, which is what most hon. Members want the review of SSAs to recommend. However, it is possible that some common ground exists. The chief executives go on to state that they
  "feel that the proposed system…will only work if adequate, transparent and robust funding mechanisms"
  are in place. Equally, the direct responsibilities of shire districts must also be considered in any study that is undertaken.
  It is sad that so few hon. Members are in the Chamber this evening to debate these matters, which have important ramifications for areas such as mine where there are large hazards. The relationship between our civilian emergency workers and the more obvious aspects of emergency response after 11 September must be examined.
  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the Bill. It is a simple measure that will put us back on an even keel, but a much more long-term study should be undertaken to guarantee to citizens that the House takes seriously the risks that some people face. Parliament and Government must give proper resources to meet the needs of the emergency services.
  7.16 pm
  Mr. Don Foster: The House readily and rightly pays tribute to the various emergency services—the police, fire and ambulance services—when there is a

  1033
  major civil emergency in this country. However, hon. Members rarely congratulate the people behind the scenes who plan and co-ordinate the activities of those organisations. On behalf of my party, I therefore join in the tributes that have been paid to all those who work in civil defence, and to the emergency planning officers.
  On 15 May 1997, I had the pleasure of speaking after the Minister made his maiden speech in the House. I recall that I referred specifically to the quality of that speech and the confidence with which it was delivered. Nothing has changed: the Minister lives up to the high expectations that we had of him. I am grateful for the way in which he described the Bill's contents, and for the way in which he set out what he called the "bigger jigsaw" of the country's civil defence structure. I am sure that the House is grateful for the opportunity to raise various issues in respect of civil defence, as they affect the Bill.
  It is always interesting to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins). I pay tribute to him for introducing a new word into the lexicon of Conservative thinking, which he did when he spoke about the "re-profiling" of the party's views on public services.
  However, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale frightened me a little later in his speech when he kept mentioning the billions of pounds that the Americans are to spend on what they call "homeland security". I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is getting ideas. For a Conservative Member to consider spending billions on public services would be a significant U-turn, although it is one that Liberal Democrat Members might welcome.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made some important points. I agree with him that the Government are right to acknowledge that a problem exists at the present time, and that some form of legislation, at some point, is needed to regularise the way in which grants are awarded to the bodies responsible for planning and co-ordinating civil defence arrangements. However, I share the hon. Gentleman's view about dreadful timing. At the same time that we are debating the Bill, the Home Secretary is seeking to rush through the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill because apparently we are facing a national emergency.
  Underlying the wording of the Bill seems to be at least the possibility of an intention to cut the money provided by the Government to support and plan for vital civil defence work including, of course, anti-terrorism measures. My fear is that if the measure is about both capping and cutting resources for councils which plan our civil defence arrangements and co-ordinate the work of various emergency services, we will have a real difficulty on our hands.
  Over the past 12 months we have had floods, foot and mouth, terrorist bombs and the terrible events of 11 September. Just when we need the professionalism of our emergency services, it appears that the Government are sneaking in a 28 per cent. cut in the civil defence budget in what they call a short technical Bill.
  Mr. Leslie: The hon. Gentleman's point about finance has been made before this evening. Let me make it clear again that the Bill is about enabling Ministers to set a formula to allocate the grant, not about the level of the
  1034
  grant. Post-11 September, we are looking again at all funding arrangements. Although the previous comprehensive spending review pencilled in the sum of £14 million for that three-year period, we are reconsidering the arrangements in the light of all the representations that are being made.
  Mr. Foster: I am grateful to hear the Minister repeat what he has said already. However, when the Bill was introduced on 22 June, the press release issued by the Minister for Police, Courts and Drugs, made the Government's underlying intention very clear. It says, very specifically:
  "This short technical Bill would enable us to return to the previous funding levels for the Civil Defence Grant."
  If the Minister is saying that the Government have changed their view, I would be delighted to hear it. Much more importantly, those responsible for civil defence planning around the country would be ecstatic. However, the Minister has not come to the Dispatch Box and said that he disowns what the Home Office Minister said on 22 June. The hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) said that he is confident that the Government will make changes, but the Minister did not assure him that a decision had been made. If the Minister is about to do so, we will be delighted.
  Mr. Leslie: It is a simple point, and I will try and reiterate it clearly. The Bill is about enabling the Government to set a budget. It does not allocate the amount; those decisions have yet to be made. We are trying our best to calculate the level of civil defence grant for the next financial year.
  Mr. Foster: Once again, the Minister has had the opportunity to stand at the Dispatch Box and disown the words of the Home Office Minister on 22 June. He could legitimately say that in the light of the events of 11 September, the Government have had second thoughts. He could say that what the Home Office Minister said in the press release at the time was reasonable, that they had intended to cut the figure from £19.5 million down to the previous level of £14 million, but that in the light of what happened on 11 September, they intended to raise the figure after all. The Minister has been given the opportunity to say that about five times, yet he has not done so. Therefore, there will remain significant doubt in the minds of many Members in the Chamber and anyone listening to the debate as to whether the Government intend to reduce the level of funding by 28.2 per cent. Until we get a clear statement from the Minister, I fear that that is the only interpretation that we can make of the Bill, because the only official statement that we have had on its meaning was in the press release of 22 June.
  I go further. The Home Office Minister had the gall to say:
  "The new arrangements would improve local authorities' ability to plan their expenditure when fulfilling their statutory responsibilities for civil defence."
  From what we have discovered so far today, that surely means that authorities can plan better but will probably have less to plan with.
  Mr. Collins: Does the hon. Gentleman also notice that, similarly, the Minister said earlier that the court case had

  1035
  "deprived"—I think that was his word—local authorities of clarity. It may or may not have deprived them of clarity, but it has given them rather a lot of money that the Minister seems anxious to take away.
  Mr. Foster: That is absolutely right. One reason why we will seek to amend the Bill and delay the implementation of the new arrangements is to give each authority an opportunity to make it clearer to Ministers than they have been able to do so far the significant pressures that they are under and why there must be improvements in the level of funding rather than cuts, if cuts are to be made.
  To illustrate how concerned I am, I shall refer to the work of Bath and North East Somerset council's civil emergency planning unit. It has a Government budget of £51,000 to cover all its work. That is clearly inadequate, so the council adds another £74,000 from its own coffers, making the total amount of money available to the unit £125,000, the majority of which is not provided by the Government.
  I accept the Minister's point that that is not the only amount of money that is available to be spent when an emergency occurs. I fully accept that the Government have made additional sums of money available to local councils through the Bellwin fund, which, I acknowledge, will he changed. However, before my council can even get its hands on the Bellwin money, it must spend up to £340,000 of its own money. Major emergencies therefore draw heavily on the council tax payers in the area.
  The Minister will acknowledge—indeed, he already has done, given the way in which he introduced the Bill—that the money the Government make available through the civil defence grant budget is intended to cover a wide range of activities that relate to the planning, preparation and co-ordination of the likely activities of the various emergency services. It covers staff salaries, training activities, and so on.
  My local authority has £125,000 to spend on those activities. In the past 12 months, it has had to deal with floods and the effect of foot and mouth in the area. It has had to prepare for the possibility of plane crashes, terrorist threats and, most recently, it has had to consider how it might handle possible anthrax or chemical attacks. My constituency is particularly vulnerable because it has a significant Ministry of Defence presence, although it receives no additional money for that.
  Out of that £125,000, £98,000 goes on salaries. The remaining budget, to be spent on training, high-tech communications, IT equipment, emergency planning preparation, community schemes—including public meetings and community education—is a mere £27,000. Because of everything that has happened, the demands placed on the unit are at an all-time high.
  The Minister mentioned training in the list of items for which the unit should have responsibility. Out of this huge amount of £27,000, my local unit is allocated £1,300 for training. Like all the other units, the only specialist training it can get is in north Yorkshire, and although the cost of that is subsidised, more than £1,000 would have to be provided for two members of staff to go on training courses. That now leaves only £300 to pay for the Virgin train fares and nothing for other courses during the rest of the year.
  1036
  The unit and all units are expected to have high-standard communications equipment. Until recently, the Government advised my unit to invest in the Dolphin project for its communication system. It spent a lot of money but, unfortunately, the Dolphin system went bust. The unit, like other units, is now being advised to make arrangements to link into the police and the Home Office's airwaves project. That will cost £10,000 of the unit's money but, given the budget that I have just described, it does not have £10,000. Therefore, it cannot link into that huge communications system.
  I have given a number of examples that show that the current level of funding is totally inadequate for the range of activities for which a unit, such as the one run by my local council, is responsible. The Government recently advised it to try to get involved in a business continuity scheme to enable local economies to weather the storm of an emergency, but it cannot afford to do that. It wants to set up a flood warden scheme so that local people can advise other local people about floods. It also wants to set up other schemes, but it simply does not have the money to do so.
  Funding is a big issue for the unit in my area and for others throughout the country. That is why so many people have raised so many times the issue of the sums of money to be made available. They desperately want a much clearer answer from the Minister than we have heard so far.
  The Minister is right to say that the current arrangements are based on the Civil Defence Act 1948 and the amendments to it that have followed. As he acknowledged, the Act is obsolete and new legislation is desperately needed to put civil defence on to a footing fit for the 21st century. However, I was somewhat surprised by what he said about how the planning for the future was going. In December 2000, following the Leeds castle meeting, we were told that there would be a review of civil defence legislation. However, he has told us today that the consultation did not begin until August this year, with the consultation period ending in October. Will he explain why there was such a long delay between the promise made in December 2000 and the start of the consultation in August? Perhaps more importantly, when might we expect new legislation to be introduced? He merely told us today that that depends on when priorities will allow.
  In the meantime, many things could be done that do not require further legislation. Since 11 September, a great deal of information has been sent by a variety of civil servants to civil defence units around the country. The units have received information from the Cabinet Office, the Home Office, the Department of Trade and Industry, health authorities, Government offices of the regions and many others. Clearly, in many cases, that information is welcome, but I hope that the Minister is aware that complaints are often made that the information provided by the different organisations has been contradictory. There is, therefore, a need for much greater co-ordination of the communication between the Departments and the units.
  I understand that that point was raised with the Minister when he met representatives of the Local Government Association on 15 September. I am told that at that meeting he undertook to find ways of improving the means of communication between Departments and local

  1037
  councils. Perhaps he can confirm that the Government intend to do that, because that would be of great interest to local councils.
  According to the minutes of that meeting provided by the LGA, I note that, when the Bill was discussed, the Minister undertook to
  "Reconsider the Civil Defence (Grant) Bill currently before Parliament."
  I know that the LGA raised a number of points with him. However, as the Bill remains in exactly the same form as it was when it first appeared in June, it is clear that he has not decided to make any changes. I hope that he can explain why.
  In the Minister's response to the many questions about finance, he has stood at the Dispatch Box and told us that the Bill is not about the amount of money involved, but about establishing a formula for the distribution of grants to the various bodies. I understand entirely that that is the Bill's purpose. However, if that is what it is meant to be about, I fail to understand why, as clause 1 makes clear, the new section 3(3) of the 1948 Act will state:
  "The designated Minister—
  (a) may use different formulae or other criteria in making determinations for different authorities"
  Surely that means that the Bill is not about creating a formula but about creating several different formulae at the whim of the designated Minister. If the Minister so chooses, he can say to a particular authority that the formula is such that it will receive no money whatever. I hope that the Minister will explain why the Government believe it is necessary to have a system with different formulae that gives huge discretion to, at the moment, the Home Secretary.
  Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman is on to an extremely important point. In response to the Minister's point about trying to provide certainty for local authorities, he will notice that the new section 3B says that the grant should
  "be paid in such manner and at such times as the designated Minister determines…a grant for a financial year need not be paid in that year"
  It could even be paid in instalments. How on earth that is supposed to help the long-term financial planning of local authorities escapes me.
  Mr. Foster: The hon. Gentleman must have good eyesight, because he has read the next part of my speech. I was about to make that very point. Not only is the Home Secretary able to use as many different formulae as he wants, but he will have the power to pay whatever money the formulae decide is appropriate whenever he chooses. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, that hardly helps local authorities to plan their activities efficiently.
  Mr. Leslie: Now that we are dealing with the provisions of the Bill itself it is important to reiterate what I said about how the establishment of the formula replicates—but not exactly—provisions in other standard local government grant arrangements. The provision is simply a form of words that exists in other local government finance legislation. It will give Ministers the flexibility to examine specific projects or initiatives in an
  1038
  area that might have a long-standing emergency planning need. That is why we need the powers that currently do not exist in statute.
  Mr. Foster: I had hoped that the Minister would have explained the need for a range of different formulae. However, his answer is largely to say that that is what has always been done. That does not necessarily make it right.
  The Minister referred to specific projects that the Government might want to fund, but he has already told us that they provide vast sums of money to fund such projects outside the normal planning process. There is a mechanism for that, so we have not had a clear explanation as to why that particular provision is in the Bill.
  I also hope that the Minister will turn his attention to when the funding is to be paid. Although I entirely accept that the Bill seeks to resolve a technical problem that resulted from the challenge mounted by the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority, I genuinely fear that it could create more problems than it will solve. It will certainly create considerable uncertainty about how the funding will be calculated and when it will be paid. As we have said, there are real fears that it could lead to cuts in funding for civil defence at the very time when its importance has been brought home to us by the appalling events of 11 September.
  As I bring my remarks to a close, it is appropriate that I should include the words of the manager of my council's civil defence planning unit who said to me only the other day:
  "Over the past 10 years, these services have been trimming the fat from the bone—but now that the bones themselves have been diagnosed with osteoporosis, we really do need emergency treatment".
  That opinion will be echoed by many emergency planning officers around the country. The Government need to provide more than technical legislation to sort out the mess that they are in. We need a clear commitment on the security of funding and the level of funding for this vital service.
  7.40 pm
  Geraint Davies: It is unfortunate that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) said that he opposes the Bill because it is irrelevant, inappropriate and penny-pinching, because we are just beginning to understand its basis. In essence, it provides a rational mechanism for delivering money. It is not about setting the grant itself. It is important to make that clear, irrespective of what was said in a press release dated, I think, 22 June, because that cannot be set in the context of post-11 September and the atrocity on that day.
  I am a former leader of London's largest authority, which was responsible for budgets, including the civil defence grant. I am also a member of the Public Accounts Committee, which is dedicated to ensuring that public expenditure delivers value for money. From the view of the customer, in terms of budget management and projection, and the taxpayer, in terms of delivering value for money, the Bill is appropriate and necessary.
  The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) did not mention this, but the legislation will be superseded in a wider context within the next couple of years. [Interruption.] I will come back to that if there is a problem with it.
  Mr. Don Foster: The hon. Gentleman is more illuminating than the Minister. He told us that he is

  1039
  confident that the budget figures will increase and, despite what the Minister said, he now tells us that new legislation will be introduced within two years. I would be grateful to know his source of information.
  Geraint Davies: It is known that the Government intend to introduce emergency planning legislation because the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned it for something like 2003 or 2004. That information is in the public arena. As I understand it, we are moving quickly to ensure that we do not have a blank-cheque approach in the aftermath of the Merseyside decision. Prior to that, and since the Civil Defence Act 1948, decisions were made on a reasonably even basis. Since the Merseyside decision, the Government have been open to a certain amount of financial exposure. Instead of future grants being determined by a rational formula, they could be decided arbitrarily. That is not in the interests of the taxpayer or, indeed, of local authorities, which need certainty when they plan for emergencies.
  There is a need to act quickly. The Government are doing that. It is important that the overall budgets, which vary between £14 million and £19 million, are set in the wider context. That is not a large sum considering the total expenditure that is put aside for responses to disasters by the police, the fire service, ambulances and so on, which is provided through the Bellwin scheme. Hon. Members referred to the clarity of the formula and executive management, but the Minister made it clear that that is within the wider remit of the Home Secretary, who chairs the Cabinet Civil Contingencies Committee.
  It is important that the level of grant is decided rationally and that it is appropriate for current circumstances. It is also appropriate to protect taxpayers. There must be accountability and the money's use needs to be rationally explained. The grant allocating method should be brought into line with all other Government grant allocating method. It is the only grant from Government expenditure that is not formula-driven, and that anomaly needs to be sorted out.
  We need to update the 1948 Act, which was introduced to deal with hostile attacks from abroad. I appreciate that the Civil Protection in Peacetime Act 1986 extended local authority responsibilities from wartime planning to peacetime planning for flooding, train crashes, plane crashes, chemicals and so on. In the light of other events that have occurred, such as the flooding in 2000, the fuel crisis and foot and mouth, the legislation is overdue for amendment, especially because of the Merseyside decision.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Gentleman is making a constructive speech, but does he believe that true need will be met by the legislation, or is an expectation being built up that may not materialise in the grant?
  Geraint Davies: I believe that true need will be addressed. The alternative is to do nothing and face the uncertainty of a blank-cheque situation. If that happens, we will not know how much money will be spent or where it will be spent. It is important to have a rational basis that is flexible and targets money appropriately to the areas of need.
  The grants will be cash-limited and formula-driven, but there will be opportunities for project-based financing. There is also an option for Ministers to exercise
  1040
  discretion. Although we can plan rationally for various scenarios, we must consider that the nature of disaster and terrorism is uncertainty, and the planning system might have different configurations for different places. For instance, the needs of London are different from those of other towns, cities and villages.
  The formula offers an opportunity for rational targeting, formula-driven, project-based funding and some discretion. Alongside that, I am pleased that there is a chance to have a service level agreement to ensure that consistent and growing standards of service delivery are met. In the past, we did not have the quality assurance or the means to ensure that we got the output that the public require and the value for money that we demand.
  I am pleased to support the Bill. From the local government point of view, the Government clearly intend to consult the Local Government Association further. Some authorities might have irrationally overspent and not be delivering high-quality services. That will be addressed. In time, the wider needs of the legislation will be a consideration. Basically, the Bill offers an opportunity to deliver the level and quality of service that we need for emergency planning and to provide value for money for the taxpayer.
  7.49 pm
  Mr. Peter Luff: Civil defence is something that we all hope that we never need, but we understand that if we do, it must work, and work well. Certainly New York's emergency services worked well in the aftermath of 11 September, and I join the Minister in paying tribute to all those who work in the British blue light emergency services. We are well served, and sometimes we take them too much for granted.
  People who are called to emergencies are contemporary heroes, but their heroism will work only if there is proper co-ordination behind the scenes to ensure that their services are delivered in the right way at the right time and are the right response to particular circumstances. That is why the Bill is so important.
  The Bill is an emergency response to an uncontested court action, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) said. I do not much like it. I am not saying that cash limiting is wrong—quite the opposite—but when one is considering how to restructure the funding for any national or local government service, it must be done against an intellectually consistent and honest background.
  The Government are reviewing all such legislation and that will provide an intellectually honest and coherent background for a proper review of the financial arrangements that support it, and that is the right way to proceed. One should start with the intellectual analysis, and move on to finance, rather than the knee-jerk reaction of rushing through a Bill whose only effect, as my hon. Friend said, will be to cut the expenditure available for co-ordination at a crucial time in our nation's history.
  There are two reasons for opposing the Bill: the fact that the legislation is being reviewed and the fact that the world has become a more dangerous and uncertain place since the Bill was published. We all know that the origins of civil defence lie in concerns about the cold war, but our enemies are now more complex, subtle, sophisticated and, indeed, numerous. Foot and mouth disease is but the latest. We must also deal with flooding, which I shall discuss in detail later.

  1041
  There are long-standing hazards resulting from industrial processes. I have three tier 1 COMAH—control of major accident hazard—sites in or near my constituency that cause the emergency planning authorities of Worcestershire a great deal of concern. The sites are well managed, but the authorities need to keep a careful eye on them and plan properly for responses to anything that may happen. Of course, there is also the question of the post-11 September world, which has featured heavily in speeches so far. Far from getting better, the civil defence front is getting worse and more complex. Hon. Members have mentioned the fuel crisis, and there was the millennium bug. Who knows what scientific disaster we will have to confront next?
  My hon. Friend spoke about the hundreds of billions of dollars voted by Congress for civil defence purposes in the United States. I was struck by the fact that, while we have cut £10 million from civil defence expenditure for the understandable reasons that have been set out, the national Federal Emergency Management Agency in the United States co-ordinates emergency responses to natural or man-made disasters with an annual budget of $300 million. It has access to contingency funds of $2 billion, 2,900 staff and more than 4,000 reservists. That is a sign that that country takes civil defence seriously.
  We know that we need fundamental change, and the review has rightly begun. I cannot remember who launched it, because I am so confused about where responsibility for the subject lies, but someone in the Government deserves credit for doing so in August, before the events of 11 September heightened the need to act. I am delighted that the Government say in the discussion document on which we were invited to comment by the end of last month that greater consistency is needed in the delivery of emergency planning. They are considering precisely the legislative changes that, in principle, the House should welcome.
  I am also delighted that the Government are seeking views on funding arrangements, proposing that civil defence arrangements should be supported through the standard spending assessment alongside other locally delivered services, rather than being put in a special pigeonhole. That may be a sensible way to proceed. I understand that the responses to the document have been very favourable, giving the Government a clear mandate and consensus on which to proceed. All that is very encouraging, so why this grubby little Bill now?
  The chief emergency planning officers of the west midlands region discussed the Bill at one of their regular liaison meetings. Not one of them felt that it was needed, especially in view of the review of legislation, so what does it do? As my hon. Friend said, it cuts expenditure, but it does so highly capriciously. The explanatory note is a model of obscurantism, and just the sort of explanatory note that, we are learning, is a non-explanatory note. Let me offer my own version:
  "This Bill gives the designated Minister the power to vary the Civil Defence Grant, payable to grant receiving Local Authorities on an annual basis, at will. Under its provisions, he will be enabled to use different criteria in determining the amount of grant to be paid to different authorities across the country.
  1042
  Further, the grant could be held back and not paid for an indefinite number of years after that to which the grant applies. In the intervening period, the amount previously determined could retrospectively be altered.
  In order to ensure almost complete uncertainty for local authorities, he will be given the power to decide arbitrarily that the grant payable to any particular authority will be reduced to zero from the original determination and this could be announced at any time, even after the grant period has started, leaving local authorities without any resource to carry out their Civil Defence functions."
  Mr. Leslie rose—
  Mr. Luff: I think that I know what the Minister is going to say, but I will let him say it anyway.
  Mr. Leslie: The hon. Gentleman is trying his best to provoke me. I genuinely do not wish to make a party political point, because I understand that, at some point in the past, the Conservative party had a principle of sound financial management. The Bill's purpose is not to set the grant but to impose a formula system, like that for all other local government funding arrangements, to ensure that we can plan strategically nationwide. Does he support that?
  Mr. Luff: I am glad that I did not anticipate the Minister's intervention, because I thought that he would ask a much more difficult question. The Bill's financial effects are set out in the explanatory note; the formulae lead to the conclusion that money will flow to local authorities. He is dancing on the head of a pin. His argument has some intellectual respectability, but I am afraid that, politically, it does not engage me at all, which I find disappointing.
  The Minister was really saying that he could give Worcestershire a certain sum and the council could budget for it, but he could sit on it for months or even years and then decide not to pay. So much for the certainty to which he referred in his opening remarks. So what if the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) ran a local authority? Judging from his remarks and considering the effect that I think that the Bill will have on local authorities, he has gone native now. I hope that the Minister finds my suggested explanatory note helpful; perhaps he will consider revising the Government's version when the Bill goes to the other place.
  I am glad that we have heard a lot about flooding, which is one issue that gives the matter such great urgency and importance. I declare an interest in two senses: I was Chairman of the Agriculture Committee when it produced its July 1998 report, just three months after my constituency suffered catastrophic flooding. We began the inquiry before the floods, and they occurred during it. We talked about confusion of departmental responsibilities, and when the floods in my constituency occurred, at Easter 1998, the Deputy Prime Minister, who was Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, turned up to see what was going on. He then discovered that he should not have been there, because the matter was the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, but we were glad to see him during an exceptionally serious event for my constituency.

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  In April 1998, Wychavon district council experienced serious flooding in 60 of the 91 parishes in its area, one of my constituents died and many came very close to dying. I have in mind the experience of one of my constituents who lives near what is normally a harmless bubbling brook, Bow brook, and who had to swim through 6 ft of diluted sewage to get from his garage to his front door. He nearly died in the process, and it was a terrifying experience.
  The Agriculture Committee report of three years ago still bears careful reading. I re-read it today, and I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale may have been on the Committee.
  Mr. Collins indicated assent.
  Mr. Luff: Indeed. The report was so radical that the Daily Express splashed, if that is the right metaphor, across its front page the headline, "Let Britain Sink Say MPs". That was not quite what we had in mind, but it certainly made people read the report. It highlighted the dangers of the increased flooding risk in the United Kingdom, often in very dramatic terms.
  Those dangers arise from a range of factors: the Government's plan to build lots of new houses on flood plains, climate change and the fact that the nation is tipping slowly into the English channel, which I believe is called geomorphic tilt. That means that huge numbers of our population are at increased risk of flooding, so civil defence becomes much more important.
  I know that for two-tier authorities such as mine, most of the practical burden of dealing with flooding falls on district councils, not the county councils, which are the authorities for the purposes of the Bill. I pay tribute to the staff of Wychavon district council who did so much three years ago. They gave up their Easter break and worked tirelessly to run welfare centres, open rest centres, clean up the mess, arrange for dehumidifiers, certify whether food was fit for human consumption, examine the structural stability of buildings, check electricity supplies—particularly in touring caravan parks—deal with fallen trees and so on.
  As Carl Craney, the head of housing and engineering services at Wychavon, told me today:
  "In emergencies like these, district councils rely on the good will of the staff that they do little or nothing to deserve."
  Certainly, district councils are not rewarded by the Government for the work that they do to plan for emergencies—that function is reserved for the county council. We owe it to counties such as mine that have suffered so disastrously to ensure that flooding arrangements are properly co-ordinated.
  The county council produced a report. I was not sure about that, as I thought that perhaps the district council should do so, but never mind. It dealt with a flooding emergency in my county last year, asking,
  "What can be done to minimise the future impact of floods?"
  The first recommendation was
  "Do not cut Home Office grant for emergency planning."
  It was made by the then Liberal and Labour-controlled council, but it seems that the Government are ignoring it.
  Apart from flooding, I want to mention other regular issues that are now of increasing concern. I talked about my tier 1 COMAH sites, which need to be properly
  1044
  controlled and monitored. Proper rehearsals should be held for the kind of eventualities that we might face. To give the House an idea of the kind of site that I am talking about, I should add that I am delighted to have Royal Ordnance at Summerfield in my constituency. It makes rocket motors for a wide range of defence purposes. It is bidding for a new contract—I was lobbied by it only today—and I hope that it gets it. Rocket motors are dangerous things. Huge amounts of explosive and inflammable material are held at the site. It is important that my county has the resources to ensure that such issues are properly addressed.
  I had thought that I might talk at length about terrorism, but as others have done so, I merely note that all kinds of new terrorist and broader microbiological risks emerge daily. We have talked about foot and mouth disease, but what other microbiological hazards are evolving to confront us? What new microbiological hazards are being planned by those who do not like our lifestyle or approach, or bear some bizarre grudge against western society? We do not know. The need for emergency planning does not diminish but grows.
  I asked my local authority what it thought about the Bill, and I say to the hon. Member for Croydon, Central that this is what Worcestershire county council said. It said that it finds
  "the provisions of this Bill to be draconian and totally unnecessary. The Cabinet Office is currently carrying out a fundamental review of Emergency Planning, with a view that an Emergency Planning Bill shall be introduced before or during 2003, when this Bill"—
  the Civil Defence (Grant) Bill—
  "would come into force. It is anticipated that the Civil Protection Bill will impose a statutory duty on all local authorities for emergency planning and that this will probably bring about a change in the way that this service is funded.
  It appears on the surface that it would be far more logical to leave the current arrangements in place and incorporate this Bill within the provisions of the proposed Emergency Planning Bill, which at most on the current timescales proposed would only extend the current arrangements for one financial year."
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend spoke at length about flooding. Does he accept that as well as local authorities—the Bill relates to local authority grants—public utilities should be involved in seeking to create a policy to prevent flooding? At the moment, they cannot take the action that they want to take owing to shortage of money. The village of Eaton in my constituency suffered severe flood damage and danger to health front sewage. Such issues are involved in this debate.
  Mr. Luff: I am glad that I gave way to my hon. Friend, as I always am. He makes a powerful point. There is a desperate need to overhaul and reform the structure of flooding policy, which is bewildering and confusing to us all. An earlier Select Committee report found some 240 different authorities and agencies involved in one way or another with flooding issues. The classic division is between the Environment Agency, district councils, county councils and water companies. There is a need to ensure proper co-ordination. That makes the provisions of the Bill so much sadder for me. I am sorry that the Minister has fallen for the line sold by others. I hope that he will listen to the wise words of Worcestershire county council and even at this late stage withdraw the Bill and reintroduce it later as part of a more comprehensive solution to the problems that we face.
  8.3 pm
  Tom Brake: I shall be brief. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as the chairman of the National Council for Civil Protection, and a personal interest as my wife works for Sutton council and is one of its emergency planning officers.
  The NCCP is an advisory or pressure group that is extremely active in promoting emergency planning best practice. Its members are principally drawn from the emergency planning community in local authorities. It has met representatives of the Home Office to discuss these matters on a fairly regular basis.
  I shall not go into whether the Government are intending to downsize the sum of money that can be allocated to emergency planning from £19 million to £14 million because I know that the Minister would intervene to point out that the Bill is about not a formula but drawing up a system of formulae. That is rather hard to pin down. What is clear, however, is that local authorities are not in a position to plan properly. They are having to set budgets without knowing exactly where they stand.
  It is worth pointing out some of the risk associated with any downsizing of funding allocated for emergency planning. Hertfordshire council has received additional moneys that have been used to identify the homes in which elderly people live—and specifically those on flood plains—and to confirm whether such homes have adequate emergency plans in place should flooding occur. I understand that such projects would be at risk if the money allocated was reduced to £14 million.
  I also understand that the Government have issued guidance saying that, as well as normal arrangements for emergency planning, local authorities should be putting together a central Government advisory team, which is supposed to consider terrorism and hostage scenarios. They are also supposed to be drawing up a joint health advisory cell to consider chemical and biological threats. Such systems are obviously not in place currently and will require officer time—that is what emergency planning is mainly about—to implement them and ensure that they work. Again, if the sums of money are reduced, such systems will probably not be implemented.
  The Minister said that he cannot predict the legislative timetable. I wish that he was as successful at doing so as the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies). Will the Minister at least give an assurance that he will personally make the matter top priority and fight for legislative time to be made available for such a Bill? Given the different crises in the past few years—whether it be the fuel crisis, foot and mouth, terrorist threats or flooding—such a Bill is clearly a top priority.
  Does the Minister expect—preferably before but possibly after a review and consideration of the legislative programme—a mechanism to emerge to ensure the wider promotion of best practice in emergency planning? Members have referred to some of the omissions from the website. From talking to people in emergency planning, I understand that the content is very limited and that much more must be done about promoting best practice. Rather than simply telling local authorities that, for example, they should be reviewing their arrangements for mortuaries and how to go about decontaminating bodies if necessary, the Government should provide some best practice advice on
  1046
  such matters. That would mean that each authority would not then draw up an individual plan, even though someone somewhere had already done the work.
  As the Minister has said, the Bill is specifically about the system of formulae to be implemented. I hope that there will very soon be an opportunity to return to the subject in order to deal with emergency planning in a much wider sense.
  8.9 pm
  Mr. Mark Francois: I begin by apologising to the Minister for missing the first few minutes of his opening speech. I serve on a Select Committee, and even with all the modern technology of the 21st century, one cannot be in two places at once. I came hot foot to the debate, but missed the first couple of minutes. I served for seven years in the Territorial Army, including in a home defence role, and I shall bring a little of that experience to bear on the debate. I shall directly address the Bill later, but begin by putting the debate into an historical perspective.
  The emphasis on civil defence has broadly been declining since the second world war, at the end of which Britain had formulated a highly efficient civil defence system. During the battle of Britain, the courage of pilots in the air was matched by that of those serving in the civil defence network on the ground in units such as the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Royal Observer Corps. Without such people the effective defence of the UK from attack would not have been possible. Even to this day, we continue to owe them a great debt for helping to defend freedom.
  With the advent of the cold war the emphasis in civil defence planning changed, in particular to reflect the new nuclear era. Considerable effort was expended on adjusting civil defence planning to cope with the prospect of nuclear attack on the UK by the Soviet Union. A series of emergency bunkers was created and both national and local government officials trained for the eventuality, however difficult it might have been to contemplate. It transpired that the democratic west won the cold war and helped to bring freedom to eastern Europe, as well as to Russia itself to some extent. All those who were part of that apparatus played an important role, in their own discreet way, in that most welcome extension of democracy.
  I pay tribute in particular to the members of the Royal Observer Corps. For many years, ROC volunteers trained to help Britain to deal with aerial and ultimately nuclear attack. Those who served in the ROC were highly trained to deal with perhaps the worst of all imaginable events: a nuclear attack on their country. From their series of posts and bunkers around the country, they would have been responsible for plotting the nature and extent of any such attack and informing the Government of the extent of the damage. They trained for all that in the knowledge that they might have to continue to operate even after their own families had become casualties.
  Thankfully, with the end of the cold war the possibility of such an all-out assault receded. The corps was disbanded as a result. It is always difficult for members of a unit or organisation who have worn their uniform with pride, as the volunteers of the ROC certainly did, to accept the order to stand down. However, they have the satisfaction of having done an important job quietly and

  1047
  thoroughly. The ROC performed a valuable service for this country for many years and I pay tribute to its members.
  The end of the cold war did not necessarily entail the end of all threats to the security of the UK—far from it—but that point was not fully appreciated by the new Government in 1997. The 1997–98 strategic defence review had important implications for civil defence planning in the UK. It switched Britain's planning assumptions towards a largely expeditionary strategy: the concept was one of greater flexibility and mobility and the ability to project forces to trouble spots around the globe. As the then Secretary of State for Defence George, now Lord, Robertson put it at the time,
  "If the war is no longer going to come to us then we may have to go to the war."
  That had implications for resource allocation and the switch towards expeditionary warfare was made at the expense of home defence, including civil defence. Not only was the Territorial Army severely cut, which I believe was a great mistake because the TA has great potential in times of domestic emergency, but the civil defence infrastructure was further run down, to the point where many professionals working in the field were becoming increasingly alarmed and, at the same time, demoralised by the low priority that the Government appeared to attach to their work. It is that overall trend of running down domestic defences that provides the background to the Bill.
  When professionals in the field began to protest about the low priority given to their work, some accused them of crying wolf. The atmosphere was almost such that people voicing concerns and asking questions about civil defence in a post-cold war world were regarded as alarmist. That led to the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority feeling obliged to take the Government to court for failing to meet their statutory obligations. The Government declined to contest the case, and that led to the introduction of the Bill. It is important that our debate is seen in that context.
  All that took place before 11 September. Since then, there has been a great deal of discussion about the possibility of so-called asymmetric attack on the UK by terrorist groups of the type whose actions people in the United States have had a suffer. In the debate on the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill a few days ago, Ministers took pains to argue that the UK faced a genuine national emergency,
  "threatening the life of the nation"
  as a result of events in the United States, and that the serious risk justified our derogation from certain aspects of the European convention on human rights that were inconsistent with some of the measures in that Bill.
  It is utterly inconsistent for one set of Ministers to argue in the House that the UK faces a genuine domestic emergency, and other Ministers to argue a few days later for legislative powers to reduce spending on civil defence. Either we face such a threat or we do not. We should allocate our resources, including funding for civil defence, accordingly. I happen to believe that more must be spent in that respect, so I deprecate the spirit of the Bill, which would facilitate precisely the opposite.
  Mr. Miller: Nonsense.
  Mr. Francois: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Bill. New section 3B(4), on payment, states:
  "An authority shall repay to the designated Minister any sum which…exceeds the amount to which the authority is entitled under that section for that year (whether or not by virtue of a varying determination under section 3(3)(b))."
  If the Bill is designed to enhance the resources given to civil defence, why is it necessary for the Government to include a clawback provision? No Labour Member has defended that point so far.
  This country has survived many threats to its security down the centuries. Now, we face a new and in many ways more invidious threat than we have faced hitherto. We need to guard against the threat of terrorism and asymmetric warfare, just as we have guarded against all other threats. That means spending more on civil defence, not less. When the total allocated to local authorities for civil defence last year—£20 million—is around half the cost of a single Eurofighter aircraft, we have got the balance of our planning wrong.
  The first duty of Government, above all others, is defence of the realm. We forget that at our peril. From what I have heard today, I believe that we are in real danger of forgetting that tonight.
  8.18 pm
  Mr. Collins: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  We have had a useful and constructive debate. If the Minister is unable to deal with all the points raised now, perhaps he will write to those who have spoken.
  The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) made an extremely important point about the need to clarify what different siren sounds mean. He was entirely right to draw that to the House's attention. I also strongly endorse his comments on the importance of no-flying zones. He will understand why the matter is of no small concern to my constituents, one of whom recently pointed out to me, using a somewhat morbid phrase, that his home at Windermere was only 25 miles "as the radiation flies" from Sellafield. Greater clarification would be appreciated, although I should say that the measures already taken by the Government in that respect are most welcome.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) and for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) and the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) all paid important tributes to emergency planning officers, which I am sure will be supported by all hon. Members on both sides of the House. We should applaud the officers' work.
  The hon. Member for Bath was entirely right when he said that we all accept that legislation of some sort to deal with funding matters in this context is needed at some stage, but as he said, the Government's timing is dreadful. He said that he looks forward to introducing amendments when the Bill is considered in Committee to delay its effect. He will have the support of the official Opposition in doing so, and perhaps we can work together on that, I look forward to that because his party and mine have recently taken joint control of Cumbria county council, and are doing a great deal better there than the previous Labour local authority.

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  The hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) made, perhaps unintentionally, a slightly entertaining speech. He tried to argue that the Government were not about to cut civil defence funding. For the Minister's benefit, he went on to announce that new legislation would be brought forward in the next two years. The Minister was a little less certain than the hon. Gentleman about that. However, it was an interesting contribution.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire rightly said that heroism works only when there is proper co-ordination behind the scenes. I am sure that he is right to say that it would have made a great deal more sense to address finances as part of an overall framework of legislative reform, and not on their own. I am sure that he was right to pay tribute to the work of his local district council. I was taken by the quote that he provided from Worcestershire county council, which described the proposed legislation as draconian and entirely unnecessary.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) made a typically constructive contribution. He spoke of the need for utilities to be brought within a proper legislative framework. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who is a great expert on these matters as the chairman of the National Council for Civil Protection, made a helpful and positive contribution.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh, whose expertise in these matters as a former member of the Territorial Army is important, was right to pay tribute to the work of the Royal Observer Corps. His tribute was entirely appropriate and well informed, and it should be endorsed by everyone in the House who loves freedom. It was interesting that he referred to the words of Lord Robertson, who said some years ago that the war would no longer come to us. Sadly for the citizens of New York, it came to them. That must influence the way in which we approach these matters.
  The Opposition genuinely believe that the Government have got this one wrong. It is the wrong Bill at the wrong time. It is a misguided response at a time of national emergency, to use the Home Secretary's words. That is why we shall be voting against the Bill. We ask the Government to reconsider the measure.
  8.22 pm
  Mr. Leslie: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  I want to respond to what has been a brief but constructive debate. It has allowed the Government to explain—I hope that it will not be necessary to do so more frequently—that the Bill is about enabling the Government to set a formula for the allocation of grant, and not the actual level of spending.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), in opening and responding to the debate on behalf of the Opposition, mentioned the great work of the emergency services and others. Indeed, he complimented the Government's handling of events post-11 September. I welcome those remarks. I am sorry that he has concluded that he will actively oppose the Bill. It seems that he is opposing a national strategic approach to
  1050
  emergency planning funding, which is extremely regrettable. The Government want a planned and fair distribution of grant. The hon. Gentleman appears not to want that.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) made a number of legitimate suggestions for improving public protection. He referred to the demise of the old warning sirens that were in place in the cold war era. I know that the Government are reviewing the adequacy of public warning systems and I hope that announcements will be made on that. My hon. Friend talked about no-fly zones around sensitive sites. He will be aware that following discussions in another place, the Departments involved will be taking up a number of his suggestions. He has given much attention to the Bill and has scrutinised it, and I value enormously his contribution.
  The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) also paid tribute to the work of local emergency planning officers and others. He gave examples of work that is undertaken in his local authority area and the issues that are faced. He talked about demands on budgets, the need for training and the wish to see better communication systems. We need to reinstitute the ability to allocate a formula that is based on a series of criteria on a range of issues. We need legal authority to do that, and that is precisely what the Bill is designed to achieve.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) has much experience as a former leader of his local council and as a member of the Public Accounts Committee. He understands entirely the need for the rational allocation of grant. He correctly summarised the Bill's provisions.
  The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) raised a number of questions, in particular the flooding in the Wychavon area. He also referred to one possible cause of his geomorphic tilt, which I feel I may be suffering from at this time of the evening. Civil defence grant covers only the funding for local emergency planning units; it does not cover responses to floods. I understand that the budget is rising from £66 million for the financial year 2000–01 to £114 million in the financial year 2003–04. There is an increase in the amount that we are allocating to flood prevention. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned issues surrounding the control of major accident hazard sites. These are being reviewed by the Cabinet's Civil Contingencies Committee.
  The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has a great deal of knowledge about civil contingencies and emergency planning. I welcome his contribution. He specifically urged the Government to bring forward wider emergency planning legislation as soon as possible. The truth is that we are still learning many lessons, particularly after the events of 11 September. We intend to bring forward a Bill as soon as parliamentary time allows. We must ensure that we are covering all the relevant issues in such legislation.
  The hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) made an interesting speech. He paid tribute to the Royal Observer Corps and the Territorial Army. He discussed the end of the cold war. I disagree with his conclusions about the Bill, but I understand the experience from which he speaks.

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  Several Members talked about the level of funding, especially those who spoke from the Front Benches. The issue of reprofiling spending has arisen throughout the debate. I am learning at all times. The Bill does not set the budget for civil defence grant, but it enables Ministers to do so. Ministers have yet to set the 2002–03 financial year resource. The question this evening is whether we should have a formula for allocating such grant.
  We accept that we should reconsider financing for local authority emergency planning units. That is why we have the emergency planning review. Discussions are continuing, especially following the events of 11 September, in respect of the next comprehensive spending review. We will be considering all the representations that we are receiving from local authorities. The Local Government Association, in particular, has made representations, and we are trying to build on our continuing dialogue and regular communications with it. Its representations will be taken into account as far as possible. We are actively investigating the question of a formula based on the standard spending assessment.
  To revisit the point about the Civil Contingencies Committee, it is chaired by the Home Secretary, although the civil contingencies secretariat is based in the Cabinet Office. It is clear, to me at least, where those organisations sit; I hope that that helps to clarify the matter for the House.
  While the Government intend to consider new legislation on a range of civil contingency issues, this short Bill is required in the interim to re-establish a national strategic approach to civil defence grant allocation. The Government are concerned that, following the legal challenge, the costs of assessing the individual claims of each authority's bid to check whether they are reasonable is both disproportionate and burdensome, given the total size of the budget. A formula allocation is easier and more cost-efficient in administrative terms. Moreover, a system led by authority demand would fail to take account of the need for prioritisation and fairness across the country as a whole, so the Bill is needed now to reassert the importance of a comprehensive and planned nationwide emergency planning framework.
  The hon. Member for Bath, among others, mentioned the need for a fundamental re-examination of civil contingencies work, which is currently under way in the emergency planning review and will address many specific representations on the level of grant and how best it should be allocated. The review specifically asked for comments on whether funding for local authorities should be made through the SSA. In the meantime, the basic building block of statute law is needed to give the Government the ability to implement the existing scheme and any new schemes.
  There can be no doubt that the events of 11 September have caused significant anxiety across the world and in our own communities. Part of the process of ameliorating that concern is the demonstration that, as a society, we are well placed to cope with whatever emergencies may arise. The Bill reflects a mere fraction of the work required to tighten up our national resilience framework, but it is important nevertheless. It is a necessary tool in the delivery of effective emergency planning co-ordination across the country, and I commend it to the House.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 159.

  Division No. 90]

  [8.30 pm

  AYES

  Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Ainger, Nick

  David, Wayne

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Davidson, Ian

  Allen, Graham

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Anderson, Rt Hon Donald (Swansea E)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Dawson, Hilton

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Denham, Rt Hon John

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Austin, John

  Dismore, Andrew

  Bailey, Adrian

  Dobbin, Jim

  Barnes, Harry

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Barron, Kevin

  Dowd, Jim

  Beard, Nigel

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Edwards, Huw

  Bennett, Andrew

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Berry, Roger

  Ennis, Jeff

  Best, Harold

  Etherington, Bill

  Blackman, Liz

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Blizzard Bob

  Flint, Caroline

  Borrow, David

  Flynn, Paul

  Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Gardiner, Barry

  Brennan, Kevin

  George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

  Brown, Rt Hon Nicholas (Newcastle E & Wallsend)

  Gerrard, Neil

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Browne, Desmond

  Gilroy, Linda

  Bryant, Chris

  Godsiff, Roger

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Goggins, Paul

  Burden, Richard

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Burnham, Andy

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Grogan, John

  Cairns, David

  Hain, Rt Hon Peter

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  Casale, Roger

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Cawsey, Ian

  Hanson, David

  Challen, Colin

  Havard, Dai

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Healey, John

  Chaytor, David

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Clapham, Michael

  Hendrick, Mark

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Hermon, Lady

  Hesford, Stephen

  Clarke, Rt Hon Charles (Norwich S)

  Heyes, David

  Hill, Keith

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Hoey, Kate

  Clelland, David

  Hope, Phil

  Coaker, Vernon

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

  Cohen, Harry

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Connarty, Michael

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

  Corston, Jean

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Cousins, Jim

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Crausby, David

  Hurst, Alan

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Hutton, Rt Hon John

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Cummings, John

  Illsley, Eric

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

  Jenkins, Brian

  Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  1053

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Owen, Albert

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  Pearson, Ian

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Joyce, Eric

  Pike, Peter

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Plaskitt, James

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Pollard, Kerry

  Kemp, Fraser

  Pond, Chris

  Kidney, David

  Pope, Greg

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Pound, Stephen

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Powell, Sir Raymond

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Lammy, David

  Purchase, Ken

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Purnell, James

  Laxton, Bob

  Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Lepper, David

  Rammell, Bill

  Leslie, Christopher

  Rapson, Syd

  Levitt, Tom

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  Linton, Martin

  Rooney, Terry

  Lloyd, Tony

  Ross, Ernie

  Love, Andrew

  Roy, Frank

  Luke, Iain

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Lyons, John

  Salter, Martin

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  McCabe, Stephen

  Savidge, Malcolm

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Sawford, Phil

  McDonnell, John

  Shaw, Jonathan

  MacDougall, John

  Sheridan, Jim

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  McIsaac, Shona

  Simon, Siôn

  McKechin, Ann

  Skinner, Dennis

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

  McNulty, Tony

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  McWalter, Tony

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  McWilliam, John

  Southworth, Helen

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Spellar, Rt Hon John

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Squire, Rachel

  Mallaber, Judy

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Mann, John

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Marris, Rob

  Stevenson, George

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Stewart, David (Inverness E)

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Martlew, Eric

  Stringer, Graham

  Meale, Alan

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Merron, Gillian

  Tami, Mark

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Miller, Andrew

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  Moffatt, Laura

  Todd, Mark

  Mole, Chris

  Touhig, Don

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Trickett, Jon

  Moran, Margaret

  Truswell, Paul

  Morley, Elliot

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Mountford, Kali

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Mudie, George

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Mullin, Chris

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Tynan, Bill

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Vaz, Keith

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Walley, Ms Joan

  O'Hara, Edward

  Wareing, Robert N

  Olner, Bill

  Watson, Tom

  Organ, Diana

  Watts, David

  Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

  White, Brian

  1054

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Winnick, David

  Wyatt, Derek

  Wood, Mike

  Woodward, Shaun

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Woolas, Phil

  Mr. Ivor Caplin and

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Mr. John Heppell.

  NOES

  Allan, Richard

  Heald, Oliver

  Amess, David

  Heath, David

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Hoban, Mark

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Bacon, Richard

  Horam, John

  Barker, Gregory

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Baron, John

  Hunter, Andrew

  Barrett, John

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Bellingham, Henry

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Bercow, John

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Blunt, Crispin

  Keetch, Paul

  Boswell, Tim

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

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Brady, Graham

  Key, Robert

  Brake, Tom

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Brazier, Julian

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Breed, Colin

  Knight, Rt Hon Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Butterfill, John

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Lamb, Norman

  Cameron, David

  Lansley, Andrew

  Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

  Laws, David

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Leigh, Edward

  Letwin, Oliver

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Cash, William

  Lidington, David

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Loughton, Tim

  Chidgey, David

  Luff, Peter

  Chope, Christopher

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Clappison, James

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Collins, Tim

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Conway, Derek

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Mercer, Patrick

  Dodds, Nigel

  Moore, Michael

  Doughty, Sue

  Moss, Malcolm

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland & Melton)

  Murrison, Dr Andrew

  Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

  Oaten, Mark

  Evans, Nigel

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Fabricant, Michael

  Ottaway, Richard

  Fallon, Michael

  Paice, James

  Flight, Howard

  Price, Adam

  Flook, Adrian

  Pugh, Dr John

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Randall, John

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Fox, Dr Liam

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Francois, Mark

  Rendel, David

  Gale, Roger

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham)

  Garnier, Edward

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangford)

  Gibb, Nick

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Goodman, Paul

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Grayling, Chris

  Ruffley, David

  Green, Damian (Ashford)

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Sanders, Adrian

  Greenway, John

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Grieve, Dominic

  Selous, Andrew

  Hammond, Philip

  Simmonds, Mark

  Hancock, Mike

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

  Harris, Dr Evan (Oxford W)

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Harvey, Nick

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Hawkins, Nick

  Spink, Bob

  1055

  Spring, Richard

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Viggers, Peter

  Stunell, Andrew

  Waterson, Nigel

  Swayne, Desmond

  Watkinson, Angela

  Swire, Hugo

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Syms, Robert

  Williams, Hywel (Caemarfon)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Willis, Phil

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Wilshire, David

  Taylor, Dr Richard (Wyre F)

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Thurso, John

  Younger-Ross, Richard

  Trend, Michael

  Trimble, Rt Hon David

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Dr. Julian Lewis and

  Tyler, Paul

  Mr. Charles Hendry.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time.

  Civil Defence (Grant) Bill

    CIVIL DEFENCE (GRANT) [MONEY]
    Queen's recommendation having been signified—
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52 (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
    That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Civil Defence (Grant) Bill, it is expedient to authorize—
    (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of grants made by a Minister of the Crown to authorities with functions under section 2 of the Civil Defence Act 1948, and
    (2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—[Angela Smith.]

    Question agreed to.

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

      REHABILITATION OF OFFENDERS
      That the draft Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2001, which was laid before this House on 19th November, be approved.—[Angela Smith.]
      Question agreed to.
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

      LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSION
      That the draft Community Legal Service (Cost Protection) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2001, which were laid before this House on 30th October, be approved.—[Angela Smith.]
      Question agreed to.
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

      INCOME TAX
      That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Lithuania) Order 2001 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 14th November.—[Angela Smith.]
      Question agreed to.
      Motion made and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 1186(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Ligislation),

      INCOME TAX
      That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) Order 2001 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 14th November.—[Angela Smith.]
      Question agreed to.
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committeess on Delegated Legislation),

      NURSES AND MIDWIVES
      That the draft Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001, which was laid before this House on 15th November, be approved.—[Angela Smith.]
      The House divided: Ayes 289, Noes 152.

      Division No. 91]

      [8.44 pm

      AYES

      Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

      Coaker, Vernon

      Ainger, Nick

      Coffey, Ms Ann

      Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

      Cohen, Harry

      Allen, Graham

      Connarty, Michael

      Anderson, Rt Hon Donald (Swansea E)

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Corston, Jean

      Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

      Cousins, Jim

      Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

      Crausby, David

      Atkins, Charlotte

      Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

      Austin, John

      Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

      Bailey, Adrian

      Cummings, John

      Barnes, Harry

      Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

      Barron, Kevin

      Beard, Nigel

      Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

      Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

      Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

      Begg, Miss Anne

      Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

      Bennett, Andrew

      David, Wayne

      Berry, Roger

      Davidson, Ian

      Best, Harold

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Blackman, Liz

      Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

      Blears, Ms Hazel

      Dawson, Hilton

      Blizzard, Bob

      Dean, Mrs Janet

      Borrow, David

      Dhanda, Parmjit

      Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

      Dismore, Andrew

      Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

      Dobbin, Jim

      Bradshaw, Ben

      Donohoe, Brian H

      Brennan, Kevin

      Doran, Frank

      Browne, Desmond

      Dowd, Jim

      Bryant, Chris

      Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

      Burden, Richard

      Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

      Burnham, Andy

      Edwards, Huw

      Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

      Ellman, Mrs Louise

      Cairns, David

      Ennis, Jeff

      Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

      Etherington, Bill

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Fitzpatrick, Jim

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

      Casale, Roger

      Flint, Caroline

      Cawsey, Ian

      Flynn, Paul

      Challen, Colin

      Foster, Michael (Worcester)

      Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

      Gardiner, Barry

      Chaytor, David

      George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

      Clapham, Michael

      Gerrard, Neil

      Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

      Gibson, Dr Ian

      Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

      Gilroy, Linda

      Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

      Clarke, Rt Hon Charles (Norwich S)

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Grogan, John

      Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

      Hain, Rt Hon Peter

      Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

      Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

      Clelland, David

      Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

      1057

      Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

      Marris, Rob

      Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

      Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

      Hanson, David

      Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

      Havard, Dai

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Healey, John

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

      Marshall-Andrews, Robert

      Hendrick, Mark

      Martlew, Eric

      Hepburn, Stephen

      Meale, Alan

      Hermon, Lady

      Merron, Gillian

      Hesford, Stephen

      Michael, Rt Hon Alun

      Heyes, David

      Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

      Hill, Keith

      Miller, Andrew

      Hinchliffe, David

      Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

      Hope, Phil

      Moffatt, Laura

      Hopkins, Kelvin

      Mole, Chris

      Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Moran, Margaret

      Hoyle, Lindsay

      Morley, Elliot

      Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

      Mountford, Kali

      Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

      Mudie, George

      Humble, Mrs Joan

      Mullin, Chris

      Hurst, Alan

      Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

      Hutton, Rt Hon John

      Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

      Iddon, Dr Brian

      Naysmith, Dr Doug

      Illsley, Eric

      O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

      Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

      O'Hara, Edward

      Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

      Olner, Bill

      Jenkins, Brian

      O'Neill, Martin

      Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

      Organ, Diana

      Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

      Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Owen, Albert

      Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

      Palmer, Dr Nick

      Joyce, Eric

      Pearson, Ian

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Picking, Anne

      Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

      Pickthall, Colin

      Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

      Pike, Peter

      Kemp, Fraser

      Plaskitt, James

      Kidney, David

      Pollard, Kerry

      Kilfoyle, Peter

      Pond, Chris

      King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

      Pope, Greg

      Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

      Pound, Stephen

      Kumar, Dr Ashok

      Powell, Sir Raymond

      Ladyman, Dr Stephen

      Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

      Lammy, David

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

      Prosser, Gwyn

      Laxton, Bob

      Purchase, Ken

      Lazarowicz, Mark

      Purnell, James

      Lepper, David

      Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

      Leslie, Christopher

      Quinn, Lawrie

      Levitt, Tom

      Rammell, Bill

      Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

      Rapson, Syd

      Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

      Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

      Lloyd, Tony

      Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

      Love, Andrew

      Luke, Iain

      Rooney, Terry

      Lyons, John

      Ross, Ernie

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Roy, Frank

      McCabe, Stephen

      Ruddock, Joan

      McDonagh, Siobhain

      Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

      McDonnell, John

      Salter, Martin

      MacDougall, John

      Sarwar, Mohammad

      McFall, John

      Savidge, Malcolm

      McGuire, Mrs Anne

      Sawford, Phil

      McIsaac, Shona

      Shaw, Jonathan

      McKechin, Ann

      Sheridan, Jim

      McKenna, Rosemary

      Short, Rt Hon Clare

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Simon, Siôn

      McNamara, Kevin

      Skinner, Dennis

      McNulty, Tony

      Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

      Mactaggart, Fiona

      Smith, Angela (Basildon)

      McWalter, Tony

      Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

      McWilliam, John

      Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

      Mahmood, Khalid

      Smith, John (Glamorgan)

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Mallaber, Judy

      Southworth, Helen

      Mann, John

      Spellar, Rt Hon John

      1058

      Squire, Rachel

      Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

      Starkey, Dr Phyllis

      Tynan, Bill

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Vaz, Keith

      Stevenson, George

      Vis, Dr Rudi

      Stewart, David (Inverness E)

      Walley, Ms Joan

      Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

      Wareing, Robert N

      Stinchcombe, Paul

      Watson, Tom

      Stoate, Dr Howard

      Watts, David

      Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

      White, Brian

      Stringer, Graham

      Whitehead, Dr Alan

      Stuart, Ms Gisela

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Tami, Mark

      Winnick, David

      Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

      Wood, Mike

      Taylor, David (NW Leics)

      Woodward, Shaun

      Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

      Woolas, Phil

      Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

      Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

      Todd, Mark

      Wright, David (Telford)

      Touhig, Don

      Wright, Tony (Cannock)

      Trickett, Jon

      Wyatt, Derek

      Truswell, Paul

      Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Turner, Neil (Wigan)

      Mr. Ivor Caplin and

      Twigg, Derek (Halton)

      Mr. John Heppell.

      NOES

      Allan, Richard

      Garnier, Edward

      Amess, David

      George, Andrew (St Ives)

      Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

      Gibb, Nick

      Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

      Gidley, Sandra

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Goodman, Paul

      Bacon, Richard

      Grayling, Chris

      Barker, Gregory

      Green, Damian (Ashford)

      Baron, John

      Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Greenway, John

      Bercow, John

      Grieve, Dominic

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Hammond, Philip

      Blunt, Crispin

      Hancock, Mike

      Boswell, Tim

      Harris, Dr Evan (Oxford W)

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

      Harvey, Nick

      Brady, Graham

      Hawkins, Nick

      Brake, Tom

      Heald, Oliver

      Brazier, Julian

      Heath, David

      Brooke, Mrs Annette L

      Hoban, Mark

      Butterfill, John

      Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

      Calton, Mrs Patsy

      Holmes, Paul

      Cameron, David

      Horam, John

      Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

      Hunter, Andrew

      Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

      Jack, Rt Hon Michael

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Carmichael, Alistair

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Cash, William

      Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

      Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

      Keetch, Paul

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

      Chidgey, David

      Chope, Christopher

      Key, Robert

      Clappison, James

      Kirkbride, Miss Julie

      Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Collins, Tim

      Knight, Rt Hon Greg (E Yorkshire)

      Conway, Derek

      Laing, Mrs Eleanor

      Cotter, Brian

      Lamb, Norman

      Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

      Laws, David

      Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

      Leigh, Edward

      Dodds, Nigel

      Letwin, Oliver

      Doughty, Sue

      Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

      Duncan, Alan (Rutland & Melton)

      Liddell-Grainger, Ian

      Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

      Lidington, David

      Evans, Nigel

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Fabricant, Michael

      Loughton, Tim

      Fallon, Michael

      Luff, Peter

      Flight, Howard

      McIntosh, Miss Anne

      Flook, Adrian

      MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

      Forth, Rt Hon Eric

      Maclean, Rt Hon David

      Foster, Don (Bath)

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Fox, Dr Liam

      Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

      Francois, Mark

      May, Mrs Theresa

      Gale, Roger

      Mercer, Patrick

      1059

      Moore, Michael

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Murrison, Dr Andrew

      Stunell, Andrew

      Oaten, Mark

      Swayne, Desmond

      Osborne, George (Tatton)

      Swire, Hugo

      Ottaway, Richard

      Syms, Robert

      Paice, James

      Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

      Price, Adam

      Taylor, John (Solihull)

      Pugh, Dr John

      Taylor, Dr Richard (Wyre F)

      Randall, John

      Taylor, Sir Teddy

      Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

      Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

      Rendel, David

      Thurso, Jonn

      Robertson, Hugh (Faversham)

      Trend, Michael

      Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

      Trimble, Rt Hon David

      Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangfort)

      Turner Andrew (Isle of Wight)

      Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

      Tyler, Paul

      Tyrie, Andrew

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Viggers, Peter

      Rosindell, Andrew

      Watkinson, Angela

      Ruffley, David

      Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

      Russell, Bob (Colchester)

      Williams Hywel (Caemarfon)

      Sanders, Adrian

      Willis, Phil

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

      Selous, Andrew

      Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

      Simmonds, Mark

      Young, Rt Hon Sir George

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

      Younger-Ross, Richard

      Spelman, Mrs Caroline

      Spicer, Sir Michael

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Spink, Bob

      Mr. Charles Hendry and

      Spring, Richard

      Mr. David Wilshire.

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

      HEALTH PROFESSIONS
      That the draft Health Professions Order 2001, which was laid before this House on 15th November, be approved.—[Angela Smith.]
      The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 113.

      Division No. 92]

      [8.55 pm

      AYES

      Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

      Burnham, Andy

      Ainger, Nick

      Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

      Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

      Cairns, David

      Allen, Graham

      Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

      Anderson, Rt Hon Donald (Swansea E)

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

      Casale, Roger

      Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

      Cawsey, Ian

      Atkins, Charlotte

      Challen, Colin

      Austin, John

      Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

      Bailey, Adrian

      Chaytor, David

      Barnes, Harry

      Clapham, Michael

      Barron, Kevin

      Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

      Beard, Nigel

      Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

      Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

      Begg, Miss Anne

      Clarke, Rt Hon Charles (Norwich S)

      Bennett, Andrew

      Berry, Roger

      Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

      Best, Harold

      Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

      Blackman, Liz

      Clelland, David

      Blears, Ms Hazel

      Coaker, Vernon

      Blizzard, Bob

      Coffey, Ms Ann

      Borrow, David

      Cohen, Harry

      Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

      Connarty, Michael

      Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Bradshaw, Ben

      Corston, Jean

      Brennan, Kevin

      Cousins, Jim

      Browne, Desmond

      Crausby, David

      Bryant, Chris

      Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

      Burden, Richard

      Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

      1060

      Cummings, John

      Joyce, Eric

      Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

      Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

      Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

      Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

      Kemp, Fraser

      Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

      Kidney, David

      David, Wayne

      Kilfoyle, Peter

      Davidson, Ian

      King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

      Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

      Kumar, Dr Ashok

      Dawson, Hilton

      Ladyman, Dr Stephen

      Dean, Mrs Janet

      Lammy, David

      Denham, Rt Hon John

      Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

      Dhanda, Parmjit

      Laxton, Bob

      Dismore, Andrew

      Lazarowicz, Mark

      Dobbin, Jim

      Lepper, David

      Donohoe, Brian H

      Leslie, Christopher

      Doran, Frank

      Levitt, Tom

      Dowd, Jim

      Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

      Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

      Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

      Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

      Linton, Martin

      Edwards, Huw

      Lloyd, Tony

      Ellman, Mrs Louise

      Love, Andrew

      Ennis, Jeff

      Luke, Iain

      Etherington, Bill

      Lyons, John

      Fitzpatrick, Jim

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

      McCabe, Stephen

      Flint, Caroline

      McDonagh, Siobhain

      Flynn, Paul

      McDonnell, John

      Foster, Michael (Worcester)

      MacDougall, John

      Gardiner, Barry

      McFall, John

      George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

      McGuire, Mrs Anne

      Gerrard, Neil

      McIsaac, Shona

      Gibson, Dr Ian

      McKechin, Ann

      Gilroy, Linda

      McKenna, Rosemary

      Godsiff, Roger

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

      McNamara, Kevin

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      McNulty, Tony

      Grogan, John

      Mactaggart, Fiona

      Hain, Rt Hon Peter

      McWalter, Tony

      Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

      McWilliam, John

      Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

      Mahmood, Khalid

      Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

      Mallaber, Judy

      Hancock, Mike

      Mann, John

      Hanson, David

      Marris, Rob

      Havard, Dai

      Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

      Healey, John

      Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

      Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Hendrick, Mark

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Hepburn, Stephen

      Marshall-Andrews, Robert

      Hermon, Lady

      Martlew, Eric

      Hesford, Stephen

      Meale, Alan

      Heyes, David

      Michael, Rt Hon Alun

      Hill, Keith

      Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

      Hinchliffe, David

      Miller, Andrew

      Hope, Phil

      Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

      Hopkins, Kelvin

      Moffatt, Laura

      Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

      Mole, Chris

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Hoyle, Lindsay

      Moran, Margaret

      Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

      Morley, Elliot

      Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

      Mountford, Kali

      Humble, Mrs Joan

      Mudie, George

      Hurst, Alan

      Mullin, Chris

      Hutton, Rt Hon John

      Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

      Iddon, Dr Brian

      Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

      Illsley, Eric

      Naysmith, Dr Doug

      Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

      O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

      Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

      O'Hara, Edward

      Jenkins, Brian

      Olner, Bill

      Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

      O'Neill, Martin

      Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

      Organ, Diana

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

      Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

      Owen, Albert

      Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

      Palmer, Dr Nick

      1061

      Pearson, Ian

      Starkey, Dr Phyllis

      Picking, Anne

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Pickthall, Colin

      Stevenson, George

      Pike, Peter

      Stewart, David (Inverness E)

      Plaskitt, James

      Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

      Pollard, Kerry

      Stinchcombe, Paul

      Pond, Chris

      Stoate, Dr Howard

      Pope, Greg

      Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

      Pound, Stephen

      Stringer, Graham

      Powell, Sir Raymond

      Stuart, Ms Gisela

      Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

      Tami, Mark

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

      Prosser, Gwyn

      Taylor, David (NW Leics)

      Purchase, Ken

      Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

      Purnell, James

      Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

      Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

      Todd, Mark

      Quinn, Lawrie

      Touhig, Don

      Rammell, Bill

      Trickett, Jon

      Rapson, Syd

      Truswell, Paul

      Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

      Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

      Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

      Turner, Neil (Wigan)

      Twigg, Derek (Halton)

      Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

      Rooney, Terry

      Tynan, Bill

      Ross, Ernie

      Vaz, Keith

      Roy, Frank

      Vis, Dr Rudi

      Ruddock, Joan

      Walley, Ms Joan

      Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

      Wareing, Robert N

      Salter, Martin

      Watson, Tom

      Sarwar, Mohammad

      Watts, David

      Savidge, Malcolm

      White, Brian

      Sawford, Phil

      Whitehead, Dr Alan

      Shaw, Jonathan

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Sheridan, Jim

      Winnick, David

      Simon, Siôn

      Wood, Mike

      Skinner, Dennis

      Woodward, Shaun

      Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

      Woolas, Phil

      Smith, Angela (Basildon)

      Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

      Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

      Wright, David (Telford)

      Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

      Wright, Tony (Cannock)

      Smith, John (Glamorgan)

      Wyatt, Derek

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Southworth, Helen

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Spellar, Rt Hon John

      Mr. Ivor Caplin and

      Squire, Rachel

      Mr. John Heppell.

      NOES

      Amess, David

      Brazier, Julian

      Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

      Butterfill, John

      Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

      Cameron, David

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

      Bacon, Richard

      Cash, William

      Barker, Gregory

      Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

      Baron, John

      Bellingham, Henry

      Chope, Christopher

      Bercow, John

      Clappison, James

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

      Blunt, Crispin

      Collins, Tim

      Boswell, Tim

      Conway, Derek

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

      Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

      Brady, Graham

      Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

      1062

      Dodds, Nigel

      May, Mrs Theresa

      Duncan, Alan (Rutland & Melton)

      Mercer, Patrick

      Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

      Moss, Malcolm

      Evans, Nigel

      Murrison, Dr Andrew

      Fabricant, Michael

      Osborne, George (Tatton)

      Fallon, Michael

      Ottaway, Richard

      Flight, Howard

      Paice, James

      Flook, Adrian

      Price, Adam

      Forth, Rt Hon Eric

      Randall, John

      Fox, Dr Liam

      Robertson, Hugh (Faversham)

      Francois, Mark

      Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

      Gale, Roger

      Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangford)

      Garnier, Edward

      Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

      Gibb, Nick

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Goodman, Paul

      Rosindell, Andrew

      Grayling, Chris

      Ruffley, David

      Green, Damian (Ashford)

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Greenway, John

      Selous, Andrew

      Grieve, Dominic

      Simmonds, Mark

      Hammond, Philip

      Spicer, Sir Michael

      Hawkins, Nick

      Spink, Bob

      Heald, Oliver

      Spring, Richard

      Hoban, Mark

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Horam, John

      Swayne, Desmond

      Hunter, Andrew

      Swire, Hugo

      Jack, Rt Hon Michael

      Syms, Robert

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Taylor, John (Solihull)

      Key, Robert

      Taylor, Sir Teddy

      Kirkbride, Miss Julie

      Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

      Knight, Rt Hon Greg (E Yorkshire)

      Trend, Michael

      Laing, Mrs Eleanor

      Trimble, Rt Hon David

      Leigh, Edward

      Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

      Letwin, Oliver

      Tyrie, Andrew

      Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

      Viggers, Peter

      Liddell-Grainger, Ian

      Watkinson, Angela

      Lidington, David

      Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Williams, Hywel (Caemarfon)

      Loughton, Tim

      Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

      Luff, Peter

      Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

      McIntosh, Miss Anne

      Young, Rt Hon Sir George

      MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

      Maclean, Rt Hon David

      Tellers for the Noes:

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Mr. David Wilshire and

      Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

      Mr. Charles Hendry.

      Question accordingly agreed to.

    DELEGATED LEGISLATION
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 18(1)(a) (Consideration of draft deregulation etc. orders),
    DELEGATED LEGISLATION

      REGULATORY REFORM
      That the draft Regulatory Reform (Special Occasions Licensing) Order 2001, which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.—[Angela Smith.]
      Question agreed to.

  Foot and Mouth (Tatton)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Angela Smith.]
  9.6 pm
  Mr. George Osborne: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the ongoing hardship and distress that the aftermath of foot and mouth disease continues to cause to so many of the people I represent. I make no apologies for choosing a narrow subject tonight—the impact of the disease in my constituency—although if I had known that I would have an hour and 24 minutes to talk about the impact of FMD, I might have broadened the scope of the debate to allow more of my hon. Friends to join in the debate. However, I would welcome any contributions that they might wish to make.
  The issues that I shall raise affect all rural constituencies, both those that were particularly badly hit in Devon and Cumbria and those that never had a case of FMD. Tatton was not the worst affected area, but it did suffer from the effects of FMD. The first outbreak occurred at Little Leigh in the west of the constituency on 25 March. Outbreaks at Over Peover and Sproston followed, and the last outbreak was identified at Crowley on 29 May. During those two months, there were seven confirmed cases in the Tatton constituency, out of a total of 17 cases in Cheshire. I should say that I checked the Department website today and it listed only 16 cases, but I am reliably informed by the county council that the correct figure is 17. My constituency had the largest number of any one of the county's constituencies.
  Given that I have a little more time to cover the issues, I shall briefly break—as I willingly concede—the agreement I made with the Minister's private secretary a couple of days ago and touch on some of the issues surrounding the Government's handling of the disease, although I hope to do so in a non-partisan spirit. I certainly do not wish to repeat the extremely heated exchanges that I read about between the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) in the debate in Westminster Hall some days ago.
  The issues that I hope any inquiry—I shall deal later with the question of a public inquiry—will cover include the Government's immediate reaction to the outbreak in the first few days of receiving news of the disease. We need to know how those crucial hours were handled by Government Ministers. We need to know whether those three days in which livestock movements were allowed to continue were crucial to the spread of the disease. I hope that the inquiries will also examine the epidemiological evidence that might show that the outbreak would have been much smaller—as some have suggested—if the Government had imposed movement restrictions immediately, rather than waiting for those crucial three days.
  I hope also that the inquiries, when they are conducted, will look at the way in which animals were disposed of. There is great concern in farming communities that the large funeral pyres used at the beginning of the outbreak contributed to the spread of the disease. It was felt that thermal currents from large pyres spread the virus over large areas.
  Moreover, there is concern in my constituency, especially in the western part, about the way in which the animals were transported by road through uninfected
  1064
  areas. The first outbreak in my constituency was very close to one of the main A roads used for the transport of a large number of animal carcases to the rendering plants near Runcorn. I hope that the inquiries will also consider that issue.
  I hope, too, that the inquiries will consider whether the Government need to adopt the draconian new powers proposed in the Animal Health Bill. There is little understanding in farming circles of why the Government believe that they have to act in that way now, when the great many other matters arising out of the foot and mouth outbreak will not be attended to until lengthy inquiries have been conducted.
  Miss Anne McIntosh: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which will be rather longer than he expected, in prime time. Was there any evidence in his constituency of the Department's officials breaking their own very strict biosecurity rules and entering clean premises after working at infected ones?
  Mr. Osborne: There were no such cases in my constituency. We were lucky, if that is the right word, in that the disease had been raging for several weeks before an outbreak was reported in my area. As a consequence, by the time the disease occurred there, the Army had been involved and the Government had sorted out their methods of culling and disposal. The culling in my constituency was well handled by the Army, but I know that that is a real issue in many other areas. Again, I hope that the inquiries that will be held will look at that matter.
  The question of when the Army should be brought in is crucial to future consideration of how such outbreaks should be handled. I believe that the Northumberland report—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. This is not a general debate on foot and mouth disease. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would confine his remarks to the impact of the disease on his constituency.
  Mr. Osborne: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall briefly round off my remarks by saying that none of the matters that I have set out can be dealt with by the various inquiries that the Government have set up. People in my constituency do not understand why a full and independent public inquiry will not be held. Such inquiries have been held to investigate rail disasters and the bovine spongiform encephalopathy—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is rather a long rounding off.
  Mr. Osborne: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I shall now focus on the present, and on the future. There are four issues that directly affect my constituency, and which cause great distress and hardship for my farmers and rural business.
  The first matter is the heavy financial losses suffered by many of my farmers. Although the disease did not break out on their farms, their businesses were all but destroyed by the Government's movement restrictions. I shall give one example out of dozens in my constituency. In June, I went to see Mr. Ken Gee on his

  1065
  farm in Mobberley. Those who know my constituency will know that Mobberley is some distance from the locations where outbreaks of the disease occurred, but Mr. Gee was as badly hit as almost any farmer in the constituency. When I visited his farm, he showed me two prize cows. In early February, he had agreed to sell them for a couple of thousand pounds. However, the Government's movement restrictions came into force a few days before they were due to be sold, and the animals could not be moved anywhere. By the time of my visit, the cows were more than 30 months old, and therefore unsellable under the Government's BSE regulations. They were good only for the over-30-months scheme. They were worth a fraction of what Mr. Gee had budgeted for and, as a result, his farm suffered a financial loss which was, for him, considerable. The reason has nothing to do with the way in which Mr. Gee runs his farm or conducts his biosecurity arrangements. It has everything to do with the combination of two, quite understandable, Government regulations. One prevented cattle movements in the midst of the epidemic and the other, for good human health reasons, prevented the sale for consumption of cattle over 30 months of age
  In a written question last week, I asked the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), whether farmers like Ken Gee, who have suffered heavy losses solely because of the Government's regulations, would receive any compensation. I received this answer:
  "The Government have considered very carefully whether it would be appropriate to pay compensation for losses incurred on cattle which went beyond the 30 month age limit because of movement restrictions imposed during the earlier part of the foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak. We have concluded that it would not … The Government do not compensate farmers, or businesses, for other, indirect losses."—[Official Report, 21 November 2001; Vol. 375. c.315 W.]
  In other words, the Government have, by deliberate—albeit understandable—action made someone's property all but worthless, and they will not provide compensation. Why not? Why have they reached this conclusion? I should be grateful for the Minister's explanation.
  I have used Mr. Gee's two cows as a simple and single example of one of the many thousands of ways in which the Government's foot and mouth regulations have caused huge losses to farmers in my constituency and across the country who are not directly touched by the epidemic. Indeed, it is commonplace in farming circles these days to remark that in many ways it was better to have the disease than not to have it. I heard that myself when I visited the National Farmers Union in Chelford a couple of weeks ago. The farms that were infected went through the trauma and shock, which I do not underestimate, of seeing their livestock destroyed, but at least they received full compensation, their business was kept afloat and cash flow was maintained. Those who did not have the disease on their farm but were next to areas being culled may have suffered almost as much trauma and loss of business but they have received nothing, and many of them in my constituency face ruin.
  The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael): I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman's flow, but he said one thing that could be open to misinterpretation. He is right that farmers whose animals were culled
  1066
  received compensation. He then referred to cash flow. Compensation was not paid for loss of income for farmers, any more than it was for other businesses that were affected. That is a clear dividing line.
  Mr. Osborne: I am grateful to the Minister for making that point. What I meant by cash flow was that they had money going through their bank account. Many other farmers who did not have the epidemic on their property have had no money flowing through their bank account: on the contrary, money has been flowing out of their bank account.
  The first issue relating to the impact of foot and mouth in my constituency is the large indirect loss that so many of my farmers incurred as a result of the Government's emergency regulations. What do the Government propose to do to help them? Without help, some of them will simply go to the wall.
  The second issue is support for rural businesses and tourism in my constituency, which continue to suffer great hardship. I am grateful to the English Tourism Council, which sent me a letter when it saw that I had secured this Adjournment debate. It makes it clear that the problems in my constituency are shared by many other constituencies, with a projected overall loss in England of £5.2 billion. However, this is not the place to go into the broader effects of the foot and mouth epidemic on the English tourism industry. I will concentrate instead on Tatton.
  I am not sure whether the Minister has ever been to Stockley working farm at Arley in the course of his duties. If he has not, I invite him to do so. This summer, I visited Mark Walton, who runs the working farm with his family. Mark Walton has done everything that every Agriculture Minister for the past decade has been urging farmers to do.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Diversify.
  Mr. Osborne: He has diversified, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) says from a sedentary position. This May, after two years of preparing to go organic, he finally did so. He has sought to break down the barriers between town and country and to increase our understanding of agriculture. He has established a thriving tourism business on a working farm. So successful has he been that each year, from Easter onwards, 50,000 visitors come from the towns and the cities to his farm. A visit costs £4 for adults and £3 for children, and I venture to suggest that it is about the best value for money that one can get for a day out in Cheshire. Many of the visitors are in school groups from inner-city Manchester and Liverpool who have never seen a farm before.
  The farm has 50,000 visitors a year, but not this year. This year, not a single visitor has come to Stockley working farm and not a single pound of income has been earned by this once thriving rural tourist attraction. It has been closed to the public since February as a result of the foot and mouth restrictions.
  I am delighted to say—this may be an opportunity for the Minister to put it in his diary—that Stockley will open its doors for three special weekends in the run-up to Christmas. They will be fantastic days out for children and adults alike, and I hope that many thousands of people

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  will come to enjoy them. None the less, however successful those Christmas specials are, they will not come close to making up for the £200,000 of income lost this year. They will be of little comfort to the 50 or so people who would have worked part time at Stockley this summer, but none of whom the farm has been able to employ this year. Losing 50 jobs in a rural area such as Arley is a huge blow to the local economy. It is a tragedy in human terms to the families who rely on that summer work.
  Since foot and mouth hit, Mark Walton has done everything by the book at Stockley. He has applied for special grants from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; he has sought advice from business links; and he has spent hours putting together an application to Cheshire county council's rural recovery taskforce. He has not asked for large sums of money or for massive compensation. All he wants is a little help to enable him to promote the special Christmas weekends at Stockley.
  Mr. Mark Francois: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is parallel between what happened in his constituency of Tatton and what happened in my constituency of Rayleigh? If I can explain briefly, Marsh Farm country park which was very much orientated towards children—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not dealing with the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
  Mr. Osborne: I am sure that my hon. Friend's point about the many rural tourist attractions and working farms across the country that have been hit would have been a good one. What happened at Stockley working farm has no doubt been repeated all over the country. I would have drawn the terms of the debate a little more widely if I had known that I would have been able to detain the House for so long. However, I did not know that, so I shall proceed.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I must inform you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that my constituency is adjacent to Tatton and it is in the same borough.
  My hon. Friend waxes lyrical about a particular farm and its activities. Is he aware that a member of that worthy farming family, which has taken such initiatives, appeared at a seminar that I attended in my hon. Friend's constituency at Quarry Bank mill in Styal. It was promoted by Macclesfield borough council and was about healthy eating and healthy food sourced locally. The farm and farming family to which my hon. Friend referred have done everything possible in their power to help themselves and to serve the public.
  Mr. Osborne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing to the House's attention the excellent meeting at Quarry Bank mill about which I have heard good reports. The mill is another excellent tourist attraction and I encourage the Minister to visit it if he is ever in Cheshire.
  My hon. Friend's point about the Walton family and Stockley is the one that I made. They have done everything by the book. In a previous incarnation, I was a special adviser at the late lamented Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and I remember helping to write speeches for NFU annual conferences.
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  We advised farmers to diversify and to go organic, but all that happened at Stockley working farm. All it wants is a little bit of money to promote its special Christmas openings, but it is not getting a penny. It is receiving no support from the Government and nothing from the county council's rural recovery taskforce, which is sad because we are friendly with the council. The only help that Stockley working farm received throughout the entire year was some welcome emergency rate relief from Macclesfield borough council, which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and I know so well. The farm also received a £200 cheque front a member of the public who felt more sympathy for its plight than the Government do.
  The Government talk of a rural recovery and helping rural communities to help themselves. Ministers from the Prime Minister down talk of encouraging diversification, but for many rural farm businesses in my constituency it has been just that this year—all talk. I want to know when we can expect to see some action and obtain some help for businesses such as Stockley farm.
  My third issue relates to the assistance—or, indeed, the lack of assistance—that the Government are providing to Macclesfield borough council. Earlier this summer, under Special Grant Report (No. 86), Ministers decided to help the local authorities that they said had been particularly affected by foot and mouth. As the Minister knows, that help comes in the form of a rebate for emergency rate relief that is provided by local authorities for hard-hit rural businesses, exactly the kind of emergency rate relief that Macclesfield borough council was able to provide to Stockley working farm.
  I was fortunate to be on the Standing Committee that considered the special grant in July. Indeed, it was my first Standing Committee. I said that I welcomed the valuable support for local councils that were dealing with the impact of the disease. What I could not understand then, and cannot understand now, is why Macclesfield borough council alone among the six borough councils of Cheshire does not qualify for the support. It is nonsensical. Of the 16 or 17 outbreaks in Cheshire, four occurred within the borough council area and a further five occurred within a mile or two of the administrative boundary. In other words, nine of the 16 cases in Cheshire, which have had a huge impact on the farmers and rural businesses in the Macclesfield borough council area, do not qualify for help because the council does not qualify for help.
  By contrast, Chester City council and Ellesmere Port and Neston borough council—neither of which have had to cope with a single outbreak—have been designated as foot and mouth affected areas and receive Government support. The Minister explained in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield on 26 July that unlike Ellesmere Port and Chester, Macclesfield borough council did not qualify because it was not rural enough. He said:
  "These arrangements have been designed to target help in those areas where it is most needed. The additional funding is available to the English authorities that are wholly or mainly rural".
  That has to be one of the most bizarre and illogical decisions ever taken in Whitehall. I implore the Minister to visit Cheshire and see with his own eyes the difference between the miles of farmland in the Macclesfield borough council area and the miles of petrochemical works in the Ellesmere Port area, which is not, by anyone's definition, a rural area.
  Mr. Richard Bacon: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I am interested in what lie says about Ellesmere Port and its vistas of petrochemical plants. Does he agree that the main criterion for financial assistance should not be the degree of ruralness, if there is such a word, but the degree of the impact of foot and mouth?
  Mr. Osborne: My hon. Friend is correct. The Minister's letter also said that 151 English rural borough councils had been provided with financial support, but there is no distinction between those which have been hit by foot and mouth and those which have not, and those parts of the country where there was no outbreak and those were there were heavy outbreaks. That is illogical. If my hon. Friend has not been to Ellesmere Port, I am happy for him to visit my constituency, from where we can get in the car and drive to Ellesmere Port to see that it is not a rural area. It could not possibly be a rural area as there are no green fields. It has a good shopping centre and many petrochemical works.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. Will he emphasise to the Minister that his constituency and part of the borough of Macclesfield make up the most heavily livestocked area in Cheshire? It is extraordinary that an area that is overwhelmingly rural and agricultural should not qualify for business assistance under rate relief, whereas, as my hon. Friend said, huge urban areas such as Chester and Ellesmere Port do. That is nonsense, but the Minister was not prepared to do anything about it.
  Mr. Osborne: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I remember that we both sought, but were unable to secure, meetings with the Minister and the chief executive of Macclesfield borough council to put our case. The situation is crazy, and it confirms the worst suspicions of many of those who live in my borough council area that some people in Whitehall have never left the M25 area and know about no other part of the country than that just a few hundred metres from this place.
  I commend Macclesfield borough council for the sterling job that it has done in providing emergency rate relief for hard-hit rural businesses out of its own pocket. However, with the proper Government support that it deserves, it could be doing even more, and that is a great tragedy. I urge the Minister and his colleagues to reconsider the council's status under Special Grant Report (No. 86) because it just does not make sense.
  The fourth and final issue, and perhaps the most important and pressing, arises from the impact of foot and mouth disease on livestock markets. Again, I shall illustrate my point with an example from Tatton. Chelford, in the south of the constituency, is one of the largest livestock markets in the country. The last sale of real livestock to be held at Chelford took place on 22 February, nine months ago. Since then the auctioneers have lost, at the very least, more than £500,000 in lost commission on sales. Five full-time people have been made redundant, and 19 part-time people, almost all from low-income families, have also lost their jobs. Many other small businesses, which relied on the market trade for their income, have closed, including the country clothing stall, the fencing supplier, the hedging man and the small Land Rover dealer. I am not overstating the case when I
  1070
  say that the closure of the livestock auction at Chelford has torn the heart out of the rural community in that part of Cheshire.
  We all understand why markets in England had to be closed immediately the disease was discovered. Indeed, as I have already argued, they should have been closed a couple of days earlier. We understand also why they had to remain closed while the epidemic raged, but no one can understand why English and Welsh livestock markets are still closed today, two months after the last confirmed foot and mouth case in the whole country and long after similar livestock markets in Scotland and Northern Ireland have reopened.
  As Mr. Rodney Bacon of the north-west NFU said in a letter to me last week:
  "Cheshire farmers retained their stock and have gone through a lengthy period of restrictions on stock movements … The key must be the re-opening of livestock markets. They are an essential element of the chain, especially for farm to farm movements."
  Alan Gardiner, the chairman of the Cheshire county NFU, phoned me today because he knew that I was leading this debate and emphasised that the reopening of the livestock markets is now the most important issue facing local farmers.
  To an extent, Chelford market has taken matters into its own hands. Last month it began holding digital auctions in which sellers could look at digital photographs of the stock. I am happy to pay tribute to the fact that one of the Government's rural recovery schemes even contributed a couple of hundred pounds to provide the digital camera. I am glad to say that the auctions have been a moderate success, but I have to tell the Minister that they may pose a much greater risk to biosecurity than live auctions.
  According to farmers to whom I have spoken in preparation for this debate, buyers do not, of course, rely on the digital photograph but go from farm to farm to check out the stock. That poses enormous risks of cross-farm contamination. If everyone went to Chelford market, they would be registered and disinfected together and be able to be traced if there were ever a problem. None of those measures applies to a digital auction.
  Despite the overwhelming case for reopening livestock markets such as Chelford, they are still closed. What is more, they have been given no idea from the Government about when they might open. As Gwyn Williams, partner of Chelford market, said in a letter to me last week:
  "A great many farmers in your constituency will, in normal times, market their livestock through our auction sales at Chelford Agricultural Centre."
  He then says, as I have pointed out, that the market has not been held since February. He continues:
  "Despite regular meetings being held with DEFRA, we are now no nearer finding out when we will be able to reopen livestock markets nationally, or, indeed, under what conditions we will be expected to operate.
  All businesses have to plan for the future and we are no different. We need to investigate possible further investment, decide upon employment issues including staff requirements and possibly reorganise the way in which we run some of our non agricultural auction sales … To date, despite a multitude of proposals having been put to DEFRA by our National Livestock Auctioneers' Association and despite several promises having been received from DEFRA, we have received no draft conditions for the reopening of markets post FMD, nor have we received any clear signal as to when, provided there are no further cases, we will be able to reopen."

  1071
  With the indulgence of the House, I should like to read more of the letter. It is extremely well written and makes the points more elegantly than I could. It continues:
  "All this is extremely frustrating. Very few businesses can survive for this period of time when approximately 70 per cent. of their turnover has been removed. As you may be aware, we have made several redundancies and laid off quite a number of full time and part time staff, a situation which is common to most livestock markets throughout the UK.
  The auctioneering industry is under greater pressure now than ever, not only for economic reasons, but also, it would appear, from several vociferous pressure groups who are against the reopening of livestock auctions."
  Mr. Williams makes a good point; there is a strong rumour afoot in the farming community that not reopening livestock auctions is part of a secret DEFRA plan to restructure the industry. The Minister might use this opportunity to quash such stories, which I am sure are untrue.
  Mr. Williams goes on:
  "I would be grateful if you could take up the cudgels upon our behalf. There appears to be a concerted move within government and DEFRA to pass the blame for the foot and mouth disease epidemic onto the farming and livestock market industry. Every utterance about livestock markets concerns some reference to the part which they played in the spread of the disease.
  It would be helpful if it could be pointed out quite clearly to all those in authority that neither the farming industry nor the livestock market industry played any part whatsoever in the introduction of foot and mouth disease into the UK."
  Mr. Williams is of course referring to an entirely separate debate about food import controls. Many people in this country do not understand why the Government do not introduce them.
  The letter ends:
  "As you can tell from the tone of this letter, I, along with other livestock auctioneers throughout England and Wales, am becoming increasingly frustrated at what appear to be delaying tactics by DEFRA concerning the reopening of markets, for whatever motives they may have. Markets are already up and running in Scotland and in Northern Ireland and obviously the longer we are shut, the more difficult it will be for us to regain levels of trade previously enjoyed.
  In the interests of promoting and protecting the whole rural business community, it is essential that livestock auctions are reopened as soon as possible and, through our National Livestock Auctioneers' Association, we are attempting to garner support from all the major farming organisations.
  I would be grateful if you could do what you can in order to assist in putting pressure upon Ministers and DEFRA to make some positive contribution to promoting the reopening of markets."
  I read that letter at length because it raises such important points. I should be very grateful if the Minister responded to Mr. Gwyn Williams' points.
  Mr. Francois: My hon. Friend has done well to secure this debate on behalf of his constituents. He paints a sombre picture of conditions in his constituency resulting from the outbreak. Will he remind the House how long it has been since an outbreak of foot and mouth has been recorded in his constituency? That would reinforce his message about the time that has elapsed since the last outbreak while Ministers continue to insist that the facilities should not be reopened.
  Mr. Osborne: As I said earlier, the last outbreak of foot and mouth in my constituency occurred on 29 May—a full six months ago—yet Chelford market remains
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  closed, as does every other livestock market in England and Wales, even though livestock markets in Scotland and Northern Ireland are open. I recall that Scotland had a large number of cases of foot and mouth. Will the Minister, who has experience of both English and Welsh agriculture, explain why English and Welsh livestock markets are being treated differently from livestock markets in other parts of the United Kingdom? He must end the damaging uncertainty and give a clear signal as to when livestock markets in England and Wales will reopen, because businesses cannot continue in such uncertainty.
  Mr. Bacon: In speaking about livestock markets, my hon. Friend paints a picture of administration by DEFRA that inspires confidence in no one. In the light of that, does it surprise him that farmers have little confidence in either DEFRA or the proposals now being introduced, which many regard as draconian, in the Animal Health Bill? If DEFRA had a track record of greater administrative competence, it might have gained more trust than it currently has.
  Mr. Osborne: My hon. Friend makes a good point. In my constituency, DEFRA is regarded with great suspicion—although I recall from my time at MAFF that that Department was not highly regarded by the farming community either. There is an extraordinarily high degree of suspicion among farmers in my constituency about what DEFRA is up to.
  There is also great frustration because of the delays that many of my local farmers have encountered in their dealings with DEFRA. I have sent several letters to the Department to which no replies have been received, and I believe that I have not received replies to several written questions, but my experience pales into insignificance compared with that of farmers I have met throughout the period. They tell me of hours spent on the phone, hitting the redial button, trying to get through on engaged lines, trying to get livestock movement permits, and so on.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: There is one point that my hon. Friend has not yet raised in his excellent speech on behalf of his constituents: it is the current Government's unfortunate record on payments to farmers. If the payments were made on time, farmers would at least have some cash flow, however limited. Will he urge the Minister to make prompt payments to livestock farmers whose life at the moment is hell?
  Mr. Osborne: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I have been told—I do not know whether it is true; perhaps the Minister can clear up the issue—by my local NFU branch that there are now administrative delays in getting payments to farmers because of bureaucratic problems at DEFRA—
  Mr. Winterton: Strikes.
  Mr. Osborne: Whatever the cause, it is creating further hardship for our farmers, so I urge the Minister to sort out the problems. When farmers are expecting a cheque from the Department, there is nothing more frustrating after all the hardship that they have experienced than the failure of the cheque to arrive, owing to simple administrative reasons or industrial action. It is inexcusable that delays continue.

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  We had a rather pathetic letter from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who explained that the delays in dealing with correspondence and written questions were due to administrative problems caused by winding up MAFF and creating DEFRA. That begs the question why that was done in the middle of a foot and mouth epidemic. It was a crazy bureaucratic rearrangement. Whatever the arguments are for whether there should be a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it was a crazy thing to do in the middle of a foot and mouth epidemic. Farmers in my constituency are paying a price for those Whitehall shenanigans and rearrangements.
  Mr. Bacon: On the question of payments, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the issues that exacerbates the problem is the marked contrast between the slowness of the Ministry in paying and the rapid payments that farmers used to secure at livestock markets?
  Mr. Osborne: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point.
  I am happy to say that farmers receive pretty prompt payments from Macclesfield borough council, which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield and I know so well. Livestock markets provide immediate income. Indeed, they are vital. A market such as Chelford in my constituency is essential to farm-to-farm sales that keep the cash flow of farms going.
  It would be interesting to hear from the Minister, in the many minutes that are available to him, whether the 21-day restriction that has been imposed on moving animals to markets and then moving them off farms back to markets, and so on, was introduced only for the foot and mouth epidemic. Once the Government finally decide that they can reopen livestock markets, will the 21-day limit go? If it is a more permanent feature, it will remove—I am not sure whether this is the correct agricultural term—liquidity from the market. It will prevent many farmers who move stock to and from livestock markets such as Chelford from carrying on their trade.
  Mr. Mark Hoban: My hon. Friend mentions livestock markets, and has referred to the lost commissions of the proprietors of the Chelford market, which amount to about £500,000. Has any estimate been made in my hon. Friend's constituency of the loss suffered by farmers in other rural businesses as a result of the foot and mouth epidemic?
  Mr. Osborne: I have not seen any figures, but I imagine that they are considerable. The £500,000 that the Chelford market estimates it has lost relates only to lost auction sale commissions. The market proprietors were expecting commissions and sales to be much improved this year, had it been a normal agricultural year. They have also lost money because stallholders are no longer there, and the same applies to other passing trade.
  A separate problem has been created because the proprietors have had to open a car boot sale on Sundays, which causes great distress to people who live close to the livestock market. There are many direct and indirect costs.
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  I shall bring my remarks to an end so that the Minister has plenty of time to respond to them.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I have not spoken yet.
  Mr. Osborne: Indeed. If other Members wish to contribute to the debate, they are more than welcome to do so.
  I hope that the Minister will appreciate that I have tried to be as reasonable as possible in putting the case for my constituents. I have not resorted to party political point scoring—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) laughs, but I have not engaged in an attack on Labour's understanding of the countryside. I have not referred to many of the things that I used to write when preparing the Agriculture Minister's party conference speech, as opposed to his NFU annual conference speech.
  I have tried to bring home to the House, through a series of specific examples from my constituency, the real hardship that foot and mouth continues to cause in the area which I represent six months over the last outbreak, and two months after the last outbreak in the country generally.
  I have not gone on at great length about the recent past—I have not sought to betray entirely the agreement that I made with the Minister's private secretary. Instead, I have spoken of the hardship that farmers who escaped the virus but have not escaped the consequences of it now face. I have talked of the crippling losses to rural businesses, such as Stockley working farm, and made a plea for support for my local council. If any council in Cheshire is rural, it is my borough council. Most important, I have urged the Government to reopen the livestock markets that are vital to the revival of agriculture in Britain. In the remaining 40 minutes, I look forward to hearing about my constituency from my colleagues and to hearing the Minister's response.
  9.50 pm
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Mr. Deputy Speaker, you represent a rural area. While in the Chair, inevitably you have to be impartial, but I am sure that you will have recognised many of the problems of your own constituency in what my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) said, even though Cheshire is much more livestock-oriented than the east of the country.
  I support entirely the case advanced by my hon. Friend. I must emphasise both to him and the Minister the fact that I have represented an agricultural rural constituency for 30 years in this place. In addition, I come from a family that has been closely associated with fanning for more than 150 years, so I speak with understanding and knowledge of the countryside, rural communities, farming and agriculture. I used to accompany my late father onto farms when I was only three or four years old, so I have a great and close affinity with farmers. What my hon. Friend said about the farmers of Tatton and their present position is accurate to the word, the letter, the crossed t and the dotted i.
  From time to time, I fear, the Minister seems to believe that Opposition Members are making up stories about the problems faced by their farmers. As I understand it, he represents a central Cardiff constituency; if there is a farmer in it, I should be surprised. Perhaps he will say that there is but, as far as I know, there is not. I hope,

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  therefore, that he will listen to those of us who speak on behalf of farmers and support the case that my hon. Friend made on behalf of his farmers.
  The Macclesfield and district branch of the NFU and all the associated NFU branches in the area support 100 per cent. the views expressed by my hon. Friend. I want to emphasise that because we are not here, as he said, to make party political points. We are lobbying and making representations on behalf of farmers and those who work in the countryside. Perhaps it is only in times of crisis and war that the countryside and those who work in it to maintain it and produce food are properly appreciated. The farmers of Tatton, like those in many other parts of the country, have gone through a war—the foot and mouth epidemic, which hit them horribly.
  Like my hon. Friend, I shall refer to Chelford market. I hope that he will not mind me saying that, for 25 years, the market, which he described in detail, along with the valuable role that it fulfils—was part of my constituency. I know Marshall's—Frank R. Marshall as it used to be called—in Chelford market well. Even now, with the permission of my hon. Friend, I frequently visit the market because, of course, it is important not only to the farmers of Tatton, but the farmers of my Macclesfield constituency as well.
  On the importance of Chelford market, not only does it pay regularly and promptly the farmers who bring in their stock to sell at the agricultural centre in Chelford, but it gives them a fair and transparent price for their stock. They are not held over a barrel by the large superstores, which have done so much damage to farmers, particularly in recent times to the farmers in Tatton and in Cheshire as a whole.
  I hope that the Minister for Rural Affairs, who is to reply to the debate, will respond positively to the request made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton that the Government announce the opening of cattle markets and auctions in the immediate future, if we are to save many of them from liquidation and going out of business.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton), who is the shadow agriculture spokesman, told me tonight that, regrettably, there is talk that two important cattle auction markets may be closing. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton asks me from a sedentary position not to name them, but they are important auction markets with an excellent reputation, and they may well close. That must not happen to Chelford, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton.
  Sadly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton said, the Minister for Rural Affairs was not prepared to meet a delegation from Macclesfield about the second matter that I shall discuss—the business rate relief scheme resulting from the foot and mouth epidemic. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will announce promptly that the auction markets, particularly Chelford, will be opened at an early date, to prevent further financial hardship for those who run that excellent auction market, which is so important to Cheshire and a much wider area, and also for the benefit of the livestock farmers of Tatton and the adjoining constituencies.
  I am happy to give way if the Minister wishes to intervene. If not, I shall move on to the matter which probably prompted him almost to rise: his reluctance and that of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport,
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  Local Government and the Regions, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton, myself and the chief executive of the borough council when we requested a meeting to express our concern about Macclesfield borough's ineligibility for assistance under the scheme.
  Alun Michael: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is a little repetitious on that topic. Will he acknowledge that it was courteously explained to him on a number of occasions that the topic does not fall within my portfolio of responsibilities, and that he was directed instead to the Minister with that responsibility, who responded to him exhaustively and conclusively on the topic?
  Mr. Winterton: I am afraid that the Minister did not reply exhaustively, and certainly not to my satisfaction. The Minister for Rural Affairs is aware that the Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), when there was a slightly different departmental structure in Government, had agreed to meet me, even during the general election campaign. Unfortunately, that did not prove convenient for the Minister for the Environment or me. When I sought to follow up the matter immediately after the election, it was initially dealt with by the Minister for Rural Affairs, but perhaps conveniently for him, the responsibility was transferred to the Minister in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. I must repeat that I am afraid that, as a senior Member of the House, I would have expected a Minister to meet me at my request—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ainger.]
  Mr. Winterton: I am grateful for your intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have now regained my breath in my ferocious attack on the Minister. When I rightly had to resume my seat, so that you could carry out the procedures of the House, I was saying that, although the responsibility for meeting me and dealing with the matter was passed to a more junior Minister in another Department, that Minister was not prepared to meet me—a senior Member of the House—my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton and the chief executive of the borough council. I believe that, if Ministers are seriously requested to meet Members of Parliament who have an important issue to raise on behalf of their constituents, they are beholden to find time to do so. I say to the Minister that even the Prime Minister of our country, speaking today from the Dispatch Box, agreed to meet me on a matter that relates to my constituency. I must say that if the Prime Minister, for whom I have the highest regard, is prepared to meet me, I should have thought that a junior Minister would be prepared to meet any Member of the House.
  Alun Michael: I can answer robustly for the reason why I referred the hon. Gentleman to another Department: it was not merely another Department, but the correct one. The Minister whom he says declined to meet him did so

  1077
  on reasonable grounds, but is not present to respond to his remarks. I suggest that he should take up the matter with that colleague rather than in this debate, which is, as I understand it, about the impact of foot and mouth disease in Tatton.
  Mr. Winterton: I am afraid that that is the very matter that I am now discussing, as I am dealing with the impact of the foot and mouth epidemic on Macclesfield borough council, whose area includes the constituency of Tatton. My hon. Friend the Member for Tatton, who has advanced a brilliant case in this debate, myself and the chief executive of the borough council, who could have given an accurate breakdown of the costs in the Macclesfield borough under rate relief, wanted to present the case on behalf of the borough of which Tatton is a part.
  Mr. Bacon: I, too, have read on my Order Paper that this debate is about the impact of foot and mouth disease in Tatton. I am wondering, therefore, whether the right Minister is present to respond. Is it correct for the Minister who is present to respond to the debate, or is this another DEFRA cock-up?
  Mr. Winterton: It is a governmental cock-up. Unfortunately, responsibilities for dealing with this matter lie—I shall give the Minister credit for this—with two Departments. There is no doubt that the impact of foot and mouth on Tatton relates also to the Government's ability or willingness to assist an area that has been badly hit because of restrictions on movement imposed as a result of the foot and mouth outbreak.
  Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman is paying a lot of attention and giving a lot of time to one specific topic. He referred a moment ago to the wish of the chief executive of the borough council to provide knowledge and expertise to the Minister at the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and that that Department was losing out by not taking up his invitation. Can he therefore explain why the borough council did not respond to the request made by the Local Government Association for information on the number and extent of applications for hardship rate relief in relation to foot and mouth disease when those matters were being discussed between the Local Government Association and that Department?
  Mr. Winterton: I can explain that very simply. My borough council and its chief executive, Mr. David Parr, were dealing at the time with my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton and me. The borough council believed—wrongly, it now appears—that we had more direct access to Ministers than local government organisations did. As the information that would have been given to the local authority concerned had been provided to my hon. Friend and me, why would there be any wish to duplicate it? I believe that I have given the right answer.
  I still hope to this day that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions will be prepared to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton, the chief executive of Macclesfield borough council, Mr. David Parr, and me to discuss this matter, even at this late stage. Perhaps,
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  when the Minister replies, he will tell us that he will request the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to arrange a meeting with us.
  I hope that the Minister has heard the last part of my speech, and I hope that he will deal with it when he replies. I want to give him sufficient time to reply on this important matter relating to the Tatton constituency and other areas of our countryside, so I shall say only that this is an important issue. Farmers are still suffering, and in Tatton, they still have severe cash flow problems. As my hon. Friend rightly said, those few farmers who had their herds of livestock culled are in a much better position than those who did not, and who have had no cash flow at all because of the restriction on livestock movements. That relates not only to the Tatton constituency but to many others, and particularly to the adjoining constituency of Macclesfield, which I have the honour to represent.
  Please will the Minister accept that, although there may not have been an outbreak in this country for some two months, the financial problems and the trauma of what those farmers have experienced still face the farming industry, particularly the livestock sector that dominates the constituencies of Tatton and Macclesfield? At this late stage, will the Minister be understanding of that, and positive in what he is about to say in response to this debate?
  10.7 pm
  Mr. Mark Francois: I shall be brief, to allow the Minister the maximum time to reply to the large number of serious points that have been made. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) on his speech. He spoke for more than 45 minutes on the plight of farmers in his constituency, and expressed polite but firm frustration at the situation there. Having heard him, I must say that that situation sounds very difficult, not just for the farmers, but for the other businesses which rely directly or indirectly on the farming community for their livelihood. My hon. Friend performed a good service on behalf of his constituents this evening, and I hope that when the Minister replies, he will do so in a manner that fully and properly acknowledges that.
  10.8 pm
  The Minister for Rural affairs (Alun Michael): I congratulate the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) on securing this debate, and on the style with which he introduced it and occupied the considerable amount of time that was rather unexpectedly available to him. I shall explain why I disagree with a great deal that he said, but I accept that he made his points reasonably, and I shall respond in a like manner. His approach obviously had a positive effect on the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), which made the debate—so far, at least—pleasurable as well.
  The hon. Member for Tatton confessed to association with the farming policies and method of presentation of Ministers in a Conservative Administration, which took the edge off his more general criticisms. I had hoped that his experience would lead to restrained references to the officials who serve the Government and the public. I pay tribute to the enormous commitment and dedication shown by the hard-working staff who not only serve the

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  farming communities in ordinary times, but put in immense extra effort during the foot and mouth period. Indeed, many civil servants from other Departments came, or were seconded, to contribute in the front line.
  The hon. Gentleman made it clear that he questions the ethos of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As he served there, he is better placed than I to comment, but I hope that he agrees that that question mark does not hang over the dedication and hard work of individual civil servants or their willingness to serve the public.
  Mr. George Osborne: I apologise to Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions officials if I strayed over the line in attacking them. I know from my time at MAFF that they are extremely hard working and that they have dealt with one crisis after another. Indeed, they are badly put upon by politicians and the wider community alike. They do not deserve that.
  Alun Michael: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for responding. I had hoped that he would take that view and we have put the point on the record across parties.
  Mr. Bacon: This evening, I received an e-mail from a solicitor who dealt with many foot and mouth outbreaks and the battle between the Ministry and farmers that resulted from them. She says that there are indeed some Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials who emerge with great credit, and they had to work hard in trying circumstances. However, she added, "But not many."
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This intervention is widening the issue. I would be grateful if the Minister did not respond in general terms.
  Alun Michael: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have made the cross-party point about the dedication of officials. Many are developing their talents within the new ethos of DEFRA, and I hope that that continues to be the case.
  The hon. Member for Tatton rightly commented on the fact that foot and mouth disease has devastated rural communities everywhere. There was particular pressure on areas with a large number of cases, such as Cumbria, Devon, North Yorkshire and so on, but the damage to farming communities and the rural economy applies everywhere. The example of Tatton is replicated in many constituencies across the country.
  For that reason, there will be a warm welcome in Tatton and elsewhere for the news that the designation of the last remaining foot and mouth infected area in England will be lifted at midnight. That landmark move follows extensive blood testing of sheep and clinical examination of cattle in the Brough and Kirkby Stephen area of Cumbria. It marks the end of a massive blood testing programme in the 3 km protection zones.
  The successful completion of serological testing in the remaining 3 km protection zones over the past few weeks led to the release of over 17,000 farms from infected area status. There are still restrictions and care needs to be taken, but that is good news, not just for Cumbria, but right across the country. I take care in making those comments, because we need to be sure that everything is done with care right to the end. We must ensure that foot
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  and mouth disease does not return. In the 1960s outbreak, there were no additional cases for some 25 days, but the disease returned. We need to hesitate to celebrate, but there is good news, which will be welcomed across the House.
  The impact of foot and mouth disease has been devastating in the way that I described, but that must be put in context. In October, unemployment in Tatton was 1.5 per cent., which is down 7.9 per cent. since October 2000. In Macclesfield, the figure in October was 1.3 per cent., which is down 12.5 per cent. since October 2000. Unemployment in England generally is more than double those levels.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The Minister's figures are accurate, and reflect the ebullience of the area that my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) and I represent. Does the Minister accept, however, that many who work in the countryside are self-employed, and that their problems are therefore unlikely to be reflected in unemployment statistics?
  Alun Michael: I certainly would not suggest that unemployment statistics show the whole picture, and I did not do so in this instance. I was trying to put in context the difficulties experienced in the rural economy. I feel that we should take account of the figures, and recognise that unemployment levels are low—which, I think, is testimony not just to the efforts of the constituents of the hon. Member for Tatton, but to the successes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government. Perhaps it was too much to expect the hon. Member for Macclesfield to join me in paying that tribute. We can achieve a certain amount of unity across the Floor of the House, but at some point it becomes unrealistic to hope for consensus.
  The hon. Member for Tatton mentioned payment delays. Let me put the record straight. There were delays, particularly in April and May, owing to the sheer number of payments that had to be made. There was an enormous burden of work, but the resulting backlog was eliminated in May. The target for payments is three weeks, and is now mostly being met. All but about £170,000 of the estimated £l2 billion has now been paid. It should also be mentioned that farmers are allowed 14 days in which to decide whether they want to appeal against valuation of slaughtered animals: that in itself affects the time it takes to deal with payments.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the 21-day rule. The rule was introduced to combat foot and mouth disease, and will certainly apply until the disease is eradicated; what will happen after that is still being discussed. It is a powerful disease-control tool in the process of slowing the spread of the disease, but we are happy to examine counter-arguments carefully, especially as we reach a point at which we can progressively lift some of the restrictions.
  When considering the way in which rural communities have responded to foot and mouth, we should bear in mind the unity of purpose that has emerged. That often happens during emergencies, or when there is particular pressure. I chaired the rural taskforce that examined the impact of the disease across the community—especially the economic impact and the impact on non-farming business, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I thought

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  that by the time we started to draw up the report, the unity that had been achieved might well be dissipated: individual members might promote, for instance, the case for local government, the case for the National Farmers Union or the case for tourism. It was a genuinely positive experience to observe the unity of purpose and the attempt to secure consensus, and I think that that is reflected in the report that we published on 18 October.
  Farmers have acknowledged the importance of tourism to the rural economy. The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned the impact on tourism in his constituency. I am not sure that, a year ago, we would have heard so much about the interdependence of different elements of the rural economy; certainly I did not hear such comments then, but they should be encouraged. The Department seeks to work with colleagues across Government—I have been working particularly with the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in his capacity as tourism Minister—to find ways of helping the recovery of tourism in rural communities.
  There is a fine line to be drawn. We want to be confident that the disease has been eradicated and that we can plan for the future, but meanwhile we should send clear messages about the attractions of, for instance, working farms. We want people to feel that they can return to the countryside, and by enjoying themselves there, give financial support to those attractions. I hope that we judge that moment right and that we shall have the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House in seeking to send that positive message. Both farming and non-farming businesses need recovery and to get back to business as normal more than anything else. I hope that the House can unite on that point.
  The hon. Member for Tatton also mentioned the creation of DEFRA. The change has created a strong major Department whose central pillar of responsibility is to promote the interests of rural communities in Tatton and elsewhere. That was not the situation before. The Department also links responsibility for environment and conservation with responsibility for farming and food, which is to the benefit of all rural communities. I also pay tribute, in the case of Tatton, to the North West Regional Development Agency for the way in which it has switched priorities and supported initiatives to help rural communities. I shall return to some of those points in more detail if time allows.
  The hon. Gentleman, however, also referred to what he described as draconian new legislative measures. Those measures have recently been debated in this place and I shall not seek to go over old ground. I simply say that the measures are not draconian but practical. If we are so unfortunate as to have a fresh outbreak we need to be able to nip it in the bud. Let us hope that there is not a fresh outbreak. However, if there were one, I am sure that Opposition Members, including those who spoke in this debate, would be the first to castigate a Government who had failed to ensure that the necessary powers are available.
  There were culling delays in some places, and the hon. Gentleman rightly referred to the need for speed when culling is necessary. However, delays were caused in Brecon and elsewhere when culling was challenged, thereby extending the time in which the outbreak continued to spread. I simply ask Opposition Members
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  to consider the alternative and what they would say if circumstances were to change. Let us hope, however, that they do not.
  The hon. Gentleman also pondered whether foot and mouth disease could have been spread by the pyres which, as he said, proved to be such a dramatic symbol of the disease's impact in the early stages of the outbreak. A risk assessment was made of whether foot and mouth disease could be spread by pyres, and veterinary risk assessments of course look very carefully at the veterinary evidence, but that assessment concluded that the risk of transmission by that means was very small indeed. There has been no evidence whatsoever that transmission, or any individual case, was caused by it. I therefore hope that we can put that issue to one side, although I am sure that the inquiries examining the science and the procedures that were followed may well wish to look at the evidence and will reach their own conclusions.
  I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman mentioned tourism. He also mentioned a working farm that had diversified and established a thriving tourism business. I have visited many such locations which were, as he said, devastated by foot and mouth disease. Their situation is one of the reasons why, in the business recovery fund, we have provided for help for marketing among the other forms of help available to businesses that have been affected by foot and mouth disease.
  We have also taken very seriously the issue of food import controls. However, we need to examine the evidence carefully as there has sometimes been an inclination to generalise on that topic. Nevertheless, I assure the hon. Gentleman that not only DEFRA but the Government generally are taking a strong interest in ensuring that those controls are as strong as they should be.
  The third of the four main points that the hon. Gentleman made—although, as my reply indicates, he managed to touch on an enormous number of other points too—concerned Macclesfield borough council. The hon. Member for Macclesfield also sought to make that point.
  It is necessary to point out that rate relief is available to all businesses suffering hardship because of the outbreak of FMD, other than farms that are already fully exempt from rates. That includes rateable businesses in Macclesfield. Central Government funds at least 75 per cent. of the cost in all cases, so it would be wrong to suggest sweepingly that the Government have not done anything to help.
  The hon. Gentleman is also aware of the debate that took place on the special grant report. Clearly, authorities that are not predominantly rural will have a wider spread of economic activity and so a lower proportion of businesses would be affected by FMD. The pressure on those authorities would be less, so those authorities should have proportionately fewer cases of hardship relief and should not face the same high costs as other authorities.
  We agreed to consider the case for extending the scheme. Much additional information was provided, by the Local Government Association in particular, which went to the trouble of finding out the experiences of the member local authorities to assist with the review. That led to the second special grant report approved on 17 July which extended the scheme to all 151 rural authorities and provided additional help in 37 of those areas worst

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  affected by the disease, based on the number of cases at county level. Both rurality and the specific impact in terms of the number of cases were considered.
  The 151 authorities covered were all wholly or mainly rural areas in England, according to the standard definitions used more widely by the Countryside Agency. Of course, definitions can always be argued over, but much help was provided to Macclesfield, as to other authorities, by the Government. I repeat the point that the borough council did not respond to the LGA's request for information on the number and extent of applications for hardship rate relief related to FMD, even though it was made clear that the Government were willing to consider the case on the basis of that information.
  Mr. Winterton: I actually provided that information to the Government. Do they want it from dozens of sources? I provided the information provided to me by the chief executive of the borough council.
  Alun Michael: It was good of the hon. Gentleman to do that. I am not sure on what date he did that, but I make the point again that the case was considered by the Government in terms of the impact on individual local authorities that faced an especially heavy burden, as well as providing help to all local authorities.
  I recognise that Tatton was hard hit by FMD in the context I described earlier.
  Mr. George Osborne: I recognise that this has been a very short debate, but I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to the points made about the livestock markets in the last two minutes of the debate. My farmers would certainly appreciate his reply.
  Alun Michael: I am happy to respond on that point. I was asked why markets in England and Wales are still closed when Scottish ones have re-opened. The last case in Scotland was on 30 May. The last case in Wales was on 12 August and the last case in England was on 30 September. Veterinary and scientific advice is that markets in England and Wales should not re-open until early next year. The timing and conditions for re-opening markets are under active discussion with the Livestock Auctioneers Association. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we take the issue seriously.
  The association has received draft conditions and has commented on them. The discussion continues with those directly involved. The association is meeting DEFRA officials again tomorrow and stakeholders have been told that market re-opening is under consideration for early in 2002. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no secret plan to do down that or any other part of the rural economy.
  There are many issues on which I could wax more eloquently if I had had the time to reply that the hon. Gentleman took in his introduction, but it is only fair to say that the Government have responded positively to the demands and pressures on the rural economy. We recognise that the impact on farmers and on non-farming businesses has been devastating. That is why we have sought to respond and why we have not—
  The motion having been made at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.

Preamble
[SIR MICHAEL LORD in the Chair]

Poverty (Rural Scotland)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. McNulty.]
9.30 am
Mr. Peter Duncan: I welcome the opportunity to place before the House the subject of the growing divide between urban and rural Scotland. I also welcome the time afforded to me to outline the issues that must be addressed before significant social problems overrun Scotland's rural communities.
The past four years, since 1997, have seen a welcome development towards attempting to address the causes and symptoms of poverty in all its forms, although I suspect that I shall differ with the Minister on the success or otherwise of the Government's strategy.
It is often said that society is only as good as the manner in which it treats its most impoverished, and I welcome the fact that poverty has been placed higher on the political agenda. However, in my constituency—and in many others, I suspect—the feeling is developing that although poverty in general may be increasing in importance in political debate, another form of disadvantage is routinely not given the priority that it deserves. It cannot be permitted that some who struggle to make their way in life are deemed deserving of multi-agency help, while others remain perceived as less deserving of attention, even though their suffering and isolation may be just as traumatic and difficult to overcome.
The kind of poverty that I routinely encounter in Galloway and Upper Nithsdale is no less deserving than that in city centres and other urban conurbations throughout the United Kingdom, which so often hits the headlines. The poverty that I encounter may be more difficult to tackle, but that is no reason to forgive a Government who ignore the problem just because its solution may require more imagination and result in less direct political advantage.
I draw the House's attention to three main aspects of poverty as it affects rural Scotland. First, financial poverty exists in remote communities in as serious a form as in any city centre. Secondly, we are routinely blighted by poverty of opportunity caused by declining local infrastructure, which places rural communities at a severe disadvantage. Thirdly, there is a worrying trend towards poverty of ambition for all that rural Scotland could be.
I need not brief the Minister of State on the social geography of my constituency, because he is a neighbouring Member, but some statistics may help to put my comments into perspective. Galloway and Upper Nithsdale is one of the most rural constituencies in the United Kingdom. It represents two thirds of the land area, but less than half the population, of the Dumfries and Galloway region, which has 147,000
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residents and is spread over 2,500 sq miles, and is the third largest region in Scotland. The population density is only 60 people per square mile, compared with the Scottish average of 168, which the Minister will appreciate is already well below the UK average.
Apart from Stranraer, which has 10,800 residents, Galloway has no settlements of more than 5,000 people. That is not an extreme example. Many other Scottish constituencies that are similarly disparate are represented by hon. Members present today.
The Minister of State, Scotland Office (Mr. George Foulkes): And Ministers.
Mr. Duncan: Yes, and Ministers, too.
Those striking population figures directly affect people's ability to access services and agencies' ability to deliver them. Employment opportunities in parts of rural Scotland are few and far between and are, on average, very poorly paid. Employees in Dumfries and Galloway have the lowest average earnings of people in any local authority area in Scotland. The region is heavily dependent on agriculture and tourism, both of which are seasonal and low paid, and were in decline even before foot and mouth disease devastated the area. In Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, the unemployment rate is 4.7 per cent., which is above that of Dumfriesshire and the national average.
As a crucial part of my argument, I must scotch once and for all the myth that the rural regions of Scotland are populated by well-off farmers and contented pensioners. The devastating decline in farming incomes of the past few years has greatly affected constituencies such as mine. Farm businesses remain very small and are often managed or run by more than one generation of the same family. As one attends the auction marts that have, blissfully, restarted following the devastation of foot and mouth, the most notable aspect is the average age of the participants. Generally, they are not slick, executive agribusiness men, as the most vociferous pressure groups would have one believe. In the main, the participants are of advanced years and attend markets every year because, principally, they cannot afford to retire. Even the meagre incomes to which they aspired three or four years ago have evaporated with the collapse of many of their markets. The average hill sheep farm derived an income of less than £350 for the entire year 2000–01. That figure belies the image of farming prosperity. The national minimum wage is irrelevant to the self-employed farmer on such average incomes.
Jim Sheridan: The hon. Gentleman says that the Government do not give rural poverty the priority that it deserves. In a past life, I campaigned to save the agricultural wages boards, which the Conservative Government considered abolishing. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that campaign to save workers' wages in rural areas was correct? I am offended by his comment that the national minimum wage is irrelevant to farmers.
Mr. Duncan: With respect, the hon. Gentleman misunderstood my comments. I said that the national minimum wage is irrelevant to self-employed farmers who were on an average income of £350 during 2000–01. That occurred before the foot and mouth outbreak.

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The Government could have done more to avert the decline of Scotland's agriculture businesses. In recent years, many businesses' problems have derived from exchange rate movements that have made United Kingdom exports less competitive, which led to a massive drop in prices achieved at auction. However, on too many occasions, the Government systematically refused to claim the agrimonetary compensation to which farmers were entitled. Ever-heightening bureaucracy and red tape have led to escalating costs, reduced incomes and increased poverty.
Sir Robert Smith: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the problems of the high pound and the Government's failure to obtain more agrimonetary compensation. Does he recognise that the Government are failing to look to the future? The adoption of a single currency in the rest of the European Union means that the replacement of agrimonetary compensation with a different scheme has not been thought out or negotiated. It is crucial that the poorly paid farmers in both of our constituencies receive a fair price for their exported products and a proper exchange rate for support payments from the European Union.
Mr. Duncan: Yes, I absolutely agree. I simply observe that that is why agrimonetary compensation was introduced, and the lack of claims is of no credit to the Government.
Agencies that are geared towards central belt disadvantage find it difficult to tackle such financial poverty. However, employment opportunities are few and far between in an area where high fuel costs have made profitable business creation a declining art form. As a result, many local residents have never been employed. Even on the dole, however, the substantial disadvantages of rural life become all too clear. To give one example of many, benefit claimants in Upper Nithsdale where, as the Minister knows, the mining industry closed substantially in the 1950s and 1960s and where many families have been without work since, face a round trip of more than 60 miles to the benefits office in Dumfries. As a result, the take-up of some benefits is horrendously low.
Those attending mandatory jobseeker's allowance interviews may spend a full day travelling to attend a half-hour interview. Nationally, the number of 16 to 19-year-olds who are not in work, training or education—currently 14 per cent.—is worse than when the Labour Government came to power. In some parts of rural Scotland, that proportion is even greater.
Hon. Members must remember that the rate of local unemployment to which I referred earlier is in an area where mothers face the impracticality of returning to work, as child care provision is sparse. Many of those who in urban Scotland would be registered unemployed are unable actively to seek work because of their child-care commitments and are therefore hidden within the unemployment statistics of 4.7 per cent. in my constituency.
The Government have good intentions towards the reduction of poverty, but they must undergo a change in attitude away from their perpetual bias towards the
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resolution of urban social problems. Only yesterday, in his autumn statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a new initiative aimed at kick-starting investments in "deprived areas" and the abolition of stamp duty on business and property transactions of up to £150,000 in such areas. That is a fine initiative, capable of delivering real economic improvement.
On further investigation, however, I found that, of the 135 council wards in Scotland that are classified by the Government as deprived, only two are in Dumfries and Galloway. Hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that 58 are in Glasgow alone. The allocation of financial relief is based on the Government's deprivation indices. They militate deliberately against rural deprivation in favour of classic and appalling—I do not doubt that it is appalling—urban poverty. Until that bias is dealt with, social problems in the countryside will continue.
By anyone's standards, the problems to which I have referred are symptoms of severe financial poverty. What is even moire worrying than that financial struggle is the poverty of opportunity that is a feature of rural Scotland. Opportunity has fallen away as small communities have suffered. As average incomes have collapsed so, too, have the communities who depended on them. The key institutions in each small village used to be the corner shop, the post office, the local garage and the primary school. On those entities were built the bones of a sustainable community.
Given the extent to which such sustainable communities are vital to the avoidance of poverty, one would have thought that this and the previous Government would have done all in their power to avert the cycle of decline that has set in. Regrettably, to a significant degree, the Government have been part of the problem, not part of the solution. With whatever little income was left, farming communities have endeavoured to support local service industries. Low-paid local employees have endeavoured, wherever possible, to support their local businesses, yet the same local businesses have had to face escalating costs combined with declining turnover.
For many communities, the other source of significant income was tourism, whereby at least for four or five months of the year, additional income was derived from visitors. Yet, once again, such micro businesses have seen trade collapse, first through the increasing drift towards Scottish tourism, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow city breaks, which I am convinced remains the main marketing objective of our tourist industry north of the border. They then faced the devastating outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which has blighted Scotland's rural economy this year—we must not pretend otherwise.
The major causalities of foot and mouth disease have been the thousands of hotels, bed-and-breakfast accommodations, corner shops and local garages. They have faced the collapse of their turnover with no direct compensation from the Government, who so mishandled the crisis. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced yesterday that the cost to the UK taxpayer of foot and mouth disease was £2.7 billion. The most enduring legacy of this period has been the loss of many businesses in Dumfries and Galloway, to say nothing of the spin-off effect throughout Scotland.

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The plight of our sub-post office network—another type of micro business—deserves attention. The Minister will recall that we have crossed swords on that issue before. For the foreseeable future, the post office will, remain the key access gateway—the Government like the word "gateway"—to the many other opportunities and benefits that our society seeks to provide. Yet, as has been so widely documented and empirically shown by an increasing rate of closure, the Government's proposal for change is stimulating what can be described only as an implosion in rural communities. The proposed changes to the benefits system scheduled for 2003 are resulting in unprecedented numbers of sub-post offices either closing, or contemplating closure, leaving isolated communities further removed from the mainstream of our society.
The community garage, too, has suffered ever-increasing regulation. Its competitive disadvantage has been heightened by the Government's perpetuation of the fuel price escalator, which has ceased to be a tax on pollution and become a significant disincentive to living in rural Scotland. Not only do rural fuel stations have to contend with prices at an historic high, with tourist traffic declining; they also have to face the continuing burden placed on them by European legislation on fuel vapour emissions.
The picture is one of the fabric of existing rural communities being systematically dismantled by a combination of events within and outwith the Government's control. Were it not for the poverty of ambition in building countryside communities for the future, that would not be so worrying. We face a continuing decline and an ageing of the population in rural Scotland. That demographic time bomb will continue to tick for as long as the problem is ignored.
Government at all levels shows a worrying acceptance—somewhat fatalistically—that decline is inevitable. A classic example can be found in the proposal, currently before Dumfries and Galloway council, to close 42 primary schools. That proposal is perpetrated partly on the basis of cost, but also on the basis that population is declining and school rolls are falling. Nothing guarantees falling school rolls more than the closing of schools.
Central Government need to initiate a debate that focuses on the potential of our countryside, rather than simply on managing its decline. For example, the Government have a long way to go to make teleworking a real possibility, wherever in Scotland a person lives. We must appreciate that the young families of the future will not return to rural Scotland if the small village schools that they crave have been closed for some years.
The Government's policy has more than a passing resemblance to the mistakes made under Mr. Beeching. If we are to avert long-term increases in poverty, our rural areas must seize the opportunity provided by the telecommunications explosion. I have high hopes for the future of regions such as mine, which could offer a combination of high-quality telecom networks combined with the basic attractive requirements of rural life. Unfortunately, yet again, rural Scotland seems to be in the main excluded from the telecommunications revolution that could be the key to its revival.
254WH
The picture of rural poverty is, I hope, becoming clear. I should like the Minister to respond to the debate with imagination and a constructive understanding of the problem that is developing. My contention is not that rural Scotland is experiencing only financial poverty—as I have said, rural incomes have declined hugely in recent years, in many cases to a level that makes the national minimum wage seem attractive—but that there is a new, emerging poverty: poverty of opportunity. Residents of Newton Stewart, Sanquhar, Blairgowrie or Wick are to a large and increasing extent significantly excluded from the opportunities that are developing for the vast majority of their fellow UK citizens. The Government's initiatives to encourage people to take public transport to work are laudable and to be encouraged, but they are of little comfort to people whose community is 10 miles from the nearest bus service or 40 miles from the nearest railway station. The Government's proposals to provide child care to encourage mothers to return to work are to be applauded, but they are of little consequence when local child care is non-existent.
I fear for the poverty of ambition for our countryside that is proving such an unhelpful contribution to my and other attempts to reverse our declining population. Rural Scotland has much to contribute to the UK. It is more than a playground for the discerning few who seek it out year after year; it is still a living, working area with huge social problems that the Government must tackle. I trust that they will do so over the remainder of their term, and I hope that the Minister will signal that change of heart in his reply.
9.52 am
Mr. David Stewart: I congratulate the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) on initiating this important debate. He has a keen interest in rural areas. I know his constituency well, having worked and served there for five years. In my youth, I was a councillor in the old Nithsdale district, and I have fond memories of working there.
I am delighted to make a brief contribution, as I have been interested in poverty in rural areas for a couple of decades, having spent more than 20 years in social work in rural areas with the poor, the unemployed and the dispossessed. As hon. Members will know, my constituency is the largest Labour seat in the UK. It covers more than 3,000 sq miles and includes the islands of Rhum, Muck, Eigg and Canna, as well as the isolated splendour of Knoydart, of which many hon. Members will be aware, the grandeur of Ben Nevis and the breathtaking beauty of Loch Ness. If that is not a good tourist advertisement, I do not know what is.
As someone who was born and brought up in the highlands, I know first hand some of the problems of rural areas, such as sparsity of population, distance from markets, cost of and access to services, isolation, poor transport and low pay, to mention a few well-understood factors that contribute to rural disadvantage. It would, however, be slightly over-simplistic to portray rural and urban dwellers as two separate, distinct tribes, like something from central casting for "The Lord of the Rings". We need a strong, successful economy geared to Scotland's long-term interests. That would be good news for Scots, no matter where they live.

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It is ironic that Scottish Conservatives talk about rural poverty and cry crocodile tears. I am reminded of the last Tory Government's economic record: 3 million people unemployed; interest rates at 15 per cent.; a national debt that doubled; record evictions, and record repossessions in rural areas as well. Some 3,500 post offices were also closed under the Tory Administration. If Conservatives Members care so much about the poor, the low-paid and the unemployed in rural areas, why did they fight tooth and nail to stop the national minimum wage being passed? That was one of this Government's finest achievements.
I remember being up all night, along with other hon. Members, just to go through the Lobbies and make sure that we had a national minimum wage, which is a tremendous life jacket for the poorly paid and the exploited. The national minimum wage has what British economists would call a virtuous circle. What does that mean? The extra spend created by the national minimum wage is spent in small towns and villages, in local shops and post offices and on local goods. The multiplier effect therefore helps the local economy.
Why did the Tories fight to the last ditch to oppose the new deal—a hand up rather than a hand out for the unemployed? The Tories would have denied that help to the 1,200 young and long-term unemployed people in my constituency who have joined the new deal since the 1997 general election.
What will the Government do about fighting poverty in rural Scotland? First, it is important to stress the importance of getting the big picture right before focusing on anything else. What is the big picture? High and stable growth and employment are needed, along with low and stable inflation and interest rates. What is the next step? It is not a question of one size fits all; we need a basket of solutions to deal with rural poverty. For example, in relation to the minimum wage, we must ensure that work pays. We must develop the new deal, focusing on the young, the long-term unemployed and the over-50s. Let us not forget those who are disabled. Statistics in the UK show that more than 1 million people with some form of disability would want to work, and that, with enough support, some 400,000 could be in the job market.
Mr. Dominic Grieve: I want to pick up on something that the hon. Gentleman said about the minimum wage. I understand his view that the minimum wage was designed to stimulate the economy in local areas. However, he will agree that, even with the minimum wage, the situation in rural areas is worsening. The minimum wage has not therefore had an impact on that. I dare say that the reason for that is the crisis in agriculture. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that? Does he therefore also agree that the minimum wage on its own will not be the panacea that he seemed to suggest that it was?
Mr. Stewart: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is important to stress that we need a basket of solutions. The minimum wage on its own is not a solution to all our problems. Evidence from the United States and from other industrial countries with a
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minimum wage suggests that, when it is set at the right rate, it is an important anti-poverty structure because it makes work attractive for many people who would not otherwise be in employment. I know people who work in the hotel trade in my constituency, whose wages were doubled when the minimum wage was introduced. Clearly, we must get the balance right, because employers also create wealth in rural areas. I therefore do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, as it is important to have a national minimum wage.
Let us not forget some of the other measures that have been introduced. The working families tax credit is vital because it makes the jump from no work and benefits, to work and no benefits. It is important to tackle the poverty trap, which is evident in rural Scotland.
The Government have made new proposals. The employment tax credit will help half a million people in the UK who have no children, and is worth up to £35 a week. That is an important anti-poverty strategy. As the Chancellor made clear, we want to ensure that a further 1 million children are taken out of poverty, and our longer-term aim is to eradicate child poverty within a generation.
The British social attitudes survey reported that 71 per cent. of those surveyed were in favour of topping up the incomes of the low-paid through tax credits, so we need to continue looking at that. The minimum income guarantee has been a great help to pensioners in rural areas and is now linked with earnings, which is important.
Annabelle Ewing: I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's list of Government proposals, which he says will make a difference to the plight of people suffering in rural Scotland. Do the Government propose to reduce fuel duty? Scotland has the highest fuel duty in the industrialised world, and that has a devastating impact on the whole of Scotland.
Mr. Stewart: I had intended to discuss transport later, but I shall make a couple of points now. The Government reduced the escalator—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady asked a question, and I am happy to answer it.
The Government are promoting environmentally friendly fuels, such as liquid petroleum gas, which, as a result of my personal experience, I have been very keen on in rural areas. Its cost has been preserved, so that rises in its price are lower than the inflation rate. The Government have developed a rural transport policy, the funding of which will lead to the opening up of transport links throughout rural Scotland. It is important to address the long term, and I shall develop that point later.
Sir Robert Smith: I have been running take-up campaigns in my constituency to help people to access the minimum income guarantee. Is not one of the challenges in rural areas to ensure that people claim such benefits—complex forms often have to be completed—by providing them with information and support?
Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. During my previous life in social work, I was very

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keen on maximising the take up of benefits. The Government are introducing low-cost helplines that provide a one-stop shop for retired people: they can call a central number to find out what benefits they are entitled to. It is important that we maximise take up; one of the advantages of the £200 winter payment is that, because it is a universal benefit, the take up has been high. A crucial challenge for the Government is to ensure not only that we offer good benefits, but that the take up of them is maximised. New technology provides the answer to many of the problems that face us, especially in rural Scotland.
Sir Robert Smith: Many people who apply for such benefits are refused at the first hurdle, so that they have to appeal. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise, from the evidence of his own casework, that the process of appeal is much enhanced if someone is present to assist? The collapse of funding for independent advice centres has major implications for the availability of access to such advice in rural areas. Therefore, it is crucial to link up with the Department for Work and Pensions, as a reserve power, so that some of its resources are used to ensure that people make the best use of the system that is designed to help them.
Mr. Stewart: With regard to appeals, all of the evidence suggests that representation increases the chances of winning. We must take account of the excellent work that is done in Scotland by independent advice agencies and citizens advice bureaux—I declare an interest, as I used to be a CAB volunteer—which, although they struggle for funding, do a fine job and can help maximise take up. I am enthusiastic about the work that they carry out in rural Scotland.
Let me return to my basket of solutions. I mentioned the minimum income guarantee, but we should not forget middle-income pensioners—people who have some savings and occupational pensions. The pensioner credit will help many such pensioners in rural Scotland. Finally, I wish to flag up the importance of the integrated tax credits that the Government will introduce, as joined-up thinking is important in the fight against rural poverty.
The hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale said that economists sometimes talk about the poverty of opportunity, and the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing) asked about that with regard to transport in rural areas. I welcome the work that the Scottish Executive have done. The rural transport fund is now worth £18 million over three years, and 350 new or enhanced services have been introduced, particularly bus routes, and—as I am aware from my constituency—ferry links, which are crucial.
Let me offer an example from my constituency. Money from the rural transport fund has enabled the Grantown community car scheme to be set up. It works simply: elderly, unemployed and low-paid people are provided with links to shops, and to hospitals to visit relatives. It is a good example of what can be achieved in areas without a bus service; crucial links are established so that normal community life can continue.
Rural poverty in Scotland is being tackled by social inclusion partnerships. I offer another example from my area. The Highlands and Islands social inclusion
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partnership aims to equip vulnerable youths with the skills that they need to make the transition to adulthood. It targets young people in fragile rural communities, such as the Highlands, Orkney and the Western Isles.
The Scottish Executive's report on poverty suggests:
"Many of the root causes of poverty and social exclusion are the same wherever people live, urban and rural settings alike."
There is strong evidence, however, that development of information and communication technology can overcome social exclusion and poverty in rural areas. It is clear that barriers to work, such as lack of child-care facilities, remain a big issue throughout rural Scotland. Access to services such as rural post offices is vital, which is why I welcome the Government's formal requirement that the Post Office maintain the rural network and prevent avoidable closures until 2006.
By far the most important factor, however, is rigorous economic management during global slow-down, combined with strong Government redistribution to those in poverty. As Bharti Patel, director of the Low Pay Unit, said:
"There has been a welcome focus on raising the incomes of the poorest people. The benefit system has become far more generous than under the Tories."
In their first term, Labour were the most redistributive Government since the 1960s. As a result of changes to the tax and benefit system, the incomes of the poorest 10 per cent. of the population rose by 13 per cent., and the incomes of the next poorest groups rose by 10 per cent.
There can be few higher goals for this Government than fighting poverty across Scotland. Scots in rural and urban areas need a Labour Government not just for economic competence but for social justice.
10.6 am
Pete Wishart: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) on securing this important debate. My constituency is similar in size and geography to his, although I would of course contend that mine is much more scenically attractive.
I know at first-hand the suffering caused by what can only be described as a rural recession, or even a depression The outlook for the rural economy in Scotland has never been so bleak. There is real pain out there, and there seems little prospect of any significant improvement. Every sector of the rural economy and every countryside activity is experiencing real difficulty. Farming, tourism, food production and even rural manufacturing are struggling in an environment that is clearly deteriorating.
My constituency is dominated by the large rural industries of farming, food production and tourism, but unfortunately we have a Government who seem almost blind to the suffering in rural communities. So far, they have been unable to respond to rural communities' clear appeals for help. Perhaps uniquely in the economic cycle, the first port of call for the impending economic slow-down or recession will be our rural communities. When the chill wind of recession blows, it is usually heavy industry and urban concerns that catch the first cold. This time, it is our rural economies and countryside that will catch that cold—if they are not already suffering from pneumonia.

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Rural activities such as farming, food production and tourism are already suffering because they have been weakened by high fuel costs, foot and mouth disease, the BSE disaster and an unfavourable exchange rate. Those industries are now highly susceptible to changing economic circumstances that cannot be offset by the hard work, endeavour and forward planning of employees. Those who work in such industries have to confront pressures that are completely outwith their control. Our rural communities have faced blow after blow, and many are on their knees.
In her evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee, the Scottish Executive's then Communities Minister admitted that one in four people in poverty lived in rural areas. According to a report published by the Scottish Executive in May 2000, earnings in rural areas tend to be below the Scottish average. The Government also concede that farming incomes have reduced by some 90 per cent. since the mid-1990s. A 200 hectare farm that earned £80,000 a year five years ago must now survive on an income of £8,000. That is a spectacular loss of income. One would think that, on being presented with figures such as those, the Government would develop many strategies and approaches to offset the problem, but all that we get is complete inactivity.
We must not talk about the crisis in rural Scotland solely in terms of farming and agriculture, because there is much else that goes on in those communities. Highland Perthshire and the Angus glens are in my constituency and they almost entirely depend on tourism for economic viability.
Tourism has had an awful year—more than that, it has had an awful five years. It is worth some £0.25 billion to the Scottish economy and, at its height, it employs about 8 per cent. of the Scottish workforce. This year, however, the Scottish Tourism Forum estimated that in March £10 million was being lost every week in tourism. While that may be a problem for the whole of Scotland—I have no doubt that urban settings suffered because of foot and mouth—its impact on rural communities is disproportionate. In my constituency, hoteliers are considering moving out and people who run bed-and-breakfast accommodation have had only a handful of bookings this year. The potential offered by tourism in Scotland is enormous—especially in North Tayside, where there are so many scenic attractions—if only the Scottish Executive could see that. We must get people there and start to treat tourism as an important industry that is crucial to the well-being of the Scottish economy.
We must not overlook the contribution of manufacturing to our rural economy. It is doubly important because there is evidence of a prevalence of low-skilled, low-paid employment in rural areas, as well as a large number of seasonal and part-time jobs. Manufacturing provides a career for young people and is a means of keeping them in our rural communities, but it is hurting. During the past few weeks, some 30 manufacturing jobs have been lost in my constituency. If that happened in an inner-city area, it would concern few apart from those families involved and would impact little on the local economy. However, to lose 30 jobs in a rural setting—a town of between 5,000 and 8,000—is an almost unsustainable crisis.
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I have spoken to managing directors who have had to announce job losses, and I have discovered the increased costs of manufacturing in rural areas. Distances from markets create high fuel and logistical costs. Small manufacturers are under boardroom pressure to relocate to the central belt in out-of-town modern facilities, close to the motorway network. There is also a lack of support from the enterprise network, which seems to be more interested in assisting inner-city initiatives. People talk about social exclusion and deprivation in cities; what about the evidence of real poverty, social exclusion and deprivation in the countryside?
The closure of factories, with the loss of associated jobs, means that young people are becoming unemployed. Their prospects of finding work in another industry in a rural setting are practically nil, given the situation that confronts them. I maintain that unemployment in rural Scotland is a worse prospect than unemployment in an inner city. Benefit take-up is also a problem due to the lack of provision and information on how to claim benefits. Rural people are proud, especially farmers of a particular generation, for whom claiming benefits has a stigma attached. A self-reliant culture in our rural communities and the countryside inhibits people from coming forward to claim the benefits to which they are entitled. Thus in addition to visible poverty, a strata of people live in hidden poverty. Unemployment is the most crucial element of that, which is why job creation is so vital.
Small businesses and other rural industries must be created and supported, and barriers to employment, such as the red tape involved in creating a business, must be addressed and overcome. We must hold on to our young people because they are the life blood to rural communities. Educated and skilled workers must be retained.
I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale said about failed Labour policies in the countryside, but we must go back further to pinpoint when the crisis began. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the BSE crisis, and the appalling way in which the Conservative Government handled it, was the first blow. The countryside never fully recovered, and it made subsequent blows all the more difficult to sustain. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was the Conservatives who introduced the fuel price escalator, which has had a great impact on rural communities. Perhaps, it is the biggest burden that the countryside has had to endure.
Car dependency is, perhaps, the best example of how rural poverty is substantially different from urban poverty. When assessing poverty in urban areas, car ownership is considered indicative of a better standard of living, but in rural areas, a car is more likely to be seen as a necessary financial burden that gets a person from A to B. That burden is further exacerbated by high fuel costs in Scotland and the fact that fuel is even more expensive in rural areas.
Our rural areas are going through a period of profound change. For the first time in a generation, we have the opportunity to map out a new type of future for the countryside. Unfortunately, that opportunity has been presented to a Government with little interest in rural affairs. If we do not get it right, there will be a second wave of clearances in rural Scotland. Many

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talented young people are already leaving owing to the lack of opportunities. For many people, Scotland is our hills and glens. Let us ensure that the strategies are put in place to retain our talented young people and effectively to tackle poverty in rural communities.
10.15 am
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I am happy to take part in this important debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) on securing it.
I listened with interest to the contributions of the hon. Members for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) and for North Tayside (Pete Wishart). We all have a common interest in trying to look forward when dealing with the issues that face our constituents and our country. It is not instructive to look back or to try to allocate blame for what went wrong and for which Government were responsible. It is better to focus on the problems that face us in the future.
Depopulation is a problem that is unique to rural areas—it does not affect urban and city populations. The hon. Member for North Tayside mentioned the highland clearances. That is rather extreme language. However, depopulation is a spectre that will continue to haunt our communities unless the right long-term planning policies are put in place through central Government working with other agencies. I have reservations about the extent to which central Government can solve such problems in a top-down way, and they are always, understandably, tempted to put their name on initiatives and new policies. Many issues are better dealt with if they are devolved and decentralised to local government, the voluntary sector and corporate entities—some companies are now shouldering their social responsibilities, which is welcome.
The massive changes simultaneously experienced by the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries have created difficulties, and it is hard to be optimistic about what will happen in any of those three sectors. I suspect that we will end up with much larger farm units—agribusinesses instead of family farms—that the fishing communities around our coasts will face increasing resource conflict in terms of stocks and the catching capacity of the fleet, and that the forestry industry will remain in a state of flux owing to the high level of the pound and competition from other parts of the world where production costs are lower.
The future of our rural communities must be considered against that background. Unless policies are put in place to deal with it, employment will continue to suffer attrition. In my constituency, particular problems are faced by men who have worked on farm units for generations as tenants dealing in livestock. The combination of BSE, foot and mouth disease and a series of other problems is putting them under a degree of pressure that I have not seen in the past 20 years. Central Government must deal with that, but I am not sure that the Scotland Office is in the front line of policy making. If I were the Minister, I would spend a lot more time trying to get the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to understand that the agriculture industry in Scotland cannot be left to market forces in the way that parts of it can in some areas of the
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United Kingdom. Scotland Office Ministers have much work to do with the Minister for Environment and Rural Development in Edinburgh to try to give some hope and security to the farming, forestry and fishing sectors.
Depopulation and the future of the farming industry are integral issues when planning to deal with poverty in rural areas. I was interested to hear, and agree with, the remarks of the hon. Member for North Tayside on manufacturing industry. We might not have large-scale manufacturing sectors in our rural constituencies, but pockets of small-scale manufacturing industry need to be nurtured and supported. Most operate in niche markets. In my constituency, the textile industry has passed through a difficult phase in the past few years, exacerbated by such things as the banana war. That industry has a contribution to make, and needs help from central Government in securing trading conditions.
I agree with the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber that we need to keep the big picture in mind. The big picture of economic stability is integrally important, but with skill, innovation and creativity, central Government can help industries such as the textile industry to flourish. I am pleased to see Ministers making good use of Dover house for trade promotions in a way that plays to the industry's strengths. I hope to see more useful initiatives of that kind.
On the wider issues of poverty and social security, I do not subscribe to the view that there are differences between urban and rural populations, and I would not encourage people to create such differences. The issues are generally the same. Looking at the incidence of incapacity benefit take-up on the west coast, and the epidemiology of heart and lung, and other, diseases prevalent in that area, it would be a dereliction of duty if central Government failed to concentrate on such problems. However, it is not an either/or situation. Getting a basic framework within which people can operate is the way forward, and whether one agrees with the policy or not, it is irrefutable that, since 1997, the Government have at last had a policy: welfare to work.
I support that welfare policy. Work for those who can and security for those who cannot is a catchphrase, but it encapsulates a changing culture that I warmly welcome. However, I am becoming concerned about implementation problems, which apply in rural areas as well as everywhere else and revolve around the means testing now being used and the complex interrelation of some benefits.
That leads on to the points made by hon. Members earlier about take-up and eligibility. People can test their eligibility and do a better-off calculation to find out whether they will do better in low-paid work. Although the Government's strategy is heading in the right direction, difficult problems will emerge if we do not take account of the fact that we have moved away from a social contributory system where people, through national insurance contributions, pooled risk, paying in during periods of employment when they had an income and drawing out when they did not. Call me old fashioned, but that concerns me. The classic Beveridge system set: up after the second world war has been abandoned by default.

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New plans coming from the Treasury, such as those for tax credits, are making matters more complicated. From 2003, we shall have the employment tax credit, the pensioner credit and the integrated child credit. By that time, the national insurance contributory principle will have been all but abandoned. That has happened by default, and we should have a discussion on the long-term consequences of that change for welfare and social security in rural and other parts of the country.
Another recent, significant change is the increase in the disparity of wealth, which is as much a feature of rural as of urban life. People face much wider scales of wealth disparity, and the Labour Government are encouraging it, which surprises me. Central Government, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor seem to have no concern at the increasing disparity. Those who are rich are becoming very much richer and those at the bottom of the pile are becoming disproportionately and relatively poorer. I am not saying that people are starving. The indicators of poverty are relative, not absolute, and we must be careful not to get matters out of proportion. However, I fear that if we are not careful we shall end up with great disparity of wealth, which is more obvious in a rural than an urban context. We should be careful about that because it will make matters significantly worse.
Since I was elected in 1983, I have become increasingly convinced that there is no evidence base on which to make informed policy decisions about the incidence of poverty in rural areas. I make no complaint about that—it is not a party political point. The statisticians are challenged because statistical samples are often difficult to obtain in a disparate population. I believe that the Secretary of State, with whom I have had one or two informal as well as official conversations, understands the problem. In my constituency, the unemployment claimant count is useless as a measure of anything. Unemployed people go away: they do not hang around in Hawick or Galashiels for six months; they go to Edinburgh or Newcastle. That is not necessarily so in inner cities because the population is more stable in urban areas, but in rural areas there is a predilection and an incentive for people to leave. The statistics and indicators used to calculate local government spend are not secure or robust. If I had one wish this morning it would be that we were all better provided with robust data on which we could plan for the future.
I was pleased that the Scottish Executive's rural poverty and inclusion working group, which has been working on some of these issues for the past year, produced a report in September 2001. One of the key messages in that report is that the evidence base is insufficient and that a particular problem in rural areas is that people tend to move away and remove evidence of the problem. The group identified that as a difficulty and I hope that the Government will put some resources into investigating the problem. We would all be better off if we had more robust data.
During the 18 years that I have represented Roxburgh and Berwickshire, the nature of the working economy has changed substantially. When I was elected in 1983, there was male domination in the proportion of those employed. Work was full time, highly paid and highly
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skilled in industries such as textiles and electronics. We have now moved to more casual employment with more women in the workplace, which is good, often in part-time and casual work. I was startled when I first came across two-earner households that are still living in poverty, but that is a regular occurrence now. In 1983, households with two people bringing in wages were relatively well provided for. It is true that average earnings in rural areas are much lower than in other parts of the country. I am not too bothered about that by itself, but I am bothered about the fact that, following the decimation in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors, the new type of jobs that people are finding is part-time, casual work in the service sector. Although they are bringing two wages into the household, they are still struggling and falling in and out of poverty.
I welcome the fact that the Government have recognised that problem by introducing the working families tax credit, which will be a significant help. The minimum wage has also been a significant help, because it has put a wage floor under some of those casual and part-time jobs.
The adage is, "Work for those who can", but just because people are in work, it does not mean that they are well off. Even in two-earner households, people are classified by any meaningful relative measure as falling in and out of poverty. Benefit levels are not designed or high enough to support families over periods of time, particularly those with children and loan families with children. It is possible to live a serious life with proper inclusion for weeks or months—perhaps it is not easy, but it is possible—but the benefit system does not adequately cope with big household items having to be replaced. Some families are in real distress as a result.
Families now drop in and out of poverty. It is not just the number of families that are in poverty that is worrying, but the way in which they fall in and out of poverty and the length of time that they are below the level that it is sensible to live on.
The issue of debt in my constituency is frightening. I do not know whether it is just a rural problem. I suspect that it may be even worse in our cities. The extent to which people are now using catalogues, money lenders and loan sharks to get by from week to week is frightening. It is now a culture. Again, there has been a substantial change since I was elected in 1983. People are being encouraged to go into debt. People are knocking on their doors and saying, "How about a loan to pay the loan, to pay the loan?"
Those people need proper access to advice. Central Government should look at how to encourage agencies such as the citizens advice bureaux to help in that regard. Excellent work is done by welfare rights officers in local government in my constituency, and I am sure in others too. Such help is essential to protect people from the clutches of loan sharks.
As a result of what I have said about debt, the social fund, which seeks to help people as a fund of last resort, needs to be substantially reformed. We need to put more money into it, because it can throw a lifeline to people who are in desperate circumstances. It does not work properly at the moment.
The Government need to sort out housing benefit in this term, which they have not done to date. I am worried about the increased charges for water, council

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tax and other housing costs in the coming weeks and months. The whole issue of child care needs to be properly addressed, so that people can take jobs in rural areas.
I do not want to prolong my speech, because I know that hon. Members want to get to the Scottish Grand Committee and the Minister wants time to respond to the important points that have been made in this debate. The rural economy needs specialist treatment, but central Government cannot produce all the solutions themselves. I hope that the Scotland Office will look carefully at what local government, the voluntary sector and some industries and companies can do to produce local variations of projects and initiatives that come from the bottom up, rather than the top down. If we do that, it will make a difference in all our constituencies. If we do not do it, the spectre of depopulation will not go away. If the Government are not careful, they will look back in five years and rue the day they left our hills and valleys with no one working in them. That would be in no one's interests.
10.35 am
Mr. Dominic Grieve: My hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) is to be congratulated on having brought the subject up for debate this morning. It has been educational. I represent what the literature with which I am bombarded describes as a rural constituency. That seems to indicate that there are more green areas than built-up areas. However, it is a million miles removed in description and economic profile from the sort of constituency that my hon. Friend represents. When discussing rural areas, particularly rural areas in Scotland, it is easy to use generalisations that bear little relation to reality or to their diversity.
I was interested to hear the contributions this morning. The majority of hon. Members have described areas that by national standards are now something of a rarity. The indicators produced by various councils for environmental conservation describe them as quiet areas. They should be attractive to people to move into precisely because some of the environmental aspects are so desirable.
I know a little about the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale because I have walked over parts of it, and I remember having crashed my car on the night of new year's day some years ago—[Interruption.] I was not the driver. I first-footed a family at a farm called Palgowan 18 hours after new year, which is a reflection of how isolated the farm is. It is noteworthy that it had diversified by trying to attract visitors in the summer. I shall return to that in a moment.
I was struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood). My family used to farm in that area but was forced off the land in the 1930s by the agricultural depression. There is a cyclical pattern to some of the problems affecting rural areas. The hon. Gentleman made a point about rural depopulation, but in many rural areas the principal concern, if we listen to south-east Members, is the fear of rural over-population and the disappearance of the attractiveness of the areas that they represent.
From experience and observation, fundamentally, the areas described by hon. Members are underpinned by agriculture. Although there may be arguments about
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diversification, its contribution to the local economy in percentage terms will not be a major one. It has always seemed to me that the agricultural sector in those areas underpins not just the economy but the whole way of life. That is what makes those communities tick. The agricultural crisis that has hit this country, particularly areas that depend on stock raising, is the fundamental issue that must be dealt with.
The hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) gave a long list of initiatives that the Government are taking to alleviate poverty. I do not disagree with the initiatives, and they may have an impact. However, I hope that he will forgive me—I do not mean this pejoratively—for saying that they are, by necessity, palliatives that attempt to ease the problem. They do not deal with the underlying difficulties.
In the areas of which hon. Members have spoken, the economic base has been either seriously eroded or is in danger of collapse. The structure of society has collapsed without agriculture because of communication problems, which are considerable in Galloway, and high fuel costs that act as a disincentive and make it difficult for business to relocate to such areas.
I agree that there is no difference between rural and urban poverty. Poverty exists in parts of my constituency despite its wealth and proximity to urban areas. However, rural poverty is out of sight and out of mind. I have always been struck by the fact that it is easy to overlook the frequently dire conditions in which people live, their lack of access to services and isolation from each other because of the general attractiveness of their environment. There has been fragmentation of the social networks that used to underpin rural areas, which may not have enjoyed the wealth of an urban area but gave a greater quality of life and, therefore, made the area pleasant and attractive, which drew people to it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale told me that despite the isolation of such areas, charges other than fuel duty may be very high. I gather that band D council tax in his constituency is £978 per annum. That compares unfavourably with some London boroughs. Therefore, these places have their social structure assaulted by economic problems and general difficulties of overburdening council tax, bureaucracy and general taxation.
The fuel escalator—and its past manifestations—tipped the balance in rural areas. I received enormous representation on the matter when I was a spokesman on Scottish matters. I accept that the fuel escalator was introduced by a Conservative Government and justified by environmental benefits. However, there is always a point when someone should have the common sense to observe that a scheme has gone wrong or too far. The Government failed to observe the extent to which the fuel escalator moved from being a disincentive for urban dwellers to use their motor car, to being a powerful factor that forced rural areas into considerable recession. I am glad that the policy has been reversed, but much damage has been done over the past four years.

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A point was made about sub-post offices. I am not clear where future strategy lies in view of the contribution that they make to maintain rural communities. If rural areas such as those of my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale are to recover, the key will be to solve the agricultural problems. Without agriculture, such areas are deserts with nothing but small pockets of population. We must provide a general economic climate and framework that makes it worth while for people to diversify into local businesses that are essential for the return of rural prosperity.
One has to compare only my hon. Friend's area with parts of rural Cambridgeshire to see the contrast. In Cambridgeshire, there is a mix of agriculture and dynamic local businesses that operate out of small, village trading estates. Communication, ease of transport and the desirability of the environment make it worth while for people to settle and invest there. Ultimately, only investment, not Government, will solve the problem. That is a real challenge.
I do not wish to be overcritical of the Government, in view of the problems that they face. We must consider those matters, rather than—or perhaps in tandem with—making palliative efforts to alleviate poverty immediately. I wait to hear the Minister's response. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale for introducing the debate. I am now far better informed than I was when it began.
10.45 am
The Minister of State, Scotland Office (Mr. George Foulkes): I have represented a rural constituency of 800sq miles—not quite as big as Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber—for almost 23 years. That is a little longer than the period for which the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) has represented his constituency. My constituency has had significant problems with poverty.
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) on securing the debate. After all, rural Scotland is important to all of us. Rural Scotland covers 89 per cent. of the Scottish land mass, and includes 29 per cent. of the population. The hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) said that one in four people in Scotland is in poverty. Given that some 29 per cent. of the population live in rural areas, that is perhaps not much of a surprise. Rural Scotland provides 27 per cent. of total employment in Scotland.
We recognise that the area has distinctive needs. The hon. Members for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale and for North Tayside have painted a picture that distorts the reality, and what the Government are trying to do and have done to tackle the problems in the past five years. I sometimes think that Scottish National party Members are more concerned with the welfare of the SNP than with what is best for Scotland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) —a more urban constituency could not be found—was Chair of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs when it produced its report on poverty, which acknowledged that there were problems
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with employment, farming, transport and benefit take-up. The report also said that Scotland had many natural assets, including the wonderful environment. Some hon. Members have claimed that theirs is the most beautiful constituency in Scotland. I beg to differ; hon. Members should come to see mine. We must maximise such assets, and not talk Scotland down or minimise the opportunities that we have.
The Scottish Executive, as the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire mentioned, produced a report on rural poverty and inclusion, which was honest about the problems with access to services, transport and visibility in rural areas. People in rural areas notice those who are poor much more than those in urban areas do. There is a culture of self-reliance in rural areas. We recognise those problems. We are not complacent about them, and we are tackling them.
The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), of all people, had a bare-faced cheek to raise the question of unemployment. He should think back to 1986, when unemployment in Scotland was at 331,000. I do not know whether that was when he crashed in Galloway, but if it was, I can understand why. Unemployment was at 12.9 per cent. It is now less than a third of that figure, and we are taking measures to bring it down further.
In the constituency of the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, unemployment, at 4.9 per cent., is a little greater than the national average, but we have helped. Some 961 people have benefited from the new deal, and 512 of them—people who would not be in work if it had not been for Government measures—have received jobs. Unemployment among 25 to 49-year-olds in Dumfries and Galloway has fallen by 14 per cent. in the past year.
Mr. Peter Duncan: It is worth restating the excellent point made by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood). He said that many of the unemployed never appear in unemployment statistics, because if a person does not have a job in Ballantrae, never mind Traigh Mhor, he or she moves. That is the problem.
Mr. Foulkes: The unemployment level is low throughout Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom, so such people have found jobs, even if they have gone to Edinburgh to get those jobs. It is not the end of the world to move to Edinburgh to find employment. In his balanced speech, the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire acknowledged what the Scotland Office is doing for cashmere, and we could now add Harris tweed to that. We also provided much help during the banana wars, but I shall explain more about that on another occasion.
It is not only unemployment that is the problem. People who are in employment must be paid properly. The national minimum wage, which is so derided by Conservative Members, has made a huge difference to poverty in Scotland, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) said. More than 135,000 people have benefited from it. It is particularly helpful in rural areas where there has been a tradition of low pay, and to women, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sandra Osborne) knows.
My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber outlined the actions of the rural transport fund. It has assisted 33 filling stations in the

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highlands, the importance of which has been recognised. During the next three years, the Executive are to spend an extra £60 million on transport in the highlands and islands. That includes £13 million for Caledonian MacBrayne, £21 million for Highlands and Islands Airport Ltd., almost £20 million for piers and harbours and £1.5 million for lifeline air services. That is evidence not of neglect, but of understanding the problems and tackling them. I am sorry that my friend, Sarah Boyack, is no longer the Scottish Minister with responsibility for transport. She did a great deal for rural areas in the highlands and islands. When I was with her in Orkney, she was one of the most popular Ministers I have ever known.
The hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale and I have crossed swords on the Floor of the House about post offices. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield had the cheek to raise the matter of post offices but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber said, 3,500 closed when the Tories were in power. We have placed a formal requirement on the Post Office to maintain the rural network and to stop avoidable closures. That will apply until 2006 in the first instance. We have invested £480 million to modernise the network and the spending review for 2000 included further provision for ring-fenced funding of £270 million.
I have taken a particular interest in the constituency of the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, as well as my own. I told him that no post offices had closed in my constituency. Two have closed recently at Kipford and Dunragged in his constituency: one person who was the manager became ill, while the other person gave it up. The job in Dun ragged has been advertised and interest has been expressed in it. I hope that the post office will reopen.
The Government have a fund to help rural post offices to reopen. I take an interest in such matters as a Minister as well as a Member of Parliament. Others can take a personal interest in their constituencies and find people to take over post offices. Rural post offices provide good job opportunities. I advise the hon. Gentleman and others to take up the issue. It will help them to get re-elected, too, which is not unimportant.
It is worth tackling issues such as transport and the future of the post office network, but we must recognise the need to tackle poverty suffered by individuals. Supporting businesses and supporting individuals go hand in hand. The Scottish Executive have established 48 social inclusion partnerships, including those in Argyll and Bute, the east Ayrshire coalfields, the highlands and islands, Moray and the Scottish Borders. Lots of money is coming in to help rural areas. I was pleased to find out yesterday that nearly £8 million in health compensation has gone to ex-miners and widows in my constituency, although it is not as much as has gone to yours, Mr. Illsley.
Another significant issue for rural areas is the take-up of benefits and tax credits. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber referred to help lines and take-up lines. We are encouraging people to use them, so that they can access information and ask for forms to be sent to them. We are improving the position with new information and communications technology. Ukonline will make it possible to claim benefits through the computer as well to register births
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and to apply for passports. Such new technology will be especially important to rural areas. Thirty-three per cent. of rural households have access to the internet at home and the Government are committed to having all public services delivered electronically by 2005 where that is feasible. That will be of great value to rural areas. Even people my age can understand how to use modern technology. By modernising the Government's funds, a number of pilot schemes—including six in rural Scotland—have been supported. We recognise the problems. We are not ignoring them or being complacent. We are tackling them.
I went to Dumfries and saw the work being done by all the agencies to tackle foot and mouth disease. The co-operation was fantastic. I was really impressed and congratulated everyone involved. We have tackled foot and mouth and are providing many resources for the constituency of the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale and the neighbouring constituency of Dumfries. We gave £13.5 million in hardship relief and £7 million for interim support of the worst affected areas. On 2 August, we gave £10 million for long-term recovery, particularly of agriculture and tourism.
We did not start foot and mouth disease. Listening to some Conservative Members, one would think that we caused it. We tackled it a great deal better than the Conservative Government tackled bovine spongiform encephalopathy. I agree with the hon. Member for North Tayside that we are still suffering the legacy of BSE.
Mr. Grieve: The Minister is so satisfied with the way in which the Government have handled the foot and mouth outbreak, but why have they refused to have a public inquiry into its handling, resorting instead to a series of inquiries where the evidence will not be heard in public?
Mr. Foulkes: We have had not one inquiry, but three, because we are concerned about the matter. We are working to ensure that the farmers' products are exported. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield spoke of the importance of farming. It is vital for farmers to be in operation, but they need markets to sell their goods. I am pleased that, after much work, we have successfully negotiated our way back into the European market. The whole of Scotland can now export pig meat, sheep meat and beef, subject to the requirements, which I am aware are stringent, of the date-based export scheme. There is hope for the future.
I find this type of debate strange. Where were the hon. Members for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale and for Beaconsfield between 1979 and 1997? Were they asleep? Have they woken suddenly, to discover those problems? Do they not remember the huge increase in rural unemployment— the biggest cause of poverty—that we suffered under 18 years of the Tories? In my constituency and that of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, 5,000 people were thrown on to the scrap heap because of pits closed by Thatcher and her cronies. Also 3,500 post offices were closed.
I say to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, a home affairs spokesman who is allegedly interested in crime, that crime doubled under the Tories. Conviction rates fell. Now we are tackling the common agricultural

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policy. The Conservatives made no effort to tackle that. When they were in office, this country spent less on rural development than any other European Union country, except for Spain and Greece. They managed the BSE crisis hopelessly. They created a decline in the number of affordable rural homes for local people. Public transport in Scotland was underfunded, and deregulation devastated bus services. That is still causing havoc in my constituency, and no doubt in Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, too. The Conservatives voted against us, rejecting a national minimum wage. People should be careful.
It seems unlikely, especially to me and you, Mr. Illsley, that there will ever be a Tory Government again. There is, however, an outside chance, and if that were to happen, rural Scotland would again suffer badly. I have not spoken about fuel, but the present Government are taking measures to provide cheaper fuel and cheaper motoring in rural areas. They support public transport.
If the Tories were to be re-elected, they would, instead of dealing with such issues, slash extra funding for rural schools, cut funding for rural police, and axe school transport for rural areas. There would be increased rural unemployment and poverty. Food safety would be put at risk and farmers would be affected. That is why the people of Scotland, including people in the rural areas of Scotland, will continue to return Labour Members of Parliament.

Construction Industry (Self-Employment)
11 am
Mr. Michael Clapham: I shall first declare an interest, as I am a member of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians. I want to make four points. First, I want to explain what false self-employment is, and look at its extent in the construction industry. Secondly, I want to look at the reasons why the system has become institutionalised in construction. Thirdly, I want to look briefly at the cost of self-employment to the industry and society. Finally, I want to suggest a way in which the problem could be remedied.
False self-employment describes work situations in which workers are classified as self-employed primarily in order to reduce their tax liabilities. That is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development definition. False self-employment is endemic throughout the UK construction industry. It has cost UK taxpayers tens of billions of pounds during the past 30 years, and has been a major contributory factor in many of the construction industry's problems. The rise in atypical work patterns such as self-employment is often attributed to new patterns or new methods of work. However, the experience of the UK construction industry shows that false self-employment was encouraged by employers and then became institutionalised by changes introduced by various Governments.
The current situation is unique—a system is in operation in construction in which self-employed workers have their tax deducted at source. There has always been a great deal of legitimate self-employment on building sites. My argument is not against genuine self-employment. There will always be a place for genuine self-employed businesses in the construction industry. However, evidence clearly shows that the level of self-employment in the UK construction industry is out of step with that in comparable countries. That statistic comes from work over the past few years by an academic called Mark Harvey.
In Europe, self-employment in construction ranges between 6 and 10 per cent. In the USA, it ranges between 17 and 19 per cent. In Korea, a developing country with almost total deregulation of its labour markets, the self-employed constitute only 7 per cent. of those employed. In the UK, by comparison, self-employment in construction reached a peak of 45 per cent. around 1995. For manual workers alone, the figure rose to nearly two thirds of the total labour force in construction. Even today, self-employed manual workers make up half of the labour force. That is despite the tightening of the tax system by the Inland Revenue in 1997.
The boom in false self-employment started in the 1960s with the growth in tax evasion. To counteract the growing influence of trade unions following a series of disputes in London, employers encouraged a shift out of the standard form of employment. It is estimated that the total number of self-employed workers in the industry grew during that period from about 200,000 to 400,000.
In 1970, the Government introduced legislation to try to cut tax evasion in construction by creating two categories of self-employed. The first category was the

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independent self-employed business for those who could demonstrate a business case. The second was the dependent self-employed who had tax deducted at source by the contractor or subcontractor for whom they worked. Despite the tax legislation that was introduced from 1970, tax fraud and tax avoidance remained rife within the industry. However, under the Conservative Government in the 1980s, false self-employment became the dominant form of labour organisation on most sites. As part of the liberalisation of labour markets, that Government accepted that workers were self-employed for national insurance purposes if they could produce a self-employed tax-exemption certificate 714 or a subcontract certificate 60. That important change meant that self-employment became a matter of self-declaration. Over the next 15 years, the switch from direct employment to self-employment grew alarmingly.
The policy continued until it became unsustainable in the mid-1990s. The United Kingdom economy was in deep recession and a number of employers were nervous about potential liabilities for backdated tax and national insurance payments. Therefore, the Inland Revenue reinstated the self-employment test. Contractors were given until 1997 to classify their work force correctly. That resulted in between 180,000 and 250,000 construction workers switching from self-employment to direct or payroll employment.
In 1999, the tax system was further tightened with new tests for tax-exemption certificates and the introduction of a card system for businesses and the self-employed. Since the introduction of that system, around 1,063,700 cards have been issued.
Such changes unwittingly reinforced the existing system and did little to tackle the underlying problem of false self-employment. Consequently, the swing to direct labour has come to a halt. A recent survey by the Government-sponsored Construction Industry Training Board suggested that there has been a reversal back toward self-employment.
It is not easy to estimate the current level of false self-employment. Union regional officers, industry leaders, main agency organisations and several companies gave evidence to a union investigation of the widespread use of false self-employment. The managing contractor of the channel tunnel rail link. Bectel, accepted that at least 25 per cent. of the labour force on the project was employed on a self-employed card with tax deducted at source. A later survey by regional officers of UCATT at 88 sites that were managed by the largest contractors in Great Britain found that 55 sites had over 50 per cent. of workers self-employed, and that 33 sites had 80 per cent. self-employed. That provides evidence of the continuing dominance of self-employed labour on building sites.
In an effort to bottom the size of the problem, the union undertook a further survey of false employment, which resulted in a more detailed analysis. A 1999 survey of 10 major contractors by Mark Harvey showed that 85 per cent. of the total work force was self-employed. Following detailed interviews with subcontractors, operatives and an examination of documentary evidence, the survey concluded that at least 80 per cent. of the self-employed were falsely self-employed in accordance with the definition that I gave. From that survey, it can reasonably be assumed that the vast majority of the self-employed in construction are
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falsely self-employed. Based on the current average level of self-employment in the industry, the union estimates that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 falsely self-employed workers in construction, and that they are costing the UK taxpayer at least £2 billion per year.
The incentives that are built into the present tax system are a crucial factor in sustaining the current level of false self-employment. For example, the deductions for a self-employed worker are as follows: an 18 per cent. deduction at source for tax; a 7 per cent. national insurance contribution, based on profits; and a class 2 national insurance deduction of just £2 per week. That compares with an employee or payroll worker's deduction of 22 per cent. for income tax, and a 10 per cent. national insurance contribution. That illustrates the difference between the two classes of workers. The ability to use the tax system in that way allows workers who are self-employed for tax purposes to boost their average level of earnings, making self-employment an attractive option for building operatives, even during a recession.
Contractors have been the main beneficiaries of the scheme. They have used falsely self-employed workers, rather than payroll labour, to avoid paying an 11.9 per cent. employees' national insurance contribution, as well as other costs such as training, welfare and safety. Instead, those costs and responsibilities are dumped directly on to the falsely self-employed, and they fall indirectly on to the rest of society, as construction workers who leave the industry due to illness or injury become reliant on state benefits.
The long-term impact of false self-employment on the construction industry is clearly visible on every building site. Construction has one of the worst safety records of any industry. For example, in 2000, there were 105 fatalities, and it is estimated that, over the past 10 years, almost 1,000 workers have been killed on construction sites. Despite those shocking statistics, it is estimated that only one in 20 construction accidents involving the self-employed is recorded. Responsibility for the health and safety of workers has been shifted by the contractors and subcontractors on to those in the most vulnerable positions.
With regard to the training of construction workers, damage has been done because of the industry's reliance on falsely self-employed labour. The major contractors reduced apprenticeships and training opportunities during the 1980s. After the recession of the early-1990s, the industry lost a generation of building workers. Over the past five years, the industry has picked up, but there is currently a huge skills shortage in all of the main trades. That has made efforts by the industry to improve training and safety standards more difficult than they would otherwise have been.
I have tried to show that the problem of self-employment in the British construction industry is as deeply ingrained as ever—I have mentioned that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 falsely self-employed workers in the industry. The recent changes in the construction industry tax scheme have reinforced a flawed system.
The shortcomings in current arrangements have been graphically highlighted by the transposition of the working time directive into UK law. For the first time, hundreds of thousands of building workers became

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entitled to paid holidays. Building operatives who were self-employed for tax purposes were classified as "workers" under the working time directive, which helped to show the false nature of the construction industry tax system. Many operatives have won their cases in tribunals following action by the union.
The current confusion in the UK's construction industry could be resolved by the abolition of the special self-employed category that allows tax to be deducted at source. When the Minister replies, I hope that she will indicate that she is prepared to review the situation. Abolition of that category would have to be accompanied by rigid enforcement of compliance rules to ensure that those who were classified as self-employed were involved with genuine businesses. That would tackle the immediate problem, but in the long term there would need to be further work across Departments to deal with the confusion that surrounds employment status in the UK.
Employment status classification has become confused because of its reliance on case law. Case law judgments are based not on broad principles, but the facts of each case. A discriminating factor established by one case does not erase discriminating factors established in previous cases. The result is that test cases used in case law conflict with each other, and no test or set of factors is decisive in establishing employment status. The confusion has been worsened by the addition of the concept of the worker, which has extended employment protection to people who could be described as dependent self-employed.
A further element of confusion in the UK legal system relates to the differences between legal and taxation status. Employment law is generally concerned with employment protection and the safeguards afforded by that, whereas taxation law is primarily concerned with the relationship between the taxpayer and the state. The same person can take several different status classifications depending on which legislation or regulation is being applied. That confusion has been compounded in the construction industry by the development of a unique tax system that allows self-employed operatives to have their tax deducted at source by a contractor or subcontractor. In my view, that institutionalises mass self-employment, a great deal of which is bogus or false.
The Government are planning a review to assess the impact of employment status on statutory employment rights, and perhaps the Minister can enlighten us on that. Presumably that has come about because of the introduction of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Employment Relations Act 1999, which defined the status of the worker.
The problem of false self-employment must be tackled by harmonising employment status classification across employment law, common law and taxation classification. That would separate genuine and false self-employed businesses. It would be an extensive exercise, and it would require work across the Department of Trade and Industry and the Treasury. If tackled in that way, the self-employment test would become a display of economic independence.
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By clarifying the issue of self-employment, the way would be clear to define employment contracts that have a dependent relationship with an employer, contractor or subcontractor. Harmonisation of employment status classification should be accompanied by an extension of employment and social resources rights for workers whose current employment status falls into a grey area. Again, many in the construction industry are in that situation.
False self-employment has undermined the British construction industry for the past 30 years. Rather than tackling the problem, the Government have unwittingly institutionalised mass self-employment by creating a tax system that is unique to the construction industry. Major employers rely on that system to supply building site labour, and as is clear to anyone who studies the industry's history of the past 10 years, the consequences for the work force and the industry have been disastrous.
False self-employment has led to fragmentation of the industry, a skills shortage and an appalling level of accidents. The industry would support change, and I hope that the Minister will say that she is prepared to review the tax system as it applies to the construction industry.
11.21 am
Mr. Stephen Hepburn: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on securing this debate on the construction industry in general, bogus self-employment in particular and related issues, such as health and safety and low pay. I should declare an interest, in that I, too, have been a member of the Union of Construction Allied Trades and Technicians for many years.
Past debates have concentrated on employers and how to improve, and engender greater wealth in, the industry. There has been little discussion of how the industry affects its workers and, in that sense, today's debate is unique. For that reason, I emphasise my congratulations to my hon. Friend.
Construction is an important industry, and it is only right that workers receive some of the benefits that they generate through the profits that they make for their companies. It is also a particularly wealthy industry, with a turnover of £65 billion a year. The industry employs some 7 per cent. of the national work force; almost 1.5 million people. It is also playing a vital role in delivering the Government's modernisation agenda by improving the quality of housing and other buildings such as schools, universities and colleges. The Government were elected on the promise to modernise society—a promise that included modernising the buildings and fabric of society—and I see no reason why we should neglect the workers in that regard. We should modernise the terms and conditions of those in the construction industry in particular.
As we know, despite its importance, the construction industry has one of the worst health and safety records of any industry, and in large part that can be attributed to bogus self-employment. Every year, there are many thousands of serious accidents and many deaths. In the past decade alone, there were almost 1,000 deaths in the construction industry. Last year, the death rate was the

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highest in more than a decade. Some 106 people were killed simply doing an honest day's work, leaving behind their families and loved ones. Surely we should be doing something about that.
Those figures, however, do not take into account industrial diseases. We could mention asbestos disease, which kills some 4,000 people a year, many of whom are building workers. One of my lingering memories as a branch official in Jarrow is of trying to get compensation for a man with asbestosis, who had worked for many years on his building site, before he died so that he could rest in peace knowing that his family were taken care of. He had worked all his life in a hard industry and contracted the disease, and nothing could be done except to make sure that his family did not suffer.
The construction industry has a tarnished reputation, in part due to cowboy builders, who are rife throughout an industry that also has many good builders. Unfortunately, the image that people get is the old one of "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" from the television. If anyone in the street were asked for their image of the construction industry, they would describe long hours, dirty and dangerous conditions and outdoor, hard, physical work. I have some knowledge of that, because I was branch president of the Jarrow branch for more than 12 years. Changes need to be made, not least to the terms of self-employment, if we are to get improvements in working conditions and in efficiency for employers in the industry.
That is not to decry the Government. They can take a lead in bringing about such changes, and have delivered on that to a certain extent. They brought about the Egan report, under the Deputy Prime Minister. It was a good report on the construction industry, but we need to go further and give that report power. The Government are the powerhouse behind the construction industry. More than half the value of the industry and capital works in the country is generated by the Government. They pay the piper, so they can call the tune. I do not see why the Government cannot enact changes to the industry to benefit the workers.
One such change would be a law on corporate manslaughter, which is critical. That is not the subject of debate today, but it is very relevant to the construction industry because of deaths on building sites. Self-employment must also be looked at. Private builders encourage it, and bogus self-employment accounts for more than 300,000 workers in the industry at present. That practice not only deprives workers of the conditions and pay that they need, but deprives the Chancellor of the Exchequer of more than £1.5 billion in receipts. I believe, and many construction workers agree, that that would be better put to improving hospitals and schools.
By encouraging that self-employment, the industry encourages an environment of low skills, low wages, low productivity and poor health and safety. A typical example, in the north, has come to light following the transfer of Beazer Homes to Persimmon Homes, making the largest house-builder group in the country. Those homes are traditionally built by direct labour, and Persimmon Homes encourages self-employment. Since the takeover, UCATT has been involved in a protracted tribunal case to protect the rights of those directly employed, under the TUPE regulations.
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UCATT believes that Persimmon Homes intends to move the labour force from pay-as-you-earn to self-employment and subcontract labour. Persimmon Homes' intentions are highlighted by a checklist sent out by the company in the north-west to comply with the current regulations governing self-employment. It has 16 points of advice, and I will mention the main ones: employees must not be given holiday pay or sick pay; they must rectify defective work at their own cost; no minimum amount of work is to be guaranteed. The list goes on. Many workers have no choice. They either sign away their rights and become self-employed or they do not work at all. In the current environment, obviously, people will choose work because they need to provide for their families.
The checklist has been drafted to ensure that the contract employs the cheapest, and not the most efficient, form of labour. That denies workers their employment rights. It is a scandal and a disgrace. Is it right that a private employer should deprive workers of their basic rights of employment and trade union representation? Such rights are discouraged by self-employment. Is it right that a private business that makes millions and millions pounds of profit should deprive the Exchequer of money that is robbed from the taxpayers?
Other issues surround bogus self-employment in the construction industry. We need to ensure that the industry offers young people careers that are worth taking up. They should be careers of dignity and not the bogus self-employment offered by cowboy builders. That ideal was espoused by the Egan report, but it has sadly been lost since. None the less, the report is valid to this day. We need to encourage younger people to enter the industry and we shall not do that by encouraging self-employment. Ten years ago, more than a third of the work force were under 30. Now we find that less than a quarter are under 30.
Although I appreciate and support the aims of Government legislation for trade union reform, I remain firmly of the view that certain industries need to have compulsory trade unions if we are to tackle the problems that we face today. The mining industry, in which my hon. Friend was involved for many years, is one such industry and, given its health and safety record, so is the construction industry. That is a radical approach—perhaps too radical for the Government—but it should be considered.
At the very least, the Economic Secretary should address the issue of contract compliance. Surely, as a minimum standard, we should expect contract compliance to be part of all Government procurements. Sadly, however, that does not happen at present. How on earth will the Government be able to give a lead to the argument that working conditions should be correct if we do not maintain minimum standards in our own contracts? We have that power through the strength of procurement—more than half the capital projects in this country are Government led—and through our ability to impose contract compliance. We should use that power because, if we do not, the private sector will not. What sort of example will that set the private sector? If the Government do not maintain such standards, why on earth should the private sector?

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I congratulate my hon. Friend once again on instigating the debate at such a crucial time for the industry. As far as the Government are concerned, capital expenditure will double in the next few years and it is crucial that reforms are implemented so that we have a modern construction industry that is geared not only to improving the profits of employers—I have no problem with that—but to ensuring that the workers receive the rightful fruits of the industry in which they work. As well as receiving their rightful fruits, they should be able to work safely and to return home safe and sound to their families at the end of the day. Surely, that is the very minimum. We look to the Government to provide the lead and the direction.
11.33 am
Mr. Ian Davidson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on securing this debate. It is an important issue that has been neglected for far too long. I also congratulate UCATT and the Institute of Employment Rights on producing the report, "Undermining Construction", which has provided many of the case studies that support the arguments that we are advancing. If the Economic Secretary does not have a copy of the report, I am perfectly prepared to ensure that she receives one that has been autographed by the author and everyone else who attended the press launch. The launch went down extremely well and everyone who was present now expects her to take account of the evidence and to do something about it.
I do not have a direct interest in the building industry or in UCATT, but I want the Government to be able to spend the capital moneys that they have allocated to construction project on schemes in my area. I recognise that skills shortages are likely to cripple part of that programme and to result in an escalation of costs. That means that the Government will not receive value for money on many of their projects.
One of the reasons for that problem is the scams and the fraud that make up the construction industry's taxation system. It has already been said that the estimated tax loss to the Government resulting from fraudulent self-employment is £1.5 billion to £2 billion. I find it difficult to understand why the Government are prepared to turn a blind eye to that.
Like my hon. Friends, I am aware that there is a clear correlation between the high rate of self-employment and the rate of accidents and injuries in the construction industry. It is clear from the statistics that have already been outlined that one in two accidents in the employed category are reported, but that only one in 20 are reported by the self-employed. They face deadlines and are under pressure that reputable firms often do not place on their employed staff. Those deadlines and that pressure clearly result in an explosion of accidents and deaths in the industry. It has about the worst safety record in the United Kingdom.
I am sure that the Economic Secretary will explore that issue. However, when she does, she could ask her staff to examine why the rate of fatalities in the construction industry in Scotland is approximately twice that in England and Wales. The rate for major
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accidents in Scotland is one and a quarter times that in England and Wales, and that means that certain issues must be explored. The rate for minor accidents in Scotland is one and half times that in England and Wales. The different rates are partly the result of climate but another factor is the way in which employers behave under the self-employment structure.
The increasing lack of trained staff in the construction industry flows directly from the existing tax arrangements. Employers have no direct interest in training for the future when a high proportion of their staff are self-employed and are likely—indeed, encouraged—to move on. There is a regular pattern according to which good employers are forced to cut costs, to economise and to move towards the practice of the worst; otherwise they will carry overheads that cannot be sustained in a competitive environment. Allowing some firms to get away with malpractice, as the Government are doing, has knock-on effects on everyone else in the industry.
We are creating enormous difficulties for ourselves in the future not only in terms of the shortage of trained staff that is already evident throughout the industry, but in terms of the lack of pension provision made by many of the self-employed and employers. In years to come, a substantial proportion of the work force will have built up no occupational pension whatever and they will end up falling back on the state for support and succour. As I understand it. that is not the intention of the Government's general policy, but it is another reason why they should examine the issue closely.
As my colleagues have said, employers encourage as high a proportion as possible of their staff to become self-employed for reasons of profit. By cutting overheads, they are able to drive out direct labour organisations and many of the better and more socially responsible firms. They are also able to save on training costs and other elements of expenditure. I find it impossible to understand why the Government, by their inactivity, are prepared to condone that. I can only presume it is a hangover from the days when the major players in the construction industry had substantial political clout with previous Conservative Governments. However, I cannot understand why a Labour Government—even a new Labour Government—continue to allow employers to get away literally and not just figuratively with fraud and murder.
I want the Economic Secretary to clarify the Government's view of some of the allegations made in the "Undermining Construction" report about the Inland Revenue's lackadaisical approach to the problem. From what is alleged in the report, it appears that the Inland Revenue has been co-conspirator with the industry in tax and national insurance fraud. I want her to clarify why she is prepared to allow that to go on. It is clear from the report what has been happening and we are entitled to receive a response. It seems to me, as a simple outsider to the industry, that the Government appear almost to be in the industry's pocket. I cannot understand why that is the case.
As I said before, the Government's inactivity condones malpractice, which results in fraud, death and injury on building sites, and leads to a skills shortage. I recognise that the Economic Secretary is an impeccably new Labour Minister, but I understand that she is not the worst—[Interruption.] I am being contradicted:

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perhaps she is among the worst. Although I am not as close to new Labour as some of my colleagues, I do not think that it condones tax fraud, insurance scams, a higher rate of construction accidents or the removal of pressures to train within the industry.
I am sure, as are my colleagues, that the Economic Secretary will have the answers and will send us away happy in the knowledge that for the first time she will take serious action to deal with the problems in the construction industry, which will be resolved quickly at her behest.
11.41 am
Dr. Vincent Cable: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on securing the debate and on receiving such able support from the hon. Members for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) and for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Davidson). I see the problem as being specialised, especially the tax arrangements, and do not claim to be an expert. My attendance has as much to do with being educated as with pontificating on the answers, and I learned much from listening to the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone.
I have tried to get a perspective on the dimensions of the problem. The construction industry employs about 2 million people. That is a mid-winter estimate, so the figure is probably larger in the summer. Official figures suggest that almost a third are self-employed, and the hon. Gentleman estimates that half of those are falsely self-employed. That gives us an idea of the magnitude of the industry.
My difficulty in talking in general about the construction industry is that it is not only very large—it makes up more than 5 per cent. of the British economy—but very complicated. It varies a great deal. On the one hand are the big multinational companies—the Balfour Beattys of this world—that are involved in dam and road projects all over the world and exposed to international standards; on the other are the majority of companies that are employed for house extensions or to do jobbing work for local council repairs and so on. Trying to encompass all those businesses within the circle of the construction industry is inherently difficult. The industry also covers specialised and proudly guarded craft traditions in, for example, plumbing and electrical work, which have different professional groups and different standards of training. They all form part of the big pot called the construction industry.
Although hon. Members focused on the tax issues, it was interesting to hear them put it in the context of the wider problem. A couple of years ago the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions set up a cowboy builders working party to address some of the problems that have been described, and it is recognised that the tax problem is part of a bigger picture. A substantial number of operators in the industry are not just evading taxes, neglecting their work force and ignoring training and safety, but giving consumers a bad deal. In our private lives we have all experienced the guys who knock on the front door and, for example, try to persuade us that our drives need asphalting, or the people who embark on a house extension and mysteriously disappear halfway through. The problem is rampant throughout the industry, so there is a consumer protection issue as well as a worker protection issue to consider, both of which are valid.
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I am not entirely sure that the same companies are responsible for all the failings, but the industry clearly has poor standards at the bottom of it. We need to consider how to address those standards properly. The hon. Gentleman has suggested doing that through the tax regime. I am not enough of an expert on the details of taxation to know whether that is the right way to proceed, and I wonder whether it is feasible. The first problem is how easy it is in practice to separate self-employment and employment in tax terms. The Inland Revenue cannot operate on a discretionary basis; it needs rules. There has to be, therefore, a test of control. I think the hon. Gentleman used the word "dependency".
Mr. Clapham: There are two categories of self-employed: the independent and the dependent. The independent self-employed tend to be employed by a contractor or subcontractor. The unique feature about the industry is that tax is deducted at source from the so-called dependent self-employed. The tests that have recently been implemented—the SC4 for the dependents—also involve cards, of which 1,063,000 have been issued. The problem is rife throughout the industry and it comes back to the tax system and bogus self-employment.
Dr. Cable: I understand that we are discussing a unique situation and that tax tests have been devised to deal with the construction industry. I am trying to understand how in practice we determine the people who are falsely registered. To do that, we need to get at their motives and consider whether they are trying to evade the system or are genuinely self-employed.
The Treasury is still struggling with an analogous problem that arose a couple of years ago with IR35, which relates to other industries such as computer software. It appears that there is genuine doubt about whether people are engaged in self-employment to fiddle the tax system or because the nature of the employment is such that they have opted to be self-employed. I do not know whether the Treasury is confident that it can make a distinction with confidence.
On the tax side, we have to consider how easy it is to enforce tax arrangements even if we can make the distinction. The enforcement of value added tax was tightened in the construction industry a couple of years ago. Construction companies explained to me that they were having to chase around the country to collect pieces of paper in person to demonstrate that they were not falsifying VAT. It got to the stage at which the industry was not able to function properly. We have to work out how to disentangle companies' motives and how easy it is to enforce the arrangements without being too counterproductive. I have an open mind and I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman's concerns can be met, his suggestion to use the tax regime would be the best way to proceed.
The hon. Member for Jarrow suggested compulsory unionisation as part of the picture, but perhaps there is another solution. As I said, I am not an expert on the construction industry, but I know that Australia has a different approach, which operates rather like the old system of guilds. To operate legally within the construction industry a company or individual has to be the equivalent of an acknowledged member of the

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Federation of Master Builders. In order to be legally registered, some tests have to be passed. Employers or self-employed people who do building work have to demonstrate that they have the right qualifications and right training commitment to their employees. They also have to demonstrate that they are observing basic safety standards and obligations to the consumers, to whom they give an indemnity that they will not simply walk off the site. Part of the package is to ensure that they are properly attributed for tax purposes.
The Australian system is tough. It is illegal to operate as a builder unless someone is part of the federation. That may be too extreme for the UK situation, but from what the hon. Gentleman said there may be a half-way house whereby a test such as that in Australia must be satisfied by anybody who is bidding for public sector contracts, which I believe account for about 40 per cent. of all new work and only slightly less of all repair work. Companies that bid for public sector work should satisfy that Australian test. I have discussed the matter with people in the industry. The good companies are as embarrassed by bad practice as is everyone else and would like to encourage such an approach.
There is an analogy with the medical profession. It has been recommended that the building industry should operate like the British Medical Association, which gets its own house in order and sets its own standards, but has legal backing. Perhaps the medical profession is not quite as reputable as it was, but it may be a model worth considering as an alternative way of dealing with the problem.
My final query is to the Treasury Minister, who I am delighted to see here. I had thought that this was an issue for the Department of Trade and Industry, and I had not appreciated the balance between the tax and the non-tax concerns. It would be useful to know whether the Treasury is working with Departments in examining this industry in a holistic way. This is not just an issue of tax evasion. There is a bigger picture in terms of standards of labour practice and consumer protection. How will those elements be integrated?
11.51 am
Mr. Christopher Chope: I join everyone in congratulating the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on introducing the debate. He and his two Labour party colleagues have poured scorn on much of the Government's policy on the construction industry, and I am sure that the Minister will try her best to respond.
Mr. Clapham: Neither I nor my colleagues have poured scorn on the Government's policy. We have drawn attention to a problem that this Government began to tackle in 1997. The real problem was caused in the 18 years of the Conservative Government, who allowed a total liberalisation of the labour market in construction.
Mr. Chope: I have given the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to get back on track with his Whips and to turn his attack on the Conservative Government. But he must face the reality, which he and some of his
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colleagues mentioned, that the most important issue in construction is that of health and safety. The increase in the number of fatalities in the construction industry over the past year, to its highest level for 10 years, is appalling. It is remiss of him and his colleagues to blame that increase in fatalities on self-employment. During those 10 years, the number of self-employed people in construction has declined. One could argue—although I do not do so today—that the decline in self-employment in construction has led to the enormous increase in fatalities.
The construction industry is six times more dangerous than any other industry. To have 105 fatalities in one year—an average of two per week—is unacceptable. I had expected the hon. Gentleman, knowing that a Treasury Minister was to respond to the debate, to refer to the useful report provided to most hon. Members by Prospect, the professional engineering union. The report draws attention to the way in which the Health and Safety Executive has got its priorities wrong by reducing the number of inspectors dealing with construction and increasing the number dealing with railway safety. The real problem with deaths and injuries is in the construction industry, not the railway industry. I hope that when the Minister responds she will comment on that useful report from Prospect.
The debate is also coloured by the hon. Gentleman's membership of UCATT. The hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) is not just a member of UCATT, but an active participant in its conferences, paid for and all the rest. UCATT is a major sponsor of the Labour party. I have been in politics for the best part of the 30 years to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and I did not recognise the picture that he painted of the blameless, responsible, enthusiastic worker in the construction industry, which was heavily unionised under UCATT and unable to deliver good-quality services to the purchasing public, whether in the public or private sector. I recall, as I am sure does the hon. Gentleman, the construction of the three towers in Marsham street. Was not the work on that site stopped for three or five years, blacked by UCATT? That trade union ruined our building industry by allowing restrictive practices and totally unacceptable labour practices to prevail.
When I was a member of Wandsworth council, there was a major housing development at Kambala carried out by the direct works organisation under a Labour council. That housing estate was delayed for a long time, the costs escalated, and it was all about UCATT defending its employees' jobs irrespective of the wider public interest. Today we have heard comments about the interests of UCATT, which wishes to retain high union membership, rather than the interests of the wider building industry, which is such an important part of our national economy.
Mr. Clapham: The hon. Gentleman has been generous in giving way. During the 1960s, when the towers were being built, UCATT was trying to ensure protection for the people who worked there.
The hon. Gentleman says that he does not believe that self-employment was the cause of so many accidents in the industry. On a building site with 500 workers, that can mean 500 separate contracts. Co-ordinating those contracts and bringing the people together in a

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harmonious setting that is conducive to the job being completed is nearly impossible. It leads to unaccountability, and that is what causes accidents.
Mr. Chope: I am interested that the hon. Gentleman has not taken the opportunity to endorse the comments in the Prospect report that, in its view, one reason why the construction industry fatality rate has increased so much is the misdirection of resources by the Health and Safety Executive—arguably because the Treasury has starved it of funds. The report makes no reference to the fact that self-employment may be the cause of the appalling safety record in the industry.
The hon. Gentleman wants the self-employed to be the scapegoats for everything that has gone wrong in the construction industry. Let us consider, however, the benefits that come from self-employed people and the flexibility that they bring. The rules were tightened so that all self-employed people who work in construction have their pay deducted at source. That is different from most self-employed businesses. When the Labour Government came to office, they identified a reasonable level for deduction at source as 23 per cent. That was obviously far too high, and we welcome the much more realistic deduction level of 18 per cent. The hon. Gentleman seems to think that even that is far too high. If all the resources of a person or firm have to be expended in tax rather than invested in training, tools and equipment, it is counter-productive.
I hope that the Minister will respond to a practical point that has come to my notice. A constituent of mine came to see me last weekend. He has been made redundant three times in successive years in the telecommunications industry and has decided to become a plumber. He is paying for his own training to be a plumber, and travelling to Eastleigh technical college. He has been told that he is not allowed to set the cost of that training against the income that he received in this tax year before he was made redundant as an employee of Marconi. He has been told that only after he has qualified as a plumber will he be able to set the cost of his training against income earned from that trade.
My constituent is doing things the responsible way—trying to train as a plumber before offering his services in the marketplace. There are far too many cowboy operators who train on the job, in so far as they ever train, and as a result cause mayhem for many people who employ small builders in the belief that they will get a good job done, only to find that they do not. There is something structurally wrong with our tax system if somebody such as my constituent, who wishes to retrain as a plumber, finds that he must bear the costs of doing so without any tax relief. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that point.
The Government have been engaged in an exercise of "initiative-itis". There have been many initiatives but not much delivery. After the Government took office, we had the Egan report, the combating cowboy builders report and the cowboy builders working group, which reported in 1999. There was then a gap of almost two years, during which people wondered what would happen about the problems of cowboy builders. On 5 July, the Government launched the quality mark scheme, which has been piloted. The idea is that it places
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the names of builders and tradesmen who reach the required standard on a register, which can be assessed free of charge via a low-cost telephone number. Of course, builders are charged a registration fee.
Interestingly, the Financial Times, commenting on the launch of the scheme, said:
"The government's long-delayed scheme to put cowboy builders out of business will be launched in Birmingham today with only a fraction of the number of reputable builders originally envisaged signed up.
About 60 builders are understood to have been approved for the quality mark scheme in Birmingham—with a further 40-plus in Somerset—which will be unveiled next week."
The Government put enormous emphasis on that scheme and—apparently—had originally intended that several hundred builders would be on the approved list by the launch. However, the Financial Times goes on to say:
"The cost of joining, the red tape involved and the fact that most builders had enough work without bothering to take part have meant that the government has had to resort to a string of measures to make it more attractive."
That is another initiative that did not succeed.
There have been any number of initiatives on and conferences to discuss safety in the construction industry. Most recently, a programme was launched earlier this year that set a target of reducing injuries and deaths in the industry by 10 per cent. per annum over four years. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us today what progress is being made on meeting that target, or whether it is just another target set by the Government and then abandoned as soon as it is obvious that the policies behind it will never enable it to be delivered and, indeed, may be counterproductive.
This is a useful debate. I pay tribute to all those who work in the construction industry, which is one of our most important industries. There are a heck of a lot of unsung heroes in the industry, and too rarely does it receive a proper airing in debates in the House. I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone on enabling us to do so today. It is a big mistake to try to tar all those millions of people who work in the construction industry with the brush of the relatively few who may still be able to abuse the tax and benefits system to the detriment of wider society. That is a small minority compared with the large mass of construction workers who deserve a lot better from the Government than they have been getting.
12.5 pm
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ruth Kelly): I am delighted to speak while you are in the Chair, Mr. Winterton, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on securing this important debate. He raises some significant and important issues, and I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss them.
Hon. Members of all parties have raised issues to do with health and safety, the importance of protecting construction workers, training standards in the industry, and matters that are clearly of great significance to many workers throughout the country. I shall come to some of those issues, but I shall concentrate mainly on those relating to self-employment status and Inland Revenue treatment of

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employees and employers in the tax system. I congratulate UCATT on raising such issues. It is important that we highlight them, consider them and take them seriously.
The construction sector is clearly a major contributor to the British economy. Nearly 1.5 million people work in it at any time. It encompasses work ranging from painting and decorating to underwater tunnelling and from simple kitchen refits to Government private finance initiatives. Construction work is carried out by one-man bands, family firms, partnerships, small to medium enterprises, household-name companies and multinational consortiums. Workers in the industry can be full time, part time, occasional, permanent, casual, single or multi-skilled, gang members or individual craftsmen.
Despite that massive diversity, all workers in the industry, along with those everywhere, need to pay the right tax and national insurance contributions and have access to rights and benefits appropriate to their personal circumstances. That last point is very important.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend say that it is important that a place be kept for genuine self-employment, and that he recognises that there can indeed be such self-employment in the construction industry. The point about access to rights and benefits and tax and national insurance contributions that are appropriate to someone's personal circumstances is important, and it goes to the heart of today's debate, which is essentially about employment status—whether someone is employed or self-employed, the consequences that flow from the decision on employment status and the role of the Government in determining and regulating such status.
Employment status is quite a simple concept, but it is important in several different contexts. It affects the tax and national insurance contributions that people must pay, the benefits that they are entitled to claim and, of course, their entitlement to rights such as statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, holiday pay and so on.
As things stand in the UK, the question of whether a person is employed or self-employed is normally entirely one of fact. It depends on the terms and conditions on which they are engaged and on the way in which they carry out their work. The facts then have to be compared with various factors identified by the courts in order to decide a person's employment status. No single factor is conclusive. The list of relevant factors is not exhaustive. Therefore, the courts have said that, to reach a decision about employment status, all relevant circumstances need to be taken into account. A qualitative decision must then be made based on the accumulation of detail.
Some issues considered when determining employment status include whether one works under the control of one's employer, the degree of risk associated with the employee and employer, whether one is part and parcel of the organisation, whether one must provide one's own equipment or whether the employer does so, and so forth. A huge range of factors is taken into account when determining status.
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That so-called case law approach to deciding employment status is by no means unique to the United Kingdom. The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland, for example, follow similar approaches, and our approach is recognised as workable and effective by various authorities.
Mr. Clapham: My hon. Friend says that case law is used to establish employment status and that countries other than the UK also use that approach. Does she agree that, such is the confusion, the Treasury must work with the Department of Trade and Industry on ways to create greater harmony? The tests to which she has referred are often contradictory; they overlap each other. A worker can have a great deal of control over his situation if he is integrated, as a doctor is within the NHS, but there are many examples of contradictions in common law. Does she agree that there is a need to examine those matters?
Ruth Kelly: I agree that many complex factors have to be taken into account in each case, but that is one of the reasons why it is difficult to produce general guidelines, and there is a strong argument that doing so might create an additional layer of confusion.
A research paper published in the Netherlands in 1999 reviewed a range of international approaches to deciding employment status. One of its conclusions was that the UK was top of the table of countries considered in terms of the clarity and consistency surrounding the making of decisions. The UK was ahead of four countries—the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy—which define employment status in legislation instead of using a case law approach. Although we are always ready to consider the examples of other countries, such as those raised by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), we remain convinced that the case law approach is probably the best way in which to provide clarity.
Earlier this year, Judith Freedman, professor of taxation law at Oxford university, published a detailed review of employment status on behalf of the well-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies. She concluded that the case law approach that we currently use provides
"flexibility to meet changing conditions".
She acknowledged that
"a simple, objective test would be too rigid and arbitrary and open to manipulation".
In 1999, the DTI sponsored a report that found that most people know what their employment status is. The report surveyed 4,000 people, concentrating on those who work in non-standard ways, such as temps, casuals and agency workers. It found that even among such non-standard workers, most of those surveyed could tell without difficulty—and without taking professional advice—whether they were employees or self-employed. According to the report, less than 2 per cent. of those working in non-standard ways defined their employment status wrongly.
That is not much use to those individuals who are on the borderline between employment and self-employment and who are sold misleading advice by advisers with their eye on profit rather than on providing good-quality customer service, or who do not

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have the freedom to decide whether to be taken on as an employee or to act as a self-employed person, as sometimes happens in the construction industry. I recognise that the problems are real, and we are here today to discuss how such problems are reflected in the construction industry in particular.
The Government accept that there is an element of false self-employment in the construction industry. I shall examine those issues and the Government will keep them under close review. Dr. Mark Harvey's report has been mentioned extensively today. It gives a passionate account of issues in which there is clearly a strong interest, which has been expressed in this debate. It contains a lot of facts and figures as well as serious allegations about the approach taken by Inland Revenue and the Government. I will comment on the report today, albeit not in detail. We will take it seriously and examine it in detail. We will keep an open mind.
Mr. Davidson: I welcome the fact that the Minister is going to examine the report, keep an open mind, consider it and so on, but is she actually going to respond to the points it makes item by item, allegation by allegation, or will it simply be dismissed and swept aside?
Ruth Kelly: I certainly intend to respond to some of the allegations made in the report. The Government accept that it raises real issues that we have a responsibility to examine—although it should be said that the industry itself also has a responsibility to tackle those issues. When we debated similar issues in an Adjournment debate last year, we were assured that the industry would do more to help itself. Dr. Harvey's report makes a helpful contribution to those discussions, but at grassroots level contractors must recognise and act on their own responsibility, rather than pass the buck to the Government to take all the action needed.
A key issue is the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in making decisions on employment status. As I have explained, employment status is decided on the facts. It is for workers and those for whom they work to agree between themselves the terms and conditions under which the work is to be done. It is not for the Government to decide those matters or to interfere in essentially commercial decisions that are entirely the business of the parties involved.
If the agreed terms and conditions amount to employment, the employer will automatically have certain responsibilities to his employee. Those include operating a pay-as-you-earn system to collect the right amount of tax at the right time, deducting and accounting for class 1 NICs, and providing employment rights and benefits. If the agreed terms and conditions amount to self-employment, the worker assumes responsibility for his own tax and NICs through the self-assessment system. Generally, such workers have to provide their own financial cushion to cover holiday periods or periods of ill-health, and perhaps to pay into a stakeholder pension.
The role of Government is to ensure that all parties meet their respective legal responsibilities, so Government Departments have to provide help,
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support and advice on whatever aspects of those responsibilities are causing problems. In addition, Departments need to play a policing role to ensure that people do not avoid their various legal responsibilities. The Inland Revenue is one Department that has a particular role to play in employment status. I take this opportunity to put on record what the Inland Revenue has been doing in that respect in the construction industry for the past few years, and what it is doing now. However, as I said at the outset, it is not only for tax and national insurance purposes that employment status is important; other Departments have a role to play.
It has been claimed in Dr. Harvey's report that the Inland Revenue has not been doing enough to police so-called false self-employment in the construction industry. Worse, it has been alleged that the Inland Revenue has somehow
"sanctioned large-scale false self-employment"
by
"making an agreement with major construction firms to enable them to falsely register directly employed workers as self-employed".
I do not believe that that is correct. For many years, the Inland Revenue has provided extensive customer service support for the construction industry dealing specifically with issues of employment status, backed up by targeted compliance reviews to address evasion and avoidance.
Since the mid-1990s the Inland Revenue has, for example, published a range of articles and leaflets to explain how employment status is decided and how the case law tests apply to construction workers in particular. It has published an internal employment status manual that explains how its inspectors are expected to carry out employment status work. It has operated a dedicated construction industry employment status helpline. It has specified a date by which all contractors must have reviewed the employment status of their workers and put those who should properly be employees on to the payroll. It has targeted specialist status inspector resources to visit contractors and check that PAYE and class 1 NICs are being deducted and accounted for where necessary.
In addition, appropriate changes have been made to legislation. One of the first things that we did, by means of the Finance Act 1997, was amend the agency tax rules. Agencies that supply the construction industry with workers have to operate the PAYE system for workers who meet the conditions set down in legislation. The Inland Revenue's best estimates show that up to 250,000 construction workers have moved from self-employment to employment as a consequence of these various measures.
That is not the end of the story. More recently, the Contributions Agency merged with the Inland Revenue, so there are now more inspectors undertaking employment status work. The inspectors are fully supported by additional employer compliance staff. There are now 60 status teams throughout the country that advise on, monitor and enforce compliance with the employment status rules. These local teams are supported by the large business office employer compliance team, which reviews the very biggest employers according to a rolling programme. There are also the various special compliance offices that are responsible for prosecutions.

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The special compliance offices are likely to play a particularly significant role in pulling the rug from under any composite companies in the construction industry, or anywhere else, that might be used as a front for false self-employment. To do so, they will use the service company legislation—IR35—that we introduced specifically to ensure that those who should properly be employees pay tax and national insurance contributions on the right basis. That demonstrates that both the Government and the Inland Revenue have been putting a lot of time and resource into this important area over a number of years. It shows also that there has been no decision to ease off on employment status work. Targeting and proactive monitoring of employment status has not ceased, and there are no plans to change that.
So far, I have not mentioned the construction industry scheme—in some senses, for good reason. The scheme should not have anything to do with whether someone is appropriately defined as self-employed or employed. It is simply a scheme for collecting an amount of money on account of the tax and national insurance contributions that will ultimately be due from a construction industry worker who is already self-employed.
For the avoidance of doubt, I stress that the CIS does not confer any particular employment status. The CIS4 card, in particular, is not a certificate of self-employment. None of the literature, forms or documentation that the Inland Revenue produces says anything different. Contractors and others who are misusing the scheme lay themselves open to penalties for so doing. The Inland Revenue has dedicated teams with responsibility for ensuring compliance with the CIS, and they are separate from the dedicated employment status teams.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone said that perhaps the CIS adds to the confusion over status by putting workers into another category. Some people have suggested that if there were not a CIS, perhaps there would not be mass false self-employment in the construction industry. I reiterate the arguments that were advanced when the scheme was introduced. It was designed to avoid tax evasion and to ensure that construction workers do not slip into the black economy but instead pay their tax and national insurance contributions. In the past, there was mass evasion. Without the scheme, there might be a huge loss to the Exchequer. It is suggested that we are currently faced with such a loss.
The scheme does not create a separate category of so-called dependent self-employed, as Dr. Harvey suggests. Nor does it mean that self-employment is a matter of self-declaration. Employment status is purely a question of fact that is determined by case law. If a dispute arises over status, the matter can be taken to an industrial tribunal.
There is no evidence that scrapping the scheme would help overcome the real issues that have been raised during the debate. I accept that they are real issues for construction industry workers. I am not aware that
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anyone in the industry is calling for the abolition of the CIS. Of course, along with the industry we continue to keep the matter under review
Mr. Chope: Before the Minister resumes her place, I hope that she will address the real issues of safety. She has described the large army of inspectors from the Inland Revenue that deals with the issue of self-employment. Does the hon. Lady think that the Government have the right order of priorities when there is only one construction inspector for three London boroughs, and there are only 19 such inspectors for London as a whole? Does not she think that it would be better to put more resources into inspecting construction safety?
Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman, who speaks for the Opposition, raises the real issue of health and safety in the construction industry, and the Government are determined to deal with it.
Health and safety legislation does not apply only to employees; it has a much broader application. The Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 places a duty on employers to conduct their undertakings in a way that does not expose people to health and safety risks, as far as that is possible. Construction companies that are using both employees and self-employed workers have a duty to ensure the health and safety of all their workers.
I will raise with Ministers in other Departments issues about the number of compliance officers and ensuring compliance in the construction industry. We remain committed to ensuring that there are the highest standards of safety within the industry. Consideration of the definitions of self-employment and employment is not the best way to proceed on that front.
Where does that leave us? What are we doing? What has happened since the publication of the Egan report? It was a key piece of work and we do not want to lose sight of its important conclusions. Another report, "Rethinking Construction", came out in July 1998. It concluded that capital costs and construction time could be reduced by about 10 per cent. a year, that performance could be improved by 20 per cent. a year and that productivity and turnover could be increased by 10 per cent. a year. If those things are to be achieved, the Government will have to support and encourage good management in the industry, innovative approaches to projects and performance measures.
There have been various initiatives since publication of the report, but it would be unrealistic to expect to see substantive improvements in less than five years. The report is too substantial and the implications are too significant to allow that to happen. We will clearly keep matters under review. Some of the issues raised during the debate were also debated during consideration of the Employment Bill, which received its Second Reading last night. The Bill will extend individual employment rights to more workers.
We have undertaken a review of the CIS and are considering options. We are not expected to change our fundamental approach. We are considering ways of reducing administrative costs of compliance with the scheme. We are also considering ways in which it can be extendable to e-business, for example.

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We have launched a review of employment status, and we expect a report in the early part of next year. The review will very much be focused on employment rights. It could have significant implications for many of the topics that we have been discussing.
The Inland Revenue has issued a leaflet, "Help your Business in the Construction Industry". It contains contributions from the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise, the Benefits Agency, the Immigration Advisory Service, the Employment Service, the Health and Safety Executive and Companies House.
Mr. Davidson: Does my hon. Friend recognise that a new leaflet from the Inland Revenue, while no doubt a wonderful thing, will not necessarily go as far as we would wish in resolving matters? Her speech has not been all bad, but my pager, which doubles as a complacency meter, has recorded a fairly high reading. Are she and her advisers prepared to meet those concerned in the industry in the near future to discuss matters in perhaps a more informal atmosphere?
Ruth Kelly: I know that my hon. Friend has asked me to send everyone away happy, but I cannot pledge to do that today. I hope that I have shown the seriousness of the Government's commitment to tackling the issues. We keep these important topics under constant review. I will pass on my hon. Friend's representations to Ministers who deal directly with these issues. I am sure that they will be delighted to contact him.

Kent Ambulance Service
12.30 pm
Hugh Robertson: I thank the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), for attending the debate. I am grateful for the fact that he will respond to my points, especially as the subject is not directly part of his brief. I also extend my thanks to his team of civil servants who, I know from contact with the Kent ambulance service at the weekend, have done a lot of preparatory work for the debate.
I have two reasons for wishing to secure this debate. The first, I confess, is entirely personal. I was born, educated and brought up in Kent; my parents, my fiancée and my in-laws all live in the county and, of course, I represent a constituency that is slap-bang in the middle of the county.
Secondly, and more important, there is genuine concern that the views of consultees, Members of Parliament, health service bodies, the ambulance service itself and my constituents—across the political spectrum, they all oppose the change—have not been properly represented by the regional office. I assure the Minister that I have had a continual involvement in the issue; it is not something that I just dreamed up this morning. I attended consultation meetings in August, made representations to the review, wrote to the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears), and drafted an early-day motion on the subject a few weeks ago. I hope that this Adjournment debate marks the culmination of that effort.
Today I intend to talk briefly about the consultation process, discuss the aspects of the review that we welcome and support, highlight a few problems with it, and finish with some concluding remarks. The review process has taken more than three years, which is far too long. Critically, the reconfiguration was proposed by the south-east regional office in early 2000. "Modernising the NHS: Shifting the Balance of Power in the South East", the latest review, rendered that process obsolete.
Another problem is that the time the review has taken has had a serious effect on the Kent ambulance service, which is currently unable to recruit substantively to director positions, including that of chief executive; it has no human resources director in post at the moment. Despite the lengthy review process, there is no hard evidence that the proposed merger will have any financial or patient benefits. I am told that mergers audited elsewhere have not, in fact, secured those desirable benefits. As I have already said, there is no support anywhere in Kent from any of the key consultees for the merger. Finally, there is a worry that the disruption caused by the merger could put at risk many of the improvements in response time across Kent and Sussex. As a result, I am sure we all agree that patients and staff could suffer.
It is fair to say, however, that the review identified a number of benefits that we all support. The idea of a common ambulance vehicle procurement service is to be welcomed, as is the idea of a common communications system. The training and development of practitioners in emergency care—PEC—and the development of patient transport services are all welcome initiatives. I am pleased that there has been regional input in

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control and communications, clinical governance, human resources, procurement and fleet management. We whole-heartedly support all those things. Indeed, I should like to record my thanks for the Government's support for additional funding for the introduction of satellite navigation. Kent was one of the first ambulance services to install that navigation and it has already had considerable benefits.
However, there is a feeling that benefits could be achieved without the proposed merger. There are several reasons why we oppose the merger. First, and most important, ambulance services must operate to the same boundaries as strategic health authorities. "Modernising the NHS: Shifting the Balance of Power in the South East" said that there should be one strategic health authority for Kent. Everybody in Kent supports that sensible move. Strategic health authorities will have new responsibilities, including managing strategy and performance for NHS organisations within their boundaries. The review envisages that the NHS plan, the reform of emergency care and the review of ambulance services can be achieved only by co-operation between organisations. It follows that it is vital for patients, services and efficiency that the ambulance service operates to the same boundary as the new strategic health authority.
The Ambulance Service Association, responding to a request from the Minister for advice, said:
"Ambulance services should be aligned to one, or more, strategic health authorities—usually 1, sometimes 2 or more but never part of a strategic health authority".
If the merger of the Kent and Sussex ambulance services goes ahead, the new service will end up servicing one and a half parts of the new strategic health authorities; that is the key objection to the merger. However, subsidiary factors also impact on the merger, including the fact that the structure of the NHS in Kent and throughout the country is changing rapidly. In my constituency, new strategic health authorities are in formation and a review of hospitals will undoubtedly result in the downgrading of the Kent and Canterbury hospital, whichever option is embraced; primary care trusts are being formed and there are changes to community health councils.
I feel strongly that few parts of the NHS are as vital as the ambulance service. It is much better to allow time for changes to bed in before we set about altering the structure of that vital service. The county of Kent is large enough to support its own ambulance service. The Ambulance Service Association, responding to a request from the Minister for advice on the reconfiguration of services, said:
"The minimum population served by Ambulance Services will be around 1.5 million."
Kent has a population of 1.6 million, so it is large enough to support its own service.
Kent has particular needs because of its geographical position. It has an infrastructure like no other, comprising channel ports, the channel tunnel rail link, roll on/roll off ferries, the power station at Dungeness, and myriad motorways, including the M2, the M25, the M20 and the M26. The high-speed rail link is being installed and the county bears the brunt of all the traffic
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that comes across from the continent. With all that going on, there is a huge capacity for disaster for Kent, and many people in the county do not wish their ambulance service to be taken away.
Kent is a popular retirement county for elderly people. As the Minister will know, there are Government guidelines to build more houses. Its population will become more than 1.6 million, not less, which highlights the need to retain the ambulance service inside the county. There is also a political point: if the ambulance service is taken away, as local people see it, and merged with the Sussex service, many people in my constituency will feel badly neglected. As a result of the private finance initiative, they are already faced with the closure of the accident and emergency department at the Kent and Canterbury hospital, and are considering a series of options that will necessarily downgrade it. If, on top of that, they have to bear the loss of their county ambulance service, there will be a highly undesirable political impact.
I also oppose the merger because of costs. In a presentation this summer, the Kent ambulance service identified two types of cost: the initial investment and the transitional costs. They involved £1.6 million in pay equalisation, which I accept will probably happen, whatever the outcome of the review; £2.6 million of non-recurrent costs to cover, for example, staff redundancies, additional travel and relocation, IT upgrades and new signs; and a further £200,000 of recurrent costs every year. Whereas I welcome the £1.6 million to be spent on pay equalisation—it is quite wrong to discriminate against people just because they work in an ambulance service in Kent—the £2.6 million and the recurrent £200,000 could be better spent on investing in the services, not on relocation and reorganisation.
The final argument is what I call the 11 September argument. Following the disaster on 11 September, I am sure we all agree that it is important to maintain coterminosity with other emergency services in the county. The police and the fire service are already Kent-based, and the new strategic health authority will ensure that the health authority is also based in the county. When I spent a week during the summer looking at NHS facilities in my constituency, I was alarmed to discover that there is no common communications system between the ambulances and the police and fire services.
That cannot be good for emergency planning. The emergency services must be able to communicate with each other, and it is particularly important that they all work to the same boundaries. For the good of future disaster and civil emergency planning, I urge the Minister to leave the ambulance service operating to the same boundaries as other emergency services.
In conclusion, there are parts of the review which all of us welcome. However, a merger with Sussex is not necessary to bring about those benefits. There are major concerns in Kent, particularly about the lack of common boundaries with the strategic health authority should the proposals be implemented. That is the killer point.
There are also concerns about the amount of change going on in the NHS and the impact on people who work in the service; the unusually large size of Kent as a county—I believe that it is large enough to support its

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own ambulance service; Kent's geographical position and requirements, and its infrastructure; the perceived loss of NHS facilities following the closure of the accident and emergency department at the Kent and Canterbury hospital; the cost arguments—the £2.6 million and £200,000 recurring, which could be better spent on investment in existing services; and finally the need, after 11 September, to ensure that all our emergency services—the new strategic health authority, fire, police, ambulance and, in due course, I hope, the Territorial Army—operate to the same boundaries.
The proposed merger with Sussex has no support whatever in Kent. I take the opportunity this morning to urge the Minister to allow Kent, regardless of what happens elsewhere, to keep its own county-based ambulance service.
12.43 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): I begin by expressing my gratitude to the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson) for his kind words about my officials, who will have greatly appreciated his comments. It is not always transparently the case, but we are ready to help and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for acknowledging that.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the way in which he raised the issues, and on the cogency and fluency of the arguments that he presented. He has done a signal job on behalf of his constituents. Outside this place and in the press—although that may not be the case today—Adjournment debates are often dismissed as unimportant and irrelevant; they are seen almost as a sideshow. I fundamentally disagree with that as they provide a forum for hon. Members to do what we are essentially here to do—to raise issues of concern and to confront Ministers when that is appropriate.
As the hon. Gentleman made clear, the provision of ambulance services in Kent is a critical issue which, as he rightly said, has been the subject of widespread debate across the county in recent months. I know that the hon. Gentleman himself has commented on the current proposals for change.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that it is important that I do not prejudge or give the impression that I am prejudging the outcome of the consultation. Ministers will clearly need to approach the issues afresh and with an open mind, as they may need to make final decisions on the proposals. For that reason, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not engage in detailed debate with him about some of the specific points that he raised. I also hope that he will appreciate that I cannot make an announcement today on the way forward for ambulance service reconfiguration in the south-east.
I shall certainly reflect on the hon. Gentleman's concerns about the lack of common communications between the three emergency services. I do not have an immediate answer to that at my fingertips, but I shall write to him about his concerns, which I share and which need to be addressed.
I begin by referring to some of the arguments behind the proposals in the recent consultation, as it is important to put on record the background to the review. As the hon. Gentleman knows, in 1999 Sir
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William Wells, the then regional chairman in the south-east region, asked the ambulance trusts to review their structures to ascertain whether their number and size were appropriate to enable them to deliver best care for the 8.5 million people whom they serve.
The current seven ambulance services in the region worked together to create a joint vision of what they saw as their role in the future. The vision developed by the leaders of ambulance services in the south-east set out a number of important objectives that ambulance services in the region should achieve in the future. They should deliver the best care, according to individual patient's needs; give consistent, high-quality care based on evidence and best practice; make full use of new technologies to respond to patients' needs more quickly and effectively; ensure that staff are well trained and motivated, and have the skills that they need; and finally, collaborate across organisations to increase support for staff, improve the infrastructure and make best use of the resources available for patient care.
The public consultation on the proposals to reshape ambulance services in the region began, as the hon. Gentleman said, on 3 May 2001. Public meetings have been held within each of the existing ambulance trust boundaries. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the consultation document put forward a preferred option of merging the seven existing ambulance trusts into three: Kent and Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey, and a new Four Counties trust covering Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. The consultation document set out how ambulance services must continue to develop if they are to make the maximum contribution to a modern NHS.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that those proposals should be set against a background of strong local identities in the south-east, which he described, As the consultation document states:
"People in the region require local, flexible and responsive ambulance services. These can only be provided by maintaining strong local identities and ensuring a close working relationship with other partners…including patients and carers".
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the statutory period for consultation was extended by one month to take account of the moratorium on consultation exercises during the recent general election, and ended on 7 September.
I acknowledge that many strong and varied views were expressed during the consultation process. I take this opportunity to express my thanks to all hon. Members, the public and community health councils who submitted their views to the regional office during the consultation period. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that all the views received are being taken carefully into consideration. I shall return to that. However, we must all recognise there is no single national blueprint for the configuration of ambulance services that will suit all localities, not least in the south-east.
Hugh Robertson: I appreciate that the Minister cannot prejudge the outcome of the review, but is it at least possible that the ambulance services which want to merge can do so, while those that do not can remain outside the review and retain a county-based service?
Mr. Hutton: That is a decision that Ministers may have to make. Trust reconfigurations and mergers are subject to ministerial approval. The hon. Gentleman invites me to pull Kent out of the reconfiguration proposals. Clearly, I cannot do that today, but it was a good try, none the less.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the regional office is currently considering the responses that have been received which, I understand, will shortly be presented to Ministers. I reassure him that Ministers' decisions will be fully informed by the views that have emerged in the consultation exercise and that no recommendation will be agreed by Ministers unless we are wholly satisfied that it will provide the effective, high-quality service that the people of the south-east deserve and that we aim to provide to them.
In future, as the hon. Gentleman knows, Ministers will be advised about such proposed service reconfigurations by the independent reconfiguration panel, which will be chaired by Dr. Peter Barrett. The panel will start its work early in the new year. Its remit will be to assess proposals against clear criteria such as quality of care, community health needs, accessibility, patient safety and clinical and service quality. I hope that that will ensure that the outcome of these major health service reorganisations will be transparent and accountable and that those who are directly affected by the changes are fully engaged in the consultation process. As I am sure he knows, until such time as final recommendations on the reconfiguration of ambulance services in the south-east have been provided by the regional office and Ministers are asked to make a decision, I need to remain impartial about any final outcome.
In setting out his arguments for retaining a local ambulance service for the people of Kent, the hon. Gentleman rightly referred to the work of the Kent ambulance service. I am grateful to him for doing so. As he will know, the Kent Ambulance NHS trust was established in 1994. As he said, it serves a population of more than 1.5 million in both urban and rural areas and has more than 800 staff. It has 154 vehicles and last year handled about 97,000 emergency calls and 30,000 urgent calls. Dealing with those levels of demand is no easy task. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in taking this opportunity to thank everyone working in the Kent ambulance service for the tremendous work that they do day in, day out.
The Government's priority is to save more lives by providing faster, more responsive emergency ambulance services. Clinical evidence has proved beyond any doubt whatever that early defibrillation and resuscitation services can save more lives. That is why the Government set challenging response targets for all ambulance services as soon as we came into office in 1997. Since then, we have seen a range of improvements, to which the hon. Gentleman graciously referred. They include more staff and vehicles, faster activation, better matching of resources to demand, dynamic cover, as opposed to station-based cover—an important element in helping us to meet access and response times—effective relief levels and rotas, and flexible 999 responses.
We also recognised that ambulance service response times had to improve significantly. That is why we are committed to the target of responding to 75 per cent. of
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immediately life-threatening calls within eight minutes. That target is also a milestone in the national service framework for coronary heart disease. We have estimated that, if all services were to achieve the target, the lives of 1,800 more people suffering from heart attacks would be saved every year. I would be the first to admit that the target that we have set is challenging. As I said, however, response times save lives, and we are already beginning to see the benefits of service improvement.
Nowhere do we see that more clearly than in Kent, where the performance of ambulance services has improved dramatically during the past year. From a starting point of being able to respond to only 38 per cent. of life-threatening calls within the critical eight-minute period, they are fast approaching the national target of 75 per cent. I hope that they will be able to meet that target when the figures are confirmed later next year. That is a huge achievement and I should like to pay tribute to the staff at Kent Ambulance NHS trust for their hard work, especially during the unexpectedly high demand in the summer months. They are doing a fantastic job in difficult circumstances for the people of Kent.
Kent ambulance service currently has 24 rapid response staff and has established community responder schemes on the Isle of Sheppey and at the Bluewater shopping complex. In the coming months, the trust will look for further opportunities to extend those important new services. As well as developing new schemes around the country and in Kent, we have provided significant investment in all ambulance services. In March last year, we invested £21 million nationally to help ambulance trusts make progress towards achieving the 75 per cent. target by investing in extra vehicles and extra front-line staff. Kent ambulance service received £841,000 on a recurrent basis, which has enabled them to recruit an additional 30 front-line staff.
The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears), also announced further investment of almost £3.5 million earlier this year. That funding enabled state-of-the-art satellite tracking and navigation systems to be fitted to all 3,000 emergency ambulance vehicles throughout the country, giving them accurate information on the location of callers. As the hon. Gentleman said, Kent ambulance services were the first in line for that funding and received more than £140,000 to assist them in making that investment.
Ensuring that we have a modern ambulance service that is integrated with other NHS and social care services is a fundamental objective in what we are trying to achieve. The investments that we have made will, hope, ensure that the service can respond to patients' needs more effectively and quickly, with well-trained and motivated staff providing consistently higher quality care. The supporting infrastructure will make maximum use of new technologies, delivering best value in order to help concentrate resources on patient care and to enable best practice to spread to all health communities more quickly. To support the integration of the ambulance service with other NHS and social care services, we announced additional investment of £50 million last month to implement the "Reforming Emergency Care" report.

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As I have explained, I am, sadly, unable to respond now to some of the specific concerns the hon. Gentleman has raised and nor can I speculate on the outcome of the consultation exercise, although I hope that decisions can be made in the very near future. However, before I finish, I want to assure him once again that the arguments he has carefully set out will be given the most serious consideration, which they obviously deserve.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (in the Chair): We are grateful to the Minister for his reply All interested parties for the next debate are present, so we can begin early. The debate has been initiated by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), but before I call him I should like to point out that he has had the courtesy to ask me and the Minister whether other colleagues who have interests in the subject of the debate can participate in it. My only comment is that I am very happy to call them, but I want the Minister to have adequate time to respond.

University Hospitals (Midlands)
12.56 pm
Mr. Mike O'Brien: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can I confirm the time when the debate will finish?
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (in the Chair): The hon. Gentleman has gained a little time. This debate will not finish until 1.30.
Mr. O'Brien: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am very pleased to have that time, as a number of hon. Members wish to speak in this debate, which is important for us. I would like my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), for Rugby and Kenilworth (Andy King), for Tamworth (Mr. Jenkins) and for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) to be able to speak. I understand also that there may be an intervention at some point. I am grateful to the Speaker for granting this debate and to you, Mr. Winterton, for presiding over it. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt) is currently attending a sitting of the Select Committee on the Treasury, but has indicated his support for the points that we want to make.
The Government are determined to improve the delivery of health services. As local Members of Parliament, my hon. Friends and I fear that NHS delivery in our area will not improve without substantial changes in the management of the main tertiary and district hospital, the Walsgrave. The running of the hospital has been condemned in a series of reports and statements in recent months. The Commission for Health Improvement—CHI—reported on the Walsgrave in September. It was the worst report ever published by the CHI on any hospital. In October, the NHS league tables designated the Walsgrave as a failing hospital with no stars. A majority of consultants have signed a petition calling for urgent changes in the way in which the hospital is run. Last week, it was reported as having the worst record in the country on heart operations. Members of Parliament have, therefore, taken the unprecedented step of seeking this debate so that we can express publicly our serious concern that the hospital management is a mess and to ask for the resignation of the chief executive, Mr. David Loughton.
I understand that Gary Reay, the chairman of the trust, resigned this morning. It might be said that no man hath greater love than that he should lay down his part-time job for his friend's full-time one. However, Mr. Reay has missed the point—he is not the problem. The problem at Walsgrave has not been caused by the chairman or the board so much as by the dominant influence of a particular individual in the hospital: the chief executive. Apparently, Mr. Reay has also claimed this morning that the only reason why MPs have sought to criticise the chief executive is the proposed site of the new private finance initiative hospital outside the town centre. The truth is that I supported Mr. David Loughton on the PFI hospital and on the new site, but there is a lack of confidence that he can deliver that hospital or improve health care sufficiently in our area.

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The CHI report said of the management of the Walsgrave that
"senior staff felt isolated, disempowered and undervalued."
The report goes on to state:
"We were deeply concerned by the number of consultant medical staff who reported feeling bullied, intimidated, threatened and oppressed by senior managers when raising concerns about clinical care or conditions."
The CHI found an absence of any strategic leadership on patient care and service issues across the hospital. In particular, it found capacity planning for elective and emergency admissions, development of care pathways and accident and emergency services in disarray. On clinical governance, it found no evidence of any monitoring or review of the organisation as a whole.
There have been a number of other reports, but each time a bad one came out, Mr. David Loughton made reassuring noises, pleading that the report was wrong and that, anyway, he was putting it all right. One report might be in error; two might raise serious questions; but a series of reports says that it is time for a change and that Mr. David Loughton should now go.
There are a lot of excellent staff at the Walsgrave hospital who are doing a great job looking after patients, but they are handicapped by Mr. Loughton's increasingly desperate struggle to hold on to his own job. The hospital needs a new start. There is no confidence in Mr. Loughton: he has presided over the hospital for—what is it?—a decade and had the chance to turn it round but, by his own admission, took his eye off the ball. He now suggests that there is an action plan in place to turn round the hospital as a result of the NHS designating it a failed hospital, and that he should be given a chance to turn it round. It seems to me that if he could not turn it round in a decade, he is unlikely to be able to do so in the next few months.
I say all this not with anger but with sadness. I supported David Loughton on the private finance initiative, but I can no longer support him as manager of the hospital because the problems there seem to be fundamental. A new person is needed to restore confidence and lead the hospital out of its present problems. He has been a dominant personal influence at the hospital, and until that influence is changed we will not get the delivery of quality hospital services that we require.
A lot of good work is done at the hospital, and there are a lot of good staff, as I have said. Many patients will no doubt report that they have been very well treated there, and that will be true because the staff work hard. However, the way in which the hospital has been run has always caused problems and, in those circumstances, we need to restore confidence. We therefore need to have changes at the top.
1.2 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) on securing this debate. It is an important debate for those who live in Coventry and in the other constituencies whose MPs strongly associate themselves with what has been said today, because the health of the area is at stake.
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As my hon. Friend said, the debate is directly and inescapably about the chief executive, Mr. David Loughton. None of us takes it lightly on ourselves to criticise—let alone call for the resignation of—a chief executive by name, bearing in mind the privileges that we have. Those privileges must be respected all the more because they are unique in what they enable us to do and say in the House. For that reason, I would like to say that in no way does the siting of the new PFI hospital—much though we disagreed on it—have anything to do with the lack of confidence that we now have in the chief executive. It was already evident when we were debating that matter, when we disagreed with Mr. Loughton, that it was impossible to reason with the man, and that he was arrogant and dismissive.
That was a couple of years ago and, far from getting better, things have got worse. We saw that in the case where Mr. Loughton attempted to abuse correspondence between my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) and one of his constituents, a distinguished consultant surgeon at the hospital. Mr. Loughton tried to use a letter as a reason for suspending, confirming the suspension of, and obtaining the dismissal of that fine, distinguished surgeon. Mr. Loughton would not listen to reason. He went to the high court, then to a higher court still. Each time his arguments were demolished, and each time he had to run away in shame, all at a cost to the long-suffering taxpayers of Coventry of £250,000.
Straight after that came the CHI report, casting disgrace on the management of the hospital. The very thought that one could leave the person who had been in charge for 10 years and brought the hospital to that state of affairs in charge for another three months to turn it round defies any logical analysis. After that, we had the report on coronary bypass surgery. There may be arguments on both sides there, but it is interesting that the hospital should have come bottom of the league in that field—a field that the chief executive had boasted was the jewel in the crown of Walsgrave hospital.
In the light of Mr. Loughton's behaviour in referring in open meetings at the hospital to some of his staff as the five on his hit list whom he is determined to get rid of, naming them, and referring to them using dismissive and abusive language, it is scarcely surprising that the very people that he needs—that any manager would need—to turn round the hospital after 10 years of his mismanagement have passed a vote of no confidence in him. Sixty-six per cent. have said that they have no confidence in him. How could anyone turn round a hospital with 66 per cent. of the staff against him? The hospital has no personnel director, and it cannot recruit a medical director—no one will take on the job—or new consultant surgeons. There is not a grade A consultant in the building, and it would need one to become a teaching hospital.
The whole of the management is dysfunctional. Therefore, any details of a change in the chairmanship of the hospital that the Minister might give us today will be an irrelevance, and cannot be used as a sop to deflect us from the primary objective of obtaining a new chief executive.
If we do not succeed with the Minister today, we shall take the matter to our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and to the chief executive of the NHS. We shall not let up. If we have to, we shall—in the best of traditions—

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call another public meeting in Coventry, at which it will be absolutely clear where the chief executive stands, not in terms of our estimation or our sense of confidence, but in the estimation of the people he is meant to serve. I hope that it will not come to that. I hope that the Minister, the Department and the executive of the NHS will see that this situation can be resolved only by taking the simple step of replacing the chief executive.
1.7 pm
Mr. Jim Cunningham: My two hon. Friends have covered a lot of what I had to say, so I do not want to cover that ground again. One or two points, however, need emphasising. The staff at Walsgrave hospital do a wonderful job. I was there on Saturday and saw that for myself, and our remarks should in no way be misconstrued as an attack on any of the staff.
This is all about the style of management at the hospital and, in certain instances, the lack of public consultation. For example, the only information that we get on the PFI proposals is what we happen to read in the newspapers. There has been no attempt to bring elected Members in from time to time—we know that these people are busy—to explain to us exactly what is going on. One of the prerequisites for support is to involve not only elected Members but other organisations that might have an interest in the project. That involvement has been sadly absent.
In relation to the chairman's resignation, we never had a quarrel with him. In fact, at times, we had reasonable conversations with him. It became self-evident, however, that he and the trust were unable to control, and therefore to direct, the chief executive. Therein lay the problem. I am also aware that there have been press statements to the effect that we are against the chief executive because we lost the argument over the siting of the new hospital. When that decision was finally made, I accepted that the new hospital would be at Walsgrave, and I have never said anything publicly to suggest anything different. That particular red herring must be disposed of right away.
My hon. Friends and I were willing to assist where we could in developing the new hospital. We were prepared to meet Ministers and to go all the way down the road, because whatever we think about sites and the PFI, the most important thing is that the people of Coventry deserve a new hospital. They have been waiting far too long.
My hon. Friends, and my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) in particular, have said that the chief executive had 10 or 12 years in which to turn round the hospital. We appreciate that there were difficulties over the years with lack of resources, but that cannot excuse a lack of good management. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) said, there were problems between the chief executive, who had a job to do, and the surgeons.
I know that there is friction when talented people are being managed. In fact, everyone here knows that friction is inevitable, and we always recognised that the chief executive had a difficult management task and that he was attempting to secure a new hospital, but the fact that he spent most of the time drafting proposals for a
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PFI project and so neglected the hospital and the patients—we all know that waiting lists can result from that—speaks volumes. So, too, does the fact that he could not take a large number of people with him.
According to press reports, the chief executive has the support of most staff. He may well have it, but let me emphasise that what support he has is qualified, as it is being said that staff will give him three months to implement the Commission for Health Improvement report. Then, they may take a different attitude to whether it can be implemented. Like my hon. Friends, I have serious doubts about whether the CHI report can be implemented.
A number of colleagues want to speak, so I end by saying that, in the interests of the people of Coventry and the long-term interests of the staff and the new hospital, the chief executive should think about resigning as soon as possible.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (in the Chair): Order. Before I call the next speaker, I must point out that four hon. Members want to contribute. The Minister wants 10 minutes to reply, so there are eight minutes for those four hon. Members. If they are disciplined, they will all get in.
1.12 pm
Andy King: My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) said that, if the worst comes to the worst, we shall hold a public meeting on the issue. I can tell hon. Members and the Minister that there is no building in Rugby big enough to hold the people who would turn out to have Mr. David Loughton removed.
I do not like personalising such issues and I never have, but after almost five years of constant trouble for the residents of Rugby, I have a number of examples to refer to, some to do with basic care and cleanliness, and others of a serious nature which have cost the lives of Rugby people. There is no confidence whatever in Mr. Loughton's leadership of the trust.
The people of Rugby love their local hospital, but they have believed that it has no future ever since Mr. Loughton took over. We have had an uphill struggle. People had to come here with the chief executive and the chairman—who, I am glad to say, fell on his sword—to meet the Minister and secure a commitment on the long-term future of my hospital in Rugby.
We have no confidence whatever in Mr. Loughton's leadership. I shall give a few brief examples. A seriously ill patient who went into Walsgrave wrote to me to say:
"Floor filthy, appeared mopped with a dirty mop and polish applied sealing in dirt, walls had splashes of what appeared to be vomit or excrement, curtains around the beds stained—corridors actually cleaner than the wards".
It is unacceptable that Mr. Loughton allowed the hospital to deteriorate into such a state.
I have other examples of people going into hospital only to end up in a very distressed state. A retired clergyman from my area had to pay for an MRI scan because he was so seriously ill. His biopsies were then lost and the process had to start all over again.

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I say to the Minister, please do not try to defend the indefensible. The people of Rugby have asked me to come here to demand that either Mr. Loughton takes the honourable way out and resigns immediately or the Minister removes him.
1.15 pm
Mr. Brian Jenkins: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) on securing this timely debate, although people may wonder why Tamworth should be involved with a Warwickshire hospital and why the debate is so timely.
I picked up today's edition of The Mirror, which carries a story about a Mr. Ron Cooksey of Tamworth. With regard to the death rate from bypass operations, a letter went out to explain to people, especially Mr. Cooksey, that they should not worry about the reports they have read because they are mere suggestions, but that is a denial of the truth. The letter says:
"I would like to reassure you that the results in Coventry for non-emergency patients such as yourself are as good as they are anywhere in the country. In fact, over 98 per cent. of patients on our waiting list for coronary heart bypass surgery return home alive and well to enjoy a better quality of life."
That is a bit late for Mr. Cooksey. He died 11 months ago.
Mr. Cooksey was put on the priority list in September 2000, but taken off it in October. He died in November. Can Members imagine the distress caused to the family when that letter was received at home? Sending it shows a basic incompetence that I would not tolerate at any level, particularly in the health service. For Mr. Cooksey, the letter was too little, too late. Surely that is not the standard of service that we expect to be delivered in a modern health service.
1.17 pm
Mr. Bill Olner: I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) for securing this debate and for giving us some of his time so that we can chip in.
In my constituency of Nuneaton, the Walsgrave hospital is of paramount importance. It is the big hospital to which most people in my area go when they have serious problems. Indeed, a great deal of work goes on between the George Eliot in Nuneaton and the Walsgrave. You, Mr. Winterton, represented north Warwickshire on the county council, so you know those hospitals very well.
I want the Minister to reflect on the letter sent to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health referring to the Commission for Health Improvement and the fact that the serious problems outlined today are not new. They have existed for seven years, but have not been addressed. Members of Parliament representing their constituents are not the only ones saying that this man should resign. The letter to my right hon. Friend carries three pages of signatures, and consultants and surgeons are saying that, following the CHI report, this man should go.
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I hope that the Minister takes heed not only of the letter, but of the arguments we have made today.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (in the Chair): We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
1.18 Pm
Mrs. Caroline Spelman: I thank the hon. Member for (Mr. O'Brien) for sharing his time with us. I am here to show cross-party support, as this is not a party matter. The constituency of Meriden is also served by Walsgrave hospital, and I wonder how many more of our constituents will have to come to our surgeries with a litany of complaint.
I wrote to the Secretary of State, who replied that steps could not be taken because the current management should be given time to implement its action plan. I put it to the Minister that if the hospital were a school zero-rated by the Office for Standards in Education, it would be on emergency measures and an acting head would be brought in. If I were running a business and 99 of my 159 senior managers signed a letter stating a vote of no confidence in me, I would be left with no alternative. Why should a hospital, especially one where lives are at stake, be any different?
1.19 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): I echo the congratulations conveyed by many Members to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) on securing what I think has been, on all counts, an exceptional debate. I have never before witnessed an Adjournment debate in which seven Members wished to participate. There is clearly a strong groundswell of opinion in Warwickshire and Coventry.
I am, of course, aware of the concerns about the standard of services provided by the trust to which my hon. Friends have drawn attention. I realise how strongly they—and the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) —feel about the need to ensure that good health services are available to their constituents. Those concerns are fully shared by Ministers.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire was right to begin by mentioning positive developments in the trust There are such developments: the new renal dialysis unit at St Cross hospital, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Andy King); the new £1.2 million mobile MRI scanner to serve south Warwickshire general hospitals, the George Eliot hospital and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trusts. We have been able to invest £6 million in the development of better facilities for linear accelerators.
Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trust has taken a lead as the English national pilot site for colorectal cancer screening, screening people aged 50 to 69 for colorectal cancer to confirm the effectiveness of early detection. It has also recently been accredited as a university teaching hospital. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire for doing what we should all do—express appreciation for the hard work and commitment of all the hospital's staff and also for their dedication to the well-being of the patients whom they serve.

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I am also grateful to my hon. Friend for noting the progress of the new £290 million hospital in Coventry. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) that it is long overdue, but the investment is now being made. The hospital provides a huge opportunity for improvement in the standard of care and treatment available to the constituents of all who are present today. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire has been a strong advocate of the reforms, and I am grateful to him for that as well.
I shall of course focus my remarks on the concerns raised by my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Meriden about areas of poor performance. They are substantial concerns, which we take very seriously.
The Commission for Health Improvement's rolling programme of clinical governance reviews began in 2000. The University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trust review began in February this year. During that review, the commission examined the clinical governance structure in the trust, taking account of the views of patients, staff and local partner organisations in health and social care, and user representatives.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire will know, the commission published its findings in September. Its report stated that it had
"found an absence of any strategic leadership on patient care and service issues across the three existing sites. In particular, capacity planning for both elective and emergency admissions and development of care pathways and A and E services are in disarray."
Those are exceptionally serious criticisms.
The trust board accepted all the report's findings and, as my hon. Friends will know, has produced a comprehensive two-year plan to address the issues. In the critical period of the first three months, the aim is to end the practice of placing five beds in four-bed bays, rebuild effective working relationships between clinicians and managers—which have been called into question by many who have spoken today—identify the reasons for higher than the national average mortality rates among non-emergency admissions, review the organisation of care between A and E departments to ensure the safe and effective care of patients, and refocus clinical and managerial leadership on the delivery of high-quality services to patients until the opening of the new hospital in 2005. Progress will be measured monthly by the regional office and there will be a joint formal assessment with the Commission for Health Improvement at the end of January 2002.
My hon. Friend mentioned the zero star rating given to the trust in the NHS performance ratings for acute NHS trusts, which were published on 25 September. As he will know, 11 other trusts in England were given the same rating. This is the first time we have assessed performance on issues that parents care about, such as waiting times, hospital cleanliness and the standard of clinical quality, as assessed by the Commission for Health Improvement.
All who spoke raised serious concerns about the trust management's ability to achieve the required improvements. My hon. Friend will appreciate that the positions of the chief executive and other senior managers are, in the first instance, for the trust board to
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address and resolve. I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to comment publicly in this debate on whether the chief executive should continue in his post. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees, however, that it would be neither fair nor responsible to local patients, other hospital staff or my hon. Friend's constituents to let poor performance continue without positive and firm action.
I assure my hon. Friends that when the management of a trust has been instructed to embark immediately on plans to improve performance within an agreed time scale and those plans fail to materialise, appropriate action will follow. That may involve a change in the senior management of the hospital concerned, including the chief executive. I have mentioned the trust's action plan to achieve the required improvements, which I think is the right way to deal with my hon. Friends' concerns.
Several Members expressed anxiety about the trust's performance with regard to heart mortality rates, identified as the highest nationally in the recent Dr. Foster publication. It is important to bear it in mind that the trust is a major acute and tertiary referral centre. I understand that, once adjusted to take account of issues such as age and clinical urgency, its figures are not significantly different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom.
Mrs. Spelman: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Hutton: With the greatest respect, I will not. I have only a few minutes left, and I want to try to deal with all the points that have been raised.
I am told that the hospital has dealt with a higher proportion of surgical cases relating to patients over 75 than hospitals anywhere else in the country, has performed a higher proportion of emergency operations than the average, and has handled more complex cases than a number of other centres. I understand that the trust responded proactively to the publication, trying to reassure patients by, for instance, establishing a patients helpline and sending letters to individual cardiac surgery patients and health care professionals.
The case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth is obviously deplorable, as is that raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Mr. Jenkins). I understand that the trust has apologised unreservedly to the family involved, but clearly this should never have happened.
I appreciate the concerns raised by my hon. Friends, especially that expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) about the difficulty of recruiting extra staff to the hospital. He said that it was proving impossible to recruit a medical director. I understand that one has now been appointed, and will start on Monday.
Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: The problem is that we are unable to recruit precisely because the chief executive remains in his place. As long as he is there, we shall not regain the confidence that is so vital to the three-month plan. We are now halfway through the plan. Following a vote by consultants, it has emerged that an

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unprecedented 66 per cent. are opposed to the chief executive. There is only one way in which to resolve the difficulty.
Mr. Hutton: I accept my hon. Friend's point but, although his concerns are obviously serious, it has been possible to appoint a medical director.
Mrs. Spelman rose—
Mr. Hutton: As I gave way to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West, I shall be fair to the hon. Lady and allow her to intervene briefly.
Mrs. Spelman: That is kind of the Minister.
The figures in the Dr. Foster study have been adjusted. Having checked, I found that they had been adjusted in respect of both age and inter-hospital transfers.
Mr. Hutton: I am sure that the hon. Lady is right. I simply gave the information I have received. I shall make further and better inquiries when I return to my office.
I recognise that the concerns expressed today are very important. Patient safety must be paramount in the national health service at all times and in all places: that is why we have raised the profile of clinical governance in the modern NHS. The concerns need to be addressed quickly by the trust—but there are positive developments as well, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire for mentioning them. The task of senior management and the trust board is now to ensure that sustained performance improvements are made as quickly as possible. We will not hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that that happens.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (in the Chair): I congratulate all who spoke in the debate on their co-operation. It must be unique for eight Members, including the Minister, to deal with such an important issue in half an hour.

Affordable Housing (South Gloucestershire)
1.29 pm
Mr. Steve Webb: I am very grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue that is brought home to me every week in my constituency surgery. In 1997, when I was first elected to Parliament, people very rarely came to see me or wrote to me about housing—the issue did not appear on the radar screen. The contrast between 1997 and this year could not be more acute. Almost every week, one or more families come to see me because their housing is inadequate; it may be too small, unsuitable for raising children or in the wrong area. One of the advantages of Adjournment debates is the opportunity they provide to express to the Government various concerns about the way in which policies, many of which were introduced by previous Governments, are being manifested and to seek a Minister's assurance on those concerns, so that I have more to tell my constituents than, "I'll write to the council for you, but the chances are that nothing much is going to happen."
The human stories of those who come to see me include that of a woman whom I shall not name who will spend this Christmas in bed-and-breakfast accommodation with her child. She came to see me some months ago, and I have done what I can to try to find housing for her, but the last letter that I received from the council said that there was little chance of getting her out of that accommodation before Christmas. I would not want my children and myself to spend Christmas in a bed-and-breakfast hostel, and I am sure that the Minister would not want anyone to have to do so unless it were absolutely necessary. None the less, that is the situation that we have reached in south Gloucestershire.
Another lady who came to see me is the mother of young children and a victim of domestic violence. She is very much the victim in the situation and has not herself created her own housing need. She left her husband, and is living with her children in a first-floor maisonette. If she needs to put out the washing on the ground floor, she has to take all her children with her because they cannot be left alone upstairs as the balcony is not secure. Although she is seven months pregnant, she has to carry a pram and other items upstairs.
Those are very human tales illustrating the unsuitability of social rent housing and, in the case of those folk, of council housing. I seek assurances in this debate that the Government's planned responses—I know that they are taking action—will match the scale of the problem. The number of social rent units in the United Kingdom has decreased in each of the past 10 years. Under Governments of both larger parties, the number of units has decreased from 4.5 million in 1991, to fewer than 4.3 million last year. There have been different policies and initiatives each year, but the number of units has continued to decline.
A couple of weeks ago, in an Adjournment debate on housing in this very hall., the Minister mentioned a target of 100,000 more units of affordable housing by 2004. That is a welcome target, but it compares with an estimate from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that 60,000 to 100,000 units are needed not in the next three years but in every year. The estimate shows the scale of the problem facing us.

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Although, this year, the Government have put more money into the Housing Corporation in an effort to ensure that more affordable housing units are built, fewer units have been built this year than in the last one. The reason for the continued decline is partly that units need to be built in areas where there are shortages of affordable housing, such as in the south, which is more expensive; and partly that, quite rightly, Government policy is that houses should increasingly be built on brownfield rather than greenfield sites, which again makes them more expensive. Therefore, although the money for housing construction has increased, the number of houses built has continued to decrease. I am not saying that it is an easy problem to solve, or that nothing is being done, but simply that the action being taken does not match the problem.
Although I am concerned in this debate primarily with affordable social rent housing, I recognise the issue of affordable owner-occupied housing. I am also aware of Government initiatives to make it easier for key workers to buy a starter home. My main concern today, however, is not the shortage of teachers and nurses in south Gloucestershire. I am talking about families who are in many respects just like mine; I could be in the same situation. There are just not enough houses to meet the needs of those families.
For South Gloucestershire council, there is a problem of both housing supply and housing demand. On the supply side, the council is obliged to honour council tenants' right to buy, and each year it sells on average about 180 council houses. In a typical year, however, south Gloucestershire's housing associations build not 180 units but only 80. Year after year, therefore, the number of social rent units in the area decreases by 100.
In 1998, the council commissioned an independent study that stated that simply to maintain current numbers on the priority housing waiting list, half of all new houses would have to be affordable. It is an extraordinary figure. The same study said that it is not feasible to believe that more than 30 per cent. of new houses will be affordable. Those figures alone show that the problem is likely to grow worse, but as I shall explain in a moment, only a tiny fraction of the new houses are affordable.
A big problem therefore exists on the supply side with right-to-buy sales not being matched by housing association new build. However, there is also a big problem on the demand side. Three years ago, in 1998–99, 400 households were accepted as homeless in south Gloucestershire. Last year, that figure had increased by almost one half, to 575 households. The figure covers only households who have been accepted as homeless; it does not include the long list of people whose houses are unsuitable or too small.
The pressure is growing because new legislation that my colleagues and I supported has given new groups entitlement to housing. It is quite right and proper that that should have happened, but it will add to the pressures on the local authority. The cost of owner-occupation in an area like south Gloucestershire also creates pressure on the demand for affordable rented housing. As they grow up, many young people cannot afford a first home, and so they end up living with their parents. As they grow older, they form relationships and partnerships and have children. Eventually, not merely the grown-up children but their partners and their own
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children are living in the family home. Eventually the strain begins to show, something gives and they cannot continue living there. As there are so few affordable owner-occupied homes, people in those households end up on the housing needs list. Therefore, although I am focusing primarily on rented housing, the problems of owner-occupied housing clearly have a knock-on effect on rented housing.
The average house price in south Gloucestershire is £101,000, which is four times the average salary. Those of us who have ever applied for a mortgage will know what that means. Moreover, the people who I am talking about are not earning the average salary; they are starting out in the job market and simply cannot get on the housing ladder. Consequently, we have decreasing housing supply but increasing demand for it.
How can we meet that demand? There are two principal elements to any Government response, the first of which is to use the planning process to ensure that a decent proportion of new build houses are affordable. That response would be fine in principle if it worked, but there are real practical problems. Paragraph 5.11 of the Government's December 2000 housing policy statement—on the rules allowing local authorities to use the planning process to offer affordable housing—states:
"Although some respondents expressed concerns about the effectiveness of this process, we believe that the current policy already gives local authorities sufficient powers to deliver affordable housing through the planning system."
Although the policy contains a promise of good practice guidance and other relevant provisions, it maintains the principle that the necessary powers already exist. The problem is that if a local authority faced with a big new housing development told the developers that they had to provide lots of affordable homes, the authority cannot also say, "We would also like a primary school, a community centre, a library and highway improvements." The authority has to choose which requirement to impose. One of the problems for South Gloucestershire is that there is so much new housing and so little new infrastructure that the authority, for the sake of the new residents, sometimes has to say that the section 106 condition imposed on the development should relate to community facilities such as schools, thereby watering down the affordable housing requirement or requiring the affordable housing to be built somewhere else.
I have new figures from the authority which, I must admit, shocked me. Each year, between 1,100 and 1,600 new houses are built in the South Gloucestershire council area. The number of those that are affordable because of planning process requirements is not 1,500—which is the average figure—but 70. The planning process is therefore securing only 70 of 1,500 homes as affordable. That is barely 5 per cent, whereas, as I said, the housing needs survey said that 50 per cent. of new homes would have to be affordable simply to keep the waiting list at current levels and that 30 per cent. is the feasible figure. The Minister may say that the council has to choose its priorities between affordable housing or schools and community facilities, but she will understand the pressure on a rapidly growing area with lots of new housing. We need infrastructure as well as affordable housing, and I hope that she will respond on the specific point.

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My first inquiry is whether the planning system can be made more effective in securing affordable homes and I would be grateful for the Minister's reflections on that point. My second inquiry is whether the local government finance system could be used more effectively to support affordable housing. When I was a candidate in 1997, we had a book of standard answers, and I suspect that my answer on this issue was similar to the Minister's. If the question was what we would do about housing and homelessness, the answer was always to say that we would free up the council house receipts.
The Government did introduce a capital receipts initiative, which I naively assumed meant that houses would be built. However, when I tabled a question a few years later to ask how many new council—or socially rented—houses had been built because of the capital receipts initiative, the answer was only a handful. The initiative was not about building new council houses, but an authority that is selling 200 council houses a year should be able to do more with the millions of pounds in receipts to house the people who have not been able to buy a home and who are in real housing need.
Local government finance is a complex subject, but it is difficult to explain to people that they have no housing because the council is selling off all its council houses and the housing associations are not building new ones. Their reasonable response is to ask what happens to the money. I have to tell them that nothing can be done with some of it and some of it allows the council to borrow to renovate, but that it is not used to provide the quantity of new houses that are needed. I ask the Minister to consider whether the local government finance arrangements could be made to help the situation.
Given that I have a Minister from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in front of me, I cannot resist mentioning that as South Gloucestershire has the worst funding settlement for education and one of the worst for social services, and therefore has to spend above its standard spending assessment to keep those services going, the money for housing is even more restricted. That is a tangential point, but prioritising education and social services means that there is even less money to provide decent housing. Local government finance is part of the jigsaw.
The Housing Corporation, and the funding it receives, are also part of the story. The Minister will probably tell me that extra money has been put in. I do not doubt that, and I am grateful for it, but even if the Government's goal is reached, it is only 100,000 new homes. My concern is that my surgeries a week, a month, a year and three years hence will show that the imbalance between supply and demand has not been rectified. It is possible that the same people will come back and tell me that they came to see me a year ago but still have not got a proper home for their children to live in.
My constituency is not one of the most deprived in the country, but that does not mean that it does not have families in real need, especially those in bed and breakfast but also those living in places that are just not right to bring up children. After my constituency surgeries, I go home and say to my wife that if I could achieve one thing it would be to raise £1 million and
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spend it on building new, affordable houses, so that some of the good people I meet could have somewhere decent to bring up their children. That is what I expect for my children and it is something that my constituents should also be able to expect. I am grateful for what the Government have done so far, but my concern is that it will not tackle the problem on the scale that it exists.
1.44 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Ms Sally Keeble): I congratulate the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) on securing this debate and on his speech. I know that the provision of affordable housing is an issue close to his heart and I have answered several written questions from him on the subject. We have all had similar cases in our advice surgeries, and we all share his experience of the problems.
I agree that it is not acceptable for families to be in bed-and-breakfast accommodation at any time, but I can appreciate that it would be even worse at Christmas. As he probably knows, the Government have set up a bed and breakfast unit, which will try to reduce dependence on bed and breakfast, especially for families with children, for whom the use of such accommodation is inappropriate.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the victims of domestic violence. The homelessness legislation and associated priority needs order that is being considered should make them a higher priority and ensure that they are not returned to the place from which they have fled. I hope that legislation will ensure that greater attention is paid to the needs of the victims of domestic violence. That agenda will also be addressed by the supporting people programme.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned a constituent who is seven months pregnant and living in an upstairs property. That raises several issues, including overcrowding, which can often force people into inappropriate accommodation, and it goes to the heart of the issue—the supply of good-quality, affordable family housing.
Ensuring the provision of more decent, affordable homes lies at the heart of the Government's policy and we have taken action to achieve it. We have set ourselves a target of providing 100,000 new affordable homes by the end of 2004. To help us to meet that target we have significantly increased funding for new affordable housing. Over the past five years, the Housing Corporation has directed some £5.3 million of funding to South Gloucestershire, resulting—as the hon. Gentleman said—in the provision of 270 affordable homes, but we intend to do better. Investment through the Housing Corporation will rise to more than £1.2 billion by 2003–4, almost double current levels.
We have increased the resources available to local authorities, primarily to maintain and improve their own stock, but they will also be able to work with housing associations to increase supply. Total capital allocations for local authority housing are being increased from £1.2 billion last year to £2.5 billion by 2003–4. This year, our capital allocation to South Gloucestershire was some £5.85 million and an announcement about next year's allocation will be made next month.

317WH
Much of the hon. Gentleman's constituency is rural and we have put policies in place to ensure that the particular needs of rural areas are addressed. We have doubled the size of the Housing Corporation's programme to deliver affordable housing in rural communities from 800 in 2000–01 to 1,600 homes a year by 2003–04. The corporation has put in place a new rural policy that shows how it will build a rural dimension into all its policies and their delivery. One example of that is the fact that the corporation takes account of the higher costs of development in rural areas when drawing up its scheme cost criteria.
The hon. Gentleman is aware of the starter homes initiative, so I shall not dwell on the issue. However, I should point out that Knightstone and Sovereign housing associations, which operate in his area, have been allocated £1.7 million under that initiative to provide starter homes for about 80 key workers in south Gloucestershire and Bristol. I am sure that he will accept that the infrastructure of schools is no use without the teachers to work in them.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned his concern about allocations policies, especially in relation to domestic violence victims. The provisions of the current homelessness legislation will make it possible for local housing authorities to allocate housing to persons of a particular description. That will give explicit authorisation to the operation of local lettings policies, subject to the scheme as a whole giving reasonable preference to the named categories—those in priority need. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman, who was concerned about making sure that the needs of local people were properly respected in the allocations policies, and about ensuring that the real pressure of need among homeless people was met.
The hon. Member for Northavon spoke at some length about the role of the planning system. I shall deal with that matter in detail, as some connected issues have been quite contentious. If there is to be an increase in the supply of affordable housing in the hon. Gentleman's area, some of those tensions must be resolved.
To increase the supply of affordable housing and to develop more mixed and sustainable communities, we are encouraging local authorities to make best use of provisions in the planning system to secure more affordable homes as part of mixed developments. Some authorities use the existing national planning policy framework extremely effectively to secure the provision of affordable housing. Over the past two years, permissions for as many as 30,000 affordable homes were negotiated, but many local authorities could do better.
I turn now specifically to south Gloucestershire. The authority's local plan aims to ensure provision of an average of 107 affordable homes per year between 1996 and 2011. The council has a target of negotiating for 30 per cent. of all dwellings built to be affordable.
The hon. Member for Northavon mentioned an overall figure that was, to put it politely, not very good, but a more detailed analysis makes it look quite a bit worse. Since 1996, the authority has achieved an average of only 57 affordable homes per year through the planning system. In each consecutive year, the proportion of affordable homes provided has ranged
318WH
from zero per cent. to 6.3 per cent. of all homes built. Clearly, those percentages are well below the local authority's own target figure.
The Government published PPG3 in March 2001. It strengthened the hand of local authorities in seeking to secure affordable housing through the planning system. Regional planning guidance for the south-west, published this September, encourages local authorities, social housing providers and other agencies to work together to assess the need for affordable housing, and to deliver it.
Government have provided the tools, and it is now for the local authority and its partners to ensure that they use them as effectively as possible to secure the affordable housing that the community needs.
Mr. Webb: Is not there a local angle to this matter? If an authority has 500 new houses built, for example, it will not also need a new school or a whole new infrastructure, so it can demand affordable houses as the quid pro quo for the development. However, 5,000 new houses are being built in several areas, where entire new infrastructures will be needed. Those local authorities cannot simply demand that affordable houses should make up 30 per cent. of the development because no new infrastructure is needed. Does not the Minister agree that the number of new houses involved—whether a small number are being built, or whole estates—makes a difference?
Ms Keeble: Perhaps I can help by giving the hon. Gentleman examples of local authorities that have done interesting things and where the trade-off between schools and houses, for instance, has not taken place.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced recently that he intended to look at a range of options for providing more affordable housing through the planning system. That will include considering whether planning obligations on new commercial developments should require some affordable housing in the vicinity of the development.
I said earlier that some local authorities had made extremely good use of the planning system and had negotiated good arrangements with local developers, housing associations and other bodies to secure a good supply of affordable housing. To prove that I am not politically partial in any way, I direct the attention of the hon. Member for Northavon to Taunton Deane council, which is near his area, and to Hackney. Those councils have been exciting and innovative and have succeeded remarkably well in producing good-quality, affordable and sustainable housing.
Local planning authorities must also look at whether existing provision for housing will help to deliver affordable homes and more sustainable communities. The PPG3 document points to the need to review unimplemented planning permissions which, for example, do not take sufficient account of the need for higher-quality development that makes more efficient use of land. Our comments on the south Gloucestershire local plan pointed to a lack of evidence that the council had done that. More could be done by the council to encourage development of a type and density that will produce homes that are more affordable.
The hon. Member for Northavon also asked about financial arrangements, and referred to the answers that he was able to give constituents in his advice surgeries.

319WH
He is braver than I if he is willing to explain the intricacies of local government finance to constituents coming to his surgeries, but I assure him that the issue will be raised in the local government White Paper to be published shortly. In addition, the Government have recognised the need to get extra investment into housing in particular. That is why some of the options now open to local authorities, such as stock transfer, arm's-length management and the provisions in the forthcoming White Paper, will make it possible for them to lever in more financing. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will explain to his constituents that more money will be made available—although he might not trouble them with all the intricacies of the mechanisms involved.
I turn now to the matter of providing enough homes for the whole community. A key aspect of meeting the need for affordable housing is to make sure that the planning system will deliver sufficient homes for the whole community, in the right places and at the right time.
In the former county of Avon, which includes south Gloucestershire, more than 70 per cent. of household growth arises from the existing population. Local people will therefore be hit hardest if the planning system fails to provide sufficient homes for them. They will be unable to obtain housing that meets their needs and, as the hon. Member for Northavon has suggested has already happened, the price of existing houses will increase.
Moreover, there will be more instances of enforced sharing and of people living in inadequate accommodation. People in such circumstances might be covered by the term "the hidden homeless". There are therefore real incentives for local authorities to ensure that they achieve their targets for the provision of affordable housing for people in their areas.
The hon. Member for Northavon will no doubt recall that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, when he was Secretary of State at my Department, directed South Gloucestershire and the other authorities in the former Avon area to increase the housing provision in their joint structure plan. One reason for that direction was that the plan's provision was
320WH
insufficient to meet the housing requirements of the whole community, including those in need of affordable and special-needs housing.
I shall not develop the point further, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Northavon will understand that the planning system cannot play its full part in helping to deliver affordable housing if local planning authorities do not provide enough new homes for the whole community.
The hon. Member for Northavon mentioned the role of the private sector, and we should not ignore the role of the private rented sector in helping to take the strain of providing more housing. The Government are committed to continuing to pursue our strategy of encouraging investment in this sector and of improving standards of quality and management. I hope that legislation will be introduced to cover those matters soon.
I began by saying that this Government share the concerns of the hon. Member for Northavon about the need to ensure a sufficient supply of decent, affordable housing. I do not pretend that we have all the solutions, but I am confident that the measures that we have put in place will make a real difference in helping people to find homes, and in dealing with some of the real human problems that the hon. Gentleman identified—such as those faced by victims of domestic violence, by women who are trapped in unsuitable accommodation, and by people living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation with their children. The latter encounter special difficulties at Christmas.
However, the Government cannot deliver change alone. We need to work in effective and imaginative partnerships with local authorities. Where we have been able to do that, the process has worked extremely well.
The hon. Member for Northavon should go and see the high-quality housing being produced now, partly as a result of the guidance in publications such as "Better Places to Live". The Department is working to promote good standards and to ensure that the right numbers of housing units are developed. That housing is not confined to big council estates, as used to be the case, but is now taking the form of individual units that people want to live in. The Government aim to give people decent and affordable homes in sustainable communities.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Two o'clock.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Parliamentary Conunissioner for Standards
  David Winnick
  To ask the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, for what reason the new contract for the post of Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards will involve fewer working days than the present contract. [14931]

  Norman Baker
  To ask the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, for what reason(a) the hours required from and (b) the salary paid to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards are being reduced. [15535]

  Mr. Kirkwood
  [pursuant to his reply, 23 November 2001, c. 484w]: The time commitment established for the first Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards was four days a week not three. However, the first Commissioner expressed the view towards the end of his appointment that the Commissioner's contribution could be reduced to two to three days a week, provided that some work could be delegated to the Registrar of Members' Interests. Three days a week was then established as the time commitment for the present Commissioner, and it was on this basis that she was offered the appointment.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Uzbekistan
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what representations she has made to the Government of Uzbekistan regarding their policy on British and French humanitarian aid entering Afghanistan. [18195]

  Clare Short
  I have not made any personal representations to the Government of Uzbekistan on UK or French aid entering Afghanistan. However, the UK is fully supportive of the representations made by the humanitarian agencies of the United Nations to the Government of Uzbekistan with regard to the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

  Afghanistan
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the outcome was of the international meeting held in Washington on 20 November on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan; and if she will make a statement. [18194]

  Clare Short
  The USA and Japan co-chaired a conference on Afghanistan's reconstruction in Washington DC on 20 November. It was attended by senior officials from over 20 countries, including the UK,872W
  as well as the United Nations, international financial institutions and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

  The conference agreed the need for long-term international support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, the need to involve Afghans—in particular Afghan women—in all phases of the recovery and reconstruction effort; the importance of recovery intervention that demonstrates a quick impact; and the central role of the United Nations. A steering group has been established to guide reconstruction, co-chaired by the US, Japan, the EU and Saudi Arabia. The first meeting of the steering group will take place in Brussels in December.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what plans she has in place to assist Afghan refugees when they return to their home towns inside Afghanistan; and what plans she has to take account of the needs of women and children in planning and implementing refugee assistance activities. [18196]

  Clare Short
  We fully support the UN's efforts under Ambassador Brahimi to help with the long-term reconstruction of Afghanistan, including that which will support returning refugees. This will involve such measures as expanding basic health services, carrying out emergency repairs to infrastructure, de-mining and the reopening of education facilities.

  We also strongly support Ambassador Brahimi's commitment to addressing human rights issues and his commitment to the involvement of women in discussions. As recovery activities begin, the programmes that we support will be designed and monitored to ensure that women and children benefit.

  The principles and priorities guiding our approach are outlined in our paper entitled 'Afghanistan—Recovery: An emergency plan for the first 100 days'. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Democratic Republic of Congo
  Tony Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on her work with(a) serving and (b) former child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [16074]

  Clare Short
  We continue to work for the disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation of the negative forces in the DRC in line with the Lusaka peace accord and are closely monitoring the situation.

  During the period June 2000—April 2001 we provided a grant of £150,000 to Save the Children for their demobilisation project in the provinces of North and South Kivu. This aimed to provide child soldiers with the social and economic support they required in reintegration into their families and respective communities. We have also provided £400,000 to Rwanda to assist with the DDR programmes for fighters recently from the DRC. This DDR programme includes a special component to provide immediate care for 500 former child soldiers captured in poor physical condition and re-integrate them with their families and communities.

  Global Patent Rules (Africa)
  Tony Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what action she is taking with respect to Africa to prevent global patent rules having a negative effect on health. [16070]

  Clare Short
  The Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement includes flexibilities which should enable developing countries in Africa and elsewhere to protect their public health in situations of crisis or national emergency. Until now, a lack of clarity around these flexibilities had been a source of concern.

  The Government, with the European Commission, worked hard to ensure that the Doha Ministerial produced a meaningful declaration on TRIPS and public health. We welcome and fully support the proposals in the Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and the World Trade Organisation's (WTO's) efforts to ensure the TRIPS Agreement can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' rights to protect public health.

  The Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, which I established earlier this year, is looking at how international intellectual property rules might need to develop in future best to take account of the interests of developing countries. It is due to report in June 2002.

  There is of course more to improving access to medicines in developing countries than global patent rules. The World Health Organisation recognises four key factors. These include sustainable financing, affordable pricing, reliable health and supply systems, and the rational selection and use of existing drugs. My Department remains committed to working with our developing country partners and other international organisations to address all these issues, which are particularly pertinent in Africa. To this end we have pledged US$200 million to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria; set up a Working Group on Access to Medicines to look at options on differential pricing and increasing research and development; and committed over £1 billion since 1997 to help developing countries put in place effective health care systems.

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Attendance Allowance

  higher rate

  55.30

  56.25

  lower rate

  37.00

  37.65

  Child Benefit

  —only, elder or eldest for whom child benefit is payable (couple)

  15.50

  15.75

  —only, elder or eldest for whom child benefit is payable (loneparent)

  17.55

  17.55

  —each subsequent child

  10.35

  10.55

  Child's Special Allowance

  see note on Child Dependency Increase

  11.35

  11.35

  Council Tax Benefit

  Personal allowances

  single

  18 to 24

  42.00

  42.70

  25 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  Turkey
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what financial assistance has been given to Turkey by her Department in each of the last three years; what was the amount of funding; what the projects were for which the funding was allocated; and what supervision her Department has undertaken of the development of these projects. [17881]

  Clare Short
  Given Turkey's relative wealth and development we do not have a bilateral development assistance programme. We did provide Turkey with over £1.4 million in response to the 1999 earthquake disasters, in the form of tents, medical supplies, blankets and a variety of other humanitarian assistance. Turkey also receives substantial assistance from the EU MEDA programme and through the international financial institutions to which DFID is a major contributor. Our share of EC commitments to Turkey during the last three years has been over £50 million.

  Zimbabwe
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what actions her Department is taking to alleviate the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe; and what assessment she has made of the impact of President Mugabe's decision not to allow aid agencies to distribute emergency food supplies. [18633]

  Clare Short
  We are closely involved in the development of a humanitarian assistance plan by the United Nations Development Programme in Zimbabwe in which UN agencies and NGOs are expected to play a key role. This plan is presently being discussed by UNDP with the Government of Zimbabwe on behalf of all potential providers of funds. We have also begun an initial supplementary feeding programme for 280,000 people (predominantly children) in the worst hit areas. We have not been informed of any decision not to allow agencies to distribute emergency food supplies.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Benefit Uprating
  Mr. Laxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will list the new rates of benefit proposed from April 2002.

  Mr. Darling
  The information is in the table.
  875W 876W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  lone parent—18 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  couple—one or both over 18

  83.25

  84.65

  Dependent Children

  from birth to September following 16th birthday

  32.95

  33.50

  from September following 16th birthday to day before 19th birthday

  33.75

  34.30

  Premiums

  family

  14.50

  14.75

  family (lone parent rate)

  22.20

  22.20

  pensioner

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (enhanced)

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (higher)

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  disability

  single

  22.60

  23.00

  couple

  32.25

  32.80

  enhanced disability premium single rate

  11.05

  11.25

  disabled child rate

  11.05

  11.25

  couple rate

  16.00

  16.25

  severe disability

  single

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (one qualifies)

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (both qualify)

  83.10

  84.50

  disabled child

  30.00

  35.50

  carer

  24.40

  24.80

  bereavement

  19.45

  21.55

  Non-dependant deductions

  aged 18 or over and in remunerative work

  —gross income: £281 or more

  6.95

  6.95

  —gross income: £225—£280.99

  5.80

  5.80

  —gross income: £131—£224.99

  4.60

  4.60

  —gross income less than £131

  2.30

  2.30

  others, aged 18 or over

  2.30

  2.30

  Alternative maximum Council Tax Benefit

  second adult on IS or JSA(ib)

  25% of Council Tax

  25% of Council Tax

  second adult's gross income:

  —under £131

  15% of Council Tax

  15% of Council Tax

  —£131 to £170

  7.5% of Council Tax

  7.5% of Council Tax

  Capital

  upper limit

  16000.00

  16000.00

  amount disregarded

  3000.00

  3000.00

  upper limit (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  16000.00

  16000.00

  amount disregarded (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  6000.00

  6000.00

  child disregard

  3000.00

  3000.00

  upper limit of RC/NH

  16000.00

  16000.00

  amount disregarded of RC/NH

  10000.00

  10000.00

  Tariff income

  £ 1 for every complete £250 or part thereof between amount of capital disregarded and capital upper limit

  Earnings disregards

  where disability premium awarded

  20.00

  20.00

  various specified employments

  20.00

  20.00

  lone parent

  25.00

  25.00

  where the claimant has a partner

  10.00

  10.00

  single claimant

  5.00

  5.00

  where carer premium awarded

  20.00

  20.00

  childcare charges

  94.50

  childcare charges (2 or more children)

  140.00

  Other income disregards

  maintenance disregard

  15.00

  15.00

  war disablement pension and war widow's pension

  10.00

  10.00

  certain voluntary and charitable payments

  20.00

  20.00

  877W 878W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  student loan

  10.00

  10.00

  student's covenanted income

  5.00

  5.00

  income from boarders:

  disregard the fixed amount (£20) plus

  50% of the balance of the charge

  20.00

  20.00

  30 Hr Adult Allowance in DPTC

  11.45

  11.65

  30 Hr Adult Credit in WFTC

  11.45

  11.65

  Expenses for subtenants

  furnished or unfurnished

  4.00

  4.00

  where heating is included, additional

  9.55

  9.70

  Dependency Increases

  Adult Dependency Increases or spouse or person looking after children, with:

  retirement pension on own insurance,

  43.40

  45.20

  long term incap. benefit, unemployability supplement

  41.75

  42.45

  severe disablement allowance

  25.00

  25.45

  invalid care allowance

  24.95

  25.35

  short-term incap. benefit if beneficiary over pension age

  40.10

  40.80

  maternity allowance/short-term incap. ben.

  32.55

  33.10

  Child Dependency Increases, with:

  retirement pension, widowed mothers allowance, widowed parents allowance, short-term incap. ben. at the higher rate & long term incap. ben. invalid care allowance severe disab. allowce, higher rate industrial death benefit, unemployability supplement and short-term incap.benefit if beneficiary over pension age

  11.35

  11.35

  NB—The Overlapping Benefits Regulations provide for the rate of child dependency increases, guardian's allowance and child special allowance to be adjusted where the increase allowance is payable for the eldest eligible child for whom Chb is also payable. The weekly rate of the increase allowance is reduced by the differential (less £3.50 from April 2000) between the rate of ChB payable for the oldest eligible child and that payable for a subsequent child.

  Disability Living Allowance

  Care Component

  Highest

  55.30

  56.25

  Middle

  37.00

  37.65

  Lowest

  14.65

  14.90

  Mobility Component

  Higher

  38.65

  39.30

  Lower

  14.65

  14.90

  Earnings Rules

  Invalid Care Allowance

  72.00

  75.00

  Limit of earnings from councillor's allowance

  60.50

  66.00

  Therapeutic earnings limit

  60.50

  66.00

  Industrial injuries unemployability supplement permitted earnings level (annual amount)

  3,146.00

  3,432.00

  War pensioners' unemployability supplement permitted earnings level (annual amount)

  3,146.00

  3,432.00

  Adult dependency increases with short-term incap. benefit where claimant is

  (a) under pension age

  32.55

  33.10

  (b) over pension age

  40.10

  40.80

  maternity allowance

  32.55

  33.10

  retirement pension, severe disablement allowance, unemployability supplement where dependant

  (a) is living with claimant

  53.05

  53.95

  (b) still qualifies for the tapered earnings rule

  45.09

  45.09

  retirement pension,

  43.40

  45.20

  and unemployability supplement where dependant not living with claimant

  41.75

  42.45

  severe disablement allowance where dependant not living with claimant

  25.00

  25.45

  invalid care allowance

  24.95

  25.35

  Child dependency increases

  level at which CDIs are affected earnings of claimant's spouse or partner for first child

  150.00

  155.00

  for each subsequent child

  20.00

  20.00

  Guardian's Allowance

  see note on Child Dependency Increase

  11.35

  11.35

  879W 880W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Housing Benefit

  Personal allowances

  single

  16 to 24

  42.00

  42.70

  25 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  lone parent

  under 18

  42.00

  42.70

  18 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  couple

  both under 18

  63.35

  64.45

  one or both 18 or over

  83.25

  84.65

  dependent children

  from birth to September following 16th birthday

  32.95

  33.50

  from Sept. following 16th birthday to day before 19th birthday

  33.75

  34.30

  Premiums

  family

  14.50

  14.75

  family (lone parent rate)

  22.20

  22.20

  pensioner

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (enhanced)

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (higher)

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  disability

  single

  22.60

  23.00

  couple

  32.25

  32.80

  enhanced disbility premium single rate

  11.05

  11.25

  disabled child rate

  11.05

  11.25

  couple rate

  16.00

  16.25

  severe disability

  single

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (one qualifies)

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (both qualify)

  83.10

  84.50

  disabled child

  30.00

  35.50

  carer

  24.40

  24.80

  bereavement

  19.45

  21.55

  Non-dependant deductions

  rent rebates and allowances

  aged 25 and over, in receipt of Income Support or income based Job Seekers Allowance

  aged 18 or over, not in remunerative work or

  —gross income less than £88

  aged 18 or over and in remunerative work

  7.40

  7.40

  —gross income: less than £88

  7.40

  7.40

  —gross income: £88 to £130.99

  17.00

  17.00

  —gross income: £131 to £169.99

  23.35

  23.35

  —gross income: £170 to £224.99

  38.20

  38.20

  —gross income: £225 to £280.99

  43.50

  43.50

  —gross income: £281 and above

  47.75

  47.75

  Service charges for fuel

  heating

  9.25

  9.40

  hot water

  1.15

  1.15

  lighting

  0.80

  0.80

  cooking

  1.15

  1.15

  Amount ineligible for meals three or more meals a day

  single claimant

  18.95

  19.25

  each person in family aged 16 or over

  18.95

  19.25

  each child under 16

  9.55

  9.70

  less than three meals a day

  single claimant

  12.60

  12.80

  each person in family aged 16 or over

  12.60

  12.80

  each child under 16

  6.35

  6.45

  breakfast only—claimant and each member of family

  2.30

  2.35

  881W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Capital

  upper limit

  16,000.00

  16,000.00

  amount disregarded

  3,000.00

  3,000.00

  upper limit (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  16,000.00

  16,000.00

  amount disregarded (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  6,000.00

  6,000.00

  child disregard

  3,000.00

  3,000.00

  upper limit of RC/NH

  16,000.00

  16,000.00

  amount disregarded of RC/NH

  10,000.00

  10,000.00

  Tariff income

  £1 for every complete £250 or part thereof between amount of capital disregarded and capital upper limit

  Earnings disregards

  where disability premium awarded

  20.00

  20.00

  various specified employments

  20.00

  20.00

  lone parent

  25.00

  25.00

  where the claimant has a partner

  10.00

  10.00

  single claimant

  5.00

  5.00

  where carer premium awarded

  20.00

  20.00

  childcare charges

  94.50

  childcare charges (2 or more children)

  140.00

  Other income disregards

  maintenance disregard

  15.00

  15.00

  war disablement pension and war widow's pension

  10.00

  10.00

  certain voluntary and charitable payments

  20.00

  20.00

  student loan

  10.00

  10.00

  student's covenanted income

  5.00

  5.00

  income from boarders:

  disregard the fixed amount (£20) plus

  50% of the balance of the charge

  20.00

  20.00

  30 Hr Adult Allowance in DPTC

  11.45

  30 Hr Adult Credit in WFTC

  11.45

  Expenses for subtenants

  furnished or unfurnished

  4.00

  4.00

  where heating is included, additional

  9.55

  9.70

  Incapacity Benefit

  Long-term Incapacity Benefit

  69.75

  70.95

  short-term Incapacity Benefit (under pension age)

  lower rate

  52.60

  53.50

  higher rate

  62.20

  63.25

  short-term Incapacity Benefit (over pension age)

  lower rate

  66.90

  68.05

  higher rate

  69.75

  70.95

  Increase of Long-term Incap. Ben for age

  higher rate

  14.65

  14.90

  lower rate

  7.35

  7.45

  Invalidity Allowance (Transitional)

  higher rate

  14.65

  14.90

  middle rate

  9.30

  9.50

  lower rate

  4.65

  4.75

  Income Support

  Personal Allowances

  single

  under 18—usual rate

  31.95

  32.50

  under 18—higher rate payable in specific circumstances

  42.00

  42.70

  18 to 24

  42.00

  42.70

  25 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  lone parent

  under 18—usual rate

  31.95

  32.50

  under 18—higher rate payable in specific circumstances

  42.00

  42.70

  18 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  couple

  both under 18

  31.95

  32.50

  both under 18, one disabled

  42.00

  42.70

  both under 18, with resp. for a child

  63.35

  64.45

  one under 18, one 18–24

  42.00

  42.70

  one under 18, one 25+

  53.05

  53.95

  both 18 or over

  83.25

  84.65

  882W 883W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  dependent children

  birth to September following 16th birthday

  32.95

  33.50

  from Sept. following 16th birthday to day before 19th birthday

  33.75

  34.30

  Residential Allowance

  Except Greater London

  63.30

  64.40

  Greater London

  70.45

  71.65

  Premiums

  family

  14.50

  14.75

  family (lone parent rate)

  15.90

  15.90

  pensioner

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (enhanced)

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (higher)

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  disability

  single

  22.60

  23.00

  couple

  32.25

  32.80

  enhanced disability premium single rate

  11.05

  11.25

  disabled child rate

  11.05

  11.25

  ouple rate

  16.00

  16.25

  severe disability

  single

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (one qualifies)

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (both qualify)

  83.10

  84.50

  disabled child

  30.00

  35.50

  carer

  24.40

  24.80

  bereavement

  19.45

  21.55

  Maximum amounts for accommodation and meals in residential care homes

  old age

  225.00

  0.00

  very dependent elderly

  261.00

  0.00

  mental disorder (not handicap)

  238.00

  0.00

  drug/alchohol dependence

  238.00

  0.00

  mental handicap

  271.00

  0.00

  physical disablement

  (a) (under pension age)

  308.00

  0.00

  (b) (over pension age)

  225.00

  0.00

  others

  225.00

  0.00

  maximum Greater London increase

  47.00

  0.00

  nursing homes

  mental disorder (not handicap)

  337.00

  0.00

  drug/alchohol dependence

  337.00

  0.00

  mental handicap

  343.00

  0.00

  terminal illness

  336.00

  0.00

  physical disablement

  (a) (under pension age)

  379.00

  0.00

  (b) (over pension age)

  336.00

  0.00

  others (including elderly)

  336.00

  0.00

  maximum Greater London increase

  52.00

  0.00

  Amounts for meals where these cannot be purchased within the accommodation (Daily Rate)

  breakfast

  1.10

  0.00

  midday meal

  1.55

  0.00

  evening meal

  1.55

  0.00

  Allowances for personal expenses for claimants in private and voluntary residential care and nursing homes

  personal expenses

  16.05

  0.00

  dependent children

  (a) under 11

  6.25

  0.00

  (b) 11 to 15

  9.15

  0.00

  (c) 16 to 17

  10.55

  0.00

  (d) age 18

  15.25

  0.00

  local authority (Pt III) accommodation

  72.50

  75.50

  of which, Personal Expenses

  16.05

  16.80

  884W 885W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Allowances for personal expenses for claimants in: the Polish home Ilford Park

  max amount for accommodation and meals

  379.00

  385.00

  personal expenses for claimant

  17.35

  17.35

  personal expenses for partner

  17.35

  17.35

  personal expenses for dep children

  (a) under 11

  6.25

  6.35

  (b) 11 to 15

  9.15

  9.30

  (c) 16 to 17

  10.55

  10.75

  (d) 18

  15.55

  15.55

  personal expenses allowance for claimant admitted or readmitted on or after 1 April 1995

  16.05

  16.80

  Housing costs deduction for non-dependants aged 25 and over, in receipt of Income Support or income based Job Seekers Allowance aged 18 or over, not in work or

  —gross income less than £88

  7.40

  7.40

  aged 18 or over and in remunerative work:

  —gross income: £88 to £130.99

  17.00

  17.00

  —gross income: £131 to £169.99

  23.35

  23.35

  —gross income: £170 to £224.99

  38.20

  38.20

  —gross income: £225 to £280.99

  43.50

  43.50

  —gross income: £281 and abov

  47.75

  47.75

  Deduction for direct payments

  arrears of housing, fuel and water costs council tax and fines default, and

  2.70

  2.70

  deductions for child maintenance (standard)

  5.40

  5.40

  deductions for child maintenance (lower)

  2.70

  2.70

  Arrears of Community Charge

  court order against claimant

  2.70

  2.70

  court order against couple

  4.20

  4.25

  Maximium rates for recovery of overpayments

  ordinary overpayments

  8.10

  8.10

  where claimant convicted of fraud

  10.80

  10.80

  Reduction in benefit for strikers

  28.50

  29.00

  Capital

  upper limit

  8,000.00

  8,000.00

  amount disregarded

  3,000.00

  3,000.00

  upper limit (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  12,000.00

  12,000.00

  amount disregarded (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  6,000.00

  6,000.00

  child's limit

  3,000.00

  3,000.00

  upper limit of RC/NH

  16,000.00

  16,000.00

  amt disregarded of RC/NH

  10,000.00

  10,000.00

  Tariff income

  £1 for every complete £250 or part thereof between amount of capital disregarded and capital upper limit

  Disregards

  standard earnings

  5.00

  5.00

  couples earnings

  10.00

  10.00

  higher earnings

  20.00

  20.00

  war disablement pension and war widow's pension

  10.00

  10.00

  voluntary and charitable payments

  20.00

  20.00

  student loan

  10.00

  10.00

  student's covenanted income

  5.00

  5.00

  income from boarders:

  disregard the fixed amount £20) plus

  50% of the balance of the charge

  20.00

  20.00

  Expenses for subtenants

  furnished or unfurnished

  4.00

  4.00

  where heating is included, additional

  9.55

  9.70

  Industrial Death Benefit

  Widow's pension

  higher rate

  72.50

  75.50

  lower rate

  21.75

  22.65

  Widower's pension

  72.50

  75.50

  886W 887W 888W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Industrial Injuries Disablement Pension

  8 and over, or under 18 with dependants

  100%

  112.90

  114.80

  90%

  101.61

  103.32

  80%

  90.32

  91.84

  70%

  79.03

  80.36

  60%

  67.74

  68.88

  50%

  56.45

  57.40

  40%

  45.16

  45.92

  30%

  33.87

  34.44

  20%

  22.58

  22.96

  Under 18

  100%

  69.15

  70.35

  90%

  62.24

  63.32

  80%

  55.32

  56.28

  70%

  48.41

  49.25

  60%

  41.49

  42.21

  50%

  34.58

  35.18

  40%.

  27.66

  28.14

  30%

  20.75

  21.11

  20%

  13.83

  14.07

  Maximum life gratuity (lump sum)

  7,500.00

  7,630.00

  Unemployability Supplement

  69.75

  70.95

  plus where appropriate an increase for early incapacity

  higher rate

  14.65

  14.90

  middle rate

  9.30

  9.50

  lower rate

  4.65

  4.75

  Maximum reduced earnings allowance

  45.16

  45.92

  Maximum retirement allowance

  11.29

  11.48

  Constant attendance allowance

  exceptional rate

  90.40

  92.00

  intermediate rate

  67.80

  69.00

  normal maximum rate

  45.20

  46.00

  part-time rate

  22.60

  23.00

  Exceptionally severe disablement allowance

  45.20

  46.00

  Invalid Care Allowance

  41.75

  42.45

  Jobseekers Allowance

  Contribution based JSA—Pers. rates

  under 18

  31.95

  32.50

  18 to 24

  42.00

  42.70

  25 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  Income-based JSA—pers. allowances

  under 18

  31.95

  32.50

  18 to 24

  42.00

  42.70

  25 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  lone parent

  under 18—usual rate

  31.95

  32.50

  under 18—higher rate payable in specific circumstances

  42.00

  42.70

  18 or over

  53.05

  53.95

  couple

  both under 18

  31.95

  32.50

  both under 18. one disabled

  42.00

  42.70

  both under 18. with resp. for a child

  63.35

  64.45

  one under 18, one 18–24

  42.00

  42.70

  one under 18. one 25+

  53.05

  53.95

  both 18 or over

  83.25

  84.65

  dependent children

  from birth to September following 16th birthday

  32.95

  33.50

  from Sept. following 16th birthday to day before 19th birthday

  33.75

  34.30

  Residential Allowance

  except Greater London

  63.30

  64.40

  Greater London

  70.45

  71.65

  889W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Premiums

  family

  14.50

  14.75

  family (lone parent rate)

  15.90

  15.90

  pensioner

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (enhanced)

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  pensioner (higher)

  single

  39.10

  44.20

  couple

  57.30

  65.15

  disability

  single

  22.60

  23.00

  couple

  32.25

  32.80

  enhanced disability premium single rate

  11.05

  11.25

  disabled child rate

  11.05

  11.25

  couple rate

  16.00

  16.25

  severe disability

  single

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (one qualifies)

  41.55

  42.25

  couple (both qualify)

  83.10

  84.50

  disabled child

  30.00

  35.50

  carer

  24.40

  24.80

  bereavement

  19.45

  21.55

  Maximum amounts for accommodation and meals in residential care homes

  mental disorder (not handicap)

  238.00

  0.00

  drug/alchohol dependence

  238.00

  0.00

  mental handicap

  271.00

  0.00

  physical disablement

  (a) (under pension age)

  308.00

  0.00

  others

  225.00

  0.00

  maximum Greater London increase

  47.00

  0.00

  nursing homes

  mental disorder (not handicap)

  337.00

  0.00

  drug/alchohol dependence

  337.00

  0.00

  mental handicap

  343.00

  0.00

  terminal illness

  336.00

  0.00

  physical disablement (a) (under pension age)

  379.00

  0.00

  others (including elderly)

  336.00

  0.00

  maximum Greater London increase

  52.00

  0.00

  Amounts for meals where these cannot be purchased within the accommodation (Daily Rate)

  breakfast

  1.10

  0.00

  midday meal

  1.55

  0.00

  evening meal

  1.55

  0.00

  Allowances for personal expenses for claimants in private and voluntary residential care and nursing homes

  personal expenses

  16.05

  0.00

  dependent children

  (a) under 11

  6.25

  0.00

  (b) 11 to 15

  9.15

  0.00

  (c) 16 to 17

  10.55

  0.00

  (d) age 18

  15.25

  0.00

  local authority (Pt III) accommodation

  72.50

  75.50

  of which, Personal Expenses

  16.05

  16.80

  Housing costs

  deduction for non-dependants aged 25 and over, in receipt of Income Support or income based Job Seekers Allowance aged 18 or over, not in remunerative work or

  —gross income less than £88

  7.40

  7.40

  aged 18 or over and in remunerative work

  —gross income: less than £88

  7.40

  7.40

  —gross income: £88 to £130.99

  17.00

  17.00

  —gross income: £131 to £169.99

  23.35

  23.35

  —gross income: £170 to £224.99

  38.20

  38.20

  —gross income: £225 to £280.99

  43.50

  43.50

  —gross income: £281 and above

  47.75

  47.75

  890W 891W 892W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Deduction for direct payments

  Deductions from JSA (IB)

  arrears of housing, fuel and water costs

  council tax and fines default, and

  2.70

  2.70

  Deductions for Child Maintenance

  deductions for child maintenance (standard)

  5.40

  5.40

  deductions for child maintenance (lower)

  2.70

  2.70

  Arrears of Community Charge

  court order against claimant

  2.70

  2.70

  court order against couple

  4.20

  4.25

  Deductions from JSA (Cont.)

  Arrears of Comm. Charge, Council Tax, fines & overpayment recovery

  Age 16–17

  10.65

  10.83

  Age 18–24

  14.00

  14.23

  Age 25+

  17.68

  17.98

  Max. dedn for arrears of Child Supp Maintenance

  Age 16–17

  10.65

  10.83

  Age 18–24

  14.00

  14.23

  Age 25+

  17.68

  17.98

  Maximium rates for recovery of overpayments in JSA(ib)

  ordinary overpayments

  8.10

  8.10

  where claimant convicted of fraud

  10.80

  10.80

  Reduction in benefit for strikers

  28.50

  29.00

  Capital

  upper limit

  8,000.00

  8,000.00

  amount disregarded

  3,000.00

  3,000.00

  child's limit

  3,000.00

  3,000.00

  upper limit of RC/NH

  16,000.00

  16,000.00

  amount disregarded of RC/NH

  10,000.00

  10,000.00

  upper limit (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  12,000.00

  12,000.00

  amount disregarded (clmt/ptner 60 or over)

  6,000.00

  6,000.00

  Tariff income

  £1 for every complete £250 or part thereof between amount of capital disregarded and capital upper limit

  Disregards

  standard earnings

  5.00

  5.00

  couples earnings

  10.00

  10.00

  higher earnings

  20.00

  20.00

  war disablement pension and war widow's pension

  10.00

  10.00

  voluntary and charitable payments

  20.00

  20.00

  student loan

  10.00

  10.00

  student's covenanted income

  5.00

  5.00

  income from boarders: disregard the fixed amount (£20) plus

  50% of the balance of the charge

  20.00

  20.00

  Expenses for subtenants

  furnished or unfurnished

  4.00

  4.00

  where heating is included, additional

  9.55

  9.70

  Maternity Allowance

  New standard rate

  62.20

  75.00

  MA threshold

  30.00

  30.00

  Pneumoconiosis, Byssinosis, and Miscellaneous Diseases Scheme and the Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation)

  Total disablement allowance and major incapacity allowance (maximum)

  112.90

  114.80

  Partial disablement allowance

  41.75

  42.45

  Unemployability supplement

  69.75

  70.95

  plus where appropriate increases for early incapacity

  higher rate

  14.65

  14.90

  middle rate

  9.30

  9.50

  lower rate

  4.65

  4.75

  Constant attendance allowance

  exceptional rate

  90.40

  92.00

  intermediate rate

  67.80

  69.00

  normal maximum rate

  45.20

  46.00

  part-time rate

  22.60

  23.00

  893W

  Rates

  (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown)

  2001

  2002

  Exceptionally severe disablement allowance

  45.20

  46.00

  Lesser incapacity allowance

  maximum rate of allowance

  41.75

  42.45

  based on loss of earnings over

  55.30

  56.25

  Retirement Pension

  Category A or B

  72.50

  75.50

  Category B(lower)—husband's insurance

  43.40

  45.20

  Category C or D —non-contributory

  43.40

  45.20

  Category C(lower)—non-contributory

  25.95

  27.00

  Additional pension

  Increase by:

  1.7%

  Increments to:—

  Increase by:

  Basic pension

  4.1%

  Additional pension

  1.7%

  Contracted out deductions (CODs) (Pre Apr '88 earnings)

  1.7%

  Graduated Retirement Benefit (GRB)

  1.7%

  Increments to CODs (Apr.88—Apr. 97 earngs) [3.0% paid by schemes]

  Nil

  Graduated Retirement Benefit (unit)(pence)

  9.06

  9.21

  Graduated Retirement Benefit (Inherited)

  Increase by:

  1.7%

  Addition at age 80

  0.25

  0.25

  Severe Disablement Allowance

  Basic rate

  42.15

  42.85

  Age-related addition (from Dec 90)

  Higher rate

  14.65

  14.90

  Middle rate

  9.30

  9.50

  Lower rate

  4.65

  4.75

  Statutory Maternity Pay

  Earnings threshold

  72.00

  75.00

  Lower rate

  62.20

  75.00

  Statutory Sick Pay

  Earnings threshold

  72.00

  75.00

  Standard rate

  62.20

  63.25

  Widow's Benefit

  Widowed mother's allowance

  72.50

  75.50

  Widow's pension

  standard rate

  72.50

  75.50

  age-related

  age 54 (49)

  67.43

  70.22

  53 (48)

  62.35

  64.93

  52 (47)

  57.28

  59.65

  51 (46)

  52.20

  54.36

  50 (45)

  47.13

  49.08

  49 (44)

  42.05

  43.79

  48 (43)

  36.98

  38.51

  47 (42)

  31.90

  33.22

  46 (41)

  26.83

  27.94

  45 (40)

  21.75

  22.65

  Note: For deaths occurring before 11 April 1988 refer to age-points shown in brackets.

  Bereavement Benefit

  Bereavement payment (lump sum)

  2000.00

  2000.00

  Widowed parent's allowance

  72.50

  75.50

  Bereavement Allowance

  standard rate

  72.50

  75.50

  age-related

  age 54

  67.43

  70.22

  53

  62.35

  64.93

  52

  57.28

  59.65

  51

  52.20

  54.36

  50

  47.13

  49.08

  49

  42.05

  43.79

  48

  36.98

  38.51

  47

  31.90

  33.22

  46

  26.83

  27.94

  45

  21.75

  22.65

  894W

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Mr. Laxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what plans he has to change the(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limit for 2001–02. [19700]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimate, the Department for Work and Pensions Departmental Expenditure Limit will be increased by £3,338,291,000 from £3,964,124,000 to £7,302,415,000 and the administration cost limit by £1,336,666,000 from £3,566,177,000 to £4,902,843,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are set out in the following table:

  Resources

  Capital

  Change

  3,230,537

  107,754

  New DEL

  7,091,614

  210,801

  Of which: voted

  5,843,935

  121,461

  Non voted

  1,247,679

  89,340

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

  (i) the transfer of the Employment Service from the Department for Education and Skills (£2,191,389 of which £1,239,729 are administration costs), the transfer of certain functions previously undertaken by Department for Education and Employment (£225,468,000 of which £18,322,000 are administration costs) and the transfer of the War Pensions Agency to Ministry of Defence (£35,799,000 of which £36,466,000 are administration costs) as announced by the Prime Minister on 8 June.

  (ii) take up of end year flexibility entitlements (£178,291,000 of which £136,213,000 are administration costs) announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Table 6 of the 2000–01 Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper (Cm 5243).

  (iii) an increase of £4,612,000 (administration costs) in provision from the Employment Opportunities Fund in DEL for expenditure on the new deals for the unemployed and sick and disabled.

  (iv) an increase of £78,000 (administration costs) from the repayment arrangement with Department of Trade and Industry for the cost incurred by Department for Work and Pensions on the Post Office General Practitioners pilot.

  (v) a net reduction of £1,302,000 (administration costs) due to a transfer to the Scottish Executive of the Resettlement programme in Scotland (£1,318,000) and from the Scottish Executive (£16,000) towards the cost of the Family Resources Survey.

  (vi) an increase in provision of £509,000 (administration costs) following a transfer from Department of Health towards the project costs of preserved rights cases and care direct.

  (vii) a net reduction of £4,679.000 (administration costs) due to a transfer to Inland Revenue of Programme Protection Funding (£50,000), for the cost of work being performed by Inland Revenue to assist the Benefits Agency clearing a backlog of CA 5400 work (5£00,000), the cost of work being performed by Inland Revenue on NIRS development work (£5,000,000) and a transfer of £1,571,000 from Inland Revenue for accommodation office services at Newcastle.

  (viii) an increase of £1,229,000 (administration costs) from the reserve under the Debt Recovery Incentive Scheme.

  (ix) an increase of £362,000 (administration costs) from an allocation to the department from the evidence based policy fund.

  896W

  (x) a net reduction of £165,000 due at transfer of £190,000 to Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions for Rough Sleepers and a transfer from Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions of £25,000 (administration costs) for Local PSAs.

  (xi) a transfer of £200,000 (administration costs) from Lord Chancellor's Department to meet the cost of work being provided to them by the departmental central index.

  (xii) an increase of £20,000,000 (administration costs) from the Employment Opportunities Fund to enable Employment Services to maintain the present office network during the review of the Jobcentre Plus future network.

  (xiii) an increase in provision of £117,400,000 (administration costs) from the Employment Opportunities Fund to set up the Jobcentre Plus Pathfinder offices.

  (xiv) a reduction in provision of £1,200,000 as result of a transfer to Department for Education and Skills to cover the cost of work performed by the Adult Learning Inspectorate for Employment Services.

  (xv) an increase of £78,000 in appropriations in aid.

  (xvi) a net reduction in Employment Opportunities Fund requirements of £8,439,000 following a reapportionment of expenditure within and between RfRs.

  (xvii) as a result of the machinery of government changes there is an increase in the Department for Work and Pensions Departmental Expenditure Limit of £542,661,000 which is non-Voted.

  (xviii) administration cost limit changes arise from a reduction of £138,928,000 due to a reclassification of Employment Opportunities Fund expenditure and an increase of £20,638,000 in administration costs related appropriations in aid.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from:

  (i) the transfer of the employment service from the Department for Education and Skills (£12,550,000) and the transfer of the War Pensions Agency to Ministry of Defence (£300,000) as announced by the Prime Minister on 8 June.

  (ii) take up of end year flexibility entitlements of £81,200,000 announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Table 6 of the 2000–01 Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper (Cm 5243).

  (iii) an increase in provision of £4,800,000 from the Employment Opportunities Fund to set up the Jobcentre Plus Pathfinder offices.

  (iv) an increase of £2,000,000 from the Capital Modemisation Fund for Supported Employment.

  (v) as a result of the machinery of government changes there is an increase in the Department for Work and Pensions Departmental Expenditure Limit of £7,504,000 which is non-Voted.

  All of these changes will either be offset by transfers or charged to the reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  New Deal for Communities (Leicester Braunstone)
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the operation of the Braunstone Community Association in respect of the new deal; what the cost is of the scheme; what plans he has to inquire into the administration of the scheme; and if he will make a statement. [15779]

  Ms Keeble
  I have been asked to reply.

  Leicester Braunstone is one of the New Deal for Community Round 1 Pathfinders and has an overall grant of £49.5 million to spend over up to 10 years.
  897W
  The scheduled mid year review of the Braunstone New Deal for Communities Programme took place in Braunstone on 22 November 2001. The review considered among other things the strategic direction and delivery of the programme, including progress in delivering the Braunstone Community Association 2001–02 Action Plan, developments in partnership working and community involvement.

  Proceedings, which were chaired by an official from the Government Office for the East Midlands, were conducted in a positive atmosphere. Nothing substantive arose during the review to change the status of the programme.

  The next few weeks will be very important for the Braunstone New Deal for Communities Programme as the BCA awaits the findings of an independent investigation it set up to look into various allegations related to its internal relationships. That investigation is expected to report by mid-December.

  In the meantime, in order to protect the public purse the Government office for the East Midlands has suspended delegated authorities to the BCA to commit expenditure. The Government office is also discussing with auditors the terms of reference for a mid-year audit of the NDC Programme (to end September), which, with evidence arising from the findings of the independent investigation, will allow the Government office what further steps it needs to take in order to secure the future of the Braunstone NDC Programme.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Terrorism
  Mr. John Smith
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what action he is taking to co-ordinate departmental policies on mass terrorist threats. [15979]

  Mr. Leslie
  Under the leadership of the Civil Contingencies Committee, the Government are conducting a comprehensive review of our tried and tested contingency plans in the light of the events of 11 September. We are taking all sensible steps to make sure the country is well prepared for any emergency or threat.

  Social Exclusion
  Vernon Coaker
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent discussions he has had with the Government office for the east midlands to ensure that projects designed to tackle social exclusion take into account the needs of areas that have small pockets of deprivation. [15980]

  Mrs. Roche
  I discussed implementation of the Government's programmes to tackle social exclusion with the Government office for the east-midlands on 25 July.

  The targets we have set for mainstream programmes, which will receive substantial increases in resources, will lead to substantial improvements in deprived neighbourhoods across the country.

  The local authority districts receiving additional support from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund include over 80 per cent. of the most deprived wards in England and 90 per cent. of the people living in the most deprived wards.
  898W
  Mr. Shaw
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what policy projects the social exclusion unit is working on. [15981]

  Mrs. Roche
  The unit is currently working on four projects, looking at:

  re-offending by ex-prisoners;

  young runaways;

  educational attainment of children in care; and

  transport and social exclusion.

  Rural Policy
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the co-ordination of rural policy. [15982]

  Mr. Leslie
  Rural policy is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with whom my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has on-going discussions.

  E-Government Initiative
  David Taylor
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the progress of the e-Government initiative. [15983]

  Mr. Leslie
  Delivery is at the heart of our agenda for transforming public services and e-Government is one of the most powerful catalysts we have for achieving that transformation. The Office of the e-Envoy produces both an annual report and regular monthly reports giving details of the progress that is being made. The next annual report will be published on 30 November. The latest figures on progress towards the target of making Government services available electronically by 2005 show that over 50 per cent. of Government services are "enabled" now. And Departments predict that 74 per cent. of services will be e-enabled by the end of 2002.

  Civil Service Pay
  Mr. Heath
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his policy on civil service pay. [15984]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Government policy on pay in the civil service is that effective reward and performance management systems are instrumental to the delivery of better public services. Together they should create a climate in which civil servants want to give of their best and strive for continuous improvement.

  Civil Service
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister pursuant to his oral statement of 31 October 2001,Official Report, column 866, what action he has taken to introduce legislation to give constitutional protection to the civil service; and if he will make a statement. [15985]

  Tony Wright
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister for Deputy Prime Minister when he expects to introduce legislation on the civil service. [15989]
  899W
  Mr. Leslie
  The Government are committed to legislation on the Civil Service and are putting in hand arrangements for wide consultation in advance of its introduction.

  Agriculture
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the regional co-ordination of assistance for the rehabilitation of the agriculture industry. [15986]

  Mrs. Roche
  The Government are committed to assisting the development of a sustainable, competitive and diverse farming and food sector within a thriving rural economy that advances environmental, health and animal welfare goals.

  The rural recovery co-ordinator, Lord Haskins, and the Rural Task Force each published their reports on 18 October with recommendations for the short term survival of rural business, and mid term strategies for rural recovery after the foot and mouth disease outbreak. The Government will respond shortly to both reports.

  My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has ongoing discussions with the Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs on these and other matters.

  Government Departments (Co-ordination)
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent steps he has taken to improve co-ordination between Government departments in connection with the Better Regulation Task Force and the delivery unit. [15987]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Deputy Prime Minister is responsible for ensuring better co-ordination across Government in the delivery of a broad range of Government policies, not least through the work of Regional Co-ordination Unit, which reports to the Deputy Prime Minister.

  The Better Regulation Task Force is an independent advisory body that makes recommendations to Government on the effectiveness and credibility of government regulation.

  The Prime Minister's Delivery Unit has a key role in strengthening capacity across Whitehall to deliver the Government's priorities in the priority areas of health, education, crime and asylum, and transport. My right hon. and noble Friend, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston has day-to-day responsibility for the work of the Delivery Unit.

  Ministerial Visits
  Lawrie Quinn
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what visits to Government regional offices Cabinet Office Ministers have made since 7 June. [15990]

  Mrs. Roche
  Since 7 June, I have visited the Government Offices for the East of England, East Midlands, South West, North East and North West. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has visited the Government Offices for the North East, South West 900W
  and North West. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary visited the Government Office for Yorkshire and Humber.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister on how many occasions the Cabinet Secretary has visited(a) Northern Ireland, (b) Wales and (c) Scotland since his appointment. [17235]

  Mr. Leslie
  Since his appointment in January 1998, the Cabinet Secretary has visited Northern Ireland once, Wales six times and Scotland five times.

  Social Exclusion Unit
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the work of the social exclusion unit. [15992]

  Mrs. Roche
  The Social Exclusion Unit was set up by the Prime Minister to provide joined-up solutions to specific social exclusion problems. It delivers long-term strategies for change but has already demonstrated the effectiveness of its approach.

  The unit has produced reports on five main areas:

  16 to 18-year-olds not in education, employment or training;

  teenage pregnancy;

  rough sleeping;

  truancy and school exclusions; and

  a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal.

  The unit is currently working on four projects, looking at:

  re-offending by ex-prisoners;

  young runaways;

  educational attainment of children in care; and

  transport and social exclusion.

  Public Appointments
  Fiona Mactaggart
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister for Deputy Prime Minister what proportion of public appointments made since 1997 have been women; and if he will make a statement. [15997]

  Mr. Leslie
  The information requested by my hon. Friend is not available in the form required. However, as at 31 March 2000, 33 per cent. of public appointments were held by women, compared to 32 per cent. as at September 1997 and 23 per cent. in 1992.

  The Government are committed to the goal of achieving equal representation of men and women in public appointments. All Departments have individual plans containing details of the measures being taken to increase the representation of women and other currently under-represented groups on the boards of their public bodies. New departmental action plans for the period 2002 to 2005 will be published next year.

  Access to Official Information
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he will respond to the report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration of 13 November on Access to Official Information. [15498]

  Mr. Blunkett
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: I have been asked to reply.
  901W
  The Government's position remains as set out in the Fourth Report of the Parliamentary Ombudsman on Access to Official Information. The Government have nothing further to add.

  New Deal (Civil Service)
  Mr. Shaw
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many people have been employed in the civil service under the new deal for the young and unemployed. [19566]

  Mr. Leslie
  As at 1 October 2001 the information on civil service Departments (including their agencies) participating as employers in the new deal is as follows:

  New deal starts since programme began, as at 1 October 2001

  Main department (including agencies)

  Number

  Cabinet Office

  32

  Privy Council Office

  1

  Charity Commission

  38

  Department for Culture, Media and Sport

  4

  Ministry of Defence

  146

  Department for Education and Skills

  140

  Office for Standards in Education

  1

  Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

  101

  Intervention Board

  4

  Export Credits Guarantee Department

  4

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  11

  Government Communications Headquarters

  2

  Department of Health

  72

  Home Office

  121

  Department for International Development

  7

  Law Officers' Departments

  23

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  64

  National Assembly for Wales

  39

  Northern Ireland Office

  14

  Scottish Executive

  98

  Registers of Scotland

  1

  Department of Trade and Industry

  72

  Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions

  108

  Health and Safety Executive

  28

  Office of the Rail Regulator

  1

  Office of Water Services

  1

  Ordnance Survey

  1

  Shadow Strategic Rail Authority (NDPB wef 1 February 2001)

  1

  HM Treasury

  7

  Office of Government Commerce

  1

  HM Customs and Excise

  129

  Board of Inland Revenue

  463

  Office for National Statistics

  11

  Royal Mint

  3

  Department for Work and Pensions

  3,693

  Total

  5,442

  Departmental Expenditure Limit
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what plans he has to change the Cabinet Office departmental expenditure limit and the administration cost limit for 2001–02. [19565]

  Mr. Leslie
  Subject to Parliamentary approval of the Winter Supplementary Estimate the Cabinet Office Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) (Resources and Capital) will be increased by £145,606,000 from £202,658,000 to £348,264,000 and the administration costs limit will be increased by £104,803,000 from £141,950,000 to £246,753,000.

  Within the DEL change the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the table.
  902W

  £000

  Resources

  Change

  121,427

  New DEL

  264,449

  of which:

  Voted

  255,844

  Non-voted

  8,605

  Capital

  Change

  24,179

  New DEL

  83,815

  of which:

  Voted

  83,815

  Non-voted

  —

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from transfers of £115,271,000 from other Departments for Machinery of Government changes and other arrangements and the draw-down of end-year flexibility of £6,156,000.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from the draw-down of end-year flexibility of £22,718,000 and transfers of £1,461,000 from other Departments for Machinery of Government changes.

  The increases will be offset by inter-departmental transfers and changed to the DEL reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  These changes when combined with the totals for the Central Office of Information and Civil Superannuation increase DEL by £145,606,000 from £260,469,000 to £406,075,000.

  Departmental Policies (Women)
  Judy Mallaber
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how his Department monitors the impact of its policies on women. [15974]

  Mrs. Roche
  It is important that departments mainstream women's issues into policy making and delivery. The Women and Equality Unit has developed a framework to encourage policy-makers to challenge each stage of policy making. It asks a series of questions to help ensure that policies meet the different needs of women and men. It has been piloted in the Departments of Health and Lord Chancellor's Department and will be reviewed in the New Year.

  Through its research and other work, the Women and Equality Unit monitors the impact on women of policies in areas of key importance to women.

  EU Regulation
  Jim Knight
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what progress has been made by the Mandelkern Group on better regulation since the last report to this House in March. [19697]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Mandelkern Group has met five times since March 2001 and at its last meeting on 12–13 November adopted its Final Report. This report was presented by the group's chairman, M. Dieudonn6 Mandelkern, to the Internal Market, Consumer and Tourism Council on 26 November and has been sent to
  903W
  the Presidents of the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of Ministers. I have placed a copy of the report in the Library of the House.

  The report represents a significant achievement. For the first time, representatives of all fifteen member states have signed up to a document setting out in detail the actions that need to be undertaken in order to improve Europe's regulatory environment. It contains a number of concrete, practical recommendations and an Action Plan with realistic timings. In particular, the Action Plan asks the Commission to:

  Establish a new, comprehensive impact assessment system, covering all Commission regulatory proposals, by June 2002;

  Establish a central web-based consultation register for all EU consultations by June 2002;

  Adopt a standard minimum 16-week consultation period from March 2002;

  Spearhead a 40 per cent. reduction in the volume of Community acts by June 2004, arising from concerted codification of European legislation by the institutions;

  Launch a new targeted simplification programme by June 2002 of existing European legislation in all areas; and

  Create throughout the Commission a centrally supported, effective network for better regulation by June 2002.

  The Government fully support the Mandelkern Group's report and will be working closely with other member states and the institutions of the EU to seek acceptance and timely implementation of its main recommendations.

  Civil Partnership Registration Scheme
  Jane Griffiths
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what plans the Government have to introduce a civil partnership registration scheme. [19567]

  Mrs. Roche
  Civil partnership registration and associated rights and responsibilities raise a number of complex issues, which have prompted a growing debate within society. The Government are watching this debate with interest; however, it does not have a settled view.

  These issues potentially have significant financial and administrative implications and the Government cannot commit themselves to making any changes in these areas before undertaking a comprehensive analysis of all the implications. The Government will now be examining the issues in detail.

PRIME MINISTER

  Security and Intelligence Agencies (Departmental Spending Limits)
  Mark Tami
  To ask the Prime Minister what plans there are to change the(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02 for the security and intelligence agencies. [19751]

  The Prime Minister
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the departmental expenditure limit (DEL) for the security and intelligence agencies will be increased by £12,764,000 from £879,069,000 to £891,833,000 and the administration cost limit will be increased by £2,424,000 904W
  from £439,530,000 to £441,954,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are set out in the following table:

  Of which:

  Change

  New DEL

  Voted

  Non-voted

  Resources

  10,214,000

  779,284,000

  779,284,000

  —

  Capital

  2,550,000

  112,549,000

  112,549,000

  —

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

  1. the take up of serious crime funding allocated to the Home Office at SR2000 of £9,310,000;

  2. a PES transfer of £650,000 from the Home Office Overseas Drugs-Related Assistance Programme;

  3. a transfer from DFID's DUP reserve of £100,000;

  4. a PES transfer of £146,000 to the Cabinet Office for fast stream recruitment;

  5. the take up of end-year flexibility (EYF) carried forward from 2001–02 of £300,000.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from £2,250,000 for serious crime funding allocated to the Home Office at SR2000 and the take up of £300,000 of DEL EYF.

  The increases will be offset by inter-departmental transfers and the take up of DEL EYF and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Delivery Unit
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the work of the Delivery Unit. [15976]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on 19 November 2001,Official Report, column 83W.

  Norman Baker
  To ask the Prime Minister what guidance he has provided to inform the work of the Delivery Unit. [15996]

  The Prime Minister
  I established the Delivery Unit to work closely with Departments to ensure that the Government achieve their delivery priorities during this Parliament across the key areas of public service, health, education, crime, asylum and transport.

  Travel Costs (Concorde)
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), of 14 November 2001,Official Report, column 783W, on travel costs, for what reasons the estimated cost of his travel on Concorde on 7 November will not be made available till the end of the current financial year; and if he will make a statement. [18237]

  The Prime Minister
  A detailed list of Cabinet Ministers' visits overseas, and information on spend by all Ministers on travel overseas for the period 1 April 2001 to 31 March 2002 will be published as soon as possible after the end of the current financial year.

  PIU Energy Review
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the number of organisations, bodies and individuals who have made a submission to the PIU Energy Review. [15993]

  The Prime Minister
  467 submissions have been made to the PIU Energy Review.

DEFENCE

  Plastic Baton Rounds (Northern Ireland)
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many plastic baton rounds have been fired by military personnel in Northern Ireland; and what percentage of the total number of plastic baton round firings this represents. [17751]

  Personnel tested

  Personnel testing positive

  Percentage of personnel testing positive

  Confirmed substances

  Number of confirmed substances

  Royal Navy

  19971

  13,000

  14

  0.11

  Cannabis

  13

  Amphetamine

  1

  1998

  12,218

  14

  0.11

  Cocaine

  2

  Ecstasy

  1

  Cannabis

  10

  Amphetamine

  1

  1999

  13,039

  33

  0.24

  Cocaine

  3

  Ecstasy

  2

  Cannabis

  26

  Amphetamine

  2

  2000

  13,951

  57

  0.36

  Cocaine

  9

  Ecstasy

  17

  Cannabis

  27

  Amphetamine

  2

  Benzodiazepine

  2

  20012

  10,814

  51

  0.47

  Cocaine

  7

  Ecstasy

  13

  Cannabis

  29

  Benzodiazepine

  2

  Army

  1995

  18,311

  178

  0.97

  Cannabis

  126

  Ecstasy

  10

  Cocaine

  1

  Amphetamine

  6

  Other

  0

  1996

  53,287

  315

  0.59

  Cannabis

  253

  Ecstasy

  10

  Cocaine

  5

  Amphetamine

  25

  Other

  0

  1997

  78,865

  485

  0.61

  Cannabis

  422

  Ecstasy

  16

  Cocaine

  12

  Amphetamine

  61

  Other

  3

  1998

  84,474

  428

  0.52

  Cannabis

  339

  Ecstasy

  9

  Cocaine

  26

  Amphetamine

  50

  Other

  2

  906W
  Mr. Ingram
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to him by the then Minister for the Armed Forces on 13 March 2001,Official Report, column 507W, which lists the number of baton rounds fired by the military since 1991. Up until 22 November, 16 baton rounds have been fired in 2001. Since 1991 the Army have fired 2,110 baton rounds compared with 12,158 by the Royal Ulster Constabulary/ Police Service of Northern Ireland representing 15 per cent. of the total number of baton rounds fired.

  Armed Forces (Drugs)
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many members of each of the armed forces tested positive for the use of controlled substances in each of the years since testing began, expressed as(a) a proportion of those tested and (b) by substance. [18411]

  Mr. Ingram
  The percentage of armed forces personnel testing positive for the use of controlled substances in each year since testing began, and the types of substances detected is given in the table.
  907W

  personnel tested

  personnel testing positive

  percentage of personnel testing positive

  confirmed substances

  Number of confirmed substances

  1999

  85,566

  437

  0.51

  Cannabis

  301

  Ecstasy

  47

  Cocaine

  51

  Amphetamine

  30

  Other

  6

  2000

  117,659

  702

  0.60

  Cannabis

  461

  Ecstasy

  155

  Cocaine

  65

  Amphetamine

  27

  Other

  13

  20013

  75,152

  527

  0.70

  Cannabis

  299

  Ecstasy

  183

  Cocaine

  82

  Amphetamine

  19

  Other

  26

  RAF

  19984

  2,712

  1

  0.04

  Cannabis

  1

  1999

  13,211

  10

  0.08

  Cocaine

  2

  Cannabis

  8

  2000

  10,451

  14

  0.13

  Cocaine

  3

  Ecstasy

  2

  Cannabis

  8

  Benzodiazepine

  1

  20013

  8,768

  14

  0.16

  Cocaine

  2

  Ecstasy

  1

  Cannabis

  11

  1 Testing introduced 1 April 1997

  2 To 30 October 2001

  3 To 30 September 2001

  4 Testing introduced 1 November 1998

  It should be noted that individuals may test positive for more than one substance. Individual statistics may not therefore equate directly to total positive test results (i.e. one person may be recorded as a positive in two or three of the individual drug statistics).

  Recruitment
  Patrick Mercer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what new measures he has introduced to recruit into the armed forces since 11 September. [18061]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Army recruiting initiative 'Operation London Soldier' took place from 16 to 24 September 2001. This operation had been planned for some months before. All other initiatives, for all three services, have been introduced prior to 11 September.

  Patrick Mercer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his policy is on the opening of Army careers offices and armed forces careers offices on Saturday mornings. [18062]

  Mr. Ingram
  The core opening hours for the tri-service armed forces careers offices (AFCOs) and their satellite recruiting offices are from 09.00 to 17.00 Monday to Friday. Trials of Saturday opening were carried out in 1988, 1993, 1996 and 2000. During the 2000 trial the level of recruiting activity was monitored but the result from many areas was found to be disappointing. From autumn 2000 the AFCO staffs were authorised to open or close offices on Saturdays based on local conditions, resources and priorities.

  Challenger
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the average life expectancy of air filters used in those Challenger 2 tanks which participated in Operation Saif Sareea 2 was. [18462]

  Mr. Ingram
  During the first phase of Exercise Saif Sareea 2, the life of the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank air filter reported from theatre was in the region of four hours. Information is currently being collected for the second phase of the exercise, which was held in a different part of Oman.

  Spain (Officers Exchange)
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many officers on exchange between the UK and Spain are serving in(a) UK armed forces and (b) Spanish armed forces; and if he will make a statement. [17976]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 26 November 2001]: One Royal Navy exchange officer is attached to the Spanish navy and is reciprocated by a Spanish navy officer serving with the Royal Navy. In addition, we have a RAF liaison officer based in Spain and a Spanish liaison officer attached to the British Army.

  Active Service
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) armoured regiments, (b) infantry battalions, (c) artillery regiments, (d) signals regiments and (e) RAF squadrons have seen active service in conflicts over the last 15 years; and if he will make a statement. [18753]
  909W
  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Civil Affairs Group
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the composition and capabilities of the Civil Affairs Group. [18869]

  Mr. Ingram
  Currently, the Civil Affairs Group comprises seven Regular Army Officers, a small administrative team and some 80 Territorial Army personnel. The group can deliver staff planning teams, tactical support teams and functional specialists as required.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Mr. Kevan Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to change the departmental expenditure limits for 2001–02. [19571]

  Mr. Hoon
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Ministry of Defence departmental expenditure limit will be increased by £107,080,000 from £23,769,498,000 to £23,876,578,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on the resources and capital components is set out in the following table.

  £000

  Resources

  Change

  106,780

  New DEL

  18,371,338

  Of which:

  Voted

  18,144,740

  Non-voted

  226,598

  Capital

  Change

  300

  New DEL

  5,505,240

  Of which:

  Voted

  5,407,470

  Non-voted

  97,770

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises principally from:

  The take-up of the end-of-year flexibility carried forward from 2000–01 of £72,917,000.

  A net resource DEL transfer of £35,299,000 from the Department for Work and Pensions for the transfer of the running costs of the War Pensions Agency.

  A transfer of £1,328,000 to the Cabinet Office for BBC World Monitoring expenses.

  A transfer of £432,000 to the Cabinet Office for fast stream recruitment expenses.

  A transfer of £176,000 to the Lord Chancellor's Department for legal aid expenses on human rights.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL of £0.3 million arises from a transfer from the Department for Work and Pensions for the War Pensions Agency.

  The increases will be offset by transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Afghanistan
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans there are for personnel involved in Exercise Saif Sareea 2 to be deployed to Afghanistan to aid in the operations in Afghanistan; and if he will make a statement. [15314]

  Mr. Hoon
  Exercise Saif Sareea 2 finished on 29 October. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State announced on 26 October 2001,Official Report, columns 549–64, that a force drawn from the exercise would be: retained in the region to provide the operational flexibility to deal with a wide range of contingencies.

  This force comprises an Amphibious Task Group based around HMS Illustrious and HMS Fearless, including 200 men of 40 Commando Royal Marines (with the rest of 40 Commando held at high readiness in the UK), and Nimrod maritime patrol and Hercules transport aircraft. A Tomahawk-armed submarine presence and a number of reconnaissance and air-to-air refuelling aircraft are also in the region.

  Following the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul, a number of units from 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines that had taken part in Exercise Saif Sareea 2 were placed on reduced notice to move in case they were required to support humanitarian or other missions in Afghanistan.

  Royal Marines from 40 Commando have subsequently been deployed to Bagram airfield. The deployment to Afghanistan of other units or personnel which took part in Exercise Saif Sareea 2 remains under review: no decisions have been taken.

  September 11
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the impact of 11 September on(a) NATO, (b) the EU and (c) the UK's regional interests; and if he will make a statement. [17363]

  Mr. Hoon
  NATO's response to the 11 September attacks included the invocation of Article 5 of the Washington treaty, which states that an attack on one Ally is an attack on all, for the first time in the Alliance's history. This has been supported by a series of specific actions, including deployment of NATO's Airborne Early Warning Force and the Standing Naval Force Mediterranean. The longer-term implications of the events of 11 September, including for the Alliance's force structures and for relations with Russia, are currently under discussion within the Alliance.

  The EU Special Council on 21 September agreed to co-operate with the US in bringing to justice and punishing the perpetrators of the 11 September attacks, and approved a set of measures to combat terrorism, including enhancing police and judicial co-operation, developing legal instruments, putting an end to the funding of terrorism and strengthening air security. The General Affairs Council on 8 October, and again on 20 November, confirmed that all partners strongly support the US and UK military action.

  The attacks have reinforced the need to build and maintain defence relationships with partners throughout the world. The unprecedented level of international support in the fight against terrorism demonstrates clearly

  911W
  the value of having strong defence relationships. As part of our work on a further chapter to the Strategic Defence Review, we are looking very closely at the impact of 11 September on international organisations, including NATO and the EU, and on our regional interests, not least given the need to sustain long-term coalitions against international terrorism. I expect to publish conclusions in the early summer of next year.

  Tax-free Pensions
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) pensioners, (b) widows of pensioners and (c) their estates were identified as entitled to tax free pensions under the pre-1973 Attributable Tax Exercise of 1999; and how many fell into the same categories in cases arising from aggravated invaliding. [18006]

  Dr. Moonie
  We do not have available figures for the numbers of pre-1973 Royal Navy and Royal Air Force pensioners, widows of pensioners or estates entitled to tax free attributable pensions. This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, tax exemption was applied as appropriate in these cases.

  The number of pre-1973 Army pensions, widows of pensioners or their estates identified as entitled to tax free pensions is as follows:

  (a) 182 pre-1973 pensioners.

  (b) 73 pre-1973 widows.

  (c) Nil estates.

  In these cases, as well as 787 post-1973 cases, tax exemption was not applied correctly. However this has been remedied in all but 26 cases, which are still under investigation.

  Defence Logistics Organisation
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the sums provided for(a) capital expenditure and (b) current expenditure for the Defence Logistics Organisation in the current financial year. [18459]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 31 October 2001,Official Report, columns 659–60W.

  Tornado GR1
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to(a) replace and (b) upgrade the Tornado GR1 aircraft; and if he will make a statement. [18759]

  Mr. Ingram
  We are continuing to upgrade the RAF's fleet of Tornado GR1 aircraft to GR4 standard. The GR4 has been in operational service with the RAF since June and to date 104 GR4s have been delivered.

  The GR4 upgrade includes: Hand on Throttle and Stick (HOTAS); Forward Looking Infra Red (FLIR); improved navigation and warning systems (LINS/GPS/GPWS). In addition, the GR4 is now able to deploy the all-weather interim precision guided bomb, as well as laser guided and unguided bombs. The upgrade also paves the way for the eventual integration of Storm Shadow, Brimstone and the Raptor reconnaissance pod on to GR4.
  912W
  The UK has a requirement to replace, towards the end of the next decade, the strike capability currently provided by the Tornado GR4 strike aircraft. This programme is known as the Future Offensive Air System (FOAS). While no decisions have yet been taken we are currently looking at a potential mix of platforms to deliver precision strike capability—including Long Range Cruise Missiles, Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicles and manned aircraft.

  Regimental Running Costs
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his estimate of the running costs of(a) an armoured regiment and (b) an artillery regiment, for the latest year for which figures are available. [18752]

  Mr. Ingram
  It is currently not possible accurately to provide the information requested. The introduction of improved accountancy procedures across the Ministry of Defence will enable us to do so in the future.

  EU Rapid Reaction Force
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his policy is on the use of the EU rapid reaction force for(a) crisis management and (b) war-fighting. [18258]

  Mr. Hoon
  There is no standing EU rapid reaction force. An EU-led crisis management operation would take place only where NATO as a whole is not engaged. The decision to proceed on a particular operation would be taken on a case by case basis, but the types of operation the EU might undertake could include humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. These are commonly known as the Petersberg Tasks. The European Security and Defence Policy does not cover war-fighting operations.

  Ex-service Men (Rough Sleepers)
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment his Department has made of the number of ex-service men who are rough sleepers; and if he will make a statement. [16143]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Ministry of Defence does not monitor the number of rough sleepers. However, MOD has been working in partnership with the Rough Sleeper's Unit (RSU) to put in place preventive measures to reduce the ex-service component of rough sleeping, against the target of making an overall reduction in rough sleeping of at least two-thirds by 2002.

  The Social Exclusion Unit Report published in December 1999 highlighted that between a quarter and one fifth of rough sleepers had been in the armed forces at some stage, predominantly as national service men. Since then the RSU in partnership with the MOD has set up schemes to help those vulnerable to rough sleeping, before, at the point of and after discharge.

  Figures published in August by the RSU showed that as of June 2001 there had been a 62 per cent. reduction.

  But we are not complacent. As part of the Government's Veterans' Initiative we are looking at improvements to resettlement arrangements for the vulnerable groups from which rough sleepers are most likely to come.

  Armoured Vehicles
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many and what types of armoured vehicles are in service; and what are the(a) mid-life extension programmes dates and (b) anticipated withdrawal from service dates, where applicable. [18199]

  Type

  Fleet size

  Life extension dates, where applicable

  Planned withdrawal/phase out from service dates

  Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank

  386

  n/a

  2028

  Challenger Recovery Vehicle

  81

  n/a

  2028

  Chieftain Recovery Vehicle

  49

  n/a

  2003–05

  Chieftain Bridge Layer Vehicle

  51

  n/a

  2005–07

  Chieftain Royal Engineer Vehicle

  51

  n/a

  2005–07

  Beach Recovery Vehicle

  5

  n/a

  2002–03

  FV 430 series

  1,730

  n/a

  2007–20

  Saxon—(including Saxon Patrol)

  649

  n/a

  2007–20

  CVR (T) Reconnaissance Vehicle—including all variants

  1,600

  12002

  22005

  32015

  Warrior Armoured Fighting Vehicle—all variants

  794

  n/a

  2025

  Stormer—all variants

  148

  n/a

  2020

  Shielder

  28

  2010

  2019

  Combat Engineer Tractor

  135

  n/a

  2003

  Fuchs NBC Vehicle

  11

  2002–04

  2010

  AS 90

  179

  n/a

  2023

  Multiple Launch Rocket System

  64

  n/a

  2025

  M578

  8

  n/a

  2008

  1 Completed by July

  2 Some variants

  3 Remainder

  MOD Police Vehicles
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the merits of the MoD police purchasing vehicles through a central purchasing agency. [18398]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Defence Procurement Agency is the central purchasing agency for the Ministry of Defence. The MOD Police is a Defence Agency and the DPA purchase all vehicles used by the Force in line with standard procurement procedures.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what policy the MOD police adopts towards supporting British manufacturing when purchasing vehicles. [18399]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Defence Procurement Agency purchase all vehicles for the Ministry of Defence Police on a best value for money basis.

  NATO Defence Capabilities Initiative
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the NATO Defence Capabilities Initiative will report; and if he will make a statement. [18640]

  Mr. Hoon
  NATO's Defence Capabilities Initiative was launched at the Washington Summit in April 1999 with a view to addressing shortfalls in military capabilities across the Alliance. The Initiative is overseen by the High Level Steering Group (HLSG), the Chairman of which periodically reports to NATO Defence Ministers. The
  914W
  Mr. Ingram
  The following types of armoured vehicle are currently in service with the UK armed forces (the dates of any planned life extension programmes and withdrawal from services dates, based on current plans, are also given):

  next report is due to be presented at the December Ministerials, with the HLSG's final report at the Prague Summit next year.

  Since 1999 NATO nations have been working hard to implement the DCI. Progress has been made in many capability areas, including interoperability; logistics co-operation; air to air refuelling; air and sealift; and acquisition of precision-guided munitions. The UK's own performance within the Defence Capabilities Initiative compares very well with the Alliance average.

  Far East Prisoners of War
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the pick-up rate broken down by condition of the medical screening programme for Far East prisoners of war; and if he will make a statement. [18407]

  Dr. Moonie
  There is no medical screening programme for former Far East prisoners of war. The War Pensions Agency does however offer a Tropical Disease Investigation. Arrangements for this are not conditional upon a person being in receipt of a war pension. Since May 2000, Tropical Disease Investigations have been offered to 45 former Far East prisoners of war of whom 15 have accepted and 30 declined.

  Military Courses
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the total revenue his Department has received in each of the last 10 years as a result of providing places on UK military courses to overseas service men. [16142]

  Mr. Ingram
  The table shows the revenue received by the Ministry of Defence for the period 1991–92 to 2000–01 in support of International Training.
  915W

  Year

  £ million

  1991–92

  63.186

  1992–93

  36.793

  1993–94

  39.522

  1994–95

  34.626

  1995–96

  45.907

  1996–97

  39.749

  1997–98

  19.860

  1998–99

  22.765

  1999–2000

  22.767

  2000–01

  17.709

  Divorce (Service Men)
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service men occupying married quarters were divorced in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available. [16144]
  916W
  Dr. Moonie
  I will write to the hon. Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Public Service Agreements
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to renegotiate the public service agreements signed with the Treasury for 2001 to 2004. [18461]

  Mr. Hoon
  The Ministry of Defence's Public Service Agreement (PSA) records the key defence outcomes the Government aim to achieve over the Spending Review period. The PSA agreed as part of Spending Review 2000 relates to the period 2001–02 to 2003–04. As part of Spending Review 2002, all Departments' PSAs will be reviewed and revised as necessary for the period 2003–04 to 2005–06.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  Individual Learning Accounts
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when her Department first received warnings from training providers that the individual learning account scheme was open to fraud. [14580]

  John Healey
  [holding answer 13 November 2001]: My Department actively engaged learning providers in the development of the individual learning accounts programme. For example, a number of seminars were held with learning providers in 2000, prior to the introduction of the national framework for individual learning accounts, and these continued into 2001. At these events providers expressed a wide range of opinions. In September 2000 James O'Brien, Managing Director, Pitman Training, wrote to Ministers to express concern that the programme was open to abuse but that the cap on public support for each individual's ILA account introduced to help control such abuse had been set at too low a level. We have not yet been able to trace any earlier correspondence on the specific topic of potential abuse of the ILA scheme.

  Gender Stereotyping
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what guidance has been issued to careers teachers to challenge preconceptions about girls' and boys' subjects and employments. [16264]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Information and good practice to challenge preconceptions about career choices is contained in a number of documents made available by my Department to schools and careers advisers, including "Developing the careers education curriculum in schools", 1999, and "School improvement: how careers work can help", 2000. The issue is also covered by research published by the Equal Opportunities Commission, and in forthcoming guidance by Ofsted on evaluating careers education in schools, which will be issued to schools early in the new year.

  The Connexions service works with young people aged between 13 and 19, including those in schools, and subsumes the role of careers services in guiding young people on suitable employment and learning choices. Connexions and careers services work closely with careers teachers to provide comprehensive and impartial information, advice and guidance. They offer training to teachers and other staff so that schools can challenge stereotyping, promote equality of opportunity and engender a wide awareness of opportunities among pupils.

  Specialist Schools
  Mr. Swire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many specialist schools have closed since 1997 in(a) England and (b) east Devon. [17269]

  Mr. Timms
  One specialist school has closed in England since 1997; this was due to local authority reorganisation. No specialist schools have closed in east Devon. 25 former specialist schools in England no longer have Specialist School status. All of these lost their status since 1997. There were none in east Devon.
  918W
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many specialist schools have closed since 1997 in Arundel and South Downs. [18310]

  Mr. Timms
  No specialist schools have closed in Arundel and South Downs since the inception of specialist schools. There are 25 former specialist schools in England which no longer have Specialist School status. All of these have lost their status since 1997. None of them are located in the constituency of Arundel and South Downs.

  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills for each specialist school and college in(a) Nottingham and (b) Nottinghamshire, what were its (i) targets associated with specialist status and (ii) success in meeting those targets in the most recent year for which information is available. [18619]

  Mr. Timms
  This information cannot be provided except at disproportionate cost.

  Jean Monnet Chairs
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the Jean Monnet(a) chairs and (b) chair occupants funded in the UK by European Community money. [17622]

  Margaret Hodge
  Jean Monnet chairs are co-financed by their universities and by the European Commission. The present occupants of the Jean Monnet chairs in United Kingdom and their universities are listed by subject area.

  Jean Monnet chairs in UK universities

  Chair

  University

  European Law

  To be appointed

  University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd

  Prof. A. M. Arnull

  University of Birmingham

  Prof. Estella Baker

  University of Leicester

  M. Brian Bercusson

  University of Manchester

  Prof. Lammy Betten

  University of Exeter

  Prof. Christopher Bovis

  University of Central Lancashire, Preston

  Mr. Noreen Burrows

  University of Glasgow

  Ms Holly Culen

  University of Durban

  Mr. Peter Joseph Cullen

  University of Edinburgh

  Prof. Arthur Alan Dashwood

  University of Cambridge

  Dr. Charles Debattista

  University of Southampton

  Prof. Barry Fitzpatrick

  University of Ulster, Coleraine

  Ms Theodora Kostakopoulou

  University of East Anglia, Norwich

  Ms Catherine Kratz

  University of Lancaster

  Mr. Duncan Matthews

  University of Warwick, Coventry

  Ms Helen Meenan

  University of Kingston

  Dr. Sarah Mercer

  University of Northumbria at Newcastle

  Dr. Nanette Neuwahl

  University of Liverpool

  Mrs. Ursula O'Hare

  University of Newcastle

  Prof. Nuala O'Loan

  University of Ulster, Coleraine

  Prof. M. G. Ross

  University of Leicester

  Prof. Jo Shaw

  University of Leeds

  Prof. Peter Stone

  University of Essex, Colchester

  Prof. Anna Syngellakis

  University of Portsmouth

  Prof. Erika Szyszczak

  University of Nottingham

  Prof. A. G. Toth

  University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

  Prof. John Anthony Usher

  University of Edinburgh

  Prof. Ferdinand von Prondzynski

  University of Hull

  Prof. Thomas Waelde

  University of Dundee

  Prof. Adrian Wood

  Metropolitan University of Leeds

  European Economics

  Dr. Robert William Ackrill

  University of Leicester

  Prof. Ian Gregory Barnes

  University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, Lincoln

  919W

  Jean Monnet chairs in UK universities

  Chair

  University

  Dr. Marius Brulhart

  University of Manchester

  Dr. Alan Butt Philip

  University of Bath

  Dr. Lawrence Jeremy Clegg

  University of Leeds

  Dr. Felicia Fai

  University of Bath

  Dr. Vanessa Fry

  University of Essex, Colchester

  To be appointed

  De Montfort University, Leicester

  Prof Andrews Hughes Hallett

  University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

  Dr. Theodore Hitiris

  University of York

  Dr. Peter Holmes

  University of Sussex, Brighton

  Dr. Andrew Mountford

  University of Southampton

  Dr. Cillian Ryan

  University of Birmingham

  Mr. Andrew Scott

  University of Edinburgh

  Mr. Stephen Smith

  University College of London

  Dr. Mehmet Ugur

  University of Greenwich, London

  Prof. Roger W. Vickerman

  University of Kent at Canterbury

  European Political Integration

  Mr. D. J. Allen

  University of Loughborough

  Prof Andrea Bosco

  South Bank University, London

  Prof Irene Brennan

  University of Westminster, London

  Prof Simon Bulmer

  University of Manchester

  Dr. M. Burgess

  University of Hull

  Dr. Thomas Christiansen

  University of Wales Aberystwyth

  Dr. Clive Church

  University of Kent at Canterbury

  Dr. Michelle Cini

  University of Bristol

  Prof K. Doogan

  University of Bristol

  Dr. Geoffrey Edwards

  University of Cambridge

  Dr. D. M. Farrell

  University of Manchester

  Dr. Helen Fawcett

  University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

  Prof Kevin Featherstone

  University of Bradford

  Prof Stephen Alan George

  University of Sheffield

  Mrs. Jacqueline Gower

  Thames Valley University, London

  Dr. Justin Greenwood

  Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen

  Mr. Frank Gregory

  University of Southampton

  Prof Catherine Hoskyns

  University of Coventry

  Prof Jolyon Howorth

  University of Bath

  Ms Annabel K. Kiernan

  University of Paisley

  Prof Emil Kirchner

  University of Essex, Colchester

  Dr. Robert Leonardi

  London School of Economics and

  Political Science, London

  Prof Juliet Lodge

  University of Leeds

  Prof C. J. Lord

  University of Leeds

  Prof John P. Loughlin

  University of Wales, College of Cardiff

  Mr. Howard Machin

  London School of Economics and

  Political Science, London

  Mr. Michael Mannin

  John Moores University, Liverpool

  Mr. S. Marsh

  University of Wales, College of Cardiff

  Prof Elizabeth Meehan

  Queen's University Belfast

  Dr. A. Menon

  University of Oxford

  Prof Michael Newman

  University of North London

  Prof Neill Nugent

  Metropolitan University of Manchester

  Dr. John Peterson

  University of Glasgow

  Dr. John Redmond

  University of Birmingham

  Prof Jeremy Richardson

  University Essex

  Dr. Ella Ritchie

  University of Newcastle

  Prof T. C. Salmon

  University of Aberdeen

  Mr. George Schflpflin

  School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London

  Prof Michael Smith

  University of Loughborough

  Dr. Stelios Stavridis

  University of Reading

  Dr. Paul Taggart

  University of Sussex, Brighton

  Specialist schools located in LEAs where 25 per cent, or more of secondary pupils attend grammar schools (as at 27 November 2001)

  Lea

  School

  Specialism

  Admission Policy

  Bexley, LB of

  Beths Grammar School for Boys

  Technology

  Selective Grammar

  Buckinghamshire

  Aylesbury Grammar School

  Technology

  Selective Grammar

  Buckinghamshire

  Aylesbury High School

  Language

  Selective Grammar

  Buckinghamshire

  Beaconsfield High School

  Technology

  Selective Grammar

  Buckinghamshire

  Dr. Challoner's High School

  Sports

  Selective Grammar

  Buckinghamshire

  John Hampden Grammar School

  Technology

  Selective Grammar

  Buckinghamshire

  Royal Grammar School (The)

  Language

  Selective Grammar

  920W

  Jean Monnet chairs in UK universities

  Chair

  University

  Prof. Helen Wallace

  University of Sussex, Brighton

  Dr. Alison Watson

  University of St. Andrews

  Dr. Mark Wise

  University of Plymouth

  History of European Integration

  Dr. A. J. Crazier

  Queen Mary and Westfield College, London

  Dr. Anne Deighton

  University of Oxford

  Prof. Michael Smith

  Queen's University Belfast

  Dr. Stephen Ward

  University of Salford

  Youth Services
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills in relation to youth services in each local education authority how many hours of provision are made(a) directly by the LEA (b) on behalf of the LEA and (c) independently of the LEA. [18623]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Under the Learning and Skills Act 2000 the provision of the youth service is the responsibility of local education authorities (LEAs). The Department for Education and Skills does not collect information on youth service hours of provision that are made directly by the LEA, on behalf of the LEA or independently of the LEA.

  Rural Education Action Zones
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how she proposes that the work of rural education action zones be carried forward following the transfer of responsibility for EAZ schools to the Excellence in Cities programme. [18624]

  Mr. Timms
  Wherever possible, we aim to find ways of continuing to support ex-zone schools following the end of each zone's statutory term. My officials are starting discussions with each zone on the future of the zone, with a view to having firm proposals well before the end of its statutory term.

  Specialist Schools
  Fiona Mactaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the specialist schools in education authorities which retain the 11-plus, indicating which are(a) grammar and (b) secondary modern or non-selective schools. [18647]

  Mr. Timms
  For the 10 LEAs in which 25 per cent, or more secondary pupils attend grammar schools, the table shows the specialist schools which are(a) grammar schools and (b) secondary modern or non-selective.
  921W

  Specialist schools located in LEAs where 25 per cent. or more of secondary pupils attend grammar schools (as at 27 November 2001)

  Lea

  School

  Specialism

  Admission Policy

  Buckinghamshire

  Princes Risborough School

  Technology

  Modern

  Buckinghamshire

  Sir William Ramsey School

  Arts

  Modern

  Buckinghamshire

  Wye Valley School (The)

  Sports

  Modern

  Kent

  Dartford Grammar School

  Language

  Selective Grammar

  Kent

  Weald of Kent Grammar School

  Language

  Selective Grammar

  Kent

  Dartford West High School for Girls

  Technology

  Modern

  Kent

  Hartsdown School

  Technology

  Modern

  Kent

  Hayesbrook School (The)

  Sports

  Modern

  Kent

  Hillview School for Girls

  Arts

  Modern

  Kent

  Holmesdale Community School

  Technology

  Modern

  Kent

  Hugh Christie Technology College

  Technology

  Modern

  Kent

  Sandwich Technology School

  Technology

  Modern

  Kent

  Angley School

  Sports

  Comprehensive

  Kent

  Chaucer Technology School

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Kent

  Cornwallis School

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Kent

  St. George's C of E School

  Language

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  Skegness Grammar School

  Sports

  Selective Grammar

  Lincolnshire

  Castle Hills Community School

  Arts

  Modern

  Lincolnshire

  Gleed Girls' School (The)

  Technology

  Modern

  Lincolnshire

  Middlefield Community School (The)

  Technology

  Modern

  Lincolnshire

  Monks' Dyke Technology College

  Technology

  Modern

  Lincolnshire

  Central School (The)

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  George Farmer School (The)

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  Lincoln Christ's Hospital School

  Language

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  Lincoln School of S & T

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  North Kesteven School

  Arts

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  Robert Manning School (The)

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  Robert Pattinson School

  Language

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  Sir William Robertson High School

  Language

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  St. George's School

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Lincolnshire

  William Farr CoE Comprehensive School

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Medway

  Chatham Grammar School for Boys

  Language

  Selective Grammar

  Medway

  Chatham Grammar School for Girls

  Technology

  Selective Grammar

  Medway

  Rainham School for Girls

  Technology

  Modern

  Medway

  Thomas Aveling School (The)

  Technology

  Modern

  Slough

  Herschel Grammar School

  Technology

  Selective Grammar

  Slough

  Wexham School

  Sports

  Modern

  Southend-on-Sea

  Southend High School for Boys

  Language

  Selective Grammar

  Southend-on-Sea

  Eastwood School (The)

  Arts

  Modern

  Southend-on-Sea

  Shoeburyness Community High School

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Sutton. LB of

  St. Philomenas Catholic High School

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  Torbay

  Torquay Boys' Grammar

  Language

  Selective Grammar

  Trafford

  Ashton on Mersey School

  Sports

  Modern

  Trafford

  Jeff Joseph Sale Moor TC

  Technology

  Modern

  Trafford

  Lostock Community High School

  Arts

  Modern

  Trafford

  Stretford High School

  Language

  Modern

  Trafford

  Wellington School

  Technology

  Comprehensive

  GCSE Results (Arundel and South Downs)
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement on difference in performance at GCSE between state secondary schools(a) with and (b) without a sixth form in Arundel and South Downs. [18325]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The proportion of 15-year-olds achieving five or more GCSEs at A* to C in Arundel and South Downs in 2001 was as follows (the results of the individual schools included in the averages are also given):

  Percentage

  Arundel and South Down

  Individual schools

  (a) Schools with sixth forms

  56.7

  —

  The Angmering School

  —

  54

  Steyning Grammar School

  —

  58

  The St. Philip Howard Catholic High School

  —

  58

  922W

  Percentage

  Arundel and South Down

  Individual schools

  (b) Schools without sixth forms

  63.4

  —

  Westergate Community School

  —

  42

  Downlands Community School

  —

  74

  Higher Education (East Sussex)
  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans there are to establish a new(a) university and (b) higher education college in East Sussex. [9859]

  Margaret Hodge
  There are no plans at present to establish another higher education institution in East Sussex. However, as part of a five point programme to regenerate Hastings and Rother, there are discussions underway about developing higher education in East Sussex.

  GCSE Results
  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will provide a nationwide breakdown of GCSE results in 2001 by gender. [18614]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The GCSE results for 15-year-old pupils in schools in England in 2001 by gender are:

  Boys

  Girls

  Total

  Percentage achieving five or more grades A*-C

  44.8

  55.4

  50.0

  Percentage achieving five or more grades A*-G

  86.9

  91.0

  88.9

  Percentage achieving no passes

  6.5

  4.4

  5.5

  Average GCSE/GNVQ point score

  36.6

  42.1

  39.3

  School Exclusions
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils were excluded(a) permanently and (b) temporarily from schools in each year since 1997. [18617]

  Mr. Timms
  The available information is shown in the table.

  Number of permanent exclusions by type of school: England, 1996–97 to 1999–2000

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  Primary schools1

  1,573

  1,539

  1,366

  1,226

  Secondary schools1

  10,463

  10,187

  8,636

  6,713

  Special schools2

  632

  572

  436

  384

  All schools

  12,668

  12,298

  10,438

  8,323

  1 Includes middle schools as deemed

  2 Includes both maintained and non-maintained special schools

  Source:

  Annual Schools Census

  Information on pupils excluded on a temporary basis is not collected centrally.

  The latest permanent exclusions data were published in a Statistical Bulletin "Permanent Exclusions from Maintained Schools, England 1999/2000" on 16 November, copies of which are available from the Library, or alternatively can be accessed from the Department for Education and Skills statistical website www.dfes.gsi.gov.uk/statistics

  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils in each age group were excluded(a) permanently and (b) temporarily from schools in the most recent year for which information is available. [18618]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Information on permanent exclusions by age is shown in the table.

  Permanent exclusions by age—England, 1999–2000

  Age1

  Number of permanent exclusions

  3

  0

  4

  9

  5

  59

  6

  86

  7

  132

  8

  202

  9

  312

  10

  460

  11

  519

  12

  1,180

  924W

  Permanent exclusions by age—England, 1999–2000

  Age1

  Number of permanent exclusions

  13

  1,766

  14

  2,200

  15

  1,288

  16

  92

  17

  16

  18

  2

  19

  0

  Total

  8,323

  1 Age at 31 August 2000.

  Source

  Annual Schools Census

  Information on pupils excluded on a temporary basis is not collected centrally.

  The latest permanent exclusions data were published in a Statistical Bulletin 'Permanent Exclusions from Maintained Schools, England 1999/2000' on 16 November, copies of which are available from the Library, or alternatively can be accessed from the Department for Education and Skills statistical website "www.dfes.gsi.gov.uk/stati sties"

  Education Maintenance Allowances
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how(a) participation rates and (b) attainment levels (i) of pupils and (ii) of areas benefiting from education maintenance allowances compare with those not so benefiting; [18620]

  (2) if she proposes to publish evidence on the educational benefits of education maintenance allowances before taking a decision about roll-out; and when that will be. [18621]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) pilots are being evaluated over a three-year period, and we will be basing our decisions about any national roll-out on the evaluation evidence. From the beginning, we have made clear our commitment to publishing reports which set out the independent evaluators' main conclusions. The first reports were published in March this year and the next report is due for publication early in 2002. The quantitative analysis which is being carried out compares performance in the areas where we are piloting EMAs against "control areas" where EMA is not available.

  Early findings from the evaluation show that EMA appears to have raised participation in education. The statistical analysis estimates an average gain in participation in pilot areas compared to control areas, among EMA eligible young people, of around five percentage points.

  Although we do not yet have figures on attainment, the qualitative aspect of the evaluation has found some evidence of a positive effect on young people's performance and commitment to study.

  Connexions Service
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what are her quantitive targets for the Connexions service. [18622]
  925W
  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The Connexions service has published the following targets in its Planning Guidance for 2002–03:

  Cross cutting targets

  Connexions partnerships will contribute to the following local targets set by Government Departments and agencies:

  to increase the proportion of 16-year-olds obtaining five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C (or equivalent) by four percentage points between 2002 and 2004 (DfES & LEA target);

  92 per cent. of 16-year-olds to obtain five or more GCSEs at grades A*-G (or equivalent), including English and Maths, by 2004 (DfES & LEA target);

  the number of 19-year-olds achieving a qualification equivalent to NVQ level 2 to increase by three percentage points between 2002 and 2004 (LSC target);

  80 per cent. of 16–18-year-olds to be in structured learning by 2004 (LSC target);

  to reduce school truancies by a further 10 per cent. between 2002 and 2004 (DIES target);

  to reduce by 50 per cent. the under-18 conception rate by 2010, and to establish a firm downward trend in the conception rates for the under 16s (cross Government target).

  Partnership targets

  Connexions partnerships will lead in setting and achieving the following local targets in their area:

  A reduction in the percentage of young people leaving education and training to become NEET (not in employment, education or training);

  The percentage of those young people who were looked after at the age of 16, who are engaged in employment, education and training at the age of 19. Levels for this group should be at least 75 per cent. of those for all young people of the same age in the area by 2004;

  The percentage of 16–19-year-old teenage mothers in employment, education and training;

  The proportion of 13–18-year-olds, supervised by Youth Offending Teams who are in employment, education and training by March 2004;

  The proportion of 13–18-year-olds with a drug related problem who are identified and referred to an appropriate specialist service by Connexions;

  A local target, to improve levels of participation among a local priority group. This might be a particular minority ethnic group, travellers, or young people whose whereabouts are not currently known.

  £000

  RfR 1

  RfR 2

  RfR 3

  RfR 4

  Total change

  Resources

  Change

  -198,384

  -1,410,305

  0

  -384

  -1,609,073

  New DEL

  16,961,222

  0

  122,345

  99,616

  —

  Of which:

  Voted

  6,551,606

  0

  122,345

  99,616

  —

  Non-voted

  10,409,616

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Capital

  Change

  267,888

  -17,652

  0

  0

  250,236

  New DEL

  2,876,419

  0

  1,025

  0

  —

  Of which:

  Voted

  1,913,981

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Non-voted

  962,438

  0

  0

  0

  —

  926W
  A further target, for young people with disabilities, is being considered in conjunction with the Department of Health.

  Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many formal notices her Department has received in the last year from the Parliamentary Ombudsman expressing an intention to carry out an investigation; and in respect of each notice how long it took to respond. [18771]

  Estelle Morris
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Information on the outcome of statutory investigations which were concluded during 2000–01 are set out in the Parliamentary Ombudsman's Annual Report for 2000–01, copies of which are available in the Library of the House, or on the Parliamentary Ombudsman's website at www.ombudsman.org.uk/pca/docu ment/par01/index.htm.

  Between 1 April 2001 and 31 October 2001 my Department received five new statutory statements of complaint from the Parliamentary Ombudsman. So far, my Department has responded to all of these cases, and the average time taken to respond overall is 21 days.

  Departmental Spending Limits
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to change the departmental expenditure limit and administration cost limits for 2001–02. [19511]

  Estelle Morris
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Department for Education and Skills' DEL will be decreased by £1,358,837,000 from £21,582,664,000 to £20,223,827,000 and the administration costs limits will be changed as follows.

  £000

  Original

  Change

  Revised

  DfES and ES1

  1,074,874

  -855,829

  219,045

  Sure Start2

  3,449

  —

  3,449

  Children and Young People's Unit3

  1,575

  1,091

  2,666

  1 RfR1 and RfR2

  2 RfR3

  3 RfR4

  Within the DEL change, the impact on the resources element and the capital element are as set out in the following table:
  927W
  The reduction in the voted resource element of the DEL for RfR1, (£242,549,000) arises from the take up of £320,860,000 of End Year Flexibility provision; the increase in receipts of £40,000,000 resulting from the winding up of the Training and Enterprise Councils; the transfer of £25,478,000 to the Cabinet Office to support Government offices, recruitment of Fast Streamers and Millennium Volunteers; the transfer of £9,414,000 from the Home Office for the education of adult and juvenile offenders, Adult Basic Skills projects and Community Champions: the transfer of £4,097,000 from the Department of Health for Health Education Partnerships and the Education Projects Implementation Programme; the transfer of £1,072,000 to the Welsh Executive for the National Training Organisation and for Hardship and Opportunity Bursaries; the transfer of £1,000,000 to the Department for Work and Pensions to support Lone Parents; an increase to the Standards Fund of £710,000: the transfer of £473,000 to the Scottish Executive for Hardship Bursaries and Fee Remission for Open University Students; the take up of £123,000 from the Evidence Based Policy Fund for research projects; the transfer of £100,000 from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions for the Property Service Agency costs transferred to DfES; the transfer of £70,000 to the Department of Trade and Industry for Work Life Balance secondees; and the transfer of £496,349,000 to the Department for Work and Pensions, £8,207,000 to the Department of Trade and Industry, £4,590,000 to the Home Office and £614,000 to the Cabinet Office as part of the machinery of Government changes announced by the Prime Minister on 8 June 2001. The reduction in the voted resource element of the DEL for RfR2, (£1,410,305,000) arises from the transfer of the Employment Service to the Department for Work and Pensions as part of the machinery of Government changes.

  The reduction in the voted resource element of DEL for RfR4 arises from the transfer of £384,000 to the Cabinet Office to support Children's Fund partnerships work in Government offices.

  The increase in the voted capital element of the DEL for RfR1, (£270,290,000) arises from the take up of £235,000,000 of End Year Flexibility provision; the transfer of £30,000,000 from the Department for Work and Pensions being the refund of CMF provision from the Employment Service and; the take up of £6,000,000 from the Capital Modernisation Fund (CMF) for the Cybrarian, Advanced and Enterprise Specialist Schools and SEN Communication Aids; and an increase of £710,000 in former grant maintained school loan repayments.

  The reduction in the voted capital element of the DEL for RfR2, (£17,652,000) arises from the transfer of the Employment Service to the Department for Work and Pensions.

  The increase in the non-voted resource element of the DEL, (£69,877,000) arises from the take up of £68,467,000 of End Year Flexibility provision; an increase of £40,000,000 to the grant in aid to the Learning and Skills Council; the transfer of £13,735,000 to the Scottish Executive for Open University Students; the transfer of £3,250,000 from the Home Office for Higher Education Active Community Fund projects; the transfer of £1,200,000 from the Department for Work and Pensions for provision the Adult Learning Inspectorate;
  928W
  the transfer of £1,100,000 to the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions to support the Maritime Training Scheme; and the transfer of £19,600,000 to the Department for Work and Pensions and £8,605,000 to the Cabinet Office as part of the machinery of Government changes.

  The decrease in the non-voted capital element of the DEL arises from the transfer of £1,402,000 to the Department for Work and Pensions as part of the machinery of Government changes.

  The non-voted DEL has also been reduced by £25,712,000 (resource) and by £1,000,000 (capital) as a result of the transfer of the European Regional Development Fund provision to the Department for Work and Pensions as part of the machinery of Government changes. Whilst this provision is in our DEL it is not in our estimate.

  Lecturers
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement on the ability of part-time lecturers to provide quality support to their students. [18674]

  Margaret Hodge
  The Department is not aware of any issues regarding the ability of part-time lecturers to offer quality support to their students. NATFHE recently published a report 'in From the cold' about part-time lecturers in higher education, which did not uncover any problems in this area. Membership of the ILT helps lecturers to ensure that they are equipped with the skills necessary to be able to give a high standard of teaching to their students. The ILT encourages membership of part-time staff.

  School Records
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what guidance she has issued to(a) local education authorities and (b) schools in respect of (i) their responsibilities for the preservation of school records and (ii) their co-operation with local public records offices in order to maintain the integrity of school records for the purposes of historical research; and if she will make a statement. [15831]

  Mr. Timms
  We have issued no guidance to local education authorities and schools on these matters. As schools' own records are not public records, it is for them to make their own decisions, consulting local public records offices as they think fit.

TRANSPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS

  Wychavon District Council
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what recent assessment he has made of the improvement in the performance of the planning department of Wychavon district council; and if he will make a statement. [14283]

  Ms Keeble
  We monitor all authorities' performance in handling planning applications on a quarterly basis. The most recent figures show that Wychavon determined
  929W
  69 per cent. of applications within eight weeks in the period April to June 2001, compared with 35 per cent. in the equivalent period in 2000. The authority is subject to a Best Value performance standard that requires it to determine at least 65 per cent. of applications within eight weeks in 2001–02.

  West Coast Main Line
  Mr. Page
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what are the(a) original and (b) latest estimates of the (i) cost and (ii) longevity of the West Coast Main Line works in Hertfordshire. [15804]

  Mr. Jamieson
  It is not possible to give a breakdown of costs of the works in Hertfordshire alone. We know from our discussions with the Strategic Rail Authority, Railtrack and Virgin Trains that the project is facing problems in terms of cost increases and uncertainty about the timescale for delivery. Works in Hertfordshire will include major track, signalling and power supply replacement. There are major packages planned for the summer of 2002 and spring 2003 in the Hemel-Tring area, and major resignalling works planned for the Watford area in 2004.

  Street Lighting
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if local transport plan funding in 2002–03 will include funding for street lighting. [16079]

  Ms Keeble
  The Government are committed in the 10-year Plan for Transport to tackling the maintenance backlog for local authority roads, bridges and street lighting. Over £30 billion is being provided for local road maintenance over the next 10 years, an extra £9 billion (27 per cent. in real terms) above the funding levels in the previous 10 years. Capital expenditure on maintenance, which is used to tackle deterioration, will increase by nearly £7 billion over the 10 years.

  Funding for the maintenance and renewal of street lighting is currently made through the Highways Maintenance Standard Spending Assessment element of Revenue Support Grant. No specific provision has been made in the 2002–03 capital maintenance settlement for renewal of street lighting. The first priority in the 10-Year Plan is to halt the deterioration in carriageways and footways and to continue the bridge strengthening programme. Additional provision for street lighting renewal may be made through the LTP system in later years. For the present, authorities have discretion over the funding provided for maintenance and smaller integrated transport schemes and may use this to fund capital works on street lighting where this is a local priority.

  DTLR is aware that street lighting columns in a number of authorities are failing structurally, but does not have sufficient information to determine the number of columns that are unsafe. Local authorities have agreed with DTLR that a national condition survey for street lighting should be introduced, and that information from this should be used to compile a national inventory. In future years the inventory could be used to target funding for tackling the street lighting backlog.

  Motorway Speed Limits
  Mrs. May
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list those sections of motorway that have(a) a 50 mph limit, (b) variable speed limits and (c) other speed limits less than the national limit. [16598]

  Mr. Byers
  [holding answer 20 November 2001]:

  50 mph speed limit

  M1 Junction 1 (A406)—northbound link roads/small length of main northbound carriageway

  M4—Junction 4 to Elevated Section— —50 mph

  M4 Heathrow Spur

  M11 Southbound approach to Junction 4 (A406)

  M606 link to the westbound carriageway of M62 at Junction 26

  M6 between Junctions 3 and 4

  M1/M62 Links at Junction 42/Junction 29 Lofthouse

  M65 approach to Junction 1A

  M621 Junction 1 to Junction 6, including all slip roads

  M61 Kearsley Spur

  Variable speed limit

  M25 Junctions 10–15

  Other speed limits less than the national limit

  M1—lengths of two northbound link roads closest to Junction 1–30 mph

  M4 Elevated section (west of Junction 2-Junction 1)—40 mph

  M1 Junction 2 (A1) slip roads— 30 mph

  M1 Junction 6 Southbound part of entry and exit slip roads—30 mph

  M32 between J2 and 3–60 mph

  M621 J1–6 30 and 40 mph speed limits on entry and exit slip roads.

  Planning Appeals (Buckingham)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many appeals against refused planning applications he has received in 2001 in respect of sites in the Buckingham constituency. [16900]

  Ms Keeble
  The provision of information on planning appeals is the responsibility of the Planning Inspectorate. I have asked the Inspectorate's Chief Executive, Mr. Chris Shepley, to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from C. J. Shepley to Mr. John Bercow, dated 28 November 2001:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your Question about the number of planning appeals received from within your constituency this year.
  I regret I cannot be specific as our records are based on Local Authority areas. Within the Aylesbury Vale District Council area, 68 appeals against refused planning applications have been received since 1 January 2001. Of these, 2 have a Buckingham postal address.

  Railway Workers
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many railway workers have made representations to him since 5 October; and on what subjects. [17114]
  931W
  Mr. Jamieson
  My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister for Transport have had a number of meetings with trade union representatives to discuss the concerns of railway workers. In addition, we have received letters from individual railway workers.

  Rent Restructuring
  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will publish representations he has received from(a) the local authority associations, (b) organisations representing tenants' interests and (c) registered social landlords regarding the implementation of the rent restructuring proposals in April 2002. [19039]

  Ms Keeble
  We are placing copies of the responses to the consultation on "HRA subsidy and rent restructuring" in my Department's library. The responses to the consultation following the April 2000 Housing Green Paper, which first outlined our proposals for rent restructuring, have already been placed in the Departmental library.

  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what the estimated savings to the Treasury are in the next financial year following implementation of the Government's proposals on rent restructuring. [17169]

  Ms Keeble
  None. There is no intention that the technical changes designed to bring the assumptions in the Housing Revenue Account subsidy system back into line with actual costs and resources should be used either to reduce or increase the aggregate level of resources available to councils nationally.

  Parking Charges (Central London)
  Ms Buck
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what was the estimated gross income from parking charges received by(a) Camden, (b) Kensington and Chelsea, (c) Wandsworth, (d) Westminster, (e) Islington, (f) Southwark and (g) Lambeth in 1999–2000. [17412]

  Ms Keeble
  The gross income from off-street and on-street parking in 1999–2000 is given in the tables:

  £000

  Camden

  24,535

  Islington

  5,812

  Kensington and Chelsea

  30,434

  Lambeth

  10,663

  Southwark

  6,209

  Wandsworth

  8,731

  Westminster

  88,020

  Road Accidents (Somerset)
  Mr. Heath
  To ask the Secretary of State for 'Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many(a) fatal and (b) serious road traffic accidents have taken place in (i) Somerset and (ii) the constituency of Somerton and Frome in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [17930]
  932W
  Mr. Jamieson
  Road accident statistics are compiled by local authority area and are not available centrally for parliamentary constituencies. The table shows the numbers of fatal and serious road traffic accidents in each of the local authority areas in Somerset.

  Fatal road accidents in Somerset by local authority district

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  Mendip

  9

  6

  12

  9

  18

  Sedgemoor

  7

  12

  6

  7

  4

  Taunton Deane

  5

  8

  11

  6

  3

  West Somerset

  3

  3

  3

  0

  3

  South Somerset

  21

  9

  12

  12

  13

  Total

  45

  38

  44

  34

  41

  Serious road accidents in Somerset by local authority district

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  Mendip

  57

  61

  47

  50

  61

  Sedgemoor

  61

  54

  45

  39

  34

  Taunton Deane

  66

  58

  52

  40

  35

  West Somerset

  14

  13

  10

  17

  11

  South Somerset

  74

  81

  84

  82

  87

  Total

  272

  267

  238

  228

  228

  Road Accidents (Bassetlaw)
  John Mann
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many road users in the Bassetlaw constituency had accidents in the last year for which figures are available; and what is the average in constituencies in England. [17439]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Road accident statistics are compiled by local authority area and are not available centrally for parliamentary constituencies. The information available relates only to accidents which result in personal injury.

  There were 742 road user casualties in accidents which took place within the Bassetlaw local authority area in 2000. An additional 420 uninjured drivers and riders were involved in these accidents. It is not known how many uninjured passengers or pedestrians were involved.

  Regional Airports (Flight Surcharges)
  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will abolish flight surcharges from regional airports. [18004]

  Mr. Jamieson
  It is for airlines and air travel organisers to justify their prices. If passengers feel they are not getting a fair deal they should make their views known to them, and perhaps shop around for a better deal.

  Ordnance Survey
  Mr. Dhanda
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Quinquennial Review of the Ordnance Survey. [17985]

  Ms Keeble
  I have received the Stage 1 Report of the Quinquennial Review of Ordnance Survey and will make an announcement shortly.
  933W
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he has concluded his consideration of the formal review of the Ordnance Survey Framework Document 1999 undertaken by the Ordnance Survey Management Board. [18170]

  Ms Keeble
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer that the then Under-Secretary of State my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes) gave on 15 February 2001,Official Report, columns 220–21W, to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly) announcing the Quinquennial Review to the House.

  For the current Quinquennial Review, CMG Admiral was appointed to carry out the task following a competitive tendering process. The review has provided extensive opportunities for consultation with internal and external stakeholders.

  Following the completion of Stage 1, I have since received the Report of the Quinquennial Review of Ordnance Survey and will make an announcement shortly.

  Public Transport (Greater London)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans he has to increase the allocation of funding for public transport in the Greater London area. [17884]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Government's spending plans for public transport in London and elsewhere were set out in "Transport 2010: The 10 Year Plan", issued in July 2000. The 10 Year Plan provides over £25 billion of public and private investment between 2001–02 and 2010–11. In addition, London will also benefit from some national rail schemes.

  Precise levels of funding for Transport for London will be decided following consultation with the Mayor on the determination of his transport grant for 2002–03, and in respect of the underground, once the negotiations with preferred bidders for the tube modernisation contracts have been successfully concluded.

  Buses (Safety)
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what powers the Transport Commissioners have to investigate bus services that are deemed to be unsafe. [17875]

  Ms Keeble
  In order to obtain and retain a Public Service Vehicle (PSV) Operator's Licence, the bus operator must satisfy the relevant Traffic Commissioner that he is of good repute, professionally competent, of appropriate financial standing, and is able to maintain his vehicles properly.

  In cases where it appears to the Commissioner that appropriate vehicle safety standards are not being maintained, he can call upon my Department's Vehicle Inspectorate to investigate. If safety standards are found to be inadequate, the Commissioner can take disciplinary action against the operator's PSV licence.

  Passenger safety on local bus services is primarily a matter for the bus operator itself.

  Stagecoach
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the outcome of the investigation by the Traffic Commissioner into the operation of bus services by Stagecoach in Gloucester and Cheltenham in November. [17878]

  Ms Keeble
  I understand that the Traffic Commissioner for the Western Traffic Area called two Stagecoach-owned bus companies to public inquiry on 10 October 2001 following a reliability monitoring exercise by the Vehicle Inspectorate on their local bus services.

  At the Inquiry, the Traffic Commissioner fined Cheltenham District Traction Company Ltd., 10 per cent. of the Fuel Duty Rebate paid to them during the three months prior to the determination being made. The Commissioner issued a formal warning to the other operator, Cheltenham and Gloucester Omnibus Company Ltd., as to its future conduct in ensuring that the services which it provides are reliable.

  The Commissioner can take further disciplinary action against either operator if reliability does not improve.

  Transport Spending
  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what the total UK public expenditure, broken down into(a) capital and (b) revenue, including EU grants, was in each year since 1980 for which figures are available on (i) road infrastructure, (ii) local public transport, (iii) rail transport, (iv) water transport and (v) air transport. [18082]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The information requested is not readily available. I have asked my officials to collate this information and will write to my hon. Friend. A copy of my letter will be placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Newly Qualified Drivers
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will introduce a probationary period for newly qualified drivers in the United Kingdom. [17833]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995 and the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Northern Ireland Order 1998 introduced probationary periods for newly qualified drivers. Under these provisions, the licence of any driver who accumulates six or more penalty points in the first two years after passing their first driving test will be revoked automatically. To regain a full licence, a provisional licence must be obtained and the theory and practical tests taken and passed again. In accordance with the Government's Road Safety Strategy, we intend to consult shortly on a wide range of issues regarding newly qualified drivers.

  Fishing Communities Regeneration Initiative
  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list, by region, the communities that have received funds under the Fishing Communities Regeneration Initiative and the purposes for which each community used its funds. [18269]
  935W
  Ms Keeble
  I have written to the relevant Regional Development Agencies that operate the Fishing Communities Regeneration Initiative asking for this information. When the information has been assembled in the Department I shall write to my hon. Friend. A copy of my letter will be placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Braer
  Mr. Carmichael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) if he has received the new evidence gained from re-examination of the Braer's surviving logbooks by two independent marine engineers; and if he will make a statement; [18727]

  (2) if he will order the Marine Accidents Investigation Board to re-open the inquiry to establish the facts concerning the loss of the Braer; [18722]

  (3) if he will make a statement on the recent decision of the Marine Accidents Investigation Board not to re-open the inquiry into the loss of the Braer; [18725]

  (4) if he will order a public inquiry to establish responsibility for the loss of the Braer. [18723]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Merchant Shipping (Accident Reporting and Investigation) Regulations 1999 (SI 1999 No. 2567) state that"The Chief Inspector (of Marine Accidents) may cause any investigation to be reopened either generally or as to any part thereof, and he shall do so

  (a) if after the completion of the investigation in his opinion new and important evidence has been discovered, or

  (b) if for any other reason there is in his opinion ground for suspecting that a miscarriage of justice has occurred."

  The Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents has received, and very carefully considered, the log-books and certain other information concerning the Braer. In his opinion it is not new and important evidence, nor does it make him believe a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

  The decision not to reopen the MAIB investigation into the loss of the Braer is entirely for the Chief Inspector and I am satisfied he has considered the matter fully.

  I consider there are no grounds for ordering a public inquiry.

  Dangerous Items (Airport Sales)
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what steps he has taken to ban the sale of dangerous items in airside shops at airports; and how these restrictions are monitored. [18637]

  Mr. Jamieson
  DTLR issued Heightened Security Measures by legal direction on 26 September 2001. This lists articles which, as potential weapons, must not be taken into the restricted zone of an aerodrome or into the cabin of an aircraft either by passengers or as goods for retail or supply to passengers. DTLR aviation security inspectors monitor compliance.

  London Underground
  Clive Efford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what 936W
  effect the credit rating of Transport for London will have on the future cost of the public-private partnership for the London Underground; and if he will make a statement. [18389]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Transport for London's credit rating is one of the many factors that financiers will take into account when bidders raise private sector finance for the tube modernisation plans.

  Transport (Arundel and South Downs)
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what assessment he has made as to the adequacy of(a) rail services and (b) bus services between Arundel and South Downs and London. [18326]

  Mr. Jamieson
  No formal assessment of rail or coach services has been made.

  On rail travel, the Strategic Rail Authority is negotiating a new South Central franchise with GoVia, who have recently assumed ownership of the existing franchise. The Strategic Rail Authority's Strategic Plan, which will be published in the near future, will set out its priorities for enhancement of the network.

  While we recognise the value of long-distance coach services, decisions on what services to provide are a matter for commercial operators responding to passenger demand.

  Traffic Schemes
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the number of traffic schemes in London approved by him in each of the last three years relating to the provision of(a) road humps and (b) pinch-points; what the cost of the schemes was; and what effect these developments have had on (i) traffic flows and (ii) road safety. [18397]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Over the last three years, London local authorities have been free to install traffic calming features complying with regulations, and no information is held centrally on such features. The Secretary of State's authorisation was required for "non-complying" features up to April 1999, when this requirement was replaced in London only by a requirement to notify the Secretary of State of such features. No applications for authorisation were received from London local authorities in the two years to April 1999, and no notifications have been received since.

  National Air Traffic Services
  John McDonnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) what representations he has received from the Airline Group for financial assistance to support its operation of the National Air Traffic Services; [18742]

  (2) what recent communications have taken place between his Department's officials and representatives of the Airline Group with regard to the funding of the National Air Traffic Services; [18743]
  937W
  (3) if he will make a statement on the future viability of the public private partnership arrangements for the management of the National Air Traffic Services following the recent downturn in demand for air passenger traffic. [18741]

  Mr. Jamieson
  NATS is reviewing its financial position, following the downturn in demand for air travel, and is finalising its business plan, for submission to the Government shortly. The Government have had discussions with NATS and the Airline Group about the implications of revised traffic forecasts on the company's long term viability, but have received no request for financial assistance as a result.

  John McDonnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many jobs within the National Air Traffic Control Services he expects to be shed over the next three years. [18745]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Information on staffing levels within National Air Traffic Services should be sought from the Chief Executive's Office, NATS, One Kemble Street, London WC2B 4AP.

  Housing (West Wiltshire)
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what assessment he has made of the impact of changes in the supply of low-cost homes on the housing situation in West Wiltshire. [18420]

  Ms Keeble
  The Department requires local authorities to carry out robust assessments of local housing need in their areas and to develop housing strategies that address the identified need for affordable housing and also to make effective use of their powers under the planning system to secure an element of affordable housing within new housing developments.

  West Wiltshire district council granted planning permission for 51 units of affordable housing in the 2000–01 financial year. These homes will be available for renting through Registered Social Landlords.

  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what estimate he has made of(a) the number of new households in West Wiltshire for each of the years from 1995 to 2001 and (b) the number of new households in these years unable to (i) rent and (ii) buy in West Wiltshire. [18421]

  Ms Keeble
  The estimated net increase in the number of households in West Wiltshire in the five years to 1999, the latest date for which data are available, is 1,400 giving an average increase of around 300 households per year. Mid year household estimates for England at local authority level are published annually. Data for 2000 will be published on 29 November and a copy placed in the Library of the House. Uncertainties in these estimates increase with geographical detail and mid year estimates are only published to the nearest thousand.

  No information is available on the number of new households in these years unable to buy or rent in West Wiltshire.

  Empty Homes
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what measures he is taking to ensure that authorities in England publish empty homes strategies. [18419]

  Ms Keeble
  We have no plans to require local authorities to publish empty homes strategies. The guidance provided to local authorities on housing strategies makes clear that we expect them to consider the role that effective action to tackle empty homes can play in addressing housing problems in their area. All authorities are required to report their performance in doing so through the Best Value in Housing programme.

  Voting (Postal Strikes)
  Mr. George Osborne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans the Government have to change the rules on(a) postal and (b) absentee voting to take into account postal strikes. [18445]

  Dr. Whitehead
  The Electoral Commission announced on 20 November that it was initiating a review of postal and absent voting, to report by September 2002. The Government will consider any recommendations which the Commission may make for changes in legislation.

  M6
  Mr. George Osborne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans his Department has to improve the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester. [18438]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The section of the M6 between junction 11 and 20 is currently being investigated as part of the West Midlands to North West Multi-Modal Study. The consultants are due to release the final report for the study towards the end of January 2002. It will be for the Regional Assembly in the North West and the West Midlands Local Government Association to consider the report and make their recommendations to the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. The Secretary of State will decide which measures to take forward through other Government agencies. If approved any new works could start within the 10 Year Transport Plan period.

  M6/M56
  Mr. George Osborne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when he expects work to begin on the motorway link between junction 19 of the M6 and the M56. [18447]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The M6 and A556 are currently being investigated as part of the West Midlands to North West Multi-Modal Study. The Consultants are due to release the final report for the Study towards the end of January 2002. It will be for the Regional Assembly in the North West and the West Midlands Local Government Association to consider the report and make their recommendations to the Secretary of State for Transport. Local Government and the Regions. The Secretary of State will decide which measures to take forward through other Government Agencies. If approved any new works could start within the 10 Year Transport Plan period.

  Cheshire Fire Service
  Mr. George Osborne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many persons were employed in the Cheshire Fire Service in(a) 1997 and (b) 2001. [18450]

  Dr. Whitehead
  Based on annual returns submitted to HM Fire Services Inspectorate, the number of persons employed by Cheshire Fire Brigade as at 31 March 1997 and 31 March 2001 was as follows:

  1997

  2001

  Wholetime firefighters

  620

  612

  Retained firefighters

  192

  190

  Control room staff

  29

  24

  Other staff

  88

  103

  Speed Limits (Residential Areas)
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what estimate he has made of the average cost to local authorities of introducing 20 mph zones in residential areas. [18481]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The design and implementation of 20 mph zones is a matter for each local traffic authority and therefore estimates have not been prepared centrally. Costs will vary according to the size of the zone, the type and number of the speed controlling measures used and the quality of the materials. From past experience costs of typical schemes are likely to be in the order of £100,000 to £200,000.

  Traffic-Calming Measures
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how much local authorities have spent on traffic-calming measures from 1992 up to the last year for which figures are available. [18480]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The introduction of traffic calming measures is a matter for local highway authorities. We have no details of the amounts spent by authorities since 1992.

  Outturn

  Outturn to date1

  Local authority

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  Birmingham

  582

  660

  476

  321

  179

  Bridgnorth

  12

  29

  —

  —

  —

  Bromsgrove

  18

  39

  15

  32

  5

  Cannock Chase

  52

  8

  19

  64

  17

  Coventry

  83

  156

  126

  63

  2

  Dudley

  29

  67

  208

  —

  —

  East Staffordshire

  72

  39

  15

  —

  —

  Hereford

  38

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Herefordshire

  —

  27

  58

  53

  33

  Leominster

  19

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Lichfield

  4

  36

  5

  —

  4

  Malvern Hills

  37

  28

  50

  25

  —

  Newcastle-under-Lyme

  51

  24

  60

  13

  10

  North Shropshire

  12

  43

  4

  12

  15

  East Devon-London Transport Links
  Mr. Swire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what assessment he has made of the adequacy of(a) rail services and (b) bus services between east Devon and London; and if he will make a statement. [18282]

  Mr. Jamieson
  No formal assessment of rail or coach services has been made.

  On rail services, we would expect South West Trains and Wessex Trains in consultation with local stakeholders to come forward with proposals to meet demands for new or improved services. The Strategic Rail Authority's Strategic Plan, which will be published in the near future, will set out its priorities for enhancement to the network.

  While we recognise the value of long-distance coach services, decisions on the services to provide are a matter for commercial operators responding to passenger demand.

  Housing PFI
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the status of the housing PFI pathfinder projects. [18291]

  Ms Keeble
  There are eight pathfinder authorities currently going through the procurement process for housing private finance initiative. The authorities are at varying stages in the process. Manchester, Sandwell, Islington and North East Derbyshire are evaluating bids from potential contractors. Leeds, Newham, Camden and Reading are due to issue a document inviting bids during the next three months. Contract signatures are expected during 2002.

  Housing (West Midlands)
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the number of new homes constructed in the west Midlands by local authority area using Housing Corporation funding in the past five years. [18290]

  Ms Keeble
  The number of new homes constructed in the west Midlands by local authority area using Housing Corporation funding in the past five years is shown in the table. (The table does not include Housing Corporation funded rehabilitation of rented stock and low cost home ownership schemes).
  941W

  Outturn

  Outturn to date1

  Local authority

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  North Warwickshire

  77

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Nuneaton and Bedworth

  27

  45

  90

  6

  40

  Oswestry

  3

  4

  19

  5

  —

  Redditch

  10

  27

  23

  21

  28

  Rugby

  44

  5

  64

  —

  —

  Sandwell

  102

  106

  148

  122

  15

  Shrewsbury and Atcham

  12

  8

  35

  12

  —

  Solihull

  42

  79

  —

  137

  —

  South Herefordshire

  10

  —

  —

  —

  —

  South Shropshire

  34

  9

  11

  4

  10

  South Staffordshire

  29

  15

  25

  16

  1

  Stafford

  —

  6

  11

  64

  —

  Staffordshire Moorlands

  20

  6

  42

  —

  —

  Stoke-on-Trent

  89

  182

  112

  183

  6

  Stratford-on-Avon

  27

  14

  39

  22

  —

  Tamworth

  11

  26

  3

  37

  —

  The Wrekin

  37

  19

  77

  84

  12

  Walsall

  128

  145

  112

  84

  46

  Warwick

  15

  56

  15

  60

  45

  Wolverhampton

  146

  104

  109

  82

  40

  Worcester

  4

  5

  —

  12

  4

  Wychavon

  29

  16

  5

  42

  —

  Wyre Forest

  3

  14

  25

  45

  6

  Total

  1,908

  2,047

  2,001

  1,621

  518

  1 2001–02 completions to date

  Housing Transfers
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) which local authorities have transferred their housing stock to new registered social landlords and if he will give the number of homes involved in each case; [18289]

  (2) if he will list the local authorities which have indicated that they would like to proceed to transfer their housing stock. [18292]

  Ms Keeble
  A table indicating the local authorities that have transferred some or all of their stock to registered social landlords has been placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Applications for a place on next year's Large Scale Voluntary Transfer Programme are due to be received by 11 January 2002. Once these applications have been assessed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will announce the local authorities that have been granted a place on the programme.

  Planning Inquiries
  Paddy Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many public inquiries into planning applications have lasted more than(a) one month and (b) three months in each of the last five years. [17356]

  Ms Keeble
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Public inquiries are presided over by Inspectors provided by the Planning Inspectorate. I have asked the Inspectorate's Chief Executive, Mr. Chris Shepley, to write to my hon. Friend.

  Letter from C. J. Shepley to Paddy Tipping dated 28 November 2001:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your Question about the number of long planning inquiries over the last five years.
  942W
  Whilst the Inspectorate provides Inspectors for Public Inquiries into called-in planning applications as well as for planning appeals, until recently we have been reliant on information supplied by others with regard to Secretary of State decisions issued and inquiry duration. Unfortunately this information has not always been forthcoming. For example, of 73 such decisions that we know of in only 10 cases do we know the number of sitting days of the inquiry.
  From the information that we do have, the number of called-in applications or planning appeals decided following an inquiry of 1 month or more were

  Year decision issued

  Cases where inquiry sat for between and 59 days 20 days (1 month)

  Cases where inquiry sat for 60 days (3 months) or more

  1996

  8

  6

  1997

  13

  6

  1998

  4

  0

  1999

  13

  0

  2000

  0

  0

  2001 (to date)

  8

  2

  Quarry Industry
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what recent assessment he has made of the environmental performance of the UK quarry industry in comparison with(a) other EU and (b) non-EU countries. [17922]

  Ms Keeble
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: My Department has made no recent assessment of the environmental performance of the UK quarry industry in comparison with other EU or non-EU countries.

  Rural Roads
  Mr. Pope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the development of a rural road hierarchy, as required by the Transport Act 2000. [18971]
  943W
  Mr. Jamieson
  The concept of a hierarchy was considered as part of the Speed Review and the Government's Road Safety Strategy, both published last year.

  The Transport Act 2000 committed the Government to consider the development of a rural road hierarchy for speed management purposes. Following Royal Assent the DTLR set up a Working Group of professionals and the main interest groups. The Group has prepared a thorough report that raises some interesting points and recommendations. As required by the Act, the Secretary of State has today laid copies of this report before each of the Houses of Parliament.

  I commend the Working Group for the excellent job they have done in identifying the benefits of a hierarchy. I am also grateful for their frank assessment that currently, if it were developed as a system of different speed limits, a hierarchy would be costly both financially and in terms of environmental intrusion. Also, given the necessary infrastructure and behavioural changes required, the road safety and quality of life benefits could take too long to realise.

  I am grateful to the Group for identifying the clear links between the development of a hierarchy and several other Road Safety Strategy initiatives. Above all, I agree that the DTLR's assessment framework would be the best place to carry out the work to determine criteria for assigning roads within the hierarchy. As such, I fully accept their recommendation to incorporate the speed limit setting element of the hierarchy within the development of the assessment framework.

  They rightly identify the signing issues as a big obstacle to progressing the hierarchy as they have proposed it. The DTLR will shortly be commencing work on the Road Safety Strategy commitment to review speed limit signing regimes. I have instructed officials to consider the signing elements of the hierarchy report as part of this work.

  The Group recognised the need for traffic calming measures to support speed limits in order to achieve changes in vehicle speeds. The forthcoming DTLR project to develop practical speed management measures on rural roads will be the best vehicle for testing such traffic calming treatments.

  Of course, there are innovative measures that have already been tried by my Department, like vehicle activated signs, that will in future be more widely applied where suitable. Detailed guidance on the use of vehicle activated signs will be produced next year.

  Both the Working Group and the Speed Review identified the need for more information before we can properly assess the case for lower rural speed limits. I am therefore committing the DTLR to undertake a survey of vehicle speeds on a representative sample of rural roads to ensure that decisions are evidence based.

  With the package of measures I have outlined here, and those in the Road Safety Strategy, I am convinced that we will be able to build on this report and deliver real benefits to those who live, work and travel in rural areas.

  Rural Bus Services
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, pursuant to 944W
  his answer of 21 November 2001, Official Report, column 327W, on rural bus services, how much of the money outlined in the Rural White Paper for the Rural Bus Challenge and Rural Transport Partnership programme was spent in (a) 2000–01 and (b) 2001–02; and how much each initiative has received. [18781]

  Ms Keeble
  A total of £21 million was allocated to new Rural Bus Challenge projects in 2000–01, spending over a number of financial years. Expenditure in that year on all Challenge projects, including those begun in previous years, was £11 million. There is £20 million available for awards in this year's Rural Bus Challenge competition, decisions on which will be announced shortly. Forecast expenditure in the current year on all projects is £23 million.

  The Countryside Agency's Rural Transport Partnership Programme spent £4.8 million in 2000–01. For this financial year, formal grant offers total £7.1 million to date, of which £2.9 million has been spent.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 327W, on rural bus services, if he will specify (a) the size of the samples for rural areas and (b) the areas the samples were carried out in (i) 1992 to 1994, (ii) 1995 to 1997 and (iii) 1998 to 2000. [18680]

  Ms Keeble
  The sample size of households in rural areas within Great Britain in the National Travel Survey were

  (i) 1992/94: 1,419

  (ii) 1995/97: 1,091

  (iii) 1998/2000: 754.

  The areas used to select household samples consist of one or more postcode sectors, which cannot be specified because of confidentiality. The sampling procedure is set out in the annual National Travel Survey Technical Reports available in the Library of the House.

  Council Tenants (Poole)
  Mrs. Brooke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 14 November 2001,Official Report, column 738W, on cash incentive scheme payments, if he will raise the maximum cash incentive grant to council tenants to buy their own homes in Poole to a level comparable, in relation to average house prices, to the level offered in London and the South-East. [17729]

  Ms Keeble
  We have no immediate plans to make any changes to the limits set for cash incentive scheme payments. We are, however, reviewing the control framework under which the scheme operates.

  Local Strategic Partnerships
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the powers the local strategic partnerships will have to carry out their tasks. [18665]

  Ms Keeble
  Local strategic partnerships (LSPs) are not executive bodies. Their purpose is to co-ordinate the activities of their members in order to tackle local problems. Those members will include representatives
  945W
  from the public, private, voluntary and community sector. Recent legislation has extended the ability of public sector bodies such as health authorities and local authorities to work in partnership with organisations in other sectors. Executive responsibility for implementing the partnerships' strategies rests with the partner organisations.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions by what methods the local strategic partnerships assess needs of the local people and find those who are often excluded. [18666]

  Ms Keeble
  Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) will involve the public, private, community and voluntary sectors to ensure that initiatives and services work together locally. LSPs will devise and implement community strategies and local neighbourhood renewal strategies, which will improve the delivery of local services generally, with a specific focus on deprived areas. These strategies should build on information from local people on what they need and want, rather than working from the top down. The statutory guidance, Preparing Community Strategies, refers to an analysis of needs which should be carried out by the various partners on the LSP. Considerable background information will already exist.

  LSPs must include local people, especially those from deprived neighbourhoods and from excluded groups, such as black and minority ethnic groups and older people. LSPs will need to provide them with training and support so they can be fully involved from the start. The Government have established the Community Empowerment Fund, which will provide £36 million over the next 3 years to create 'Community Networks' in the 88 most deprived English areas. In each area, CEF moneys will be given direct to a local voluntary organisation chosen by the regional Government Office. This lead organisation' will form a Community Network to ensure a high level of community representation on the LSP.

  Transport (Disabled Access)
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what measures he has taken to increase the number of buses which have disabled access ramps: and if he will make a statement on disabled access on all forms of public transport. [18679]

  Ms Keeble
  Accessibility regulations for new trains, buses and coaches have been introduced under Part V of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Part III of the Act requires public transport infrastructure to be accessible to disabled people. From 2004 this will include the removal of physical barriers to access.

  Since 31 December 2000, regulations have required all new single deck buses over 7.5 tonnes and double deck buses on scheduled services to be accessible, including fitting boarding devices (ramps and lifts).

  We are requiring all single deck buses over 7.5 tonnes to be fully accessible from 1 January 2016, and all double deck buses from 1 January 2017.

  Neighbourhood Renewal
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what guidelines govern the eligibility of local authorities for neighbourhood renewal funding. [18667]

  Ms Keeble
  The list of authorities eligible for the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund has been determined by taking those authorities that are among the 50 most deprived on any of the six measures in the Indices of Deprivation 2000. On this basis 81 authorities would be eligible. In addition, there are transitional arrangements for those authorities that were within the 50 most deprived areas on any of the four measures under the old Index of Local Deprivation, but are not in the list of 81 authorities that qualify using the Indices of Deprivation 2000. Therefore, a further seven local authority areas are eligible for the Fund.

  The funding each authority receives is intended to be related to the severity of the deprivation within its area. The sum they receive is based on a standard amount per head of population that live in wards in the most deprived 10 per cent. on the Indices of Deprivation 2000. This is underpinned by a minimum allocation of £200,000 in 2001–02 for authorities with no wards in the most deprived 10 per cent.

  Affordable Housing
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when he intends to review guidance to local planning authorities on securing affordable housing through the planning system. [19271]

  Ms Keeble
  Our Green Paper on planning which we hope to publish shortly will be supported by a number of consultation documents. These will include our proposals on planning obligations and how we might increase the provision of affordable housing through the planning system.

  New Deal for Communities
  Mr. Lammy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on his assessment of the performance of New Deal for Communities programmes. [15994]

  Ms Keeble
  There are 39 New Deal for Communities (NDC) partnerships. The performance of each partnership is currently assessed through an annual review in February each year. The 17 Round 1 Pathfinder partnerships were assessed in February 2001. The Round 2 partnerships were not assessed, as their delivery phase did not begin until April 2001.

  The NDC Programme has begun to have some positive impacts. For example, in the Sandwell NDC area in the West Midlands there has been an overall reduction in robberies of 48 per cent. since April 2001. East Manchester NDC has recorded a 30 per cent. reduction in crime following implementation of a crime reduction strategy. In the Haringey NDC area between April and August 2001 soliciting and loitering were down 57 per cent. on the same period last year.

  Planning Applications (Processing Times)
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) what the average turn-around time is for processing by a local authority of a correctly submitted planning application; [19079]

  (2) how many local authorities achieved a six week turn around time from receipt of a correct planning application to a decision in the last 12 months. [19080]

  Ms Keeble
  The information requested is not available. However, in 200–01, 63 per cent. of applications were decided within eight weeks and 83 per cent. of applications were decided within 13 weeks.

  Rough Sleepers
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what progress the Social Exclusion Unit has made in reducing the number of rough sleepers. [15995]

  Ms Keeble
  The Social Exclusion Unit published a report on rough sleeping in July 1998 in which the Prime Minister set the tough target of reducing the number of people sleeping rough in England to as near to zero as possible and by at least two thirds by 2002.

  The Rough Sleepers Unit (RSU) was subsequently set up to deliver the Prime Minister's target and published it's strategy "Coming in from the Cold", in December 1999, which outlined a raft of new policies and services:
  helping people sleeping rough on the streets with drug, alcohol and mental health problems;
  helping former rough sleepers rebuild their lives through education, training and employment; and
  preventing a new generation of rough sleepers particularly those leaving care, the armed forces and prison.

  The RSU published it's second Progress Report in summer 2001 which shows the significant impact the 'Coming in from the Cold' strategy has made.

  In 1998, there were approximately 1,850 people rough sleeping in England. In June 2001, published figures indicated that approximately 703 people were sleeping rough, (357 in London, and 346 outside of London). This represents a 62 per cent. reduction.

  The Rough Sleepers Unit is currently carrying out research and consulting with organisations and individuals that impact on the strategy, with a view to developing a future strategy that will keep the number of rough sleepers as near to zero as possible.

  Chemical Sites (Access to Information)
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans he has to restrict public access to information on major chemical sites held on public registers on security grounds. [19512]

  Mr. Byers
  I have today made a direction that all safety reports provided under the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 should be excluded from the public registers maintained by the Competent Authority, that is the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agencies.
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  This is a sensible precautionary step taken on security grounds in the light of the current situation following the tragic events of 11 September. It is a temporary measure which will give time for sensitive information to be removed from existing safety reports, and the amended reports restored to the public register.

  Hazardous facilities, with the potential for causing major off-site accidents are registered with the HSE, the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, under the COMAH Regulations. These include major chemical works, petrochemical and gas installations and high quantity users of flammable/explosive/toxic substances (e.g. chlorine at water treatment works).

  The 430 most hazardous ("top-tier") sites have to prepare a detailed safety report describing the hazards presented and safety precautions taken. The regulations require safety reports for top-tier sites to be placed on public registers. The registers are maintained by Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency

  At present only a small number of the safety cases are on the public register. The remainder would have been put on over the next few months. The Direction will enable security sensitive information to be identified and a second, more targeted Direction to be considered. This would allow the amended reports to be placed in the public arena.

  It is important to note that the action on removing safety reports would not affect the arrangements in place to give the public vital safety instructions on such sites. People who are liable to be affected by an accident at a COMAH site are given specified information about the establishment, the major accident hazards and the safety measures that are in place. It is the site operator who has to provide this information independent of the safety report. This will ensure that the emergency services and the public know how to react in the event of an accident.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions whether there are plans to change the departmental expenditure limit and administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19513]

  Mr. Byers
  Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions' Departmental Expenditure Limits for 200–02 will change as follows.

  (a) The DTLR Main Programmes DEL will be decreased by £263,092,000 from £12,384,874,000 to £12,121,782,000 and the DTLR administration costs limit will be decreased by £61,190,000 from £776,525,000 to £715,335,000 and the DTLR HSE administration costs limit has increased by £2,500,000 from £193,732,000 to £196,232,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the table:

  £000

  Resources

  Capital

  Change

  -380,102

  117,010

  New DEL

  4,744,850

  7,376,932

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  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

  (i) The changes for Request for Resources 1 are as follows:

  Take up of End Year Flexibility of £39,609,000 comprising £3,000,000 for Pneumoconiosis grants, £2,359,000 for Housing Action Trusts, £2,842,000 for building regulations, £4,582,000 for the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, £6,782,000 for the Coalfield Enterprise Fund, £2,300,000 for the Ordnance Survey, £5,500,000 for planning, £1,583,000 for the Single Regeneration Budget, £300,000 for Fire Services, £5,000,000 for social exclusion, £707,000 for Rent Assessment Panels administration costs, £1,786,000 for The Rent Service administration costs and £2,868,000 for the Planning Inspectorate Executive Agency administration costs. An increase of £344,000 from Request for Resources 4 in respect of civil service reform funding for The Rent Service Executive Agency (£97,000) and The Planning Inspectorate Executive Agency (£247,000). An increase of £438,917,000 from non-voted provision for Regional Chambers (£5,000,000), the Regional Development Agencies (£336,124,000), the London Development Agency (£23,337,000) and a technical adjustment (£74,456,000) to remove contributions from other departments to Regional Development Agencies. A net decrease of £253,606,000 arising from the following inter-departmental transfers: Machinery of Government changes of £245,646,000 (£231,556,000 to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (to whom end year flexibility entitlement of £21,365,000 is also being transferred), £22,158,000 to Department of Trade and Industry; £174,000 to British Trade International; and £8,242,000 from the Home Office); £250,000 from the Home Office for Rough Sleepers, £190,000 from Department for Work and Pensions for Rough Sleepers, £3,800,000 to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to contribute to costs associated with foot and mouth disease, £3,000,000 from the Home Office for neighbourhood wardens, £5,000,000 to the Department of Health for social exclusion, £5,000,000 to the Home Office for community facilities, £100,000 to Lord Chancellor's Department for Local Authority efficiency and £2,500,000 from the Policy Innovation Fund for (New Ventures) street wardens. There is also a reduction of £450,000 to reflect additional receipts for the Planning Inspectorate Executive Agency.

  (ii) The changes for Request for Resources 2 are as follows:

  Take up of End Year Flexibility of £76,268,000 comprising £1,293,000 to meet the costs of shipping inquiries and shipping programmes; £2,959,000 for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for administration costs (£1,761,000) and project slippage (£1,198,000); £6,088,000 for Civil Aviation programmes and the Air Transport White paper; £197,000 for international subscriptions; £6,767,000 for the Highways Agency to repay a loan to Department of Transport. Local Government and the Regions (£6,630,000) and administration costs (£137,000); £10,584,000 for multi-modal studies, consultancy projects, advertising, minicab licensing, transport research, Traveline, the Ultra project, road haulage modernisation projects and to settle the Park Lane UK Single Vehicle Approval claim; £11,000,000 for London Underground PPP advisers and
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  rail consultants; £800,000 for the Commission for Integrated Transport; £1,993,000 for Channel Tunnel Rail Link costs; £5,000,000 for the extension of bus fuel duty rebates to coaches; £7,469,000 for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency including £6,140,000 for administration costs; £2,900,000 for vehicle and traffic enforcement; £11,170,000 for the Powershift and cleaner vehicles programme; and £8,048,000 for the Strategic Rail Authority to reflect the Rail Regulator's Review of Access Charges. A net decrease of £1,556,000 arising from the following inter-departmental transfers: £1,100,000 from Department for Education and Skills for maritime training; £150,000 from Department of Health for Mobility Centres; £452,000 from Home Office to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency; £3,200,000 to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs towards foot and mouth costs and the Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme; and £58,000 to Department of Trade and Industry for Framework 5 Helpline. A net transfer of £416,000 from Request for Resources 4 for Civil Service Reform (£1,305,000) and net internal adjustments (£889,000). A transfer of £7,150,000 to the capital element of the DTLR DEL.

  (iii) The changes for Request for Resources 4 are as follows:

  Take up of End Year Flexibility of £20,323,000 for Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions administration costs (£19,936,000) and other expenditure (£387,000). A net decrease of £106,908,000 arising from the following inter-departmental transfers: machinery of government changes of £111,004,000 (£11,064,000 from Home Office, £72,690,000 to Cabinet Office, £6,684,000 to Department of Trade and Industry and £42,694,000 to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs); £290,000 for Local Government PSA costs to Department for Education and Skills (£100,000), Department of Health (£100,000), Home Office (£25,000), Department for Work and Pensions (£25,000), Department for Culture, Media and Sport (£20,000) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (£20,000); and £4,389,000 from the Cabinet Office Civil Service Modernisation Fund. An increase of £8,500,000 to meet administration costs from non-voted provision. A transfer of £1,436,000 to Requests for Resource 1 and 2 for Civil Service Reform funding, and a net transfer of £889,000 from Request for Resources 2 for a technical adjustment. A reclassification of £2,500,000 from the capital element of the DEL for the provision of IT services to the Health and Safety Commission.

  (iv) Provision within the non-Voted resource element of the DTLR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit will be decreased by £596,765,000. This reflects take up of End Year Flexibility of £86,957,000 comprising £82,429,000 for Large Scale Voluntary Transfers, £4,246,000 for the Housing Corporation and £282,000 for the Commission for New Towns. A decrease of £236,305,000 arising from machinery of government transfer to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. £438,917,000 will be transferred to voted provision on Request for Resources 1 and £8,500,000 will be transferred to voted provision on Request for Resources 4.

  (v) As a result of the changes to Requests for Resources 1, 2 and 4 the DTLR administration provision has been decreased by £58,690,000 from £1,015,839,000 to £957,147,000.
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  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from:

  (vi) The changes for Request for Resources 1 are as follows:

  Take up of End Year Flexibility of £5,115,000 comprising £2,477,000 for The Rent Service Executive Agency, £2,306,000 for coalfields, and £332,000 for the Single Regeneration Budget. A net decrease of £183,000 arising from the following Machinery Of Government changes: £363,000 to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (to whom end year flexibility entitlement of £71,719,000 will also be transferred) and £180,000 from the Home Office. A transfer of £602,764,000 from non-voted resources as a technical adjustment to remove contributions from other departments to Regional Development Agencies.

  (vii) The changes for Request for Resources 2 are as follows:

  Take up of End Year Flexibility of £237,066,000 comprising £1,758,000 for the International Maritime Organisation building; £1,816,000 for Maritime and Coastguard Agency project slippage; £12,864,000 for the Highways Agency to repay a loan to Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (£5,370,000) and to meet the additional costs of the Strategy for Financial Management project (£7,494,000); £1,336,000 for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency; £5,600,000 for Transport for London; £8,000,000 for the Rural Bus Capital Challenge scheme; £1,940,000 for the Midland Metro scheme; £8,800,000 for water freight grants; £194,952,000 for the Strategic Rail Authority for Railtrack Feasibility Studies (£28,000,000) and to reflect the Rail Regulator's Review of Access Charges (£166,952,000). A net increase of £662,000 arising from transfer from the Home Office to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to support vehicle crime reduction initiatives and implement an electronic interface with magistrates courts. Take up from the Capital Modernisation Fund of £2,700,000 for the Active Traffic Management project (£2,000,000); and the Strategic Rail Authority (£700,000). A transfer of £4,231,000 to non-voted credit approvals for de-trunking roads. A transfer of £7,150,000 from the resource element of the DTLR DEL for Cross Rail.

  (viii) The changes for Request for Resources four are as follows:

  A decrease of £2,485,000 arising from machinery of government changes (£1,461,000 to the Cabinet Office, £19,000 to Department of Trade and Industry, and £1,005,000 to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. A reclassification of £2,500,000 to the resource element of the DEL for the Health and Safety Commission.

  (ix) Provision within the non-Voted capital element of the DTLR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit will be decreased by £726,410,000. This reflects take up of End Year Flexibility of £51,054,000 for the Urban Regeneration Agency (£30,157,000) and £20,897,000 to be transferred to the non-voted capital element of the DTLR Local Government DEL. A net decrease of £160,672,000 arising from the following Machinery of Government changes: £59,682,000 from the Home Office and £220,354,000 to Department for Environment. Food and
  952W
  Rural Affairs. Transfers of £602,764,000 to Request for Resources 1 and £4,231,000 to non-voted credit approvals for de-trunking roads from Request for Resource 2.

  (b) the DTLR Local Government DEL will be increased by £65,021,000 from £36,975,168,000 to £37,040,189,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the following table:

  Resources

  Capital

  Change

  +32,321,000

  +32,700,000

  New DEL

  36,950,270,000

  89,919,000

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

  (i) The changes for Request for Resources 3 are as follows:

  Take up of End Year Flexibility of £29,210,000 for: the Valuation Office Agency's modernisation programme (£100,000), research (£910,000), PFI Special grant (£3,500,000), and support for local authorities (Bellwin) (£20,200,000), Best Value Intervention (£4,500,000). An increase of £811,000 arising from machinery of government changes transfer from the Home Office. A reclassification of £2,300,000 from the capital element of the DEL for research. A transfer of £1,000,000 from non-voted provision.

  (ii) Provision within the resources non-voted element of the DTLR Local Government DEL will be reduced by £1,000,000 to reflect a transfer of resources to Request for Resources 3 for the Valuation Office Agency.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from:

  (iii) The changes for Request for Resources 3 are as follows: A reclassification of £2,300,000 to the resource element of the DEL.

  (iv) Provision within the capital non-voted element of the DTLR Local Government DEL will be increased by £35,000,000 to reflect the take up of End Year Flexibility (£14,103,00) and a switch from DTLR Main DEL (£20,897,000) to provide support for local authorities in exercise of the Secretary of State's powers under the Local Government Act 1999.

  The increases will be offset by inter-departmental transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Railtrack
  Peter Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions on how many days following privatisation Railtrack shares were worth(a) more and (b) less than their opening price; and what the highest and lowest values were of a single Railtrack share between privatisation and 1 October. [18232]

  Mr. Jamieson
  [pursuant to his reply, 26 November 2001, c. 606W]: The closing share price for Railtrack Group plc was above the flotation price of 380p on every day between its flotation on 20 May 1996 and 4 June 2001 and also on 8 June 2001. The share price reached a peak of 1768p on 23 November 1998.
  953W
  The closing share price for Railtrack Group plc was below the flotation price of 380p on 5, 6, 7 June 2001 and on every day between 9 June 2001 and 1 October 2001. The lowest closing share price was 252p on 20 September 2001.

  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when he prepared the emergency legislation to prevent an application for interim review from Railtrack. [R] [16031]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 27 November 2001,Official Report, column 746W.

  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the specialist areas in which his Department has sought external advice in handling Railtrack over the last year. [16375]

  Mr. Spellar
  We have sought accounting, legal, financial and other technical advice in relation to Railtrack and its links with the wider rail industry.

  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many new stations were opened by Railtrack. [17046]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I understand that between 1 March 1997 and 31 October this year, 24 new stations were opened. Railtrack advise that data relating to the period from the company's establishment on 1 April 1994 to the end of February 1997 are not available.

  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many railway infrastructure projects stand(a) cancelled and (b) postponed, following Railtrack being placed in administration. [17671]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I am not aware that any projects have been cancelled or postponed as a consequence of Railtrack plc going into administration.

  Corsham Station
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what impact Railtrack's entry to receivership will have on the opening of the new station at Corsham. [17044]

  Mr. Jamieson
  None. I understand that planning for the new station is continuing.

  Rail Services (Buckingham)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what recent assessment he has made as to the adequacy of rail services between stations in the Buckingham constituency and London. [17845]

  Mr. Jamieson
  No formal assessment has been made. We would expect Chiltern Railways in consultation with local stakeholders to come forward with proposals to meet demands for new or improved services. The Strategic Rail Authority's Strategic Plan, which will be published in the near future, will set out their priorities for enhancement to the network.

  Rail Maintenance
  Mr. Todd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what research the Government are funding into rail track laying and maintenance technologies. [17954]

  Mr. Jamieson
  My Department is currently funding a research project studying the feasibility of an on-board in-service track monitoring and fault prediction system. The Department's commitment is £375,000 over two years.

  Heathrow Airport
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions which planning authority will be charged with(a) monitoring and (b) enforcing compliance with the flights ceiling imposed as a condition for Heathrow Terminal 5. [18664]

  Ms Keeble
  Both matters will be the responsibility of the London borough of Hillingdon.

  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what assessment he has made of the impact on levels of aircraft movements at regional airports of the completion of Terminal 5 at Heathrow. [18482]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The possible impact of Terminal 5 on regional airports was considered at the Terminal 5 planning inquiry and in the inspector's report. The Secretary of State's reasons for his decision on T5 are set out in his decision letter of 20 November.

  Our regional air services studies into demand and capacity at regional airports will take into account the Heathrow Terminal 5 decision. We will be consulting on options early in the new year, and the outcome will inform the air transport White Paper to be published next autumn.

  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what assessment he has made of the impact on levels of aircraft(a) movements and (b) noise in Beckenham of the completion of Terminal 5 at Heathrow. [18162]

  Ms Keeble
  The Secretary of State's planning decision on Terminal 5 followed consideration of the report by the Inspector who conducted the public inquiry into the matter. The Inspector's report does not expressly refer to the effect of Terminal 5 on Beckenham, but the conditions attached to the Secretary of State's decision which restrict the number of air transport movements at Heathrow to 480,000 per annum and which restrict the size of the 57 decibel noise contour will limit the noise effects of the new terminal beyond the immediate vicinity of Heathrow.

  Mr. Colman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when he will(a) start and (b) conclude the review of westerly preference for incoming aircraft at Heathrow in daylight hours. [18293]

  Mr. Jamieson
  It will be necessary to carry out a preliminary technical review of operational procedures and meteorological trends at the airport before assessing the environmental and safety implications of different
  955W
  preference options. These options will only become clear during the technical review stage. When the preparatory work is complete we will consult widely before reaching any final decisions. I hope to issue a consultation paper in the second half of next year, but it is not possible at this early stage to give a firm timetable for completing the review and consultation.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Public Service Agreements
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for correspondence responded to within agreed targets. [16916]

  Mr. Blunkett
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing) on 31 October 2001,Official Report, columns 721–22W.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for a reduction in the level of re-offending by drug misusing offenders. [16933]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  We are in the process of reviewing progress against all the drugs strategy targets. Progress on the public service agreement target to reduce levels of repeat offending among drug misusing offenders by 25 per cent. by 2005 and by 50 per cent. by 2008 is currently measured by the New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (NEW-ADAM) research programme which provides estimates of repeat offending drug misusing offenders (defined as the proportion of arrestees using heroin and/or cocaine/crack at least once a week and who have offended at least twice a month in the last twelve months). The proportion of arrestees falling within this category for the financial year 1999–2000 was 15 per cent. This will provide an interim baseline against which progress can be tracked. A summary of full baseline data will be available in the spring of 2002.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for increasing completions of nationality applications. [16924]

  Angela Eagle
  Increasing the number of nationality decisions was a public service agreement (PSA) target in the years 1999–2000 and 2000–01 but is not a PSA target in 2001–02. Outturn in 2000–01 was 94,090 against a target of 91,000.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for shortening the time taken in dealing with persistent offending. [17055]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  This public service agreement target reflects the Government's youth justice pledge to halve the average time taken to deal with a persistent young offender from arrest to sentence, from 142 days in 1996 to 71 days. The target has now been met for three 956W
  consecutive months; i.e. the latest figure, for August is 66 days. This has been achieved through effective partnership working in the criminal justice system.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for evaluation of probation and court referral schemes; [16960]

  (2) if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for the expansion of the probation and court referral scheme; [16931]

  (3) if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for drug treatment and testing orders. [16932]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The public service agreement targets for the evaluation and significant expansion of probation and court referral schemes were achieved through the evaluation of the Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTO) pilots and the roll-out of the DTTO to courts in England and Wales on 1 October 2000 respectively. 2,288 DTTOs were made in the first six months of 2001–02, against the full year target of approximately 6,000 orders. Under the comprehensive spending review settlement, the Government provided £20 million for the implementation of DTTOs in 2000–01 (the first six months after roll-out) and £40 million for 2001–02, ring-fenced for the purpose.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on progress towards the public service agreement target for efficiency of procurement in his Department. [16915]

  Mr. Blunkett
  There are four key targets for procurement within the public service agreement for the Home Department:

  1. The introduction of the procurement card:

  This is now in use within the Prison Service, Forensic Science Service, United Kingdom, Passport Service and The Youth Justice Board. It has been piloted within the core Home Office and full roll out is due to commence in January 2002.

  2. The comprehensive roll out of consolidated invoicing:

  This activity has been completed.

  3. The determination of the extent of introduction of the procurement excellence model:

  This has been fully scoped and the model has been used within three separate business areas as part of an ongoing roll out programme.

  4. Central Home Office procurement staff to have access to the Government secure intranet and internet:

  This has been completed.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many letters he has received in 2001 from residents of the Buckingham constituency on asylum policy. [16911]

  Angela Eagle
  No record is kept of the postal address of correspondents.

  Data Protection
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which public sector organisations have applied to him to be allowed to demand Communications Data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Acts; and if he will make a statement. [17193]

  Mr. Blunkett
  We have been approached by a number of public authorities including local authorities, the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Services Authority. I will be considering shortly whether to seek the approval of Parliament to add them to the current list of public authorities who can access communications data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many certificates he has signed with respect to Section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1998 since coming to office; if he has renewed certificates signed by his predecessors in office; what plans he has to review the form of the certificate; and if he will make a statement. [17191]

  Mr. Blunkett
  I have neither signed nor renewed any such certificates. I expect soon to have decided on a course of action in response to the determination of the National Security Panel of the Information Tribunal on the appeal by the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) against a Data Protection Act 1998 national security exemption certificate covering the Security Service.

  Graduates (Work Permits)
  Annabelle Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the immigration status is of persons who are graduates of UK universities and holders of non-EU passports who have been invited to take up employment in the UK within the field of their educational background. [16793]

  Angela Eagle
  A student graduating from a United Kingdom University who is subject to immigration control would require a prospective employer to obtain a work permit for them prior to them taking up that employment.

  Such individuals are able to remain in the United Kingdom while the work permit application is being considered. The Immigration Rules will be changed formally next year to allow graduates, student nurses and postgraduate doctors and dentists to obtain work permits without first having to leave the country. In the meantime this announced policy is being applied as a concession outside the rules.

  Drugs Strategy
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was(a) the budgeted amount and (b) the actual spend for the drugs misuse allocation for England for each of the last three years. [16831]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The information is not available in the form requested. Government ring-fenced funding for the 10-year National Drugs Strategy is set to rise from £700 million in 2000–01 to over £1 billion for proactive work alone by 2003–04.
  958W
  Funding for 2000–01—estimates of baseline spend in Department Expenditure limits—comprises:

  £234 million for drug treatment (mainstream spending by Department of Health, local authorities and the pooled National Treatment Agency (NTA) budget);

  £63 million for protecting young people;

  £45 million for safeguarding communities;

  £353 million for reducing availability.

  In addition, funding awarded from the Budget 2001:

  £50 million for strengthening communities;

  £5 million for providing more help to find jobs;

  £5 million strengthening Drug Action Teams;

  £2million expanding Positive Futures.

  I refer my hon. Friend to the publication "United Kingdom Anti-Drugs Co-ordinators Annual Report 2000–01" which is available in the Library.

  Visa Applications
  Hugh Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the handling of the visa application of Mrs. Grace Allen, Ref A1127781. [16908]

  Angela Eagle
  I understand that Mrs. Allen's appeal against the refusal of entry clearance is listed for hearing by the Immigration Appellate Authority on 17 December.

  Asylum Seekers
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what provisions are made for teaching English as a second language to asylum seekers in the UK. [16773]

  Angela Eagle
  Currently there is no provision to teach English to asylum seekers who are not of compulsory school age. In his statement on 29 October my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary set out his proposals for a radical reform of the asylum process, including the creation of accommodation centres. Accommodation centres will provide a range of services, including purposeful activity for adult asylum seekers, which could include English language lessons. Details of the services that will be available in accommodation centres will appear in the White Paper, which my right hon. Friend also announced on 29 October.

  Immigration Detainees
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons are in detention under immigration legislation. [17304]

  Angela Eagle
  The latest available information on the number of persons detained under Immigration Act powers relates to 30 June 2001; 1,760 persons (to the nearest five) were detained as at this date, including 245 persons detained in prison establishments under dual Immigration Act and other powers.

  The next set of statistics are currently planned for release on 30 November on the Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate website http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigrationl.html, and will relate to persons detained as at 30 September.
  959W
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons have been detained under the Immigration Act 1971 in each of the past five years; and in each year, how many detained persons have(a) been charged with a criminal offence, (b) been the subject of a deportation order, (c) appealed against such an order and (d) been deported to which countries. [17765]

  Angela Eagle
  Available information relates only to persons detained under Immigration Act powers as at 30 June 2001; 1,760 persons (to the nearest five) were detained as at this date. This includes 245 persons detained in prison establishments under dual Immigration Act and other powers who have been charged with a criminal offence.

  I regret that the information requested on detainees who have been the subject of a deportation order, appealed against such an order and been deported to which countries is not held centrally and could be obtained only by examining individual case files at disproportionate cost.

  Heroin Imports (Afghanistan)
  Paul Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 20 November 2001,Official Report, column 237W, on imports of heroin to Britain, what is his estimate of the percentage of heroin imported into Britain since July 2000 that originated in (a) Taliban-controlled and (b) Northern Alliance-controlled Afghanistan. [17732]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  Pre-existing stockpiles of opium and morphine base in the supply chain make it probable that the vast majority of heroin which has been imported to the United Kingdom since July 2000 originated from opium produced in Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan. The opium crop planted in late 20(X) will not have been ready until May 2001.

  Estimates of production of opium in Afghanistan in recent years are as shown in the table.

  Tonnes

  Year

  Taliban

  Northern Alliance

  1998

  2,592

  108

  1999

  4,510

  140

  2000

  3,139

  131

  2001

  21

  164

  MI5
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what circumstances MI5 may decide that major decisions it takes need not be communicated to him; and what mechanism exists to ensure such decisions are in the public interests. [18537]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The duties and powers of the Security Service are established by law, and the Service is under the authority of the Secretary of State. The operations of the Service are under the control of its Director-General. I am satisfied with the arrangements in place to ensure that I am properly consulted by the Service on significant issues.

  Cross-channel Illegal Immigration
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he next intends to meet with French authorities to discuss the operation of checks conducted at French ports to prevent illegal immigrants entering the United Kingdom. [17653]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The Home Secretary will next be meeting Interior Minister Vaillant at the United Kingdom-France summit on 29 November to discuss a range of bilateral issues, including cross-channel illegal immigration and the effectiveness of checks conducted on persons and vehicles.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received in relation to the operation of checks conducted at French ports to prevent illegal immigrants entering the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement. [17647]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: A wide range of interested parties have been in contact with both the Home Secretary and officials on the issue of checks at French ports. These include transport operators, Members of Parliament, and the general public.

  Ministers and officials have also discussed this matter with their French counterparts in the course of regular discussions about cross-channel issues.

  Indefinite Leave to Remain
  Mr. Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the length of time taken to respond to a request for an upgrade of exceptional level to remain to indefinite leave. [17912]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The requested information is neither centrally recorded nor readily available so could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Entry Clearance (Children)
  Mr. Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what circumstances(a) British nationals and (b) those with indefinite leave to remain would find their children under the age of 18 years refused entry clearance when they can demonstrate that they can support these children and offer adequate accommodation. [18036]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Entry clearance is not required where, by virtue of his or her British citizenship, the child has the right of abode in the United Kingdom.

  In other cases, paragraph 297 of the Immigration Rules sets out the requirements that need to be met in order for a child under 18 years of age to be granted an entry clearance to join a parent or parents in this country. In addition to the maintenance and accommodation requirement, in general terms, it is necessary for the parents to be present and settled in the United Kingdom and for the child to be unmarried and still dependent on his parents. It is not possible to give an exhaustive list of every possible circumstance where a child might be refused an entry clearance to join a parent or parents.

  Access to Official Information
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the Fourth report of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Session 2001–02 on Access to Official Information: Declarations made under the Ministerial Code of Conduct, HC 353. [15988]

  Mr. Blunkett
  The Government position remains as set out in the fourth report of the parliamentary ombudsman on access to official information. The Government have nothing further to add.

  Asset Recovery Strategy
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish the Government's Asset Recovery Strategy. [19515]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  I am publishing the strategy today. Copies have been placed in the Vote Office and the Library and sent to the members of the Standing Committee currently considering the Proceeds of Crime Bill.

  The Asset Recovery Strategy is the first United Kingdom-wide initiative of its kind, in which the law enforcement, prosecution and relevant Government bodies have joined together to commit themselves to making financial investigation and asset recovery a higher priority.

  The strategy's aims are:
  To make greater use of the investigation of criminal assets in the fight against crime;
  To recover money that has been made from crime or which is intended for use in crime;
  To prevent criminals and their associates from laundering the proceeds of criminal conduct, and to detect and penalise such laundering where it occurs; and
  To use the proceeds recovered for the benefit of the community.

  The strategy sets out our objectives for meeting the challenging financial investigation target of recovering £60 million in confiscation and forfeiture receipts during the 2004–05 financial year. Hitting this target would achieve the Government's commitment of doubling amounts recovered from drug traffickers and other major criminals by 2004.

  It is not acceptable that people should enjoy the proceeds of criminal activity and live a life of luxury when it is built on the misery of victims or activities which damage or exploit society.

  The strategy I am publishing today sets out how we propose to push forward recovering criminal assets with partners both inside and outside Government. Alongside the Proceeds of Crime Bill the strategy will help take the profit out of crime and dismantle and disrupt criminal enterprises.

  The strategy will be updated with further targets when the Bill is implemented and the new Assets Recovery Agency is established.

  Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to issue a modified 962W
  code of practice for authorised officers in relation to his proposal to widen the scope of the cash seizure powers in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill. [19516]

  Mr. Blunkett
  Clause 1 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill enables me to make whatever modifications I think are necessary or expedient to any code of practice in operation under schedule 14 to the Terrorism Act 2000. Such modifications can be made in an order under clause 123 of the Bill bringing the cash seizure provisions in schedule 1 to the Bill into force.

  I have today made available in the Library a draft code of practice for authorised officers showing where I believe modifications are required. These modifications are still subject to final consultation with the police and others.

WALES

  Social Exclusion (South Wales Valleys)
  Mr. Bryant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the levels and effects of social exclusion in the south Wales valleys. [15998]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Government are committed to building a fairer and more inclusive society in which everyone can benefit from rising prosperity. We are working in partnership with the National Assembly to combat social exclusion throughout Wales.

  Notable among Assembly initiatives is the Communities First Programme which makes a significant contribution to promoting social inclusion and regeneration in deprived areas.

  In his pre-Budget report yesterday my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced several measures aimed at increasing fairness for people and their communities. These included tackling child poverty, providing security in old age, rewarding saving and creating a fair and efficient tax system.

  Departmental Expenditure Limit
  Mark Tami
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to amend the Welsh departmental expenditure limit for 2001–02. [19621]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Wales departmental expenditure limit will be increased by £44,845,000 from £8,490,071,000 to £8,534,916,000. The increase is a result of:

  (i) the take up of end-year flexibility entitlement of £30,560,000

  (ii) net transfers from other Government Departments of £7,563,000

  (iii) additional provision of:

  £5,300,000 for the transfer of the Forestry Commission in Wales to the Assembly;

  £1,058,000 for areas affected by foot and mouth;

  £450,000 for the Addington fund; and

  £474,000 for drug prevention and education

  (iv) a reduction of £560,000 in respect of a Council Tax Benefit penalty.

  The increase includes the following transfers

  (i) £609.000 to the Food Standards Agency for the Maclean report

  (ii) £5,425,000 from the Forestry Commission

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  (iii) £40,000 from the Department for Education and Skills for NTO Cymru

  (iv) £1,032,000 from the Department for Education and Skills for Student Access/Hardship Bursaries

  (v) £1,225,000 from the Home Office for the Partnership Development Fund

  (vi) £450,000 from the Department for Transport, Local Authorities and the Regions for the Planning Inspectorate.

  The increase in DEL will be offset by transfers from other Departments, from the Reserve or take up of end-year flexibility and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) if she will list those public bodies to which her Department appoints members and which are not listed in "Public Bodies 2000"; [17576]

  (2) if she will list those public bodies which are the responsibility of her Department and which are not listed in "Public Bodies 2000". [17577]

  Mr. Caborn
  "Public Bodies 2000" sets out information on non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), certain public corporations (including nationalised industries) and NHS bodies. There are four types of NDPB: executive NDPBs; advisory NDPBs; tribunal NDPBs; and boards of visitors to penal establishments. The next edition will be published around the end of the year. Information about task forces, annual reports and ad hoc advisory groups is set out in an annual report, published by the Cabinet Office. Copies of "Public Bodies 2000" are in the Library of the House and this publication may be accessed via the Cabinet Office's website http://www.official-documents.co.ulddocument/caboff/pp00/pb00.htm. Copies of the annual report on taskforces and similar bodies have also been placed in the Library of the House and the annual report is being made available on the Cabinet Office's website.

  The public bodies to which I make appointments and for which I have responsibility, but which are not listed in "Public Bodies 2000" or the annual report on taskforces and similar bodies, are:

  Alcohol, Education Research Council1

  Gaming Board for Great Britain1

  Horserace Betting Levy Board1

  Horserace Betting Levy Appeals Tribunal for England and Wales1

  Horserace Totalisator Board1

  Film Council2

  Quality Efficiency and Standards Team2

  Spoliation Advisory Panel2

  Royal Parks Advisory Committee.

  In addition, there are bodies which are independent of my Department but for which I have a role in appointing, or approving the appointment of, board members. These are:

  Architectural Heritage Fund

  Royal Opera House

  South Bank Board Ltd.

  964W
  1 Public bodies transferred from the Home Office to DCMS following the machinery of Government changes on 7 June. These bodies appeared under the Home Office section of "Public Bodies 2000" and will do so again in the 2001 edition.

  2 Public bodies which will appear for the first time in the 2001 edition of "Public Bodies"."

  Tourism
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what financial support was provided by the Government for tourism in England in each month of the financial year(a) 1991–92, (b) 1992–93 and (c) 1993–94; [18165]

  (2) what financial support has been provided by the Government for the support of tourism in England in each month (a) during the financial year 2000–01 and (b) until the latest date for which figures are available in the financial year 2001–02; [18163]

  (3) what financial support is available for supporting the tourism industry in (a) each month of the financial year 2001–02 and (b) future years for which budgets have been set. [18164]

  Mr. Caborn
  Direct Government funding for tourism in England is now based on a three-year funding agreement with the English Tourism Council (ETC). Grant in aid is budgeted in terms of annual allocations. These are provided to the ETC in response to monthly draw down requests which reflect its cash flow needs. In addition to this direct Government funding:

  (a) Local authorities spend over £90 million per year in England promoting and developing tourism in their areas;

  (b) the regional development agencies' business recovery fund has made £74 million available this year to target help for rural businesses, including tourism businesses, affected by the implications of foot and mouth disease; and

  (c) DCMS's £1 billion expenditure on arts, museums, galleries, sport etc also directly benefits tourism.

  The following table sets out the DCMS baseline grant in aid allocations for English tourism for the years 1991–92 to 1993–94 and 2000–01 to 2003–04. Baseline funding will rise from £10 million in 2001–02 to £12.5 million in 2003–04.

  Year

  £ million

  1991–92

  115.1

  1992–93

  116.2

  1993–94

  113.9

  2000–01

  211.0

  2001–02

  310.0

  2002–03

  12.0

  2003–04

  12.5

  1 These were annual grants to the English Tourism Board, the predecessor of the English Tourism Council.

  2 This includes £1 million grant in aid for transitional costs following the launch of the ETC in 1999 (£1.8 million was also made available for this purpose in 1999–2000).

  3 This figure comprises £9.6 million ETC baseline and £0.4 million for London granted direct to the Greater London Authority. In addition, £0.6 million was awarded to the ETC from the Capital Modernisation Fund and £3.8 million to tackle foot and mouth disease.

  965W
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what assessment she has made of the impact of the foot and mouth crisis on tourism in the south-west. [18417]

  Dr. Howells
  For the English tourism industry as a whole, our best estimate to date is that the loss of revenue in 2001–02 due to the foot and mouth disease outbreak is likely to be about £3.3 billion in value added terms over the eight-month period (March to October). We have no comparable figure for the south-west at this time.

  The west country enjoyed an Indian summer, which has extended the tourist season. This is helping to alleviate the loss of business due to the foot and mouth outbreak. In particular, it appears that senior citizens who would usually be heading for holidays in North America are cancelling and instead taking holidays at home.

  Mr. Swire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what assessment she has made of the effect on tourism in east Devon of transport links with London. [18281]

  Mr. Caborn
  The London to South Wales and the south-west multi-modal study (SWARMMS) which is currently in progress is looking at solutions to problems on the main transportation corridors in the study area. Completion is expected by April 2002. Two of the main road and rail corridors pass through east Devon. Comments have recently been sought from stakeholders and the public on a provisional strategy which addresses both existing and future problems. The next stage, which is developing individual plans in more detail, is under way for the multi-modal corridors in the study area and four study-wide theme plans.

  One of the study's theme plans addresses tourism and is considering the numbers of tourists, their movements and characteristics and identifying schemes and measures that cater for their needs in a sustainable manner. This will provide the more detailed information needed and develop the overall strategy.

  Mr. Swire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what assessment she has made as to the effect on tourism in east Devon of(a) the foot and mouth disease outbreak and (b) the terrorist attacks on 11 September; and if she will make a statement. [18284]

  Mr. Caborn
  Our best estimate is that the revenue loss to the English tourism industry as a whole for March to October due to foot and mouth disease is likely to be around £3.3 billion in value added terms. We have not attempted to assess individual regions, such as the east Devon constituency, since the available data do not enable this to be done with a sufficient degree of reliability.

  Reports suggest that the main impact of the drop in overseas tourists since the terrorist attack of 11 September has been felt in London rather than in the regions and some south-west businesses have reported a good autumn, possibly the best in the last 20 years. However, it is too early to predict with any accuracy what the effects of the war against terrorism are likely to be on tourism in the south-west.

  Disadvantaged People
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how her Department defines those members of society considered to be the most disadvantaged. [18071]

  Mr. Caborn
  In line with Government policy, my Department considers those who suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown to be the most disadvantaged.

  Lottery Funds
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what representations she has received concerning the accountability of(a) the lottery distributing bodies and (b) their application processes to (i) applicants, (ii) the public and (iii) her Department; what assessment she has made of them; and if she will make a statement. [17948]

  Mr. Caborn
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has from time to time received representations about the accountability of the lottery distributors and their application processes. The accounting officer of a lottery distributor is accountable to both the Department's Permanent Secretary and to Parliament for the proper and prudent expenditure of funds, and distributors' activities are subject to external audit by the National Audit Office. As lottery proceeds allocated to distributors are public money, the general principles of Government Accounting must be applied in the design and implementation of systems for the distribution of that money.

  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what recent assessment she has made of the variation in expenditure, relative to revenue received, of the lottery income distributing bodies; and if she will make a statement. [17947]

  Mr. Caborn
  Lottery distributing bodies do not hold the same level of cash balances due to the differing nature of schemes or programmes operated. Funds are committed to a broad range of projects and money is drawn down when it is needed and not before, in compliance with Government Accounting procedures. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport continues to work closely with the lottery distributors to ensure that people see the benefits of Lottery awards as quickly as possible.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how outdoor adventure facilities will be affected in the west midlands by the new opportunities for school and community sports lottery funds. [18339]

  Mr. Caborn
  The new opportunities fund has informed local education authorities that it expects between 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. of allocations to be used to develop outdoor adventure facilities. On that basis, between £3,064,000 and £6.127,000 of funding will be used to modernise or build outdoor adventure facilities either in the west midlands or for use by young people from the west midlands.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what guidance she has offered to education authorities regarding(a) who should be consulted in the west midlands regarding the spending of

  967W
  funding allocations and (b) such spending, under new opportunities for schools and county sport lottery initiative. [18336]

  Mr. Caborn
  The new opportunities fund has sent guidance materials to all local education authorities (LEAs) including advice on the range of organisations that should be consulted before applications are submitted. The fund would expect LEAs to consult, for example: other local authority departments; sports governing bodies; the NHS; primary care groups; and the voluntary sector. Where local strategic partnerships have been established, the fund expects that they will play a central role in strategic planning for grant schemes.

  Workshops have been arranged in January 2002 to help LEAs develop applications in more detail. Sport England will offer advice and support to LEAs, where they request it, on sports development issues.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what arrangements she has made to monitor (1) the impact of the new opportunities for school and community sport lottery moneys on social exclusion; [18343]

  (2) the positive impact of the new opportunities for school and community sport lottery funds on providing young people with a healthy lifestyle. [18344]

  Mr. Caborn
  The new opportunities fund is currently developing proposals for the evaluation of the new opportunities for PE and sport programme. The impact of the programme in promoting social inclusion will form part of the evaluative work.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how she will monitor the provision of new opportunities for school and community sport in disadvantaged areas. [18340]

  Mr. Caborn
  All applicants will be required to demonstrate how their proposed projects promote social inclusion. When local partnerships complete initial applications the fund will be able to assess how many projects are based in disadvantaged areas or meet the needs of disadvantaged children and communities.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on the provision of sports facilities for children with disabilities under the new opportunities for school and community sport lottery funds. [18335]

  Mr. Caborn
  Facilities will be developed through the programme that encourage access by all groups in society, including young people with disabilities.

  Applications will be assessed against the key aims of the programme, including the promotion of social inclusion through access to and use of sports facilities by all groups in society and innovation and best practice in the design and management of facilities.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how she will ensure that money from the new opportunities for school and community sport will provide more opportunities for young people from disadvantaged areas. [18341]
  968W
  Mr. Caborn
  Provisional allocations of funding in each local area have been determined using the size of the school age population and the levels of deprivation. Fifty per cent. of the funds available in England has been allocated on the basis of levels of deprivation.

  Pornographic Satellite Television
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what recent recommendations she has received from the ITC regarding the proscription of pornographic satellite television channels. [18152]

  Mr. Caborn
  The commission has made no such recommendations to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State since notification of Satisfaction TV.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will take action to proscribe the Satisfaction Channel. [18151]

  Mr. Caborn
  Following a recommendation from the ITC regarding the Satisfaction Channel, the necessary consultations under article 2a(2) of the EC broadcasting directive have taken place and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering whether to issue a proscription order or not.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what action she plans to control pornographic satellite television channels; and if she will make a statement. [18150]

  Mr. Caborn
  Broadcasters with generally based programme remits may occasionally show adult-oriented films involving nudity and sex. Several dedicated "adult" subscription channels are licensed in the UK. Access to these is restricted through encryption, scheduling times and programme information warning viewers of the nature of their content.

  Under section 177 of the Broadcasting Act 1990, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may make an order proscribing a foreign satellite television service that repeatedly transmits programmes containing matter that offends against good taste or decency or is likely to offend public feeling, and might seriously impair the moral, mental or physical health of minors, as allowed in article 22.1 of the "Television without Frontiers Directive", 89/552/EC, amended by 97/36/EC.

  Playing Fields
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many(a) community and (b) school playing fields have been sold for development in Arundel and South Downs in each of the last five years. [18328]

  Mr. Caborn
  Information on the number of local authority-owned playing fields available to the local community and disposed of in the last five years is not collected. Sport England does however, monitor the number of planning applications concerning playing fields in its role as statutory consultee. The Government intend to publish, with Sport England, detailed national statistics on planning applications concerning playing fields when the data are finalised, in the new year.
  969W
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has not approved any applications made by schools under section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to sell school sportspitch-sized areas or larger in the constituency of Arundel and South Downs.

  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many(a) school, (b) community and (c) company playing fields have been sold for development in (i) the Loughborough constituency, (ii) Leicestershire and (iii) the east midlands in each of the last 10 years. [18493]

  Mr. Caborn
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has not approved any applications made by schools under section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to sell school sportspitch-sized areas or larger in the Loughborough constituency or in Leicestershire. In the east midlands Government office region, my right hon. Friend has approved two applications to sell school sportspitch-sized areas or larger in 1999; two in 2000 and one in 2001.

  Information on the number of company-owned playing fields and local authority-owned playing fields available to the local community and disposed of in the last five years is not collected. Sport England does, however, monitor the number of planning applications concerning playing fields in its role as statutory consultee. The Government intend to publish, with Sport England, detailed national statistics on planning applications concerning playing fields when the data are finalised in the new year.

  Football Foundation
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture. Media and Sport what funding her Department will give the Football Foundation in(a) 2001–02 and (b) 2002–03. [18483]

  Mr. Caborn
  My Department does not fund the Football Foundation direct. However, under the current partnership arrangements, the Football Foundation should receive the following public funds in the three-year period 2001–02 to 2003–04: £18 million from the Sport England lottery fund, up to £30 million from the new opportunities fund PE and school sport programme, and donations from the pools companies of several million pounds in accordance with their agreement with the Government. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his pre-Budget report that the current agreement with Littlewoods and Vernons, which was due to end in March 2002, would be renewed for a further two years until 31 March 2004. The donations from the pools companies will be equivalent in those two years to 2 per cent. of their gross profits.

  Sport and Crime
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what arrangements she has made to monitor the impact of the new opportunities for school and community sport has on the fight against crime and drugs. [18342]
  970W
  Mr. Caborn
  The new opportunities fund is currently developing proposals for the evaluation of the new opportunities for PE and sport programme. The impact of the programme on levels of crime and drugs misuse will form part of the evaluative work.

  Motorsport
  Richard Burden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what representations she is making in advance of the FIA Motorsports World Council meeting on 13 December to secure the retention of the British Grand Prix on the 2002 Formula 1 calendar; [18457]

  (2) what estimate she has made of the value to the UK economy of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix; [18456]

  (3) if she will make a statement on her policy towards motorsports. [18458]

  Mr. Caborn
  Neither my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State nor I have made representations in advance of the FIA Motorsports World Council meeting on 13 December. That is the remit of the UK governing bodies for motorsport in the UK, primarily the Motor Sport Association. We hope that the British Grand Prix will retain its place in the global sports calendar.

  Motorsport continues to be hugely popular across the UK. The British Grand Prix is a major event on the world's sporting calendar and the last RA study estimated that the Grand Prix contributes approximately £28 million to the UK economy.

  I am in regular contact with representatives of all aspects of motorsport.

  Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many formal notices her Department has received in the last year from the parliamentary ombudsman expressing an intention to carry out an investigation; and in respect of each notice how long it took to respond. [18772]

  Mr. Caborn
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport received one such notification during 2000–01. A response was made after 28 working days.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Ross Cranston
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what proposals she has to amend her(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19795]

  Tessa Jowell
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the departmental expenditure limit (DEL) for 2001–02 will be increased by £27,785,000 from £1,142,096,000 to £1,169,881,000 and the Department's gross administration costs limit will be increased by £691,000 from £31,546,000 to £32,237,000.

  The changes are to provide additional resources under the end-year flexibility (EYF) arrangements, as set out in the public expenditure outturn White Paper, 2000–01 (Cm. 5243), of £134,000 for the Public Library Volunteer Scheme (together with a transfer of £134,000 from the

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  Home Office); £115,000 for other libraries support measures; £246,000 for other arts support measures; £72,000 for other sport support measures; £230,000 for the Department's historic buildings programme; £1,705,000 for work on developing Culture Online; £595,000 to the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, £21,000 to the National Museum of Science and Industry, £100,000 to the Victoria and Albert Museum, £210,000 to the Royal Armouries, £7,907,000 to the British Library, £13,000 to the Public Lending Right, £14,000 to the Historic Manuscripts Commission, £95,000 for other museums support, £1,456,000 to the Designated Museums Challenge Fund; £1,663,000 to the DCMS/Wolfson Public Libraries Scheme; £250,000 to the Arts Council of England for work on Creative Partnerships; £20,000 to the Football Licensing Authority; £70,000 to Historic Royal Palaces for pensions; £61,000 to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment; £1,000,000 to the English Tourism Council; £70,000 to the Broadcasting Standards Commission; £1,562,000 for research, surveys and other services of the Department; and to provide for additional capital expenditure under EYF arrangements of £350,000 for the Department's information technology, furniture and related expenses.

  Other changes are to provide for a transfer of resources of £1,000,000 from English Heritage toward the costs of running the Listed Places of Worship Scheme together with additional resources of £10,000,000 from the Capital Modernisation Fund for grants under this scheme, the details of which were announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his 2001 Budget Statement to Parliament on 7 March 2001.

  The changes on administration costs are to provide additional resources under EYF arrangements of £817,000 for the administrative expenses of the Department; to provide for the transfer of resources to Cabinet Office of £146,000 for the costs of fast stream recruitment and of the Department's share of Government Offices' expenses; and for the transfer of resources of £20,000 from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions for the running costs of local public service agreements.

  The increases will be offset by transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

SCOTLAND

  Departmental Spending Limits
  Mr. Russell Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans she has to change the Scotland Office(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limit for 2001–02. [19698]

  Mrs. Liddell
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Scotland Office Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) will be increased by £751,571,000 from £16,422,121,000 to £17,173,692,000. and the administration costs limits will be increased by £334.000 from £6,502,000 to £6,836,000.
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  The DEL increases take account of the following:

  the take up of End Year Flexibility (EYF) amounting to £718,365,000;

  increases of £1,749,000 for flood relief and coastal defences;

  an increase of £10,231,000 from the Capital Modernisation Fund (CMF);

  an increase of £334,000 for Electoral Registration Publicity;

  an increase of £4,500,000 for the Forestry Commission;

  an increase of £32,000 for the Employment Coalitions.

  The DEL increase also includes the following transfers to and from other Government Departments amounting to a net increase of £16,360,000. These are:

  a transfer of £14,208,000 from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES);

  net transfers of £2,729,000 from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA);

  net transfers of £902,000 from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP);

  net transfers to Department of Health (DH) of £419,000;

  a transfer of £78,000 to Home Office (HO);

  a transfer of £199,000 to Cabinet Office (CO);

  a transfer of £783,000 to Food Standards Agency (FSA).

  All of the increases add to the resource budget and the capital budget of £100,000 is unchanged.

  The increases will be offset by interdepartmental transfers, as detailed, or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Police Service of Northern Ireland
  Mr. Quentin Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if the post of Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland will be advertised internationally. [16307]

  Jane Kennedy
  In accordance with section 35(1) of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000, the Northern Ireland Policing Board shall, subject to my approval, appoint the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It will be a matter in the first instance for the Board to consider whether to advertise the post internationally.

  Freedom of Information Act
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on what date his Department established a working group of officials to prepare his Department for the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000; and on what dates this committee has met since it was set up. [14774]

  Dr. John Reid
  I refer the hon. Member to the statement made by my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor on 13 November.

  Work to implement the Freedom of Information Act is being overseen by the Department's senior management group, which receives regular progress reports. A task force of officials has been set up to assist with the implementation and compliance. Since June, presentations

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  to senior staff and freedom of information seminars have been given throughout the Department and an information management training programme is planned for next year.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Dr. Vis
  To ask the Solicitor-General what plans she has to change the Attorney-General's Department's(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19796]

  The Solicitor-General
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimates, the Attorney-General's Department's DEL will be increased by £25,375,000 from £426,088,000 to £451,463,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £22,476,000 from £299,627,000 to £322,103,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is set out in the table:

  £

  Resources

  Change

  22,476,000

  New DEL

  429,814,000

  of which:

  Voted

  419,258,000

  Non-voted

  10,556,000

  Capital

  Change

  2,899,000

  New DEL

  21,649,000

  of which:

  Voted

  21,649,000

  Non-voted

  —

  The Crown Prosecution Service's DEL will be increased by £23,797,000 from £391,096,000 to £414,893,000 and the administration costs limit will be increased by £21,747,000 from £275,227,000 to £296,974,000. The increase in the resource element of the DEL arises from speeding up the reform of the CPS to allow it to contribute fully to criminal justice targets and implementation of section 37 of the Vehicles (Crime) Reduction Act 2001. The decrease results from a transfer of £83,000 for work taken over by the Insolvency Service under section 218 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from an increase of £1,750,000 to fund the introduction of joint CPS/police criminal justice and trial units and £300,000 to fund the provision of digital certificates for the secure transmission of case information.

  HM Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor's Department DEL will be increased by £1,578,000 from £14,167,000 to £15,745,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £729,000 from £9,900,000 to £10,629,000. The increase in administration costs is to facilitate action being taken by the Treasury Solicitor's Department as part of their Modernising Government action plan. The increase in capital expenditure of £849,000 will be used to fund continued expansion of the Department's IT systems.

  The increases will be partly offset by an allocation of £22,000,000 from the Criminal Justice System reserve, an allocation of £250,000 from the Civil Service Modernisation Fund, a transfer of £105,000 from the
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  Home Office, an allocation of £300,000 from the Capital Modernisation Fund, the draw down of £1,750,000 of the Attorney-General's Department's capital Departmental Unallocated Provision and the surrender of £99,000 of the Attorney-General's Department's capital end-year flexibility of £4,406,000 as set out in Table 6 of the Public Expenditure 2000–01 Outturn White Paper Cm 5243 published July 2001.

  The remainder of the expenditure will be charged to the Reserve and will not, therefore, add to the planned total of public expenditure.

HEALTH

  Mental Health Services
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 16 July 2001,Official Report, column 70W, what proportion of total NHS spending was used to provide mental health services in 1999–2000; and if he will make a statement. [10662]

  Jacqui Smith
  In 1999–2000, 12.5 per cent. of total national health service spend was used to provide mental health services.

  This figure is however not comparable with those of previous years or future years: 1999–2000 represents the first year that primary care group expenditure was included in the calculation and the formula used to apportion the expenditure was based on estimated data. In future years the data for primary care groups and trusts will be more detailed and the resultant figure for percentage spend will be more accurate.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) of 23 October 2001,Official Report, columns 144–45W, on mental health, what definition of appropriate accommodation is used in relation to his target for high secure hospitals. [11581]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 31 October 2001]: Paragraph 14.35 of the NHS Plan states that, by 2004, up to 400 patients should have moved from the high secure hospitals to more appropriate accommodation. The type of accommodation required for each patient will be determined by a careful assessment of the individual's needs and the degree of danger that they represent. The alternative placement might, depending on the outcome of the assessment, be medium secure, low secure or exceptionally discharge directly into the community.

  Annual Report
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the breakdown of the cost of other services referred to on page 51 of his Department's annual report 2001. [17319]

  Mr. Hutton
  The category 'central health and miscellaneous expenditure' refers to a wide range of activities funded from the Department's spending programmes whose only common feature is that they receive funding directly from the Department and not via health authorities. Some of the services are managed
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  directly by departmental staff, others are run by non-departmental public bodies, or other separate executive organisations.

  There are approximately 45 budgets included within the category of 'other services', totalling £42 million planned expenditure for 2001–02 and referred to on page 51 of the latest departmental report. These are listed in the table.

  Central health and miscellaneous services—other services

  £000

  2001–02 Plan

  Payments to World Health Organisation

  14,000

  Communicable services

  5,000

  Expert patient programme

  4,000

  Health survey

  3,237

  Port health

  2,603

  Haemophiliacs with HIV

  2,050

  Learning disability strategy

  2,000

  CJD surveillance

  1,600

  Foster care services

  1,000

  IVS

  860

  Prevention and treatment research

  750

  Health services for ethnic minorities

  638

  HGH litigation

  450

  Protection of Children Act tribunal

  410

  European Pharmacopoeia Commission

  350

  Child migrants

  300

  Prevention of HIV and Hepatitis

  250

  Partial agreement

  200

  Registered homes tribunal

  200

  Surveillance for STDs

  200

  Emergency planning

  180

  Database on ethnic minority health

  115

  Europe against cancer

  101

  Blood and tissue infected with HIV

  100

  WHO effect of chemicals on health

  100

  Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

  92

  British Pharmacopoeia Commission

  80

  British Pharmacopoeia Laboratory

  80

  Training in child health care

  75

  NHS radiation protection studies

  72

  Dangerous pathogens

  67

  Screening/nice

  60

  WHO programme on chemical safety

  50

  Domestic violence initiative

  49

  Health co-operation agreements

  42

  DH product licences

  40

  Payments to Met. Office

  34

  Services for addicts

  25

  Radiation regulations

  16

  European Centre

  12

  International conference expenses

  10

  Medical examination of immigrants

  8

  Other payments

  7

  International Hospital Federation

  7

  Other payments to WHO

  5

  Total

  41,525

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what items fall within the category of net capital expenditure of £1.5 million in 2001–02, referred to on page 30 of the 2001 departmental report. [15250]

  Mr. Hutton
  The figure of £1.5 billion referred to on page 30 of the departmental report represents the planned level of exchequer funded capital investment in land, buildings and equipment for hospital and community health services in 2000–01.

  New Opportunities Fund (Cancer Care)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) breast, (b) lung, (c) stomach and (d) prostate cancer sufferers have been helped by allocations from the new opportunities fund since 1999. [15258]

  Jacqui Smith
  Funding of £93 million from the new opportunities fund was announced in 1999 and has been used to purchase 57 linear accelerators, 36 MRI scanners and over 300 items of equipment for the breast screening programme. A further £23.25 million was made available in 2000 from the new opportunities fund to provide improved palliative care at home.

  The equipment and funding for palliative care will provide additional diagnostic and treatment facilities for all cancer sufferers as well as improve cancer care for those at home, but it is not possible to provide detailed figures for patients with specific cancers.

  NHS Walk-in Centres
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost is of the NHS walk-in centres in(a) 2000–01 and (b) 2001–02. [14911]

  Jacqui Smith
  The estimated revenue costs for 2001–02 of the 42 national health service walk-in centres which will be operating before the end of this year are £36 million. The revenue costs in 2000–01 of the 40 centres then open were £33 million. In addition, development of these centres has involved capital costs of £30 million in 2000–01 and an estimated £5 million in 2001–02.

  Cleft Lip and Palate Services
  Mrs. Ellman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what were the recommendations of the Clinical Implementation Group in respect of cleft lip and palate services for the North West Region. [15016]

  Jacqui Smith
  Cleft lip and palate services are one element in a wider discussion around tertiary children's services in the North West and we want to ensure that the very best integrated paediatric care is provided.

  The Department's North West Regional Office produced a commissioning framework for cleft lip and palate services. A cleft review panel, which comprised local clinicians, commissioners, regional office representatives and national experts in cleft care including the chief executive of the Cleft Lip and Palate Association (CLAPA), met in June 2001 to review presentations from both tertiary paediatric trusts—Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital Trust and Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals Trust. Discussions are taking place between the two trusts to reach agreement on the best configuration of cleft services for the north west and it is anticipated that a proposal will go to public consultation in January 2002.

  Waiting Lists
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list in(a) rank and (b) alphabetical order of health authority the (i) proportion and (ii) number of patients waiting (A) over 12 months and (B) over 18 months for in-patient treatment (1) at the last available date, (2) in March 1997 and (3) in June 1997. [15285]
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  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 15 November 2001]: The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  In line with the NHS Plan, inpatient waiting times will fall on a staged basis from 18 months now through to 15,12, nine and down to six months by 2005. As a result, we expect the average time patients wait for inpatient treatment to fall from three months to seven weeks.

  As a first step towards this, the maximum waiting time for an inpatient appointment will be 15 months by the end of March 2002

  Alistair Burt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients are waiting for admission for orthopaedic treatment at Bedford Hospital NHS Trust; how many were waiting in November(a) 2000, (b) 1999, (c) 1998 and (d) 1997; and how many have waited (i) six months, (ii) six to 12 months and (iii) 12 to 15 months. [15622]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: Figures for inpatient orthopaedic treatment are not available monthly but are collected on a quarterly basis.

  Figures for patients waiting for orthopaedic admission at Bedford Hospitals National Health Service Trust are shown in the table.

  Total waiting

  Up to 6 months

  6–12 months

  12–15 months

  March 1997

  754

  513

  232

  9

  December 1998

  1,143

  565

  422

  115

  December 1999

  1,187

  578

  480

  104

  December 2000

  1,189

  505

  458

  139

  Source:

  KH07

  Performance Fund
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which organisations have received allocations from the Performance Fund; and how much in each case. [15766]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  "Sold on Health" Report
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on progress with implementing the recommendation in the "Sold on Health" report; and what savings to public funds(a) are planned and (b) have been achieved. [15760]

  Jacqui Smith
  "Sold on Health" is a joint report published by the Department and Her Majesty's Treasury in May 2000. The report focused on the whole life cycle issues relating to the estate in the National Health Service, from procurement through its operational management and subsequent disposal.

  Substantial progress has been made, and details will soon be available on the Sold on Health website "www.soldonhealth.gov.uk".

  Invest to Save Budget
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the expected saving is to public funds from the projects of his Department in Round 2 of the Invest to Save Budget. [15763]
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  Mr. Hutton
  The estimated savings of Invest to Save Round 2 projects over the period of project's funding is: 2000–01 £1.2 million and 2001–02 £760,000 through a combination of cash releasing and efficiency savings. However, the key aim of the Invest to Save programme is to encourage innovation, streamlining and improvements in the delivery of public services.

  Modernisation Agency
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the Modernisation Agency was established; and what its cost to public funds is in 2001–02. [15765]

  Mr. Hutton
  The National Health Service Modernisation Agency was set up on 1 April 2001. Its budget for the year 2001–02 stands at £54 million.

  GP Appointments
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the expected cost to public funds is of enabling all patients to have GP appointments within 48 hours. [16250]

  Mr. Hutton
  Better access for patients is part of the vision for modernising primary care. Expenditure in primary care is around £5 billion. As well as this funding an access fund is available for primary care. Rising from £54.5 million in 2000–01, recurrent funding of £84.5 million is available this year, increasing to £114.5 million in 2002–03 and is intended to support primary care trusts in securing delivery of the 48-hour target. This can be further enhanced by PCTs unified budgets.

  Transsexual People
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidelines his Department issues on the provision of care for transsexual people. [16384]

  Jacqui Smith
  The Department has issued no specific guidance on the provision of care to transsexuals. Like all other services, decisions about whether gender reassignment surgery should be funded under the national health service, are made by individual health authorities, who must take account of the wider picture in terms of local priorities and circumstances when determining how resources are spent. Each case must be decided on its own merits.

  NHS Dental Care
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps are being taken to ensure that all those who want to are able to register for NHS dental care. [16208]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 19 November 2001]: We are committed to ensuring that national health service dentistry is available to all who want it through registration with an NHS dentist. In supporting this commitment the Government have invested over £100 million in the last two years. This includes a scheme that spends about £20 million per annum on rewarding dentists with a significant NHS commitment.

  Registration can play an important role in promoting oral health through strengthening the relationship between patient and dentist. However many people do not visit a dentist regularly. Systems are now in place for NHS

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  Direct to advise patients in all parts of the country on where they can find a NHS dentist, within locally defined time and distance standards.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the performance of NHS trusts in(a) 2000–01 and (b) 2001–02 in meeting their responsibility to break even on an income and expenditure basis. [16955]

  Mr. Hutton
  The annual accounts for national health service trusts in 2000–01 show no trust reporting a failure in its statutory duty to break even on an income and expenditure basis taking one year with another.

  The 2001–02 annual accounts will not be received until the autumn of 2002. However, expectation is that all NHS trusts will meet the duty.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on NHS trusts' planned costs for(a) 2001–02, (b) 2002–03 and (c) 2003–04. [16957]

  Mr. Hutton
  The planned expenditure of national health service trusts for financial year 2001–02 is circa £30.3 billion.

  Information on the planned costs of NHS trusts in financial years 2002–03 and 2003–04 will be collected as part of the normal planning cycle for the NHS. Information such as this will normally be available in May/June of the financial year concerned.

  Best Value
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the savings(a) in 2000–01 and (b) 2001–02 arising from the application by his Department of Best Value. [16942]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Department, with other central Government Departments, is committed to fundamental reviews of all its services in a five year programme under the better quality services initiative. A departmental review was conducted earlier this year, and the implementation of its recommendations is under way. The Department contributes to the application of Best Value in local authorities through the work of the social services inspectorate, and work on the performance management framework.

  NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will make a statement on the funding of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency in(a) 2001–02 and (b) 2002–03; [17167]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the cost in 2001–02 of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency. [16940]

  Mr. Hutton
  The National Health Service Purchasing and Supply Agency is an executive agency of the Department and is funded centrally. In 2001–2002 the Agency was allocated £19.5 million. The agency's funding for 2002–03 is still being discussed.
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  The agency's aim is to modernise and improve the performance of the NHS purchasing and supply system and become the centre of expertise, knowledge and excellence on matters of purchasing and supply for the NHS for the benefit of patients and the public.

  The agency is responsible for ensuring that the NHS makes the most effective use of its resources by getting the best value for money when purchasing goods and services. In 2000–01 the agency negotiated contracts that resulted in savings of £171.1 million and from April to the end of October 2001 has achieved savings of £108.1 million.

  NHS Pensions Agency
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the savings arising from the procurement of a private sector partner for contractorisation of the non-core services of the NHS Pensions Agency. [16939]

  Mr. Hutton
  The contractorisation of the National Health Service Pensions Agency's non-core services will deliver overall savings of 20 per cent. of the agency's baseline running costs.

  NHS Management Costs
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on NHS management costs in(a) 2001–02, (b) 2002–03 and (c) 2003–04. [16958]

  Mr. Hutton
  We are on course to achieve £1 billion savings in management costs between 1997–98 and the end of 2001–02.

  We are currently considering the future basis of management costs in the light of the shifting the balance of power initiative and our broader commitment to invest savings in frontline services and child care facilities for national health service staff.

  Out-of-area Treatment System
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what statistics his Department collates on the operation of the out-of-area treatment system. [16763]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 21 November 2001]: Regional offices annually collect information on the cost, and the home health authority of those out-of-area patients who are treated at each national health service trust within their area. The information is compiled centrally by the Department and used to calculate the annual out-of-area funding adjustment.

  Mental Health Act
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has received the report on the second phase of work on guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983; and if he will publish it. [17092]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 22 November 2001]: The Department is not intending to publish the second (and final) report of the research but I have asked officials to write to the hon. Member giving contact details for the researchers who were commissioned to undertake this work.

  Pneumococcal Vaccine
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 19 November 2001,Official Report, column 131W, on the pneumococcal vaccine, if he will set out (a) the remit and aims of the studies, (b) which persons or organisations are undertaking the studies and (c) when the studies were commissioned and when the work is scheduled to be completed. [18014]

  Jacqui Smith
  Studies looking at the suitability of the pneumococcal vaccine for introduction into the United Kingdom routine childhood immunisation programme are currently being undertaken by the Public Health Laboratory Service. These studies were commissioned in 1996 by the Department as part of a three-year research programme. Because of the unavailability of the pneumococcal vaccines it was not possible to begin these studies until 2000.

  The key question being addressed in these studies is how the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine performs under the two, three, four-month UK programme, in particular assessing whether a booster dose, or all three primary immunisations, are necessary. Information on potential catch-up immunisation schedules in older age groups is also being sought. The final results for these trials are expected to be available in early 2003. The effect of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine on the presence of bacteria naturally occurring in the population (carriage) will also be studied.

  Residential Care
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) nursing and (b) residential care (i) homes and (ii) beds have closed in the Buckingham constituency in each year since 1997. [17859]

  Jacqui Smith
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) on 19 July 2001,Official Report, columns 444–45W.

  Information for 2001 will be published in "Community Care Statistics 2001: Residential Personal Social Services for Adults, England" on 29 November.

  Diabetes
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what priority he places on the treatment of diabetes; [18148]

  (2) what plans he has to review the national treatment standards for diabetes sufferers; and if he will make a statement. [18149]

  Jacqui Smith
  We are committed to improving the quality of care for people with diabetes. That is why we are developing a National Service Framework for Diabetes. We shall shortly be publishing, as the first stage of the Framework, a document setting out the first ever set of national standards for the treatment of diabetes.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of new drugs to treat type 1 diabetes; and if he will make a statement. [18147]

  Jacqui Smith
  The Medicines Control Agency has not received any licence application for any new drug to treat type 1 diabetes. Should an application be made for a new 982W
  drug or for a new formulation, the agency will carefully evaluate the safety, quality and efficacy of the product prior to licensing.

  We announced on 31 July that we were referring long-acting insulin analogues to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence for appraisal. The Institute appraises the clinical and cost effectiveness of treatments and issues authoritative, evidence based guidance to the national health service, in order to ensure that people have equal access to effective treatments wherever they live.

  Children at Risk
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, columns 364–65W, on children at risk, if he will set out separately the number of unborn children. [18235]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 26 November 2001]: The number of unborn children who were added to, and deleted from, child protection registers during the years ending 31 March 2000 and 2001 are given in the table.

  Registrations to, and de-registrations from, child protection registers, of unborn children, during the years ending 31 March 2000 and 2001, and number of unborn children on registers at 31 March of each year—England

  Number of unborn children1

  On the register at 31 March

  2000

  200

  2001

  200

  Registrations

  2000

  900

  2001

  1,000

  De-registrations

  2000

  30

  2001

  70

  1 Figures are rounded to the nearest 100; figures less than 100 are rounded to the nearest 10.

  Wheelchair Service
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the growth pressures on the wheelchair service; in which geographical areas these are unusually intense; and if he will make a statement on future funding. [18349]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The information requested is not available centrally. Funding for wheelchairs is included in allocations to health authorities. Funding decisions and allocations for 2002–03 will be made in time to allow health authorities, in conjunction with primary care groups and primary care trusts, to make plans for delivering services for that financial year.

  Care Home Closures
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what advice he is offering local authorities on the impact of the closure of care homes. [18359]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Government advice on the impact of the closure of care homes was published on 9 October in "Building Capacity and Partnership in Care". Commissioners and providers should share information about services that may no longer be needed, or may be about to be withdrawn. In all cases, the aim must be to minimise the impact on the

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  patient or service user. Care homes closing at short notice can be particularly distressing for the residents of those homes. If services have to be withdrawn, commissioners and providers should seek to achieve this in a planned way.

  Private Care Homes
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will launch an initiative to provide help and advice for private care home users through(a) a telephone hotline service and (b) local health/social services teams. [18360]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: From April 2002 the independent National Care Standards Commission will regulate, inspect and register social and health care services previously regulated by local councils and health authorities. In doing so the commission will apply comprehensive new national minimum standards for all care homes. The standards for older people's care homes were published in March and provide for homes to have a specified complaints procedure and to provide information to service users on how to refer a complaint to the commission.

  The Department is also piloting care direct in six councils in the south west. This new service is designed to provide help and advice for all older people, their relatives and carers about social care, health, housing and social security benefits. We plan to extend care direct to cover the whole of England by 2005.

  Health Action Zones
  Mr. Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the future of health action zones; and when he will announce the funding for future years. [17915]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The long-term future of health action zones (HAZs) will be determined as part of the Cabinet Office Regional Co-ordination Unit-led review of area based initiatives (ABIs) which is expected to be complete early in the New Year. The HAZ element of this review will examine the ways in which HAZs work and assess their effectiveness and co-ordination with other ABIs.

  Decisions on health authority allocations and central revenue budgets (including HAZs) will be announced shortly for 2002–03. Decisions on funding for 2003–04 and beyond will be made as part of the Department's work on the 2002 spending review.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Woodward
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 31 October 2001,Official Report, column 828W, on asylum seekers, if he will list the local authorities participating in the children in need census. [17821]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: All authorities are expected to participate in the Children in Need census.

  Mr. Woodward
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the answer of 14 November 2001,Official Report, column 875W, on asylum seekers, what representations he has received to extend the Children
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  (Leaving Care) Act 2000 so that local authorities have (a) duties and (b) powers to assist 18 to 21-year-old unaccompanied asylum seeking children cared for under section 17 of the Children Act 1989. [17812]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: None. The Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 applies only to children who have been looked after under section 20 or section 31 of the Children Act 1989, or who have been remanded into care by a court. It applies to unaccompanied asylum seeking children who meet these criteria. Such children, who come to the attention of local authorities, should have their needs assessed in accordance with Government guidance, the "Framework for the Assessment of Children in need and Their Families", in the same way as would a local child, and their needs should be responded to on the basis of the outcome of that assessment.

  Food Standards Agency
  Laura Moffatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to amend the Food Standards Agency(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limit for 2001–02. [19695]

  Ms Blears
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) the overall resource Departmental Expenditure Limit for 2001–02 will be increased by £10,911,000 (of which £4,274,000 is administrations costs) from £111,243,000 to £122,154,000.

  The increase is the net effect of the addition of the FSA's End Year Flexibility (EYF) entitlement. Delays in appointing external Board Members meant that the overall FSA strategy, and hence certain projects, were also delayed. This amounts to £6,637,000 programme and £2,867,000 administration costs. Additionally, transfers from Scotland (£783,000) and Wales (£609,000) are needed to cover the estimated fall in Meat Hygiene Service income in these countries resulting from the revised charging methodology recommended in the Maclean report. A transfer of £15,000 administration costs from the Department of Health is needed as contribution towards the cost of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition. Finally, the FSA's EYF capital entitlement needs to be incorporated. The move of the FSA to a new office in central London was later than anticipated, caused by building delays. This has resulted in the need to incorporate £433,000 EYF capital expenditure.

  As a result of these changes the gross administration cost limit for the FSA has increased by £4,274,000 from £48,908,000 to £53,182,000.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Laura Moffatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to amend his Department's(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limit for 2001–02. [19696]

  Mr. Milburn
  Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Department of Health Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) will be increased by £768,348,000 from £49,805,054,000 to £50,573,402,000 and the Administration Cost Limit
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  will be increased by £9,701,000 from £312,234,000 to £321,935,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is set out in the table:

  £000

  Resources

  Capital

  Change

  617,391

  150,957

  New DEL

  48,334,111

  2,239,291

  Of which:

  Voted

  48,923,590

  254,195

  Non-voted

  -589,479

  1,985,096

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from the take up of end year flexibility £359,377,000 (£9,000,000 administration costs) as set out in Table 6 of the Public Expenditure 2000–01 Provisional Outturn White Paper Cm 5243 published in July 2001.

  Transfers of provision from the Home Office of £21,173,000 (£400,000 administration costs) mainly for the National Treatment Agency and drug treatment services and research. A net transfer from the Scottish Executive comprising an increase of £1,188,000 (£128,000 administration costs) for contributions to the cost of Non-departmental Public Bodies, committees, the high security infectious disease unit, HIV surveillance funding and postgraduate medical education, offset by £819,000 for out of area treatment costs. A net transfer from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions of £4,950,000 (£5,100,000 of which £100,000 administration costs) mainly for the teenage pregnancy unit, offset by £150,000 for mobility centres. From the Office of Government Commerce £50,000 for Avonbridge House. From the Office of Science and Technology £45,000 (administration costs) for a contribution to the Human genetics Commission. To the Department for Education and Skills £4,097,000 for education health partnerships and educational advisers. A net transfer from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs £1,000,000 for research offset by a transfer of £100,000 for a contribution to rural stress action teams. To the Department for Work and Pensions £509,000 for the costs of Care Direct and preserved rights cases. A transfer to the Food Standards Agency £15,000 (administration costs) for the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition. A change in the level of non DEL provision for NHS Trust depreciation of £240,000,000 now reclassified as part of DEL and a reallocation from resources to capital of £4,852,000 for costs associated with the National Care Standards Commission and Social Care Institute for Excellence.

  The administration cost limit has been increased by £9,701,000 from £312,234,000 to £321,935,000. In addition to the changes detailed above there is a further net increase of £43,000 comprising an increase in the Medical Device Agency's costs of £223,000 for assessment and evaluation of devices, offset by a reduction of £180,000 in respect of the NHS Appointments Commission.

  The change to the capital element of the DEL arises from the take up of end year flexibility £95,632,000 as set out in Table 6 of the Public Expenditure 2000–01 Provisional Outturn White Paper Cm 5243 published in July 2001. From the Capital Modernisation Fund £50,000,000 to support the NHS capital programme and
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  a reallocation from resource DEL of £4,852,000 and a transfer from the Scottish Executive of £50,000 for a contribution to non-departmental public bodies.

  The take-up of non-voted supplementary credit approvals for personal social services in England has increased by £423,000 from £18,700,000 to £19,123,000 in respect of the take up of end year flexibility entitlement mentioned above.

  The increases will be offset by inter-departmental transfers and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Doctors and Nurses
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the latest figures are for the shortfall in (b) doctors and (b) nurses in the NHS. [18677]

  Mr. Hutton
  The NHS Plan acknowledges that a shortage of human resources is the biggest constraint faced by the National Health Service today. Targets for increasing the number of doctors and nurses were set in the NHS Plan and rolled forward in the manifesto before the last election.

  The NHS Plan targets are for 7,500 more consultants, 2,000 more general practitioners and 20,000 more nurses by 2004. In September 2000 there were 1,100 more consultants, 126 more GPs and 6,300 more nurses than in September 1999, the NHS Plan baseline. The manifesto targets are for 10,000 more doctors and 20,000 more nurses by 2005 over the 2000 baseline.

  The September 2001 census, giving the latest position against these targets, will be available in January 2002.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average annual rate of pay is for(a) nurses and (b) doctors (i) in the NHS and (ii) in the private sector. [18676]

  Mr. Hutton
  We estimate that as at August 2000, medical consultants were paid, on average, £65,000 basic salary, £72,000 total earnings, by National Health Service employers. The equivalent figures for nurses were £19,100 and £22,400.

  Information is not available for staff working in the private sector.

  Note:

  Doctor's figures relate to medical consultants; nurses to qualified nurses in clinical grades D to G

  Source:

  Department of Health's August 2000 NHS staff earnings survey.

  Public Service Agreements
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on progress towards the Public Service Agreement target of a reduction in the death rate from cancer amongst people aged under 75 years by at least 20 per cent. by 2010 [14890]

  Jacqui Smith
  Latest available data (for the three years 1998–2000) overlap the start of Our Healthier Nation health strategy, in which the mortality target was set, in July 1999. It is therefore too early yet to assess the effects of the strategy. However, movement to date is towards
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  the target. Data for 1998–2000 (three-year average) show a rate of 130.9 deaths per 100,000 population, a reduction of 6.3 per cent. from the baseline (1995–97).

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on progress towards meeting the public service agreement target of a reduction in the death rate among people aged under 75 years by at least 40 per cent. by 2010. [14889]

  Jacqui Smith
  This target is to reduce deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke and related diseases in people under age 75. The latest available data (for the three years 1998–2000) overlap the start of the Our Healthier Nation health strategy in July 1999 and the publication of the National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease in March 2000. It is too early yet to assess the effects of these strategies. However, movement to date is towards the target. Data for 1998–2000 (three-year average) show a rate of 120.5 deaths per 100,000 population—a reduction of 13.7 per cent. from the baseline (1995–97).

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on success in meeting the public service agreement target for procurement savings by NHS trusts in 2000–01. [14901]

  Mr. Hutton
  All national health service trusts achieved procurement savings of 3 per cent. for the financial year 2000–01.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on progress towards meeting the public service agreement target that everyone with suspected cancer should be able to see a specialist within two weeks of his or her GP deciding that there is a need to do so. [14949]

  Jacqui Smith
  Good progress has been made towards meeting the public service agreement target that everyone with suspected cancer should be able to see a specialist within two weeks of urgent referral. In the period April to June this year 92.4 per cent. of all urgent general practitioner referrals for suspected cancer were seen within two weeks. Since April 1999 more than 186,000 women with suspected breast cancer have benefited by being seen within two weeks and over the period January to June 2001 over 114,000 people urgently referred with suspected cancer were seen by a specialist within two weeks.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on progress towards meeting the public service agreement target for the reduction of levels of staff absence due to sickness and injury caused by violence. [14912]

  Mr. Hutton
  The national baseline figure for sickness absence levels in the national health service, set in an exercise carried out in 1999, was 4.9 per cent. The Department is currently analysing data collected earlier this year to monitor progress in meeting the public service agreement target for the reduction in levels of staff absence.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the public service agreement target for reducing the number of children re-registered on a child protection register. [14009]
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  Jacqui Smith
  There is a National Priorities Guidance target to reduce by 10 per cent., by 2002, the proportion of children who are re-registered on the child protection register, from a baseline of 18 per cent. for the year ending 31 March 1997. Achieving this target would involve a reduction to 16.2 per cent. by March 2002.

  This target has already been achieved. The proportion of children who were re-registered on the child protection register fell to 15 per cent. in 1998–99, to 14 per cent. in 1999–2000 and has remained at 14 per cent. in 2000–01, the latest year for which data are available.

  Health Providers (Shropshire)
  Peter Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what funding has been made available to health providers in Shropshire other than the health authority in 2001–02 to date. [17817]

  Mr. Hutton
  All 2001–02 revenue funding to date for the four Shropshire national health service trusts has been routed directly through health authorities.

  Capital allocations made directly to NHS trusts by the Department. Total capital allocations so far this year are detailed in the table. These include discretionary capital allocations and additional allocations for specific schemes.

  Total capital programme allocations to NHS trusts in Shropshire: 2001–02

  £

  Princess Royal Hospital

  4,093,000

  Royal Shrewsbury Hospital

  4,199,000

  Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital

  1,436,000

  Shropshire's Community and Mental Health Services

  2,899,000

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Pakistan
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on his recent discussions with President Musharraf about the situation in Pakistan. [16693]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  On 23 November, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met President Musharraf in Islamabad. They discussed Afghanistan and Pakistan, Pakistan's support in the fight against terrorism and UK/ Pakistan relations.

  Overseas Territories Bill
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the meetings(a) his predecessor and (b) he had with representatives of the Governments of (i) Anguilla, (ii) Bermuda, (iii) the British Virgin Islands, (iv) the Cayman Islands, (v) Montserrat, (vi) Pitcairn, (vii) St. Helena and the St. Helena dependencies and (viii) the Turks and Caicos Islands concerning the implications of the Overseas Territories Bill for human rights legislation in these countries. [16792]
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  Mr. Bradshaw
  The Overseas Territories Bill has no direct implications for human rights legislation in the Overseas Territories. The Government do, however, regard the establishment and promotion of human rights as an important aspect of our partnership with the territories.

  Terrorist/Freedom Fighter Definition
  Lembit Öpik
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the Government's definition is of(a) an international terrorist and (b) a freedom fighter; and if he will make a statement. [17332]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), on 27 November 2001,Official Report, columns 826–27.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) if he will list those public bodies which are the responsibility of his Department and which are not listed in Public Bodies 2000; [17589]

  (2) if he will list those public bodies to which his Department appoints members and which are not listed in Public Bodies 2000. [17588]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  Public Bodies 2000 sets out information on non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), certain public corporations (including nationalised industries) and NHS bodies. There are four types of NDPB: executive NDPBs; advisory NDPBs; tribunal NDPBs; and boards of visitors to penal establishments. The next edition will be published around the end of the year. Information about task forces, annual reports and ad hoc advisory groups is set out in an annual report, published by Cabinet Office. Copies of Public Bodies 2000 are in the Library of the House and this publication may be accessed via Cabinet Office's website http://www.officialdocuments.co.uk/document/caboff/pb00/pb00.htm. Copies of the annual report on task forces and similar bodies have also been placed in the Library of the House and the annual report is being made available on Cabinet Office's website.

  All those public bodies to which the FCO appoints members are listed in Public Bodies 2000.

  Local Bodies
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list those local bodies which were set up under legislation which is the responsibility of his Department since May 1997. [17590]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not responsible for any local bodies.

  Bulgaria
  Mr. David
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he anticipates Bulgaria will have completed negotiations to enter the EU. [17839]
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  Peter Hain
  The Bulgarian Government have recently declared their intention to complete accession negotiations in 2003, with the aim of joining by the end of 2006. HMG will continue to provide advice and support to Bulgaria in order to help it accede to the EU.

  UAE-Iraq (Trade)
  Mr. Alan Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the United Arab Emirates-Iraq free trade agreement on 2 November; and what plans he has for the discussions on the issue to be held in Muscat in December. [18038]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The UN "oil for food" programme, which enables Iraq to use the revenue from its oil sales through the UN to buy goods worth billions of dollars each year to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people and to rehabilitate Iraq's infrastructure, has led to significant growth in Iraq's trade with its neighbours. We have no objection to agreements to promote this trade to benefit the Iraqi people, provided that such agreements neither breach UN controls, for example by promoting the export from Iraq of goods other than crude oil, nor contribute to the Iraqi regime's aim to engineer the lifting of UN controls without having to meet its international obligations, particularly on disarmament.

  We are not aware of any plans to discuss this issue in Muscat.

  "Never Again" Leaflet
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the cost was of producing the "Never Again" leaflet; and to whom it has been distributed. [18077]

  Mr. MacShane
  The cost of producing the "Never Again" leaflet was £23,971. Copies have been distributed to Members of Parliament and members of the devolved legislatures, as well as to British Embassies and High Commissions for use with overseas audiences and to foreign journalists in London. The text is also available on the FCO website. Further copies in English, Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Bengali, Hindi and Urdu are available from the Islamic Media Unit at the FCO.

  Ceuta and Melilla
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what indications he has received from the Spanish Government of its intention(a) to transfer sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco and (b) to arrange joint sovereignty of those territories with Morocco. [17832]

  Peter Hain
  None.

  India
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next plans to visit India. [18733]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The Foreign Secretary hopes to visit India next year. Dates have not yet been set.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Mr. Bailey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to change his(a) Department's expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19752]

  Mr. MacShane
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's departmental expenditure limit (DEL) will be decreased by £3,206,000 from £1,365,910,000 to £1,362,704,000 and the administration costs limit will be decreased by £960,000 from £635,558,000 to £634,598,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the table.

  £000

  Resources

  Change

  -2,416

  New DEL

  1,236,138

  Of which:

  Voted

  1,067,237

  Non-voted

  168,901

  Capital

  Change

  -790

  New DEL

  126,566

  Of which:

  Voted

  103,066

  Non-voted

  23,500

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

  1. A reduction of £960,000 in the FCO's administration cost limit as a result of a PES (public expenditure survey) transfer to the DTI, relating to funding arrangements for British Trade International.

  2. A PES transfer of £886,000 to the Cabinet Office relating to funding arrangements for the BBC Monitoring Service.

  3. A PES transfer of £570,000 to DFID to reflect funding arrangements for a refurbishment project.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from a PES transfer of £790,000 to the DTI relating to funding arrangements for British Trade International.

  The decreases are offset by inter-departmental transfers and will not impact on the planned total of public expenditure.

  Zimbabwe
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on evidence he has received concerning attacks on opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) supporters in Zimbabwe; and what implications this has for free and fair presidential elections in 2002. [18088]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The most recent reports we have of such incidents concern attacks on opposition MDC supporters by war veterans and ZANU (PF) activists in Bulawayo during the weekend of 17–18 November. MDC supporters are also reported to have retaliated. We condemn such politically motivated violence from whatever quarter, and continue to urge the Government of Zimbabwe to take immediate action to prevent further incidents which threaten to undermine the conduct of free and fair presidential elections in 2002.
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  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish evidence he has received indicating violations of human rights by Government Ministers in Zimbabwe. [18089]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  We have received a number of reports compiled by non-governmental organisations of alleged human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. The most recent is a report by the Human Rights Forum a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House. We regularly raise our concern about human rights in Zimbabwe with the Government of Zimbabwe.

  Tibet
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will give details of the issues he raised with regard to Tibet during the meeting with the Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister on 30 October; and what the response of the Chinese Government was. [18879]

  Mr. MacShane
  At my meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, I made clear our concerns about the human rights situation in Tibet and urged the Chinese Government to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama, about the future of Tibet. The Chinese Foreign Minister took note.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  UK Atomic Energy Authority
  Mr. Levitt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will announce the outcome of the Quinquennial Review of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. [19568]

  Mr. Wilson
  The Government have now considered the recommendations made by the Review Team in its second and final report.

  The report focuses primarily on arrangements for managing public sector civil nuclear liabilities on a more open, transparent, efficient and sustainable basis and on UKAEA's place within any new arrangements which might be put in place.

  The conclusions we have reached are set out in the statement which the Secretary of State made to the House earlier today in which she announced the Government's intention to put a sharper focus on nuclear clean-up by setting up a new Liabilities Management Authority responsible for providing the strong strategic control and direction which is essential; developing a supply base capable of sustaining the clean-up programme over the long term; and enhancing safety and environmental performance while securing management efficiencies and best value for money. Working with the LMA, UKAEA will have a key role to play in delivering these objectives in relation to the liabilities for which it is currently responsible, building and improving on what it has achieved to date.
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  In relation to UKAEA' s other activities the report recommends that:
  UKAEA, in conjunction with the other public sector bodies on the site, should evaluate options for the future development of Harwell as a basis for decisions on a long term strategy for the development of the site as a whole;
  the UKAEA Constabulary should be established as a stand-alone force employed by a statutory Police Authority;
  UKAEA should retain responsibility for managing the UK's fusion capability and for operating the JET (joint European torus) research facility at Culham under contract to the European Commission but that a Fusion Advisory Board should be established to give fusion a more distinctive identity within the UKAEA, bring a broader perspective to its thinking on fusion strategy and drive forward action on science and industry out-reach;
  the Thurso pensions office should remain part of UKAEA for the foreseeable future but that options for outsourcing offering the prospect of additional work for the office should be kept under review.

  The Government have accepted all these recommendations. Those relating to the development of Harwell and fusion will be implemented immediately. Legislation to create an independent Constabulary and a statutory Police Authority will be brought forward at the first available opportunity. Views will be invited in due course on the precise detail of the legislative provisions involved.

  The Government believe that fusion power has the potential to make a real and valuable contribution to meeting energy needs in the medium term. We are therefore concerned to maintain and make best use of UK expertise in fusion research. To this end, responsibility for funding the UK fusion programme will be transferred to the Research Councils as a further means of encouraging integration with the wider science base and ensuring continuity in the UK's research capability in this area.

  I have arranged for copies of the QQR Team's Stage 1 and Stage 2 reports to be placed in the Libraries of the House. The reports can also be accessed via the DTI website at www.dti.gov.uk.

  Refrigerators (Recycling)
  Mrs. Brooke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what advice she is giving to(a) retail outlets who previously have collected old refrigerators when supplying new refrigerators to customers and (b) small retail businesses who have previously collected the old refrigerators from large retail outlets and then sold them as second hand items, consequent upon changes coming into effect in relation to EC regulation 2037/2000. [18557]

  Mr. Wilson
  EC Regulation 2037/2000 on substances which deplete the ozone layer is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Officials in my Department have been working closely with officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and relevant stakeholders to develop guidance that will enable both the retail outlets and small businesses mentioned to comply with the new requirements.

  British Trade International
  Mr. Doran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what changes will be made to the Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit of British Trade International. [19569]

  Ms Hewitt
  Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the voted element of the Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit for British Trade International will be increased by £2,184,000 from £86,634,000 to £88,818,000.

  This increase relates to:

  1. a transfer of £2.000,000 in resources from the Department of Trade and Industry to fund the UK Global programme;

  2. a transfer of £10,000 in resources from the Department of Trade and Industry, in payment of their contribution to a feasibility study for the development of an international banking facility;

  3. a transfer of £174,000 in resources from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, in respect of the Exports Construction Centre, required to reflect part of the machinery of Government changes announced by the Prime Minister on 8 June 2001.

  The increase will be offset by transfers and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Cammell Laird
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on what date A&P made their submission to the Office of Fair Trading supporting their purchase of Cammell Laird shipbuilders. [18298]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The merger was notified to the Office of Fair Trading on 5 October 2001.

  Export Control Bill
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for what reason reference to sustainable development does not appear in the long title of the Export Control Bill. [17428]

  Nigel Griffiths
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Under the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria the Government are obliged to take into account whether or not a proposed arms export would seriously undermine the economy or seriously hamper the sustainable development of the recipient country. Under clause 8 of the Bill, these criteria are to be treated as published guidance that the Government must have regard to in making licensing decisions. As the Bill requires the Government to continue to take the criteria (which include criterion 8 on sustainable development) into account in licensing decisions, it is unnecessary to mention sustainable development on the face of the Bill.

  Cowboy Builders
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made in her schemes to combat cowboy builders; and if she will make a statement. [14361]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 13 November 2001]: I launched the Quality Mark pilot scheme to consumers in Birmingham and Somerset in July. The Quality Mark scheme provides the public with a means of checking

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  technical and other standards of a builder. The public response has been very encouraging. The call-centre is receiving an average of 60 calls a day and the website has had around 12,000 hits since the launch. Quality Mark companies are already starting to see positive improvements to their business. 131 builders and tradesmen have now been approved. 175 companies are in the pipeline with further numbers expected to come forward in the weeks and months ahead. We are continuing to work with leading trade bodies and other organisations to promote access to Quality Mark for their members.

  We will be commencing formal evaluation of the scheme with partners early in the new year and expect a report to be submitted to Ministers in February 2002, following which a formal decision will be made about extending Quality Mark to the rest of the country.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Ms Christine Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to change the departmental expenditure limit and administration cost limits for(a) her Department, (b) the Office of Fair Trading, (c) the Office of Telecommunications, (d) the Postal Services Commission and (e) the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets. [19570]

  Ms Hewitt
  Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate the Department of Trade and Industry DEL will be increased by £217,381,000 from £4,549,049,000 to £4,766,430,000 and the Administration Costs limit will be increased by £23,407,000 from £411,938.000 to £435,345,000. This is the impact on the DTI DEL excluding the Machinery of Government transfers from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. Further consideration is being given to the effect on the DEL for both Departments.

  Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the table:

  £

  Resources

  Change

  194,784

  New DEL

  3,971,606

  of which:

  Voted

  1,393,728

  Non-voted

  2,577,878

  Capital

  Change

  22,597

  New DEL

  794,824

  of which:

  Voted

  482,703

  Non-voted

  312,121

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from

  (i) a transfer of £83,000 in administration costs from the Crown Prosecution Service for the administration of work taken over by the Insolvency Service;

  (ii) a transfer of £960.000 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the administration of British Trade International;

  996W

  (iii) a transfer of £776,000 in administration costs provision to the Cabinet Office for the funding of Government Offices of the Regions to reflect Machinery of Government transfers;

  (iv) take up of £6,919,000 from the unused balance of the Department's administration costs end-year flexibility entitlement;

  (v) a transfer of £256,000 in administration costs from HM Treasury in respect of the Evidence Based Policy Fund Project;

  (vi) a transfer of £2,272,000 in administration costs from the Department for Education and Skills for the administration of the Work-Life Balance to reflect Machinery of Government transfers;

  (vii) a transfer of £19,000 in administration costs from the Home Office for the administration of the Easter & British Summer Time; Sunday Trading, Street Markets and Chartered Fairs Projects to reflect Machinery of Government Transfers;

  (viii) a transfer of £220,000 in administration costs and £273,000 in programme costs from the Home Office for the administration of the Prison Pay Review Service;

  (ix) a transfer of £5,300,000 from capital to administration costs under the Public Private Partnership project for the funding of the Electronic Business Strategy;

  (x) take up of £8,121,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement for the Capital Modernisation Fund for Small and Medium Enterprise on-line projects;

  (xi) a reclassification of the payment of £700,000 to SITPRO (Simpler Trade Procedures Board) as a Grant-in-Aid to a Non-Departmental Public Body, thereby increasing non-Voted DEL and decreasing voted DEL by the above amount;

  (xii) a transfer of £58,000 from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions for the provision of a helpline for the European Union's Framework Five Thematic Programme for comparative and sustainable growth;

  (xiii) take up of £27,400,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement for payments to redundant steel workers under the European Coal & Steel Community (ECSC) Treaty and to certain steel production workers based on the Treaty;

  (xiv) a reclassification from capital to resource of £3,722,000 for the Rover Task Force Modernisation and Diversification Projects;

  (xv) a reclassification from capital to resource of £175,000 for the Regional Innovation Fund Corridor Study;

  (xvi) take up of £3,000,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement in respect of £1,000,000 for UK Global Partnerships and the transfer of £2,000,000 to British Trade International for enterprise scholarships and pilot programmes for entrepreneurs;

  (xvii) a transfer of £340,000 from the Home Office for the Design against Crime Reduction Project;

  997W

  (xviii) a transfer of £70,000 from the Department for Education and Skills for Work-Life Balance Secondees;

  (xix) a transfer of £1,535,000 from the Department for Education and Skills for publicity and evaluation in relation to the Work-Life Balance project to reflect Machinery of Government transfers;

  (xx) a transfer of £4,450,000 in resources and £50,000 in Appropriations in Aid from the Department for Education and Skills for the Work Life Balance project to reflect Machinery of Government transfers;

  (xxi) a transfer of £22,158,000 from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in respect of support for the construction industry to reflect Machinery of Government transfers;

  (xxii) a transfer of £6,684,000 in administration costs to reflect Machinery of Government transfers from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in respect of support for the construction industry;

  (xxiii) a reclassification of £17,440,000 from voted to non-Voted DEL to reflect the funding of Regional Development Agencies following Machinery of Government changes xxiv) a transfer of £350,000 to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets to cover their costs of implementing the Climate Change Levy exemption for electricity from renewable sources xxv) take up of £3,100,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement for the Shipbuilding Intervention Fund;

  (xxvi) take up of £2,320,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end year flexibility entitlement in respect of expenditure related to the National Minimum Wage;

  (xxvii) a transfer of £10,000 to British Trade International in respect of a feasibility study for the development of an international banking facility;

  (xxviii) take up of £2,000,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement to provide for increased non-Voted expenditure by the Coal Authority on minewater pollution and to offset a shortfall in receipts from property sales as a result of foot and mouth restrictions.

  RfR2

  (i) take up of £100,000 of the non-Voted Science Departmental Unallocated Provision to increase voted grant to the Royal Society for the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) inquiry;

  (ii) take up of £3,000,000 of the non-voted Science Departmental Unallocated Provision for additional voted funding of the Beagle II Lander project, with creation of a token £1,000 Appropriations in Aid;

  (iii) take up of £12,499,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement to fund University Challenge Fund projects delayed from previous years;

  (iv) take up of £415,000 of the Science Departmental Unallocated Provision for voted funding of Foresight LINK Awards;

  998W

  (v) take up of £5,000,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement to fund Science Enterprise Challenge projects;

  (vi) a transfer of £205,000 in administration costs from the Home Office to the Office of Science and Technology for the administration of the Foresight Crime Prevention Panel;

  (vii) a transfer of £45,000 in administration costs from the Office of Science and Technology to the Department of Health for Human Genetic Research;

  (viii) an increase of £35,577,000 in the non-voted resource expenditure of certain Science Research Councils;

  In addition to the above changes reflected in the RfRs, the resource DEL has also changed as a result of increased non-voted expenditure on provisions of £43,300,000 (funded from the unused balance of the Department's end-year flexibility entitlement).

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from:

  RfR1

  (i) take up of £10,792,000 of end-year flexibility from the Capital Modernisation Fund for the Small Business Service Gateway Projects;

  (ii) a transfer of £790,000 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the administration of British Trade International;

  (iii) a transfer of £5,300,000 from capital to administration costs under the Public Private Partnership project for the funding of the Electronic Business Strategy;

  (iv) a reclassification from capital to resource of £3,722,000 for the Rover Task Force Modernisation and Diversification Projects;

  (v) a reclassification from capital to resource of £175,000 for the Regional Innovation Fund Corridor Study;

  (vi) to take up £3,200,000 from the unused balance of the Department's capital end-year flexibility entitlement for the conversion of part of Victoria Street restaurant area into conference facilities;

  (vii) a reclassification of £31,200,000 from voted to non-Voted DEL to reflect the funding of Regional Development Agencies via Grant in Aid following Machinery of Government changes;

  (viii) take up of £9,300,000 from the unused balance of the Department's end year flexibility entitlement for the Trent Engine Development Project;

  (ix) a transfer of £19,000 in capital to reflect Machinery of Government transfers from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in respect of Construction Initiatives, Regional Development Agencies and the London Development Agency.

  RfR2

  (i) increases in non-Voted expenditure of £1,000,000 by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and £3,000,000 by the Council for the Central Laboratory

  999W
  of the Research Councils, funded by a £4,000,000 reduction in voted provision for the Synchrotron Radiation Source project;

  (ii) an increase of £7,693,000 in the non-voted resource expenditure of certain Science Research Councils.

  In addition, subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Office of Fair Trading Departmental Expenditure Limit will be increased by £7,680,000 from £32,845,000 to £40,525,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £6,981,000 from £31,163,000 to £38,144.000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the table:

  £000

  Resources

  Change

  6,850

  New DEL

  38,297

  of which:

  Voted

  38,297

  Non-voted

  0

  Capital

  Change

  830

  New DEL

  2,228

  of which:

  Voted

  2,228

  Non-voted

  0

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from the provision of £6,230,000 to enable the Office of Fair Trading to meet commitments set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the Enterprise Statement. In addition, there is an increase in the resource element of the DEL resulting from the take up of end year flexibility provision of £620,000.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from the provision of £830,000 to enable the Office of Fair Trading to meet commitments set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the Enterprise Statement.

  Also, subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Office of Telecommunications DEL will be increased by £126,000 from £1,599,000 to £1,725,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £231,000 from £15,718,000 to £15,949,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the table:

  Number

  Resources

  Change

  1

  New DEL

  720

  of which:

  Voted

  720

  Non-voted

  0

  Capital

  Change

  125

  New DEL

  1,005

  of which:

  Voted

  1,005

  Non-voted

  0

  1000W
  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from 2000–01 consultancy projects which were delayed until the new financial year.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from a capital project having a phased implementation leading to additional costs in 2001–02.

  In addition, subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Postal Services Commission's DEL will be increased by £222,000 from £1,000 to £223,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £700,000 from £2,300,000 to £3,000,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the table:

  £000

  Resources

  Change

  0

  New DEL

  -99

  of which:

  Voted

  1

  Non-voted

  -100

  Capital

  Change

  222

  New DEL

  322

  of which:

  Voted

  322

  Non-voted

  0

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from the take up of the Commission's capital End Year Flexibility entitlement of £222,000 announced in Table 6 of the Public Expenditure 2000–01 Outturn White Paper (Cm5243).

  The change in the administration costs limit reflects an increase in staff numbers.

  Also, subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Departmental Expenditure Limit for the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets will be increased by £350,000 from £351,000 and the administration costs limit will be increased from £350,000 from £35,780,000 to £36,130,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the following table:

  Number

  Resources

  Change

  350

  New DEL

  351

  of which:

  Voted

  351

  Non-voted

  0

  Capital

  Change

  0

  New DEL

  965

  of which:

  Voted

  965

  Non-voted

  0

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from a transfer of £350,000 from the Department of Trade and Industry to cover the costs of implementing the Climate Change Levy exemption for electricity from renewable sources.
  1001W
  All of the above increases will either be offset by inter-departmental transfers, take-up of End-Year Flexibility or use of Departmental Unallocated Provisions and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Railtrack
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what inquiries she has made into the competition practices of National Rail Supplies, Railtrack and Rail track' s contractors. [18540]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Under UK competition legislation it is for the Director General of Fair Trading to investigate allegations of anti-competitive behaviour. These powers are exercised concurrently with the Rail Regulator with respect to railway services.

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. David Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to develop renewable energy. [17392]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 23 November 2001]: The Government have ambitious plans to develop renewable energy.

  The new Renewables Obligation, to come into effect next year, together with exemption of renewables from the climate change levy, will create a long-term market incentive for renewables which will be worth over £1 billion per year by 2010.

  The introduction of the Obligation will be underpinned by direct Government funding for renewables worth over £260 million between 2001 and 2004. This will include an extensive capital grants programme for the early development of offshore wind and energy crops, the initial stage of a major photovoltaics demonstration programme and a boost for research and development.

  Other components of the Government's strategy to develop renewable energy include:
  honouring of contracts awarded under the earlier arrangements to support renewables, the Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) Orders. In addition, we have consulted on a proposal to introduce a NFFO locational flexibility Order and we are now considering the responses made to this consultation.
  Initiation of studies of each UK region's capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources. Once all these assessments are completed, it is expected that specific regional targets for renewable energy will be adopted across the UK.

  The Government are also exploring the scope for upgrading the existing electricity infrastructure to enable the UK's huge renewable energy resources to be exploited to the full. I recently announced that we will be funding an initial study of the feasibility of an underwater cable to connect parts of the western seaboard of Scotland, the north west of England, Northern Ireland, western Wales and possibly the south west of England directly to the National Grid.

  Overseas Commercial Activities (Accountability Legislation)
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to discuss with her European counterparts the introduction of legislation to hold companies accountable for their activities overseas. [17918]

  Nigel Griffiths
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: My ministerial colleagues and I regularly discuss a wide range of issues with our European counterparts.

  Post Office Card Accounts
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate she has made of how many post office card accounts there will be on the basis of existing plans. [18043]

  Mr. Alexander
  This matter is being considered within the context of an overall migration and marketing strategy for the payment of benefits by automated credit transfer on which detailed work is in progress.

  Postal Deliveries
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what proportion of first class letters from(a) Eastbourne and (b) Wealden postcode areas were delivered by (a) first and (b) second post the next day in each of the last 20 quarters for which figures are available. [17139]

  Mr. Alexander
  This is an operational issue for Consignia.

  I have been informed by the company that this information is not held for individual postcode areas.

  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what recent discussions she has had with Consignia about changes to the second daily Royal Mail delivery. [17142]

  Mr. Alexander
  The Department has regular discussions with Consignia about a range of strategic issues facing the company. However, changes to the second daily Royal Mail delivery are operational issues for the company, subject to the regulatory powers and duties of the Postal Services Commission in respect of service standards.

  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what proportion of(a) first and (b) second class mail was delivered as part of a second daily delivery in the last 12 months. [17140]

  Mr. Alexander
  This is an operational issue for Consignia.

  I have been informed by the company that this information is not available for the precise split between first and second class mail delivered on second delivery but it is predominantly first class, while only 4 per cent. of mail nationally is delivered on a second delivery.

  Public Service Orders
  Mr. Carmichael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which air routes in Britain benefit from a public service order. [18730]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I have been asked to reply.
  1003W
  The following routes currently have a public service obligation imposed on them:

  Glasgow-Campbelltown-Tiree

  Glasgow-Barra

  Orkney (Mainland)-Papa Westray

  Orkney (Mainland)-North Ronaldsay

  Shetland (Mainland)-Foula

  Shetland (Mainland)-Papa Stour

  Shetland (Mainland)-Out Skerries

  Shetland (Mainland)-Fair Isle

  Stornoway-Benbecula

  Benbecula-Barra.

  Climate Change Levy
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the effect of climate change levy after rebates on the manufacturing sector in(a) the United Kingdom and (b) Wiltshire; and if she will make a statement. [18422]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  I have been asked to reply.

  The climate change levy became operational only in April this year and the first payments are still being received by Customs and Excise. It is too early to assess its impact.

  However, the impact on any specific sector, whether nationally or in any particular region, will depend on a number of factors including:
  The future energy consumption of firms in the sector and the use they make of levy funded energy efficiency support.
  Employment levels in those sectors and the benefits received from the levy funded national insurance contribution cuts.
  The number of energy intensive firms in that sector that are eligible to receive a discount on the main rates of the levy by signing up to an energy efficiency agreement.
  The use that firms in that sector make of electricity generated from levy exempt 'new' renewable sources of energy and combined heat and power.

PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

  Grand Committees
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the President of the Council on how many occasions the Northern Ireland Grand Committee has met in Northern Ireland(a) in the five years prior to devolution and (b) since devolution. [17927]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  Until March 1997 the Committee had no power to meet away from Westminster and it has never done so.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the President of the Council on how many occasions the Scottish Grand Committee has met in Scotland(a) in the five years prior to devolution and (b) since devolution. [17926]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  Before the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament on 12 May 1999, the Scottish Grand Committee met away from Westminster as follows.
  1004W

  Year

  Number of occasions

  1994

  2

  1995

  4

  1996

  13

  1997

  3

  1998

  2

  1999

  4

  The Scottish Grand Committee has only met once since the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament (on 10 July 2000).

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the President of the Council on how many occasions the Welsh Grand Committee has met in Wales(a) in the five years prior to devolution and (b) since devolution. [17902]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  Until March 1996 the Grand Committee had no power to meet away from Westminster; since then the Committee has met in Wales as follows:

  Year

  Number of occasions

  1997

  1

  1998

  2

  19991

  1

  2000

  0

  2001

  1

  1 Before 12 May 1999

  The National Assembly for Wales first met on 12 May 1999.

  House of Lords Appointments Commission
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Council what the cost is to date of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. [17362]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  I understand that the latest available figures show that the House of Lords Appointments Commission spent £248,000 in 2000–01 and to the end of October, £73,000 has been spent in 2001–02.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the President of the Council whether there are any plans to change(a) the departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19405]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  The Privy Council Office DEL will be decreased by £444,000 from £3,405,000 to £2,961,000 and the administration costs limits will be decreased by £444,000 from £3,445,000 to £3,001,000. Within the DEL change there is no impact on capital; the impact on resources is set out in the table.

  Number

  Resources

  Change

  -444

  New DEL

  2,961,000

  of which:

  Voted

  -444

  Non-voted

  0

  1005W
  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

  1. A transfer of £320,000 to the Cabinet Office, following the transfer of the Business Co-ordination Unit under machinery of government changes.

  2. A transfer of £177,000 to DEFRA, who have assumed responsibility for an official residence in Admiralty House.

  3. £53,000 allocated to the Office from the Invest to Modernise Fund.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many formal notices his Department has received in the last year from the Parliamentary Ombudsman expressing an intention to carry out an investigation; and in respect of each notice how long it took to respond. [18762]

  Mr. Wills
  Information on the outcome of statutory investigations which were concluded during 2000–01 are set out in the Parliamentary Ombudsman's Annual Report for 2000–01, copies of which are available in the Library of the House, or on the Parliamentary Ombudsman's website at www.ombudsman.org.uldpca/document/part01/index/htm.

  Between 1 April 2001 and 31 October 2001, the Lord Chancellor's Department received 15 new statutory statements of complaint from the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the details for each department are set out in the table.

  Formal notices issued by Parliamentary Ombudsman 1 April 2001 to 31 October 2001

  Department

  Number received

  Number responded to

  Working days to respond to each notice

  Lord Chancellor's Department1

  2

  2

  16,17

  Court Service

  10

  10

  10, 13, 15, 16, 23, 27, 34, 45, 55, 91

  Public Guardianship Office

  2

  1

  26

  HM Land Registry

  1

  1

  19

  Northern Ireland Court Service

  0

  0

  —

  Public Record Office

  0

  0

  —

  1 Letter of 27 February 2001 not received until 30 April 2001

  Complaints
  Mr. Wiggin
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what progress is being made with the case of a complaint by Mr. Paul Bayliss of Lloyds & Cooper. [18005]

  Mr. Wills
  The Lord Chancellor as head of the judiciary has personally instructed a full investigation into all the circumstances relevant to this complaint and is not 1006W
  yet in a position to respond. It is the Lord Chancellor's intention to bring this investigation to as prompt a conclusion as possible.

TREASURY

  National Enterprise Campaign
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the progress of the National Enterprise Campaign. [18309]

  Nigel Griffiths
  I have been asked to reply.

  The National Enterprise Campaign, now known as Enterprise Insight, is a 10-year private sector-led national campaign for enterprise. The campaign has strong support within Government and works in partnership with enterprise programme providers including Young Enterprise, Shell LiveWIRE and the Prince's Trust to promote enterprise by fostering an entrepreneurial sprit across the UK through four key initiatives: Enterprising Education; Enterprising Communities; Enterprising Media; Enterprising Business.

  The campaign has made steady progress over its first 18 months. Since the launch of the Enterprising Education Campaign in July 2001, 246 business have registered their interest in promoting enterprise within schools with a further 750 expected by 2002. The aim over the next two years is to get 40,000 more young people engaged in enterprise learning in schools and 5,000 new business people to support its delivery. This will be done through a number of activities including hosting road shows and the development of a website which will enable businesses to register their interest on-line. In addition, the Entrepreneurs in Residence scheme, which matches businesses to local enterprise projects, is also well under way—so far the first five matches have already been made. Enterprise Insight also aims to promote enterprise more positively across society and, in particular, plans to work with the media using case studies and role models to help spread more positive attitudes about entrepreneurship and business.

  Tourism
  Mrs. Calton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what analysis his Department has undertaken on the impact of the slow down in the world economy on tourism. [18047]

  Mr. Caborn
  I have been asked to reply.

  In addition to world economic conditions, there are a number of factors currently affecting tourism, including the impact of foot and mouth disease and the 11 September terrorist attacks. It is as yet too early to conduct a detailed assessment of the impact of world economic conditions in isolation.

  Mortgages
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the average income multiple for mortgages agreed in the last financial year was for(a) individuals and (b) couples. [15927]

  Ms Keeble
  I have been asked to reply.
  1007W
  The average income-to-advance ratio for mortgaged house purchases during the last financial year is estimated to have been (a) 2.49 for individuals and (b) 2.17 for couples.

  Mortgage repayments as a percentage of income for those buying homes during the last financial year are estimated to have been (a) 17.4 per cent. for individuals and (b) 15.4 per cent. for couples. During the third quarter of 2001 these figures were (a) 15.4 per cent. for individuals and (b) 13.3 per cent. for couples.

  Youth Unemployment
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people aged 18 to 24 years were unemployed for more than six months in each year since May 1992 in the constituency of Arundel and South Downs. [18312]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Howard Flight, dated 28 November 2001:
  As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question on the number of people aged 18 to 24 years who were unemployed for more than six months for each year since May 1992 in the constituency of Arundel and South Downs (18312).
  The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics for unemployment from surveys following the internationally standard International Labour Organisation definition. However, for the Arundel and South Downs parliamentary constituency the survey sample size is too small to provide estimates. ONS also compiles statistics of claimants of unemployment-related benefits. The claimant count consists of all people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance or National Insurance credits at Employment Service local offices. They must declare that they are out of work, capable of, available for and actively seeking work during the week in which the claim is made.
  Prior to January 1996 comparable figures for earlier years are not available on the same geographical basis. Information on computerised claims by age and duration for parliamentary constituencies from January 1996 were based on the ward boundaries of the 1981 census and are available from June 1985 to January 1996.
  The information requested is given in the table overleaf.

  Claimants aged 18 to 24 claiming for six months or more in the Arundel and South Downs parliamentary constituency for each May 1992 to May 2001 (computerised claims only)

  Number of claimants of unemployment benefit

  May 1992

  1418

  May 1993

  1529

  May 1994

  1447

  May 1995

  1345

  May 1996

  110

  May 1997

  40

  May 1998

  19

  May 1999

  9

  May 2000

  8

  May 2001

  3

  1 These figures refer to the Arundel parliamentary constituency

  Tax Credits
  Mr. Russell Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the rates and thresholds of the(a) working families tax credit and (b) disabled person's tax credit will be from April 2002. [19625]
  1008W
  Dawn Primarolo
  The main WFTC and DPTC rates and income thresholds will be increased in line with indexation from April 2002. There will be further increases aimed at helping families with children with disabilities.

  Ms Buck
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will place a copy of the responses to the tax credits consultation document in the Library. [18598]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The Government are very grateful for the many responses 'we have received to the consultation document and will be responding in due course.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Barbara Follett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to change Customs and Excise(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19624]

  Mr. Boateng
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the HM Customs and Excise DEL will be increased by £79,505,000 from £1,049,066,000 to £1,128,571,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £25,889,000 from £924,894,000 to £950,783,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the table.

  £

  Resources

  Change

  47,520,000

  New DEL

  1,038,559,000

  Of which:

  Voted

  1,033,559,000

  Non-voted

  5,000,000

  Capital

  Change

  31,985,000

  New DEL

  90,012,000

  Of which:

  Voted

  89,012,000

  Non-voted

  1,000,000

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from: the take-up of end-year flexibility entitlement of £24,208,000 on administration costs and £5,131,000 on programme expenditure as set out in the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper (CM 5243); a switch from capital EYF of £16,000,000 into programme expenditure; additional resources of £100,000 under round 3 of the Invest to Save Budget on administration costs; and additional SR2000 resources of £1,714,000 on administration costs and £500,000 on programme expenditure for tackling organised crime. These increases are partially offset by decreases in administration costs of: £69,000 to the Cabinet Office for fast stream recruitment operations; and £64,000 to DEFRA in respect of the Whisky Export Refund Scheme. The total administration costs change is £25,889,000.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from: the take-up of end-year flexibility of £30,000,000; and additional funding of £1,985,000 in respect of round 3 of the Capital Modernisation Fund.
  1009W
  The increases will be offset by transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Mrs. Lawrence
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to amend the Inland Revenue(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limit for 2001–02. [19622]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Inland Revenue departmental expenditure limit will be increased by £83,602,000 from £2,473,375,000 to £2,556,977,000 and the administration costs limit will be increased by £26,356,000 from £2,410,165,000 to £2,436,521,000. The net administration costs limit is increased by £1,919,000 from-£7,973,000 to-£6,054,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is set out in table:

  £

  Resources

  Change

  28,018

  New DEL

  2,390,416

  Of which:

  Voted

  2,021,370

  Non-voted

  369,046

  Capital

  Change

  55,584

  New DEL

  166,561

  Of which:

  Voted

  166,561

  Non-voted

  0

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from the draw down of £23,338,000 administration costs EYF and the transfer of £4,679,000 from DWP.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from the draw down of capital EYF and non-discretionary EYF as set out in the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper (CM 5243).

  Mr. Russell Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to amend the Office for National Statistics(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limit for 2001–02. [19626]

  Ruth Kelly
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Office for National Statistics DEL will be increased by £11,446,000 from £186,075,000 to £197,350,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £5,346,000 from £179,285,000 to £184,631,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the following table.

  Resources

  Capital

  Change

  5,346,000

  6,100,000

  New DEL

  185,430,000

  11,920,000

  Of which:

  Voted

  184,630,000

  11,920,000

  Non-voted

  800,000

  0

  The increase in the resource element of the DEL arises from the take up of end-year flexibility entitlement as set out in the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper (Cm 5243) and will be used to fund census-related and
  1010W
  other expenditure commitments. In addition, £6,000,000 will be drawn from the Departmental Unallocated Provision to meet similar spending pressures.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from the take-up of funds from a Capital Modernisation Fund award of £6,100,000 for development of a statistics service to improve neighbourhood renewal. The increase will be offset by transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Mrs. Lawrence
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to change HM Treasury's(a) departmental expenditure limits and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19623]

  Ruth Kelly
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, HM Treasury's DEL will be increased by £35,267,000 from £209,578,000 to £244,845,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £9,678,000 from £97,011,000 to £106,689,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is as set out in the following table.

  Resources

  Capital

  Change

  25,940

  9,327

  New DEL

  229,768

  15,077

  Of which:

  Voted

  200,397

  14,777

  Non-voted

  29,371

  300

  The change in the resource element of the DEL for RfR1 arises from the take-up of administration costs EYF (£1,640,000) and programme costs EYF (£3,662,000), to meet the additional costs of the Treasury's planned programme of work involving additional expenditure in policy areas, including those dealing with better public services, Whole of Government Accounts and productivity, the Equitable Life Inquiry, and Debt Management Office's initiatives to improve their management of risk and further professionalise their operations; to draw down the administration costs sums allocated from the Civil Service Modernisation Fund (£570,000) for early retirement costs and an interchange project, and from the Capital Modernisation Fund (05,000) in respect of the Evidence Based Policy Fund projects; and a transfer of administration costs to the Cabinet Office in respect of Fast Stream recruitment operations (£282,000). The change in the capital element of the DEL for RfR1 arises from the reclassification of programme expenditure EYF to capital provision (£9,404,000), for the new service relating to the indemnity and insurance cover HMT has offered to aviation companies in the wake of WTC of 11 September, by way of a loan note with Troika Insurance Company Ltd., and for additional IT and communications equipment. There are also additional non-operating appropriations in aid in respect of higher than expected capital receipts (£77,000).

  The change in the resource element of the DEL for RfR2 arises from the take-up of programme costs EYF (£2,000,000), to meet the increased demand for UK coins.

  The change in the resource element of the DEL for RfR3 arises from the take-up of administration costs EYF (0,172,000) and programme costs EYF (£10,000,000), to meet the costs of e-commerce pilot schemes and to fund the disposal of surplus civil estate properties; the

  1011W
  reclassification of programme costs EYF to administration costs for the costs associated with the OGC pay remit and VER scheme (£2,848,000); to draw down the administration costs sums allocated from the Civil Service Modernisation Fund (£325,000) for the promoting professional qualifications project; and a transfer of programme expenditure to the National Care Standards Commission in respect of the leasehold of Avonbridge House (£50,000).

  The increases will be offset by transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Tax Receipts
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking to improve the short-term forecasting of tax receipts. [18549]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Short-term forecasts are routinely monitored against outturns, the reasons for discrepancies identified where possible, and allowances are made for these in future forecasts where necessary.

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will publish for each month of the current financial year the error rate occurring between the projected tax and VAT receipts and those which actually resulted; [18550]

  (2) if he will place in the Library details of the economic model used by the Inland Revenue to forecast monthly tax receipts. [16304]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 23 November 2001]: I refer the right hon. Gentleman to my reply of 14 November 2001, Official Report, column 775W, the answer the Financial Secretary gave him on 20 July under cover of a letter and the letter which the Economic Secretary sent him on 27 September (copies of both of which have been placed in the Library of the House).

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many staff are used by the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise to produce the monthly short-term forecasts of tax receipts; and what the annual costs for this exercise are. [18551]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Around 18 staff spend a small proportion of their time producing the monthly forecasts of tax receipts. No estimates of the annual cost are available.

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the(a) sections and (b) those of grade 3 and above in the Treasury which receive copies of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise short-term receipts forecasts and state for each recipient the use to which the information is put. [18552]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The sections that receive the short-term forecasts are: Public Sector Finances, Exchequer Funds and Accounts and the Debt Management Office. No officials of grade 3 and above routinely receive copies of these forecasts.

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish the methodology used to produce the levels of current receipts shown in table C4 of Budget 2001 and show how this related to the contents of paragraph C17, C18 and C19 of Budget 2001. [18553]
  1012W
  Dawn Primarolo
  Table C4 is consistent with the Office for National Statistics methodology for Public Finance Statistics. The assumptions mentioned in paragraphs C17–19 of Budget 2001, together with those in Box Cl, are used as the basis for the projections by the Inland Revenue, and Customs and Excise for taxes, on a tax by tax basis, and the Treasury for other receipts. Details of how these assumptions are converted into forecasts for revenues are given in Forecasting the Public Finances in the Treasury, by Tim Pike and David Savage, Fiscal Studies, 1998. This is available from the publications section of the Institute of Fiscal Studies website www.ifs.org.uk.

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the way in which the Treasury uses the short-term forecasts of tax receipts provided by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue. [18554]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The short-term forecasts are mainly used in the short-term management of Government cash flows.

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement listing the facts and information used by(a) the Inland Revenue and (b) Customs and Excise to produce the short-term forecasts of tax and receipts referred to in the letter of 27 September sent to the right hon. Member for Fylde. [18555]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I have nothing further to add to the information contained in that letter.

  Inland Revenue
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to privatise the distraint work of the Inland Revenue; and if he will make a statement. [18236]

  Dawn Primarolo
  This proposal is still under consideration.

  Local Authority Debt Repayment
  Adam Price
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what rules govern annual debt repayments by local authorities in England and Wales; and if he will make a statement. [18515]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  Like any other borrowers, local authorities have a contractual obligation to comply with the terms of repayment specified in their agreement with the lender. The local government capital finance system requires English and Welsh authorities each year to set aside amounts out of their revenue resources to meet debt and other credit liabilities. This helps to ensure that, whenever a debt falls due, the authority has enough money to make the repayment. The Government have no immediate plans to change these arrangements.

  Financial Regulation (Overseas and Dependent Territories)
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the British overseas and dependent territories with which exchange of information agreements have been agreed(a) for tax and (b) financial regulation purposes,

  1013W
  indicating the date of such agreement; and if he will list separately those overseas and dependent territories with which no such agreement yet exists. [17728]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 26 November 2001]: For tax purposes, the UK has Double Taxation Arrangements with Guernsey (1952), Isle of Man (1955) and Jersey (1952) (all Crown Dependencies), and the Falkland Islands (1997) and Montserrat (1947) (both Overseas Territories) which include provisions for the exchange of information for tax purposes. The UK has no such agreements with the remaining Overseas Territories, ie Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Pitcairn Islands, St. Helena and its Dependencies (St. Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan de Cunha), South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands, and Turks and Caicos Islands.

  For financial regulatory purposes, the Overseas Territories of the Caribbean and Bermuda and Gibraltar have in place gateways which allow for the exchange of information with overseas regulators including the UK. The territories of the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands and British Virgin Islands have introduced "compulsory powers" legislation to enable investigative assistance to overseas regulators to be provided. Bermuda's existing regulatory powers are being strengthened. Anguilla has compulsory powers legislation in draft.

  The Crown Dependencies have Memorandums of Understanding providing for exchange of information with a range of UK regulatory bodies.

  Exchange Rate
  Adam Price
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent steps he has taken to ensure a competitive sterling to euro exchange rate. [18517]

  Ruth Kelly
  The Government do not have a target for the sterling/euro exchange rate. The way to ensure long-term exchange rate stability and competitiveness is through the pursuit of sound macroeconomic policies aimed at achieving sustained growth and low inflation.

  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received from manufacturers about the rate of sterling in the last six months; and if he will make a statement. [18488]

  Ruth Kelly
  The Chancellor and other Treasury Ministers often receive representations from manufacturers and all areas of business on a wide range of economic issues, and value their insights.

  Stamp Duty
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what additional revenue he raised in 2000–01 from property and land transactions in the Arundel and South Downs constituency as a result of the increases in stamp duty in the March 2000 Budget. [18331]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information is not available.
  1014W

  Manufacturing (East Midlands)
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what analysis he has made of the impact of the slow down in the world economy on manufacturing in the east midlands. [18490]

  Ruth Kelly
  No country can insulate itself from the global economy, and these uncertain times test all regions of the UK. Because of the tough decisions this Government have taken we are today in a better position to withstand the ups and downs of the world economy.

  The pre-Budget report further outlined the Government's regional strategy.

  Higher Rate Taxpayers
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many higher rate taxpayers there were in the constituency of Arundel and South Downs in each year since April 1997. [18314]

  Dawn Primarolo
  There were 7,300 higher rate income taxpayers in the constituency of Arundel and South Downs in the 1999–2000 tax year. This estimate is based on the Survey of Personal Incomes. I regret that estimates are not available for earlier years.

  Income Data
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) of those self-employed aged between(a) 18 and 35, (b) 36 and 45, (c) 46 and 50, (d) 51 and 55, (e) 56 and 60 and (h) 61 and 74 years, if he will estimate the numbers earning (i) up to £35,000 per year, (ii) between £35,000 and £45,000 per year, (iii) between £45,000 and £55,000 per year, (iv) between £55,000 and £65,000 per year, (v) between £65,000 and £75,000 per year, (vi) between £75,000 and £85,000 per year, (vii) between £85,000 and £95,000 per year and (viii) over £95,000 per year, for the tax year (A) 2000 and (B) 2001; [18600]

  (2) if he will list the numbers of self-employed between the ages of (a) 18 and 35, (b) 36 and 45, (c) 46 and 50, (d) 51 and 55, (e) 56 and 60 and (f) 61 and 74 years and estimate the numbers in each category paying the (i) standard rate and (ii) higher rate of tax for the tax year 2000–01; [18609]

  (3) if he will estimate, of those between the ages of (a) 18 and 35, (b) 36 and 45, (c) 46 and 50, (d) 51 and 55, (e) 56 and 60 and (f) 61 and 74 years, the numbers earning (i) up to £35,000 per year, (ii) between £35,000 and £45,000 per year, (iii) between £45,000 and £55,000 per year, (iv) between £55,000 and £65,000 per year, (v) between £65,000 and £75,000 per year, (vi) between £75,000 and £85,000 per year, (vii) between £85,000 and £95,000 per year and (viii) over £95.000 per year, for the tax year (1) 2000 and (2) 2001. [18603]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Estimates for the number of taxpayers with some self employed income, by range of age and total earned income (income from employment, income from self employment and pensions) are given in the tables, based on the Survey of Personal Incomes.
  1015W

  Estimated number of people with some self employment income by range of earnings and age, 2000–01

  Thousands

  Age (lower limit)

  Earnings upper limit (£)

  18

  36

  46

  51

  56

  61

  74

  35,000

  21

  37

  21

  20

  13

  13

  1—

  45,000

  12

  22

  12

  10

  7

  7

  1—

  55,000

  5

  16

  8

  8

  5

  4

  1—

  65,000

  4

  11

  6

  6

  4

  3

  1—

  75,000

  3

  8

  4

  4

  2

  2

  1—

  85,000

  1

  6

  3

  3

  2

  2

  1—

  95,000

  6

  23

  14

  13

  7

  5

  1—

  Estimated number of people with some self employment income by range of earnings and age, 2001–02

  Thousands

  Age (lower limit)

  Earnings upper limit (£)

  18

  36

  46

  51

  56

  61

  74

  35,000

  23

  39

  22

  21

  13

  13

  1—

  45,000

  12

  22

  13

  10

  8

  8

  1—

  55,000

  6

  16

  8

  8

  5

  4

  1—

  65,000

  4

  11

  6

  6

  4

  4

  1—

  75,000

  3

  8

  4

  4

  2

  3

  1—

  85,000

  2

  7

  3

  3

  2

  2

  1—

  95,000

  6

  25

  15

  14

  8

  6

  1—

  Estimated number of people with some self employment income by taxpayer's marginal rate, 2000–01

  Thousands

  Age (lower limit)

  Marginal rate

  18

  36

  46

  51

  56

  61

  74

  Starting rate2

  79

  70

  40

  40

  30

  30

  1—

  Savers rate3

  1—

  7

  1—

  8

  8

  12

  1—

  Basic rate4

  517

  555

  265

  289

  210

  218

  1—

  Higher rate5

  60

  135

  75

  68

  43

  49

  1—

  1 These cells have insufficient numbers in the sample to provide a reliable estimate.

  2 Taxpayers with a marginal rate at the 10 per cent. starting rate from an extra £1 of earnings

  3 Taxpayers with a marginal rate at the 20 per cent. lower rate for savings income or the 10 per cent. ordinary dividend rate from an extra £1 of earnings

  4 Taxpayers with a marginal rate at the 22 per cent. basic rate from an extra £1 of earnings

  5 Taxpayers with taxable income above the higher rate threshold.

  Estimated number of taxpayers by range of earnings and age, 2000–01

  Thousands

  Age (lower limit)

  Earnings upper limit (£)

  18

  36

  46

  51

  56

  61

  74

  35,000

  270

  317

  164

  121

  66

  64

  11

  45,000

  96

  140

  70

  58

  32

  30

  5

  55,000

  51

  83

  42

  34

  19

  15

  3

  65,000

  25

  50

  28

  23

  12

  11

  1

  75,000

  13

  31

  16

  15

  7

  7

  1

  85,000

  9

  23

  10

  11

  5

  5

  1

  95,000

  38

  91

  47

  44

  23

  18

  2

  1016W

  Estimated number of taxpayers by range of earnings and age, 2001–02

  Thousands

  Age (lower limit)

  Earnings upper limit (£)

  18

  36

  46

  57

  56

  61

  74

  35,000

  315

  352

  179

  135

  70

  70

  12

  45,000

  111

  158

  83

  63

  37

  33

  5

  55,000

  57

  89

  43

  37

  22

  16

  3

  65,000

  30

  57

  30

  26

  12

  12

  1

  75,000

  16

  35

  19

  16

  9

  8

  1

  85,000

  9

  23

  11

  12

  5

  5

  1

  95,000

  42

  100

  51

  48

  25

  19

  2

  Income Tax (Young People)
  Lembit Öpik
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he plans to remove 16 and 17-year-olds from the income tax systems; and if he will make a statement. [18015]

  Dawn Primarolo
  We have no plans to remove 16 and 17-year-olds from the income tax system. However, if their income is below the personal allowance they will not pay tax.

  Benefits (Buckingham)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people received(a) tax credits and (b) means-tested benefits in the Buckingham constituency in each year since April 1997. [17848]

  Dawn Primarolo
  For figures back to 1998 I refer the hon. Member to the earlier reply by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 19 November 2001,Official Report, column 153W. I understand from the Department for Work and Pensions that the equivalent figures for Buckingham for May 1997 were:

  Recipients of (a) tax credits and (b) certain income related benefits in the Buckingham constituency

  May 1997

  Number

  Income support

  2,100

  Jobseeker's allowance (income based)

  1400

  Family credit

  1300

  Disability working allowance

  10

  Total

  2,800

  1 Sampling error is particularly high for these figures, and they should be treated as a rough guide only

  Notes:

  1. Apart from DWA, the figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample. They are subject to sampling error and therefore shown to the nearest hundred

  2. Recipients of FC or DWA who also receive IS or JSA are included only in the income support and jobseeker's allowance figures. This eliminates double counting in the total

  3. DWA figures are for April

  Sources:

  Income Support Quarterly Statistical Enquiry May 1997

  Jobseeker's Allowance Quarterly Statistical Enquiry May 1997 Family Credit Quarterly Statistical Enquiry May 1997

  Disability Working Allowance Quarterly Statistical Enquiry April 1997

  There were 6,340 recipients of housing benefit and 7,470 recipients of council tax benefit in the Aylesbury Vale district council area at May 1997.

  Brazilian Mahogany
  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his policy is on the seizure by Customs and Excise of Brazilian mahogany and mahogany products shipped to UK ports. [17836]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Where Brazilian mahogany is subject to control under Council Regulation 338/97 on the protection of species of wild fauna and flora, and the necessary documentation is not presented to Customs at importation, then Customs would normally seize the consignment.

  Impounded Vehicles
  Mr. Heath
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 14 November 2001,Official Report, column 766W, on impounded vehicles, what are the security reasons which prevent the geographical locations of such sites from being published; which officials are responsible for making this decision; and if he will make a statement. [18211]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The geographical location of storage sites for seized goods, including vehicles, is not published in order to reduce the risk of criminal attempts of theft and damage. In the recent past a vehicle with satellite tracking was deliberately burned and attempts to remove vehicles or parts of vehicles by allegedly armed men have been reported.

  The decision not to publish the details of storage sites has been taken by the contract managers in consultation with Customs security officers.

  Mr. Heath
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 14 November 2001,Official Report, column 766W, on impounded vehicles, with which bodies Customs and Excise has made contract arrangements to supply storage facilities; when each contract arrangement was made; what the value is of each contract; and if he will make a statement. [18210]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The contract for the haulage and storage of excise goods and vehicles used to smuggle was signed with P&O Trans European Ltd. in 1996 for three years and renewed for a further two years in 1999. It is not possible to identify the value of this contract in relation to vehicle storage alone.

  Departmental Bodies and Reviews
  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what(a) task forces and (b) policy reviews with external members have been established by his Department since January 2000; and what (i) sub-groups, (ii) working parties and (iii) other subsidiary committees were established by each body. [18159]

  Ruth Kelly
  Information about task forces, annual reports and ad hoc advisory groups is set out in an annual report, published by the Cabinet Office. Copies of the annual report on task forces and similar bodies have been placed in the Library of the House and the annual report is being made available on the Cabinet Office's website.

  Information about sub-groups, working parties and other subsidiary committees established by each body is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
  1018W
  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the date of establishment was for all task forces and policy reviews with external members established by his Department since January 2000; which of them have issued their final reports and what the dates of publication were; which of them have been terminated and what the dates of termination were; and for those bodies still in existence, what their expected(a) reporting and (b) termination dates are. [18156]

  Ruth Kelly
  Information about task forces, annual reports and ad hoc advisory groups is set out in an annual report, published by the Cabinet Office. Copies of the annual report on task forces and similar bodies have been placed in the Library of the House and the annual report is being made available on the Cabinet Office's website.

  Foot and Mouth
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the outstanding balance is of(a) income tax and (b) national insurance that has been deferred as a result of foot and mouth disease in (i) Dumfries and Galloway, (ii) Scotland and (iii) the United Kingdom. [17390]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 23 November 2001]: Between 21 March 2001 and 18 November 2001 the amount of tax and national insurance contributions deferred as a result of foot and mouth disease totalled £108.12 million.

  We do not have specific figures for Dumfries and Galloway but out of the total amount of tax and MC deferred, £11.56 million relates to Scotland and £96.56 million to the rest of the UK.

  We do not yet have enough information to give a reliable figure of the net current balance outstanding.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Rural Affairs
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 320W, on rural parishes, if she will list those parishes deemed to be (a) vibrant, (b) active, (c) barely active and (d) sleeping. [18779]

  Alun Michael
  A list of parishes (just over 6,000) deemed to be(a) vibrant, (b) active, (c) barely active, (d) sleeping will be made available in the Library of the House. This is based on information collated from parish clerks through the Countryside Agency's Rural Services Survey.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 319W, on the rural White Paper, if she will list the measures she will be using to determine the indicator. [18780]
  1019W
  Alun Michael
  I refer to my answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 319W. The research will review existing baseline and trend data to give an assessment of their suitability for use in compiling an indicator. Data sources to be considered include: Agricultural Census; National Inventory of Woodland and Trees; Countryside Survey 2000: Land Use Change Statistics; cultural heritage monuments, buildings and field patterns; perceptual and aesthetic characteristics such as tranquillity and noise mapping. At this stage in the research it is not possible to say which measures will eventually be used to determine the indicator.

  Business Start-ups
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 321W, what work (a) has previously been done and (b) is being done to measure information on business start-ups. [18675]

  Alun Michael
  The Countryside Agency has adopted an indicator on business health. This necessitates the collection of a range of business data including business registrations and de-registrations (business registrations only include those businesses above the VAT threshold). The Countryside Agency use the number of business registrations as a proxy indicator of total business start-ups. However, in their 2001 State of the Countryside report they presented data from the Office for National Statistics on the total number of businesses, proportion of business by employee sizeband and VAT registrations and de-registrations.

  The Countryside Agency are working with the Office for National Statistics to procure accurate and up-to-date information from the Inter-Departmental Business Register for 2001. In addition they are working with the Small Business Service in looking at the broader picture of "business health" in England, in particular those businesses beneath the VAT threshold. For the 2002 State of the Countryside Report they will again publish data for rural areas on business start-ups as measured by registration and de-registration to give an accurate picture of business activity in the Countryside. This may be supplemented by data collected from a local research project.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 327W, how much of the £92 million outlined in the Rural White Paper for the Rural Bus Challenge and Rural Transport Partnership programme was spent in (a) 2000–01 and (b) 2001–02; and how much each individual initiative has received. [18782]

  Alun Michael
  A total of £21 million was allocated to new Rural Bus Challenge projects in 2000–01, spending over a number of financial years. Expenditure in that year on all Challenge projects, including those begun in previous years, was £11 million. There is £20 million available for awards in this year's Rural Bus Challenge competition, decisions on which will be announced shortly. Forecast expenditure in the current year on all projects is £23 million.
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  The Countryside Agency's Rural Transport Partnership Programme spent £4.8 million in 2000–01. For this financial year, formal grant offers total £7.1 million to date, of which £2.9 million has been spent.

  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 321W, on rural employment, if she will list the jobs by (a) category and (b) proportion that people have done in rural areas in (i) 1996, (ii) 1997, (iii) 1998, (iv) 1999, (v) 2000 and (vi) 2001. [18783]

  Alun Michael
  The table lists rural employment by category and the percentage of people employed.

  Percentage

  1996

  1997

  1998

  Energy and Water

  1.0

  1.0

  0.4

  Manufacturing

  20.3

  20.0

  20.3

  Construction

  4.2

  5.0

  5.5

  Distribution, Hotels and Restaurants

  24.8

  24.4

  25.1

  Transport and Communications

  5.3

  5.1

  5.0

  Banking, Finance, Insurance etc.

  13.9

  14.6

  14.5

  Public Administration, Education and Health

  25.2

  24.4

  24.5

  Other services

  4.7

  4.7

  4.5

  Source:

  ONS Annual Employment Service

  Information for 1999, 2000 and 2001 is not currently available but I undertake to write to the hon. Gentleman with this information as soon as it is to hand.

  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 322W, on civic amenities, how many (a) food shops, (b) post offices, (c) cash points, (d) primary schools and (e) GP surgeries within 4km of rural households (i) opened and (ii) closed in 2000. [18777]

  Alun Michael
  The Countryside Agency's Rural Services Survey in 2000 researched the geographical availability of a range of services. This was the first year that a survey of this type had been undertaken at the household level across rural England. Full postcoded lists of services were used in the survey to calculate their availability to rural households within specified distances. The survey provides information on services available at a point in time. Future surveys will therefore provide a comparison with the base figures rather than reflecting the number of the openings and closings of services.

  Market Towns
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2001,Official Report, column 322W, on market towns, what has been the progress of the Countryside Research Project to assess the health and viability of market towns; and if she will make a statement on the different economic and social indicators that are being considered. [18778]
  1021W
  Alun Michael
  The Research Project was let in January 2001 and progress to date has been towards a methodological approach to developing a national headline indicator. The broad scope of the work has been to focus on the key influencing attributes of market towns including: size and spacing of market towns; urban/rural shift of economic activity; the economic base of market towns; and the clustering of economic activity. In addition, considerable work has gone into examining market towns in relation to the Index of Deprivation 2000.

  Countryside Stewardship Scheme
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will take into account the financial situation of rural enterprises in setting target dates for payments under the countryside stewardship scheme at the end of this year. [16147]

  Alun Michael
  In recognition of the problems experienced by farmers hard hit by foot and mouth disease, we have specifically extended the deadline for the receipt of countryside stewardship scheme claims to 31 December, to allow more time for completion of claim forms. We are currently processing the claims so far received as quickly as available resources permit, to ensure payments are made as soon as practicable. Our published aim is to pay claims within two months of receipt.

  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she will announce the target date for the payment of amounts under the countryside stewardship scheme at the end of this calendar year. [16146]

  Alun Michael
  Our published aim for the payment of claims under the countryside stewardship schemes is two months from the date of receipt.

  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has had regarding timely payment of amounts under the countryside stewardship scheme; and if she will make a statement. [16145]

  Alun Michael
  I have received no recent representations on this subject. Claims for this year's payments under the countryside stewardship scheme were invited from 1 October onwards. Our published aim is to make payments within two months of receipt and the Department is currently working hard to achieve this.

  Foxes
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the size of the fox population in England(a) at the latest available date and (b) in November 2000. [15830]

  Alun Michael
  There is no information collected centrally which could provide the basis for an answer to this question.

  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what assessment she has made of the impact on fox populations of the existence of artificial earths; [17967]
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  (2) what assessment she has made of the consequences for the level of the fox population of the temporary suspension of hunting. [17968]

  Alun Michael
  [holding answer 26 November 2001]: There is no information collected centrally which could provide the basis for an answer to these questions.

  Agricultural Development Scheme
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she will announce the outcome of bids for funding under round three of the Agricultural Development Scheme. [18873]

  Margaret Beckett
  Our aim is to announce the outcome in late January 2002.

  Pitsea Tip
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what poisonous substances have been deposited at Pitsea tip; over what period; and from which source. [3891]

  Mr. Meacher
  Waste has been deposited at Pitsea landfill site at least since 1935 and since that time it is estimated some 30 million tonnes of waste have been deposited from a range of sources.

  Between 1967 and 1994, there were requirements to submit records of the waste deposited at the site under various waste and planning controls. This information was collected by the relevant local authorities at the time. Some of these records were passed to the Environment Agency, though full records do not exist for the complete period that the landfill site operated.

  The situation changed in 1994. Under paragraph 14 of Schedule 4 to the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994, operators are required to keep a record of the quantity, nature and origin of the waste disposed of at each site; and to make that information available, on request, to the Environment Agency. However, the agency must act reasonably in its use of this power. The agency would be open to legal challenge in the event of unreasonably seeking detailed information on all the substances, and the source of those substances, disposed of at the Pitsea landfill site since 1994. Nevertheless the detailed licence for the site which specifies the quantities and types of waste able to be deposited at Pitsea is available for inspection at the local Environment Agency office. The following is an extract from the licence which details the general limits on the amount of waste able to be deposited at the site.

  Extract from licence
  Condition 2

  (i) A maximum amount of 200,000 tonnes of commercial and industrial waste in liquid form, of which not more than 175,000 tonnes shall be hazardous, shall be deposited annually

  (ii) not more than 37,000 tonnes of hazardous industrial waste in solid form, other than solid land clearance waste shall be deposited annually

  (iii) not more than 60,000 tonnes of solid, hazardous waste, land clearance waste shall he deposited annually

  (iv) not more than 5,000 tonnes in liquid form and 1,000 in solid form shall be of high hazard category

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  Condition 77
  Notwithstanding the quantities of liquid waste permitted for disposal by condition 2, no more than 119,500 tonnes of liquid waste shall he deposited directly to landfill during the year ending 1 April 1992 and this volume shall be reduced in each successive year by at least 12,500 tonnes so that by the end of the year ending 31 March 1997, no more than 60,000 tonnes are disposed of by direct landfill.

  Genetically Modified Fish
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the Food and Agriculture Organisation's recent paper, "State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture", concerning genetic modification of aquatic species and their potential to increase the quantity and quality of aquaculture products. [6640]

  Mr. Meacher
  The paper published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2000 recognises the potential for genetic modification to increase the quantity and quality of aquaculture products. It goes on to consider the areas of concern with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). These include possible adverse side effects on human health and the environment, trade impacts, intellectual property rights, labelling and ethics. It outlines possible solutions including the adoption of suitable legislation, codes of conduct or guidelines, and possible technical answers. The paper says that solutions will come only from addressing all sides of this complex issue. It also notes that technically there must be good scientific support with adequate testing and monitoring to reduce the uncertainties of environmental impact.

  The Government note the potential of genetic modification but at this stage of development GM technology has yet to demonstrate any proven benefits in relation to aquaculture. It is feasible that the technology could be used to increase yields from fish farms or make farmed fish easier or cheaper to produce, but this is unlikely in the short term. There have been no environmental releases of GM fish in the UK and none is expected to be proposed in the foreseeable future.

  However, the Government keep an open mind on this while making sure that suitable safety controls are in place to ensure protection for human health and the environment.

  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she takes to ensure genetically modified salmon cannot escape from confinement into the wild. [18366]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: There are currently no GM salmon in this country therefore the situation does not arise. The Government's policy on containment of GM fish was outlined in the answers given to the hon. Member on 19 November 2001, Official Report, columns 78–79W, and on 20 November 2001, Official Report, column 198W.

  Sustainable Development
  Mr. Lazarowicz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what discussions she has had with the Scottish Minister regarding Scotland's contribution to United Kingdom targets on sustainable development. [13147]
  1024W
  Mr. Meacher
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not met Scottish Ministers specifically to discuss these matters, although the Department works closely with the Scottish Executive on sustainable development issues. Scotland's contribution is reflected as appropriate in the UK Government's annual reports on our Sustainable Development Strategy, copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  Rural Ministers
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps the Government are taking to introduce the concept of Rural Ministers in different Government Departments. [14529]

  Alun Michael
  The Government consider it important that all Ministers in Home Departments are alert to the implications of their policies and programmes for people living in rural areas rather than introducing such a specific designation. The Department and I, assisted by the Countryside Agency, ensure that all major policies are assessed for their rural impact through the "rural-proofing" process described in "Our Countryside: the future" (Cmnd 4909). The Cabinet Sub-committee on Rural Renewal, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and on which relevant Departments are represented, will oversee the effectiveness of the "rural-proofing" process.

  Departmental Targets
  Mr. Keith Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what her Department's latest annual efficiency target is; and if it has been achieved. [15362]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: DEFRA's public service agreement target on efficiency is to achieve a reduction of 10 per cent. in the unit cost of administering CAP payments by March 2004, and 95 per cent. electronic service delivery capability for such payments by March 2004. We are currently on track to meet this commitment by December 2004 and the recent creation of the Rural Payments Agency will play a crucial part in delivering this.

  DEFRA is committed to establishing a strong efficiency programme, based on robust measurement. As part of this programme, we are developing efficiency measures covering all aspects of the Department.

  Beef
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has made to(a) her French counterpart and (b) the European Commission regarding proposals to ban beef imports into France during November. [15521]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: The European Commission are looking into the agreement on supporting the beef market in France reached by the French industry to determine whether it contravenes Community rules. A number of other member states have expressed concern at the implications of the agreement for imports into France. The UK is not directly affected since France has not implemented the European

  1025W
  Community Decision to allow exports of British beef under the Date Based Export Scheme. The judgment of the European Court of Justice on this is expected shortly.

  Dry Stone Walls
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to extend additional protection to dry stone walls. [15516]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: We are considering representations that we have received on this subject. However, the primary legislation which provides the enabling powers for the Hedgerow Regulations does not provide powers to protect dry stone walls. The Department supports maintenance and restoration of dry stone walls through agri-environment schemes which are being significantly expanded under the England Rural Development Programme. The results of Countryside Survey 2000 suggested that net losses of walls had been halted by 1998.

  Biodiesel Technology
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures she is taking to support the development of biodiesel technology; and if she will make a statement. [15505]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: Following the Green Fuels Challenge a new duty rate for biodiesel, 20 pence per litre below the rate for Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel, is to be introduced in Budget 2002. Any additional measures to develop biodiesel must be based on sound evidence and this Department has recently commissioned a six-month study, on behalf of the Government-Industry Forum on non-food uses of crops, to evaluate the comparative energy, environmental and socio-economic costs and benefits of biodiesel production in the UK. The study will compare results with those for other relevant green fuels and relevant energy saving measures, and will inform the future development of policy.

  Energy Crops
  Mr. Swire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what percentage of the money announced by the Government in October 2000 to promote the growth of energy crops has already been applied for; and if she will make a statement. [17277]

  Mr. Morley
  Our Energy Crops Scheme, part of the England Rural Development Programme, makes £29 million of assistance available to farmers. Applications which have been agreed or are being assessed total about 2 per cent. of this. This includes establishment grants for short rotation coppice and miscanthus and funding to set up a producer group for SRC growers. The low level of expenditure reflects slower than expected progress with biomass-fuelled projects. The Government have now allocated over £70 million of funding for market development and we are working closely with Government Departments and other bodies to develop opportunities in power generation, combined heat and power and heat applications. We expect this to lead to a significant increase in uptake.

  River Thames (Adjacent Land)
  Mr. Edward Davey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will outline the policy of the Environment Agency with regard to(a) the provision of car parking on (i) land immediately adjacent to the river Thames and (ii) its own land immediately adjacent to the river Thames and (b) the leasing of its own land immediately adjacent to the river Thames. [17214]

  Mr. Meacher
  Local authorities are responsible for development control and policy related to car parking in their areas. In cases of new development, the Environment Agency, as a statutory consultee, has an opportunity to encourage best practice in environmental design. This includes proposals on land adjacent to the river Thames.

  When considering a planning application, the agency would normally request a number of planning conditions, such as the retention of a buffer zone to allow access to flood defences for maintenance and inspection; the provision of public access rights to the riverside; and prevention of encroachment of the development on to the tidal foreshore.

  These standards apply equally to development by the agency on its own land, including that adjacent to the Thames.

  In cases of land leased by the agency to a third party, subject to the terms of the contract, use of the site would be a matter between the third party and the local planning authority. The agency would, if a planning application were made, be a statutory consultee in the normal way.

  Animal Experiments
  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) how many animals have been used in live experiments tests within the EU in the last year; and how many have been used in the United Kingdom; [17815]

  (2) how many animals are held in Government laboratories for live testing purposes. [17816]

  Angela Eagle
  I have been asked to reply.

  The latest years for which we have information for the European Union as a whole are 1996–97, when the number of animals used in experiments was 11,646,000.

  The latest year for which figures are available for the United Kingdom is 2000, when the number of animals involved in scientific procedures started in Great Britain was 2,643,000, with a further 14,100 in Northern Ireland. 83 per cent. of the animals used were rats, mice and other rodent species. Dogs, cats, horses and non-human primates, which are accorded special protection by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, were collectively used in under one per cent. of the procedures.

  Information regarding the number of animals used for toxicological purposes is provided in Table 10a of the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2000. This is broken down by species of animal, but not by type of establishment.
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  The Home Office does not collect information relating to the number of animals held in Government laboratories or other establishments designated under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will publish the EU proposals for laboratory testing of household chemicals on animals. [17778]

  Mr. Meacher
  The European Commission published a White Paper on 27 February 2001 setting out the strategy for a future Community Policy for chemicals with the overall objective of ensuring a high level of protection for human health and the environment. A copy of the White Paper has been deposited in the Library of the House. Environment Ministers from all member states called on the European Commission to present, by the end of 2001, its main proposals for a simple, clear and transparent regulatory framework to implement the strategy while limiting the need for animal testing.

  Sheep/Lamb Producers (Returns)
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will calculate the average annual return for individual sheep and lamb producers in the UK in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available. [18205]

  Mr. Morley
  Estimates of the average annual return are given in the table. They are calculated as the total annual value of production of sheep and sheepmeat (including subsidies), divided by the number of farms with sheep and lambs at the June agricultural census.

  Average annual return for UK sheep and lamb producers

  Value of production of which: subsidies

  Number of farms with sheep and lambs at June

  Average annual return per producer

  Year

  £ million

  £ million

  (Thousand1)

  (£2)

  1991

  1,138

  598

  96.1

  11,800

  1992

  1,159

  522

  96.2

  12,000

  1993

  1,245

  498

  95.6

  13,000

  1994

  1,235

  448

  94.4

  13,100

  1995

  1,334

  536

  89.9

  14,800

  1996

  1,295

  384

  88.2

  14,700

  1997

  1,194

  354

  87.1

  13,700

  1998

  1,130

  479

  86.8

  13,000

  1999

  1,001

  408

  86.3

  11,600

  20003

  982

  349

  82.2

  11,900

  1 Main holdings only

  2 Rounded to nearest hundred

  3 Provisional

  Note:

  Prepared by: Statistics (Commodities and Food) Division, Economics and Statistics Directorate, DEFRA

  National Parks Task Force
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who the members of the task force on national parks are; on what occasions Ministers have met the task force; and how many times the task force has met. [18044]

  Alun Michael
  There is no task force on national parks of which I am aware. A review of National Park Authorities in England is currently being undertaken by Richard Pullen, an official in DEFRA's Countryside 1028W
  Division. Following a three month public consultation period, which closed on 2 November, DEFRA officials are now visiting each English national park to discuss issues with National Park Authority members and stakeholders. This will lead to further discussion with Ministers about the findings of the review in the new year.

  Waste
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the comparative position of the United Kingdom in relation to each other EU country regarding progress towards meeting the requirements of the Landfill Directive. [17634]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 23 November 2001]: The Landfill Directive was due to be transposed into domestic law by 16 July 2001. Consultation on a set of draft Regulations to implement the technical and regulatory requirements of the Landfill Directive in England and Wales closed on 26 October 2001. The Government will be laying regulations before Parliament shortly. In advance of the regulations coming into effect the Environment Agency is using its existing powers under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Pollution and Prevention and Control Regulations 2000 to apply the Directive's requirements to any permits issued in the interim.

  We have also consulted on a tradeable landfill permit scheme to implement the targets in Article 5 of the Directive for the diversion of biodegradable municipal waste from landfill and will bring forward primary legislation to introduce such a scheme as soon as parliamentary time permits.

  Enforcement of Directives is a matter for the European Commission and any infraction proceedings for not implementing the Directive fully or on time would be between the member state concerned and the Commission.

  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to develop central monitoring of the amount of waste collected for recycling which ends up in landfill sites. [17636]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 23 November 2001 In theory all material collected for recycling should be recycled, but inevitably there will be losses. Some mixed material may be lost in the sorting process (for example at Material Reclamation Facilities). Material may also be rejected due to contamination, or sent for disposal due to the lack of a suitable market for the recycled material.

  There are no current plans to centrally monitor the amount of waste collected for recycling which ends up in landfill. However, in the case of local authorities, we are looking at the way we measure household recycling rates in the Municipal Waste Management Survey to try to ensure that the rates reflect material that was both collected for recycling and actually sent for recycling. In the current 2000–01 survey we are asking for the percentage of materials collected for recycling and composting which were rejected at Material Reclamation Facilities. To ensure that such losses are minimised it is important to support markets for recycled materials

  1029W
  through initiatives such as WRAP. It should also be noted that the best value statutory standards for household recycling rates are on the basis of material sent for recycling, not that which is collected.

  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures she is taking to enable each local authority to provide doorstep collection of recyclable waste. [17639]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 23 November 2001]: It is a matter for local authorities to decide how best to meet their Statutory Performance Targets on recycling. To enable them to meet the challenging Statutory Performance Standards for recycling, we are however, providing major extra funding. By 2003–04 revenue support in the relevant Standard Spending Assessment area will have risen £1.1 billion over 2000–01 provision. Spending Review 2000 also provides £220 million for PFI waste schemes over the spending review period and a £140 million ring-fenced fund for waste and recycling. £50 million of New Opportunities Fund moneys will also be available over the next two years to support community sector work on recycling work in the UK.

  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to encourage a reduction in non-domestic waste. [17637]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 23 November 2001]: Our record on managing industrial and commercial waste is already better than on domestic waste. Nevertheless in order to encourage businesses further to reduce waste and to put to better use any waste that is produced the Government in Waste Strategy 2000 have set the target to reduce by 2005 the amount of industrial and commercial waste sent to landfill to 85 per cent. of that landfilled in 1998.

  There are initiatives already in place to help industry. The Envirowise Programme aims to demonstrate the benefits of managing resource use and reducing the environmental impact to companies across the whole of the UK.

  The programme encourages the establishment of waste minimisation clubs. The clubs offer a means by which businesses can make environmental improvements.

  The Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control regime will also have a role to play. Those regulated under the regime will be required to abide by the general principle that waste production should be avoided and that where waste is produced it should be recovered unless technically and economically impossible.

  Departmental Strikes
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many working days have been lost through strikes by departmental staff since 1 June; and if she will make a statement. [17635]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 23 November 2001]: Between 1 June and 21 November a total of 14,230 working days was lost due to strike action by
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  departmental staff who are members of the Public and Commercial Services Union. Our aim is to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible.

  Home Energy Efficiency Scheme
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures are being taken to ensure that(a) Eaga Partnership Ltd. and (b) Eastern HEES Ltd. monitor the independent installers employed in relation to the home energy efficiency scheme. [16122]

  Mr. Watts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps her Department is taking to monitor the performance of the contractors and management of the Government's energy efficiency scheme. [18385]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 19 November 2001]: The Home Energy Efficiency Scheme managers are responsible for appointing and managing contractors to carry out the installation of heating and insulation measures in homes. This includes checking that installers are able to meet the technical and quality requirements of the scheme, as well as the price tendered. Once appointed, both scheme managers continue to check the quality of work through physical inspections of all central heating, and a proportion of insulation installations.

  The results of this monitoring are provided to my Department within the regular reports produced by the scheme managers. In addition an independent quality assurance contractor is employed by my Department to inspect and advise on the systems used by the scheme managers, including those relating to contractor management.

  Radon Emissions
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many residential dwellings have been tested for radon emissions since 1988 in(a) Devon and (b) England and Wales; and what percentage of the dwellings tested were owned (i) privately and (ii) by the local authority or housing associations. [18357]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Recorded in the table is the number of residential dwellings that have been tested for radon emissions since 1988 in (a) Devon and (b) England and Wales; and the percentage of dwellings that were owned (i) privately and (ii) rented. The rented accommodation includes property that is owned by local authorities, housing associations, and the private rented sector. Records held centrally do not allow differentiation between the various types of public and private tenancy.

  Parameter

  Devon1

  England and Wales1

  Number of dwellings tested since 1988

  80,000

  400,000

  Percentage of privately owned dwellings

  85

  81

  Percentage of local authority and housing association owned dwellings and other tenanted dwellings2

  10

  15

  Percentage of unknown tenure3

  5

  4

  1 Numerical values are rounded

  2 As recorded by the occupier at the time of measurement

  3 he occupier did not state the type of tenure

  Fresh Water Supply
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the adequacy of the fresh water supply available to the UK. [16981]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The Natural Environment Research Council's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology produces monthly summaries of hydrological conditions across the UK. The latest summary indicates that groundwater resources are very healthy, and that reservoir stocks have recently increased, now being above average for this time of year.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs where are the UK's main water sources; and what plans there are to create desalination plants. [16982]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: The principal sources from which water is abstracted in the UK are surface waters (rivers and reservoirs) and groundwater (eg chalk aquifers). The main source in any given area depends on its geology though water resources can be, and are, transferred from one region to another where it is necessary to do so. Desalination is not seen as a necessary option in terms of public water supply at the present time.

  Incinerator Ash (Dioxins)
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if she will make a statement on the quality of the Environment Agency's methods of testing incinerated material for dioxins; [18545]

  (2) if she will publish the latest assessment of the level of dioxins in ash produced by each of the large scale municipal incineration plants; [18547]

  (3) if she will make a statement on the toxicity of ash at large-scale municipal incineration plants. [18544]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 27 November 2001]: Under the current IPC (integrated pollution control) authorisations, the Environment Agency requires all municipal waste incinerators to regularly analyse bottom ash and air pollution control residues for dioxins, carbon and a variety of metals.

  These results are placed on the public register. I have asked the Environment Agency to provide the hon. Member with a summary of the recent results, and will place copies in the Library of the House. I understand latest results show the level of dioxins in bottom ash to be similar to those found in soils.

  I am confident that the Environment Agency has the appropriate technical expertise to carry out accurate and repeatable dioxin analysis of incinerated material. The agency has its own accredited laboratory for dioxin analysis. Nevertheless, current analysis of the dioxin levels in incinerator residues involves the incinerator operators and the Environment Agency employing a standard sampling protocol but with analysis by a number of different laboratories approved by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. One of the aims of this ongoing work is to confirm the accuracy and repeatability of the techniques employed.

  Departmental Expenditure Limits
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to change the(a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) administration costs limits for 2001–02. [19797]

  Margaret Beckett
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DEL will be increased by £857,992,000 from £1,732,782,000 to £2,590,774,000 and the administration costs limit will be increased by £46,250,000 from £457,399,000 to £503,649,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital is set out in the following table:

  Resources

  Capital

  Change

  563,514

  294,478

  New DEL

  2,084,642

  506,132

  of which:

  Voted

  1,365,254

  429,069

  Non-voted

  719,388

  77,063

  Start figures1

  Summer DEL

  1,521,128

  211,654

  of which:

  Voted

  1,054,667

  174,349

  Non-voted

  466,461

  37,305

  1 From summer supp.

  The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from: (i) a take-up of £57,933,000 under the End-Year Flexibility rules, (ii) £9,000 from the Evidence Based Policy Fund within the Capital Modernisation Fund, (iii) a transfer of £510,555,000 from DTLR following the formation of DEFRA, (iv) a transfer of £610,000 from the Home Office following the formation of DEFRA, (v) a transfer of £177,000 from the Privy Council Office for the Secretary of State's accommodation costs, (vi) a transfer of £100,000 from the Department of Health for the Rural Stress Action Group, (vii) a transfer of £3,200,000 from DTLR for the Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme, (viii) a transfer of £20,000 from DTLR for local public service agreements, (ix) a transfer of £4,394,000 to the Cabinet Office for staff transferred to governmental organisations, (x) a transfer of £1,000,000 to Department of Health for research on transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, (xi) a transfer of £929,000 to the Scottish Executive for the Pig Industry Restructuring Scheme, (xii) a transfer of £967,000 to the Home Office for the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme and, (xiii) a transfer of £1,800,000 to the Scottish Executive for the Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme.

  The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from (i) a take-up of £72,519,000 under the End-Year Flexibility rules, (ii) a take-up of £237,000 under the Capital Modernisation Fund and, (iii) a take-up of £221,722,000 from DTLR following the formation of DEFRA. There will also be a transfer of £3,000,000 from non-voted supplementary credit approvals to voted capital.
  1033W
  Increases will be offset by inter-departmental transfers and charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  Global Warming
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on Government responsibilities on(a) global warming and (b) Kyoto. [15991]

  Mr. Meacher
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has lead responsibility for climate change (which includes both global warming and the Kyoto protocol). My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister also continues to play a role in international climate change discussions and negotiations on behalf of the Prime Minister.

  Carbon Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the impact of the moratorium on new gas-fired power stations on carbon dioxide emissions(a) to date and (b) over the next five years. [15504]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: The effect of the moratorium on present day emissions is likely to be small, given the time lags involved in constructing new plants. There could, in principle, be a small and temporary effect on emissions over the next few years. It is however difficult to make an estimate due to many other influences that could also affect new build decisions, for example, changes in energy prices, the New Electricity Trading Arrangements, and other Government policies on energy and the environment. We would expect any effect from the moratorium to have died away before the end of the decade.

  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the percentage of carbon dioxide emissions derived from(a) transport, (b) domestic sources and (c) industry in the last 12 months. [15506]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 16 November 2001]: The table shows carbon dioxide emissions recorded in the UK's greenhouse gas inventory from transport, the domestic sector and industry in 1999, which is the most recent year for which complete information is available. Industrial emissions are divided into manufacturing industry and energy industries. The latter include power stations and refineries, and produce the electricity, refined petroleum and other energy products used elsewhere in the economy. Emissions from energy industries amounted to 48.8 million tonnes of carbon equivalent (MtC) in 1999, of which 5.2 MtC and 16.6 MtC were attributable to demand in the transport and domestic sectors. Emissions from fuels loaded in the UK and used by international aviation and shipping are not included in the UK's inventory under agreed reporting guidelines used by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. These emissions amounted to a further 8.7 MtC in 1999.
  1034W

  UK CO2 emissions from transport, the domestic sector and industry in 1999, expressed as percentage of total UK CO2 and as million tonnes carbon (MtC)

  Percentage of total UK emissions

  MtC

  Transport

  22

  33.2

  Domestic

  16

  23.3

  Manufacturing industry

  20.1

  30.1

  Energy industries

  32.7

  48.8

  Greenhouse Gases
  Dr. Ladyman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on current station lifetime plans, what projections have been made of the production of greenhouse gases if electricity produced from nuclear power stations is replaced with electricity produced from gas-fired power stations. [17368]

  Mr. Meacher
  On central assumptions, electricity generation from UK nuclear power stations is projected to fall from 86 terawatt hours in 2005 to 27 terawatt hours in 2020, as existing power stations reach the end of their licensed lifetimes (see table). Were it physically possible to replace all nuclear capacity by gas-fired power stations similar to the type presently being installed by 2005, the related greenhouse gas emissions would be about 8.3 million tonnes of carbon per year in 2005, falling to 2.6 million tonnes of carbon by 2020. This includes the effect of carbon dioxide arising from combustion plus minor associated emissions of methane and nitrous oxide.

  2005

  2010

  2015

  2020

  Nuclear generation (TWh)

  86

  66

  40

  27

  Greenhouse gas emissions from fuel switching1

  8.3

  6.4

  3.9

  2.6

  1 Million tonnes of carbon equivalent

  Foot and Mouth
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reason her Department was not represented at the public inquiry into foot and mouth disease in Devon. [11737]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 1 November 2001]: DEFRA co-operated with the Devon county council inquiry.

  To minimise additional burdens on staff actively engaged in fighting the disease, the Department responded to a number of questions in writing.

  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what changes there were to the criteria for the payment of slaughter premium during the foot and mouth outbreak. [14000]

  Mr. Morley
  There were no changes to the criteria for the payment of slaughter premium during the foot and mouth outbreak.

  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on what basis slaughter premium is payable on cattle slaughtered as a result of foot and mouth disease. [13999]
  1035W
  Mr. Morley
  Slaughter premium is not payable on cattle slaughtered during the foot and mouth outbreak but if the market value for such animals would have been influenced by expectation of slaughter premium then the valuation for compensation should reflect this. Standard valuations, which operated between 22 March and 29 July, took account of slaughter premium.

  The Department will shortly be issuing clarification to interested parties.
  1036W
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to implement the recommendations of Professor Mercer's report into the foot and mouth crisis in Devon; and if she will make a statement. [11734]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 1 November 2001]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State, Lord Whitty on 31 October 2001, Official Report, House of Lords, columns 1416–17.

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

Russia: Nuclear Non-proliferation Programme
Lord Hunt of Chesterton Lord Hunt of Chesterton asked Her Majesty's Government:
How they are working with the Russian Government to ensure that Russian weapons and technical and scientific capabilities do not become available to international terrorist organisations and enemy countries.
The Minister for Trade (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, the Government have allocated an Interdepartmental budget of £83·8 million for the years 2001–04 to projects to tackle the environmental, security and proliferation threats posed by the former Soviet Union's nuclear legacy. That includes a proportion of a £70 million UK contribution over 10 years to a US/Russia plutonium disposal programme. We are also spending up to £12 million in the same period on chemical and biological non-proliferation projects in Russia.
The proliferation risk posed by Russian weapon scientists and technicians is also taken seriously by the Russian Government and the UK and we co-ordinate our response with that of Russian, EU and United States partners.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. Does she agree that, as I saw on a recent visit to Russia, compared to France, Germany and the United States, our support for Russian defence and other areas of science and technology is not as great as theirs, and that increasing that would be mutually beneficial to the UK and to Russia?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I cannot agree with that. I can agree possibly in relation to the United States, which is a much more wealthy country than the United Kingdom. However, I should tell the noble Lord that when I made reference to the £70 million contribution over a 10-year period to assist with the conversion of Russian weapon-grade plutonium into non-weapon usable form, the United Kingdom is the second largest contributor to that programme after the United States. We are making a greater contribution than either France or Germany. We are also committed to spending £3 million over the next three years on projects which are designed to ensure that nuclear scientists and technicians are not
292
tempted to sell their skills to foreign regimes where they might do some damage. In that respect we contribute more than either France or Germany.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, are the Government satisfied that the sums which they are making available are reaching their intended targets? At a briefing for parliamentarians last year given by the British Nuclear Forum, there was widespread criticism of the fact that relatively small parts of the total programme were reaching their intended purposes, as well as criticism of the falling United Kingdom contribution to this effort. Does the Minister accept that there is a good deal to he done if we are to be satisfied that these dangerous materials will not fall into the hands of terrorists?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I certainly accept that this is a serious problem. However, I would point out that among our European partners, the United Kingdom is not only playing its part; we are putting a great deal of money into the effort. There are responsibilities that devolve to Russia. The noble Lord will know that as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Zangger Committee, Russia is committed to ensuring that transfers of nuclear materials and technology do not fall into the wrong hands. We have regular bilateral talks with the Russians on non-proliferation issues and shall continue to do so.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House what arrangements there have been for inspecting sites such as those where chemical weapons are held to ensure that the money is being used for the purpose it was given? I have heard from an authoritative source that the roads have improved greatly in that area and that a number of interesting and splendid houses have been built for party functionaries. However, there is not much evidence that anyone has done anything about removing chemical weapons or, indeed, looking after the unfortunate villagers who have suffered. What arrangements are there for inspection to prove that the money is being spent in the right way?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, at present we are discussing a further agreement with the Russians in respect of the type of problems raised by the noble Baroness. Perhaps I may suggest to her that if she has evidence—I am sure she has if she says that—she approaches me privately outside the Chamber. I would be happy to learn of any concerns she has and to act upon them. However, it is probably best that we do that privately after Question Time.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether the United States programme, entitled Nunn-Lugar, is continuing? In particular, can she say whether some of the efforts being made between the United States and the United Kingdom to bring contracts to the Russian scientific establishment to ensure that it looks for respectable and non-dangerous employment are continuing?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the programmes I mentioned a moment ago, to which the United Kingdom contributes £3 million, involve also the European Union. As the noble Baroness indicated, there are also programmes which involve the United States. This is an area where constant vigilance is necessary. This matter would have been discussed between the United States and Russia—most recently between President Putin and President Bush—in discussions about their future nuclear relationship. They are now considering a new framework to discuss the particular threats of the 21st century. That is being done in the spirit of partners and friends, which is a constructive way to reach agreement. The noble Baroness can rest assured that in relation to scientists the United States is as engaged—probably rather more so in financial terms—as the United Kingdom.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House whether any of the missile grade material from Russia could be reprocessed at the new plant in Sellafield which has just been given permission to operate?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot answer that question, but I am sure that there are those who can. I shall do my best to find out and write to the noble Lord.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right that the Russians are well aware of the problem. Will she agree that her noble friend Lord Hunt has raised an issue of the utmost and immediate seriousness? In addition, there are as many as 12 states, quite aside from the terrorist networks, which are trying to purchase illegally procured nuclear and other toxic materials from ex-Soviet Union and ex-Russian stocks. Will she agree that that is a matter that is almost as urgent as dealing with the problems of the Al'Qaeda network in Afghanistan and elsewhere? Will she further agree that the great coalition should be turning its mind today to new attempts and new arrangements to try to curb the dissemination of that material before the next terrorist horror occurs?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I shall not confirm the number of states which may be trying to purchase material from Russia. As the noble Lord would expect, there is a certain amount of information on these matters in intelligence circles. I am sure that the noble Lord would not want to press me on numbers or the states involved.
I agree with the noble Lord that my noble friend has raised a very important point. I hope that the information that I have given to the House has reassured noble Lords that the United Kingdom is playing a leading part in Europe in dealing not only with the material that might be the subject of such purchases from states that we would not want to make such purchases, but also with the very important question of what happens to the professional expertise of the scientists. We need to concentrate on the people as well as on the material concerns.

Police Service of Northern Ireland
2.44 p.m.
Lord Rogan Lord Rogan asked Her Majesty's Government:
What conclusions they have drawn from the first recruitment campaign for the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, the first recruitment campaign for the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been an overwhelming success. It has attracted over 7,500 applicants and will enable the appointment of about 300 new recruits on a 50:50 basis. That exceptional level of interest has clearly shown that the people of Northern Ireland are eager for policing to move forward.
Lord Rogan: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his reply. But is he aware that my colleagues on these Benches and in another place have been inundated by complaints from people regarding the methods used in this recruitment process? Will he confirm that two recruits not treated as Roman Catholics under the terms of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 are to be told that they cannot begin training because two Roman Catholic recruits have since withdrawn? Will he accept that while my party supports the Government's goal of creating a police service in Northern Ireland more representative of the society as a whole, we can never accept their decision to resort to discriminatory practices—especially religious discrimination—in order to bring that about?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the quality of those who have applied has been gratifyingly high. They have to pass nine competency tests as opposed to six on the mainland. I do not know the details of particular individuals. It would probably be invidious to comment on them since those are essentially operational matters for the Chief Constable.
On the question of discrimination, the Patten report suggested—I am paraphrasing fairly I think—that in order to have a generally accepted police service one should look for a significantly higher number of recruits from the Roman Catholic community. That figure has risen quite slowly over the past years, from about 7.3 per cent to 8.4 per cent. I think that the majority of opinion would be looking for a significantly higher contribution from the Roman Catholic community.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, what progress has been made on the restoration of the rule of law with regard to punishment beatings and so forth in Northern Ireland?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, that is undoubtedly a continuing struggle. Everyone who has had any contact with the police service in Northern Ireland knows how dedicated it has been. But no police service can operate without the full-hearted support of

295
all sections of the community. That is part of the reason why we want the reforms to go forward as quickly and as fruitfully as possible.
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, while there will undoubtedly be one or two hiccups, the figures that he has just announced actually demonstrate a remarkably smooth transition and a working of the new recruitment policy? Does he further agree that it is particularly welcome to have the support of the SDLP and of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in encouraging members of the Catholic community to apply in such numbers?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord's question. With regard to his second point, it is an extremely significant step forward. I do not think that one can begin to underestimate the fact that the Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy and the SDLP have had the courage to take this very important public step. I pay particular tribute to the courage of those from the Roman Catholic community who will be in a very public front line. They know the dangers; they are willing to offer themselves for public service; and we should support them.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that not only should we be delighted that the Irish Government, the American Government, the Catholic Church and the SDLP have all given their support to these new proposals but also that the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland has led the way in getting the police to co-operate with the new system of policing? That is in the interest of all the people of Northern Ireland.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, Sir Ronnie Flanagan is another very remarkable public servant. He has had to demonstrate the force of the argument to a large number of his colleagues who have had colleagues murdered and who still work alongside those whose relatives have been murdered. These are all very significant steps. I repeat that we should welcome them with a full heart.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord tell us how many requests to transfer into the Northern Ireland police service have been received from other police services in the English-speaking world in the past year? Would not such transfers be very helpful in balancing the police in Northern Ireland?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I made inquiries about the figures, thinking that that question might be asked. In fact, I am not able to give specific figures because, until the final vetting stage, no inquiry is made about previous employment. That is appropriate. But I can say as a matter of fact that there have been applicants not only from the rest of the United Kingdom but from other Commonwealth countries. I agree with the noble Lord that that is extremely gratifying.
Lord Laird: My Lords, will the Minister give us an undertaking that all successful candidates in the first recruitment campaign for the police service have been able to fulfil all the minimum qualifications?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: Yes, my Lords.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that certain leading members of the new force feel that they are under-resourced in some areas? For example, they suggest that their information technology system is fragmented and needs updating. I do not expect my noble and learned friend to have the answer to my question now, but will he undertake to look into the matter?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, certainly. I do not know of any police force in the United Kingdom that does not have some complaint about under-resourcing, as I am sure Mr Blunkett would be the first to testify.

New Partnership for Africa's Development
2.51 p.m.
Lord Blaker Lord Blaker asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to carry forward the proposal made by the Prime Minister in his speech to the Labour Party Conference in October for a partnership for Africa between the developed and the developing world based on the New Africa Initiative.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Amos): My Lords, the Government have warmly welcomed the political will demonstrated by the New Partnership for Africa's Development. At the G8 summit in Genoa in July, leaders agreed to forge a new partnership to address issues crucial to African development. The G8 agreed to develop a concrete action to be approved at its summit in Canada next year. As the Prime Minister's personal representative, last month I participated in the first of a series of meetings to develop the plan.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, does the Minister recall that in a speech the Prime Minister held out a vision of a partnership to create an Africa that was democratic, and in which there was to be no excuse for abuses of human rights? He said that that could he achieved,
"if we find the will."
Where is the will in relation to Zimbabwe, the government of which are creating a humanitarian, political and economic ruin? If, as seems probable, the forthcoming elections in Zimbabwe are unfree and unfair, will that not leave an ugly stain on the Prime Minister's vision?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, we are committed to working with African partners on a new vision. The important thing about the New Partnership for Africa's Development is the commitment by African leaders themselves to tackle such issues and to demonstrate political will and leadership.
With respect to Zimbabwe, the noble Lord well knows, because I said this the last time that I was asked about Zimbabwe, that we have worked tirelessly to bring together an international consensus on Zimbabwe involving the Commonwealth, the Southern African Development Community, the European Union, the United States and other partners. The Government of Zimbabwe want to make the problem a bilateral one between Britain and Zimbabwe. It is not so. International concern has been expressed. We continue to press the Government of Zimbabwe to ensure that election observers are allowed into the country. IfZimbabwe does not do so, it appears that it will be breaking SADC rules and southern African heads of government will also have to deal with the problem.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, can the noble Baroness confirm whether or not the New Africa Initiative will mean that a larger percentage of UK bilateral aid to Africa will be directed to African governments and away from non-governmental organisations and charities that work in Africa?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Baroness may be aware that since 1997, we have increased our bilateral development spending in Africa from £450 million per year to £778 million in 2000–01. That is linked to our strong commitment to work towards the eradication of world poverty. With respect to the ways in which we deliver that spending, the noble Baroness will be aware that our commitment is to work with governments who are themselves committed to spending money on sectors such as health and education. We take a sector-wide approach, because we want to build capacity and ensure sustainability.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, we on these Benches congratulate the Minister on the New Africa Initiative. Will she tell us about controls over the movement of diamonds from Botswana, Sierra Leone and elsewhere within Africa, to ensure that they are now passing through proper, legal channels and benefiting the African producers?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that the Kimberley process has been in hand considering the exploitation of diamonds in the African context. We have an integrated approach, especially in considering conflict in Africa. We will continue that approach. The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that African countries have themselves identified as a priority dealing with conflict and the exploitation of resources in conflict situations.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there are some encouraging signs in
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Africa, especially in the development of the environment? Does she agree that Nigeria has played an important role, as have NGOs and the United Nations Environmental Programme?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I agree. The issue of sustainable development—in particular, protection of the environment—is an important element of the strategy.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords—
Lord Marsh: My Lords—
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, can the Minister envisage any circumstances in which the Government may take direct action to bring pressure to change Mr Mugabe's long-standing total contempt for the international community by his illegal actions?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord may be aware that last week, following our concern about journalists in Zimbabwe being identified as terrorists by President Mugabe, we sent a strong message to his government through our High Commissioner. We are working in a variety of ways through a variety of forums. Unilateral action by the United Kingdom in this area will be meaningless. We have sought to work in partnership not only with southern African and other African heads of state but with our Commonwealth and European Union partners, because this issue is international, not bilateral.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, have the Government taken note of the fact that almost daily there are bloody and wicked murders of innocent white farmers in Zimbabwe? Apart from the question of elections, what action has been taken to demonstrate to that government that the Government, as a member of the Commonwealth, regards that practice with abhorrence?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, not only have the Government taken note of that point, we have made strong representations on it.

SNCF Terminal Calais
2.59 p.m.
Lord Berkeley Lord Berkeley asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have discussed with the French Government the provision of a joint military force at the SNCF terminal in Calais to protect railway workers from attack and to enable rail freight services to restart.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, we are concerned about the situation, hut we think that effective civil rather than military action is required for us to improve physical security. We are pressing French authorities to act urgently.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. I have two questions to ask him. First, he has ruled out military involvement, but does he agree that last year, when the lorry drivers were blocking the fuel depots of this country, military involvement was certainly on the cards? The Government had a plan to implement that.
Secondly, does he agree that, if a government want to keep people out of their country, they build the fence and patrol it? In this case they have decided that the fence should be in Calais. However, does it not remain the responsibility of our Government to sort out the fence rather than, as I understand to be the case, the Prime Minister writing to Mr Jospin telling him that he should build the fence and that if he does not do so we shall fine his railway when it brings in illegal immigrants?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I shall not comment in detail on what may or may not have happened with the petrol crisis last year. However, there is a world of difference between considering military action in the UK and the deployment of British Armed Forces in another European country. As I suggested, the situation requires powerful and effective civil policing, backed up by effective security measures.
As regards the noble Lord's second point, the matter is for SNCF and the French authorities. Our police have no powers of trespass and arrest within French territory. We are co-operating with the French but are urging them to treat the issue with considerable importance and to take much speedier action.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, we should by now be seeing 10 million tonnes of freight go through the Channel Tunnel each year. We are at about 2.75 per cent and that is falling rapidly. There are two reasons for that: first, the inability of the Government to deal with SNCF, which is thoroughly inefficient; and, secondly, the inability of the Government to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants. When will we get some effective action on both issues?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, that question invites me to roll two large issues together—and as regards this problem they are rolled together to some extent. In relation to the SNCF issue, the Prime Minister wrote to Lionel Jospin on 16th November stating how seriously we considered the matter. Tomorrow there will he the UK summit between France and the United Kingdom when we expect the Prime Minister to raise the matter again with Lionel Jospin. On 3rd December there will be a meeting with the head of security of SNCF when we will again be pressing it to build the fence it has talked about since May in order to provide
300
effective security. Finally, the European Union wrote to France about the regulations relating to the free movement of goods and the infringement.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, is the Minister aware that United Kingdom operators are losing about £8 million a week as a result of the action that has been taken by SNCF? Will he give the House some information about the compensation which will be sought, and from whom, for those operators in future?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, no, I do not have the detailed figures relating to the potential amount of business that is being lost. However, we view the matter with considerable concern. Government policy is clearly to try to increase rail freight and to increase international rail freight. We would like to reach 6 per cent rather than the current figure which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned.
I shall look into the matter of compensation and come back to the noble Baroness. However, I imagine that the redress should be against a breach of contract by SNCF rather than the UK Government.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, although security at this point and elsewhere on the coast of France is important, is not the real answer to press ahead to reach agreement with our EU partners for a common asylum policy and for understandable policies relating to the economic migration into the countries of the European Community? Can my noble friend say what progress is being made on that?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, yes, I strongly agree. The Government's view is that the Dublin convention has not worked in the way we hoped and expected. We are pressing other European countries rapidly to bring the matter on to the agenda. There are initial discussions about that but we are still in the early stages. It is crucial that that convention is revised. In the mean time, in this situation we must rely on physical security measures and effective police action at the French end. Where that has been taken at Eurotunnel PLC and through the Channel ferries, it has been effective. We are now seeing displacement on to SNCF's site and if it had hardened that site when it said it intended to do so we would not be experiencing the scale of problem we are now seeing.

Business
3.4 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is being made in another place on benefits uprating.

State Pension Credit Bill [H.L.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision for and in connection with a new social security benefit called state pension credit and to amend Section 47(1) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Hollis of Heigham.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill
3.5 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Rooker): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Forfeiture of terrorist
cash]:
Lord Kingsland Lord Kingsland moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 9, leave out "a magistrates' court" and insert "the High Court"
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 1, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 2 and 16. As regards Amendment No. 3, having read Amendment No. 4 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, I do not intend to move my own.
The Committee stage of the Bill has followed Second Reading more swiftly than is customary. There may be occasions on which amendments are moved which bear no relation whatever to speeches made from the Opposition Front Bench. I simply beg the pardon of Members of the Committee if that happens.
As regards Amendment No. 1, under the powers set out in Schedule 1, a police officer can apply to the magistrates' court for restraint of cash which is expected to be associated with, or furthers, terrorist activities. The order is for a maximum of three months, extendable for two years. When the investigations are complete, an application can be made to the magistrates' court for forfeiture. There is a right of appeal of the forfeiture order to the Crown Court by any aggrieved person within 30 days.
We accept that that is a valuable weapon in our armoury to defeat terrorism because it is self-evident that, without funding, terrorism cannot flourish. We therefore support the extension of that power. However, a magistrates' court will be faced with difficult questions of fact and law in determining whether or not cash should be forfeited. Before making the forfeiture order, the magistrates will have to be satisfied that the cash was intended to be used for
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the purposes of terrorism, or consisted of resources of a proscribed organisation, or was or represented property obtained through terrorism. These issues of fact could be very complex, difficult to prove and hard to understand. Moreover, the law that applies to the proceedings would be essentially civil in nature rather than criminal. In our submission, a magistrates' court is not the right place to determine these issues.
We believe that the right court to determine these issues is the High Court. The High Court is, of course, a civil court and has the necessary expertise to deal with the difficult issues which could arise in any application for an order that cash he forfeited. A forfeiture order is a matter which should be dealt with by senior judges with many years' experience of financial litigation.
Applications for restraint orders are currently heard in the High Court. The Proceeds of Crime Bill would change the jurisdiction for restraint orders to the Crown Court. Lay benches and district judges, however, will have no experience of restraint orders which are complex matters of civil proprietorial rights. We submit that these complex, sensitive matters must be dealt with in the High Court. I have dealt with Amendments Nos. 1 and 16. I have surrendered Amendment No. 3 to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. I beg to move.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: In rising to support the noble Lord, perhaps I may also speak to Amendment No. 2. Since Committee stage follows closely on Second Reading and yesterday I said all that I wanted to say in relation to the difficulties that a magistrates' court will face in dealing with these problems, I shall not repeat myself. It is probable that those who drafted this legislation had in mind confiscation orders in drugs legislation where applications are made to magistrates' courts for the recovery of assets. That matter was considered by the Runciman report in 1994 which followed an independent inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Paragraph 53 of that report states:
"At present, except where a receiver is appointed by the High Court, the magistrates' courts are responsible for recovering the assets named in a confiscation order. They may find themselves called upon to enforce an order in an amount of several million pounds with a default term of up to 10 years. These are amounts and sentences wholly inconsistent with the maximum penalties that a magistrates' court can impose on conviction, and we doubt whether they are the appropriate jurisdiction for the task. We therefore recommend that the responsibility for enforcement should lie with the Crown Court not with the magistrates' courts".
The report made the strong recommendation that in relation to drugs legislation the magistrates' court was not the suitable venue.
Under the Bill this is a civil procedure which involves difficult areas of law. I believe that to require the High Court to intervene is to put it a little high. I do not believe that these are issues which should take up the valuable time of the High Court judiciary; instead, they should occupy the valuable time of the circuit judge of the county court who has complete expertise

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in civil matters and should be able to resolve these questions. That is why I have tabled Amendment No. 2.
Lord Renton: I rise to support Amendment No. 1 and with it Amendment No. 16. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that it would be better to give jurisdiction to the county court than the magistrates' court. But here we are breaking new ground in law in a very important and complex field. I would have thought that it was essentially a matter for the High Court. To allow the magistrates' court to decide the matter would be unusual. Magistrates' courts very rarely deal with civil matters. Although they deal with licences for intoxicating liquor, which can be described as civil proceedings, they are quite simple matters. To allow magistrates' courts to deal with civil proceedings in a new, complex and vital area of the kind referred to in the Bill, especially forfeiture of terrorist cash, would be unusual. I do not believe that it would have the confidence of the public. I am sure that my noble friends are right to suggest that the High Court should have jurisdiction.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said that he would not move Amendment No. 3, but I should like to speak to it since my name appears next to the amendment. This is one of a number of amendments proposed by the Law Society of Scotland which I believe will help to ensure that this emergency legislation is both Scots law-proof and devolution-proof. Amendment No. 3 is intended to probe why the code of practice needs to be modified when the Terrorism Act 2000, of which it is part, passed into law so recently.
Lord Elton: Like my noble friend Lord Kingsland, I struggle to keep up with developments. I apologise if I have misunderstood the position, but I should like to ask the noble Lord who is to reply for clarification. Is it not the case that the Proceeds of Crime Bill is a government measure and there proceedings equivalent to those with which we are now concerned—terrorist cash—will take place in the High Court? What is the reason for dealing with terrorist cash, which may be as large or even greater, in a very much lower court with normally far less discretion? Even if the reason is the need for expedition, I believe that the Committee will hesitate before giving to magistrates a complex procedure which may have very considerable financial impact and may finish up in the wrong place.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: At Second Reading yesterday I asked the Government to give an assurance that they would be in constant touch with the Scottish Executive on the drafting of the Bill. This matter is an example of what I spoke about yesterday. If on examination, or by persuasion, the Government accepted that the High Court was the suitable venue, the question would arise whether in Scotland the right place was the sheriff court, as the Attorney-General readily appreciates.
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In all these matters, when one is considering in this Bill which court is the right forum for decisions to be made, very careful attention should be paid to the drafting so there is no confusion in haste in reading across to the Scots system. If I spot it when the Committee comes to it I shall ask about the job which has been given to the Procurator-fiscal in Scotland. I do not quite understand the position. However, believe that what I have said arises in relation to Amendment No. 1. If I can have that assurance I shall not continually refer to it, which may be rather tiresome. However, it is an extremely important matter. All the reasons given by previous speakers as to whether jurisdiction should be in the High Court or Crown Court apply equally to whether the sheriff court is the right place.
Viscount Bledisloe: In considering this matter I have looked at some of the matters that the court may have to decide in Part 5 of Schedule 1 to the Bill: property earmarked as terrorist property; tracing property: mixing property and chasing profits. All of those appear to me to be matters of singular legal complexity. Tracing and mixing property are normally matters dealt with in the Chancery Division because mere common lawyers cannot understand them. I should like to ask the Minister whether there is any special definition of "magistrates' court" for this purpose. Does it mean only a particular stipendiary magistrates' court or any magistrates" court? If it means any ordinary magistrates' court, surely there is a second problem in that very seldom can magistrates sit for several consecutive days to try these kinds of matters. To try to solve the questions we have been looking at on a series of single days, with adjournments in between before the court can be reconstituted, is asking the impossible of eminent, worthy laymen used to deciding simple questions of fact.
I do not have any great thoughts as between the High Court and the county court, but, unless the Minister can come up with a convincing answer, one or other of these amendments has to be right.
Lord Rooker: In replying for the first time today, I wish to thank noble Lords and the authorities of the House for the speed with which they have managed to marshal the amendments for the convenience of our debate. I realise the pressure that everyone has been under.
I shall take advice in regard to the noble Viscount's final question. The issues he raised are probably more relevant to the debate on Schedule 1, starting with Amendment No. 5, and I shall deal with them at the appropriate time.
In moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, made a case, but, throughout the Bill, the onus is on the Government to give evidence as to why we want to make changes. The cash forfeiture scheme in respect of terrorism is, as the Committee will appreciate, built on a similar scheme in respect of cash related to drugs. That scheme has been in force for a decade and proceedings in relation to drugs-related

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cash have always been held in magistrates' courts. I have no evidence—and none has been adduced today—that there have been any problems in this respect. The procedure has been heavily used—there is no question of a one-off, isolated case—and noble Lords have not adduced any evidence of problems that I should take into account. The issues are fairly straightforward and, therefore, can be placed before a magistrates' court.
If we moved the proceedings to the High Court, in particular, it would undermine the proposed scheme. It would increase expenditure enormously and might cause problems in meeting the important 48-hour deadline. There are some changes in the process of this scheme compared to other schemes, in terms of legal services and so on, but, if the amendment were agreed to, the 48-hour deadline for the first detention hearing would be seriously undermined.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton, said that we were breaking new ground. We are not. The procedure under the Drug Trafficking Act is well used in magistrates' courts. The Terrorism Act 2000 contains cash forfeiture procedures, which also take place in magistrates' courts. So far as concerns the Proceeds of Crime Bill, that is currently passing through another place. At the moment, it contains some 450 clauses, so I am not going to pre-judge what it may be like when it reaches your Lordships' House. That is not a reason for not answering the question, but the issue is covered in another Bill in another place and it will be several months before that Bill arrives here. Unless noble Lords can make out a case, based on evidence, that the present system has not worked in magistrates' courts, I ask the Committee to reject the amendment.
The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, referred to Amendment No. 3 and to the issue of the modified code of practice under Clause 1(5). The Home Secretary has made drafts of the modified code available and it has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses today. Members will therefore have an opportunity to see the draft code and to comment upon it. The amendment was brought forward because of a concern that the code would not be available before enactment. Quite clearly, that amendment is now unnecessary given the fact that the code is now available in the Libraries of both Houses.
Lord Renton: The Minister mentioned that the Terrorism Act 2000 provides a precedent for the jurisdiction of magistrates' courts. But this Bill has been introduced in quite different and much more serious circumstances than those which arose before the introduction of the Terrorism Act 2000—and, incidentally, from the point of view applying the law, much more complex circumstances than those which arose before that Act. In view of what has happened since 11th September, surely we should look at this matter with fresh minds.
Lord Rooker: We are looking at this matter with fresh minds. Obviously there are substantial changes. For example, cash can be collected from anywhere in
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the country; we are not as confined as we are under the terrorism legislation. In some ways, that adds weight to the fact that the quicker we can get a case to court the better. Therefore, meeting the 48-hour deadline is important. Values have also changed.
However, I do not want to go into the overall aspects of Clause 1 stand part. We are seeking to build on existing procedures; we are not seeking to invent the wheel. We have a well-tried and tested system, which has been operating in magistrates' courts since 1991, and there is no evidence of any problems in that respect. We know that there will be problems following September 11th, hence the Bill.
On the narrow issue of which court should deal with these issues, we have no problems with the system we are using at the moment. It is a well tried and tested system and I ask the Committee to put its faith in the lay magistrates of this country.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I thought I had brought evidence with me by quoting directly from the recommendations of the Runciman report. But now that we know where we are, I shall go back to the report and find out on what those recommendations were based. I am sure that the Runciman committee, which inquired into the working of the Act, went into the matter with a great deal of thoroughness. It came to the conclusion that the magistrates' court was not a satisfactory venue for drug confiscation orders.
As the noble Viscount said, the machinery and the issues involved in the first schedule to the Bill—the tracing and earmarking of property and so on—are complicated. Magistrates, particularly lay magistrates, are in no way suited to deciding legal issues of that kind. Presumably they would have to do it on the advice of the clerk to the magistrates' court, and that is not on. I hope that the Minister will look again at this particular problem.
Lord Elton: The Minister told the Committee that we have no examples of what has gone wrong under the Terrorism Act 2000. We should wait until the next stage to hear the evidence of what has gone right under that Act. It has not been running very long and it would not be fair to ask the Minister how many cases involving substantial amounts of money have been heard.
In his reply, the Minister said that there would be a need for expedition—I presume it was his reply to me—because of the need to confirm or otherwise the first detention order within 48 hours. I may have misheard or I may misunderstand the law, but I thought detention orders referred to people rather than to cash. Perhaps he can explain the context of his reply.
Lord Rooker: It is a question of what happens to the money after the civil proceedings. At the moment, there seems to be an obsession with the word "detention", but I am dealing with what happens to the money after it is forfeited. After 48 hours the money has to go into an interest-bearing account—procedures will be set in train after that period, after

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the money has been collected—which is obviously right and proper. The money may be collected wrongly and therefore there must be set procedures. That is why there is a need for speed.
There has been one case so far under the Terrorism Act. However, I do not rest my case on the Act. I rest my case on the fact that the procedure has been working for many years under the drug trafficking legislation.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Campbell-Savours: Perhaps I may ask my noble friend a question, without wishing to press him too hard. I understand that under subsection (7) the appeal procedure is to the Crown Court. I am not a lawyer. but is there any evidence to suggest that there would be a higher incidence of appeal to the Crown Court in the event that the first stage were to a magistrates' court—in so far as people might feel that the judgment made in the first instance was not correct?
Lord Rooker: I am dealing with an amendment to Clause 1. I cannot see a subsection (7) in Clause 1.
I shall have to take advice in order to respond to my noble friend at some other time.
Lord Swinfen: The noble Lord's reference is fine. It is to Paragraph 7 of Schedule 1, which is affected by this clause.
Lord Rooker: I accept that. But the reason the amendments are grouped is so that we can have an ordered debate. We shall have a fairly extensive debate on Schedule I when we come to the third group of amendments, which includes Amendments 5 to 15 and 17 to 22. I shall be happy to deal with my noble friend's point at that time.
Lord Kingsland: The Minister said that the burden of proof was on the non-government Benches in your Lordships' House to establish a better case for the High Court or the Crown Court than had been established by mere speeches in Committee. But the truth of the matter is that in many cases it is the Government, not the Opposition, the Liberal Democrat Party or the Cross-Benchers, who are in a better position to identify this evidence.
The key to our case is paragraph (c) of Clause 1(1):
"is, or represents, property obtained through terrorism".
The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, has spent much of his life dealing with the law of financial services. He is in an extremely good position to explain to the Government just how complex legal concepts like "subrogation" and "tracing" are. With the greatest possible respect to the Minister, I simply do not think that the average magistrates' court is capable of dealing with such issues. They are uniquely, now, matters which fall to the expertise of the Chancery Division. With the greatest respect, I suggest that it is for the noble Lord to disprove that proposition.
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I should also like to say to the noble Lord that, frankly, I think it much more likely that he will find a High Court judge available within the 48 hours to deal with these complex matters than a magistrate. This matter can now stand over to the Report stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.]
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 2, at end insert—
"(6) An order under subsection (5)—

(a) must be laid before Parliament after being made, and

(b) ceases to have effect at the end of the period of 40 days from the day on which it was made unless before the end of that period the order is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament (but without that affecting anything done under the order).

(7) In calculating the period of 40 days in subsection (6)(b) no account is to be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than four days."
The noble Lord said: I begin by repeating a declaration of interest that I made late last night at Second Reading. I am vice-chairman of the council of Justice, an organisation which has submitted a briefing paper to a number of Members of the House in relation to the Bill. Having made that declaration twice, I hope that I shall be excused if I do not repeat it during future proceedings on the Bill.
The Minister has dealt with Amendments 1 and 16, which deal with an entirely different subject matter from that in Amendment No. 4. He replied briefly to Amendment No. 3, which raises a similar matter, when it was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Mar and Kellie. But because that reply was not wholly satisfactory, and because the Committee should know what Amendment No. 4 is about, I shall deal with it briefly.
Schedule 14 to the Terrorism Act 2000 deals with the exercise of certain powers under that Act by officers of the police, the Customs and the Immigration Service. Those powers include in particular the seizure of cash. Under Schedule 14, the Home Secretary issues a code of practice about the exercise of functions by those officers. The Home Secretary has to lay a draft of the code or revised code before Parliament, and brings it into operation by order. Under Section 123(4) of the Terrorism Act, the order must be approved by affirmative procedure.
Under the Bill, the seizure of terrorist capital provisions in the Terrorist Act are replaced by the provisions in Schedule 1 to the Bill. Schedule 14 to the Terrorism Act is not replaced. It simply applies to the new provisions rather than to the repealed ones.
Clause 1(5) of the Bill provides that the commencement order bringing Schedule 1 into force may make modifications to any code of practice under Schedule 14 to the Terrorism Act that is then in force. These modifications need not just be consequential.
Commencement orders are not normally subject to any form of parliamentary procedure. So we have a curious situation. Amendments to the Schedule 14 code normally require affirmative resolution. When the commencement order is made, the Home Secretary can modify the code without any form of parliamentary control; thereafter, changes revert to the affirmative resolution procedure.
This seems completely illogical. I accept that there must not be a hiatus when there is no code in force. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, picked up this problem and recommended the negative procedure for the order made under Clause 1(5). This amendment goes somewhat beyond the committee's proposal. It proposes to use the delayed affirmative procedure—that is, the order comes into force immediately, but lapses unless it is approved by both Houses within 40 days. That would be as close as one could get to the affirmative resolution procedure under the order.
If the Government were to indicate their willingness to apply the negative resolution procedure, as recommended by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I should be happy. But if the code is thought important enough to require the affirmative procedure, it is wrong to allow an occasion when it can be modified with no parliamentary procedure at all.
I accept that, as the Minister has said, he has placed a copy of the draft code in the Library. But some explanation should be given as to why it was not thought appropriate even to go as far as the negative procedure, as was recommended by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: I take the noble Lord's point. In the absence of being able to see the code, there is weight to his remarks. But the code is purely a modified version of the existing code. It is a consequential change, simply because the cash that will be collected under this clause will be collected in-country, as opposed to being collected at ports. The consequences of that change require modification of the code. That is the substance of the change.
When Members of the Committee have had an opportunity to examine the draft code, if they believe that it goes beyond that, I shall be more than happy to consider using the negative procedure. I am not against the idea. The codes of practice are important. We want them to carry some force as codes of practice rather than legislation. Sometimes it is better if they carry the force of Parliament, although that is not always the case.
The modifications of the code are merely consequential amendments relating to that one change. There are a couple of drafting improvements, but they are minimal. If Members of the Committee believe that I have over-egged the pudding, I shall certainly be willing to consider the negative procedure when we debate this matter on Report. I believe,
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however, that when noble Lords see the changes in the draft, they will see that the changes are essential and that they are purely consequential on the expansion of the cash seizure scheme; namely, that cash is seized in-country, not merely at the ports.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I have not seen the code. I should be conversant with the trigger clause but am not. Can the Minister say whether it is a code of practice or whether it has legal efficacy? If it has legal efficacy, surely it must have affirmative or negative resolution—from my point of view that is probably immaterial. But I should like to know the status of the code.
Lord Rooker: I shall cite the sentence that I have here because that will get it on the record. The code of practice in question is a code of practice for authorised officers who are officers empowered under the Terrorism Act 2000 to make cash seizures. It is simply as a consequence of the expansion that the code needs to be modified. It clearly has not received the negative procedure in the past. That is the implication of the note that I have.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: It has no legal efficacy. It is merely a code of practice.
Lord Rooker: But that is not unusual for government officers. On a variety of issues we discuss with industry a code of practice. The Government make inquiries of industry. We set down a voluntary arrangement. We do not want to be heavy handed. If we can operate non-legalistic codes of practice which are effective and do the job it is better than having to ram codes of practice through the legal system.
Lord Elton: I think that I am right in saying that the code of practice in question was printed as a draft called the Code of Practice for Authorised Officers under the Terrorism Act 2000. It was made statutory by the publication of a statutory instrument. The Minister is now saying that under the present legislation further amendments are needed and that they should be made under this legislation and not, for some reason, under the Terrorism Act 2000. I understand that such a code has force within a court of law and can be appealed to in a case. Therefore, in the sense to which my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway refers, it is a legal document with force.
Perhaps I may express a concern. The Minister said that this is needed only to make a couple of necessary and quite minor changes without which the provision will not work. We all accept that. But the power remains for ever. The power remains with the Secretary of State to make far more sweeping changes with no restraint from Parliament.
Lord Goodhart: Perhaps I may intervene. When making the commencement order, this is a once-and-for-all power to vary without parliamentary control. Thereafter subsequent changes go back to the procedure under the Terrorism Act which requires affirmative resolution.
Lord Elton: I stand corrected. Clearly the Minister's undertaking has more force than it would otherwise.
Lord Rooker: The noble Lord is right. It is a one-off. The code is introduced under the 2000 Act. If a revised code of practice were brought into force under that Act it would be by the affirmative procedure. I hope that I have not misled the noble Lord. The effect of the amendment would be to make a commencement order, in so far as it revised the code, subject to the emergency affirmative resolution procedure. It would cease to have effect unless it was debated and approved by both Houses within a period of 40 days. The modifications of the code are set out in the commencement order. This would have the effect of initiating debate on the code itself. That is why we do not think that the amendment is necessary. It is a small consequential adjustment.
Lord Goodhart: I am grateful to the Minister. I shall look at what the revised code states. Unless it appears to go beyond what is consequential, I would not wish to bring back the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Lord Grocott: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Benefits Uprating
3.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement on the annual uprating of benefits and pensions, on the pension credit, and on new measures to help more people into work.
"As a result of the reforms we have made, we are able to do more once again to provide greater security for those who are unable to work, and who are retired. And this year, we will again increase some benefits by more than the usual uprating.
"We are also making fundamental reforms to reward savings. I will set out how the pension credit provides a radical departure from the social security system we inherited, and I will announce further measures to provide greater employment opportunity for those who can work.
"First, on uprating, most national insurance benefits will rise in the normal way by the retail prices index, which is 1.7 per cent, and most income-related benefits will rise by the Rossi index, which is also 1.7 per cent. Details will be placed in the Vote Office and will be published in the Official Report.
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"We are already doing more to help parents, so that families can balance their work and home lives. That is why, in this uprating, the standard rate of maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay will rise from £62.20 up to £75 next April—the largest increase in maternity benefit since 1958, helping around 340,000 families a year—and in 2003 it will go up again to £100 a week.
"In addition, the Sure Start maternity grant will rise from £300 to £500 next year. In 1997, a new mother on income support would have received just £100 to pay for essential items; from next year, she will get £500—a substantial increase for mothers on low incomes.
"This year, we want to do more to help families who are bringing up children with disabilities. When we came into office, the extra money paid to low income families with a disabled child was just £21 a week. Last year, we increased it by more than £7 a week.
"This year, I can go further. I propose to increase the disabled child premium by another £5 a week, on top of the normal uprating, to a new rate of £35.50. In 2003, it will rise again by £5 over and above inflation—to more than £40 a week on top of basic income support or tax credits. That will benefit around 80,000 children. That is extra help where it is most needed, for families on low incomes—both in and out of work—with disabled children.
"There is one further change I want to announce today. In the past, people with the most severe disabilities found that if they or their partners were in work, often against all the odds, they lost entitlement to the independent living fund, which pays for their essential care.
"So I can tell the House today that from April next year the earnings of disabled people and their partners will no longer be taken into account in the independent living fund—worth an average of £130 a week to those families. At the same time, we will increase the capital limits, in relation to the fund, to extend help to people with savings of up to £18,500.
"We are also determined to boost pensioner incomes. In 1997, the poorest pensioners were expected to live on just £68.80 a week. Last year, we increased the minimum income guarantee to £92 a week. From April next year, the minimum income guarantee for a single pensioner will rise by £6 to £98.15 a week. That is an increase of £23 a week for the poorest pensioners, over and above inflation, since we came to office. For couples, the new rate will be £149.80.
"To ensure that all pensioners share in the rising prosperity, I confirm that the basic state pension will rise by £3 in April, and by £4.80 for married couples. The widow's and bereavement benefits, which, because of the changes that we made in 1998, are now paid equally to men and women, will also rise by £3. As we promised in our manifesto, the basic state pension will remain the foundation of retirement income, which is why we have announced

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guaranteed rises for the future of at least £100 a year on the basic state pension for single pensioners, and at least £160 a year for couples.
"We also promised to do more to reward pensioners who have saved for their retirement. A year ago, I published a consultation document, which set out our proposals to reward thrift. Today, I am publishing our response, setting out how the pension credit will work. Copies are available in the Vote Office. Tomorrow, I shall also publish the pension credit Bill.
"All of us have met pensioners who struggled during their working lives to put something by for their retirement and who then found that they were little or no better off than people who had saved nothing. The pension credit will make sure that, in future, it pays to save.
"The pension credit works in two ways. First, it will bring pensioners' entitlement up to a guaranteed minimum level of at least £100 a week in 2003, or £154 for couples, and rising in line with earnings for the rest of the Parliament.
"Secondly, it will provide an additional top-up to reward pensioners aged 65 or over who have saved for their retirement. Pensioners with modest second pensions and savings will get more as a result of their thrift.
"There is a further change that is essential to reward savings. We will abolish the rule that excludes pensioners with £12,000 or more in savings from any help. There will be no upper savings or capital limit. Instead, we will introduce a fairer system for taking into account income from savings.
"Around half of all pensioners will stand to gain from the pension credit: more than 1 million pensioners from raising their guaranteed income; and more than 4 million pensioners from the savings reward, and the improvements to the rules on the treatment of savings. Two-thirds of those who stand to gain from the pension credit are women, and half of those are over the age of 75. On average, pensioners will gain £400 a year, with some getting up to £1,000 a year. That is the difference that the pension credit will make.
"Any pensioner with income below around £135, or couples with an income below £200, will see their hard-earned savings rewarded with extra money, not penalised as in the past. We are also making it easier for pensioners to get all their entitlements. Last year, I said that we would end the weekly means test and the endless form-filling—and we will. The pension credit will be calculated at the same time as the basic state pension when people retire. In most cases we will reassess the income of those over 65 only every five years—not every week, every month or every year. Each year, they will see an automatic rise in their pension credit, after the uprating, and taking account of any changes in their second pensions.
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"The pension credit will increase the guaranteed income, it will end the weekly means test and it will reward thrift. It will remove an injustice in the system. For the first time, it will pay to have saved, even modestly. More than 5 million pensioners stand to gain.
"I now turn to employment. Over the past four years, we have introduced more help than ever before to make work pay and to make work possible. Today, I am also publishing a paper with my right honourable friend the Chancellor, which demonstrates the need to provide more employment opportunities to those who have missed out in the past.
"The analysis shows clearly what happened when we did not have a system that actively helped people into work and when the Government took a hands-off approach to unemployment, leaving it to chance. Between the 1970s and the mid-1990s, the number of lone parents and sick and disabled people on benefits trebled. A whole generation was written off.
"Three immediate conclusions follow from that paper. First, we need to do more to help everyone of working age to get into work wherever possible. That is why we are extending the single gateway to the benefits system—Jobcentre Plus—across the whole country starting next year. Everyone of working age will have work-focused interviews to help them into jobs wherever possible.
"Secondly, when people lose their jobs, the evidence shows that the quicker we intervene, the quicker people will get back into work. As the Chancellor set out yesterday, our economy is well placed to deal with global uncertainty and the labour market is in a stronger position than for a generation. However, when people lose their jobs and when there are redundancies, we need to take action quickly. There are jobs available. Every month, half a million people enter work or change jobs.
"We need to do more to match people with the vacancies that employers are trying to fill—the 10,000 vacancies notified to the Employment Service every working day. Today, I can announce that I am allocating an additional £6 million over the next 2 years to the rapid response service, which offers prompt help to people who have been made redundant. The money will be used by each region to put together the right response for people in their communities, making sure that people affected by redundancy have the information and help they need to find new jobs. They will work to match people's existing skills to those needed by new employers and they will make sure that retraining is available to help people move into new industries.
"Thirdly, we now have the lowest unemployment level for 25 years, but there are still people who need extra help to take up available jobs in their areas. Over the past four years, the New Deal has established a new welfare contract, with more help and support than ever before, in return for greater responsibility on the part of individuals to help themselves.

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"Today, I can announce a further measure, building on the New Deal, for long-term unemployed people who need more intensive help to get into work. Such people may have gone through the New Deal and still have not been able to find a job. We will guarantee those who qualify a full-time job, lasting up to a year and paid at the national minimum wage. They will have the same employment rights and they will be entitled to the same in-work benefits as anyone else. In return, it is not unreasonable to require people to take up that opportunity. We aim to give people a choice of job, but they will not be able to turn down all offers arid remain on benefit.
"We will start this approach in six places from April next year, in areas within Sheffield, Cardiff, Oldham, Sunderland, Lambeth and East Ayrshire. We will follow those with a second group over the summer, covering areas within Leeds, South Manchester, Sandwell, Bristol and Greenwich. In the autumn, there will be further pilots within Hackney, Great Yarmouth, Knowsley, Rotherham and Coventry, with provision starting by the end of the year in Burnley, Wrexham, Dundee and Bradford. I will be writing to honourable Members in all 20 areas, asking them to become involved.
"These are jobs that we will pay for, working in partnership with employers, local authorities and organisations with experience in offering intermediate labour market opportunities. It is an investment of £40 million to equip 5,000 people who are currently long-term unemployed with the skills, the support and the experience of work that they need, as a stepping stone to jobs in the local labour market.
"Britain's unemployment level is the lowest since the 1970s. The New Deals have helped hundreds of thousands of people into work. We are determined to ensure employment opportunity for all, including those who have missed out in the past. These measures will help us to do that.
"We are doing more to help people into work and to help those who cannot work and we are making sure that, for the first time, pensioners are rewarded for their savings. I commend this Statement to the House".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4 p.m.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, I am sure that the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. As it concerns pensions, I should declare an interest as chairman and trustee of an occupational pension scheme.
There are certainly a number of aspects of the Statement that should be welcomed, particularly the proposals on disabled children's benefit, the changes in the independent living fund and the change with regard to capital limits. All of those are welcome.
I had intended to begin with what is almost a traditional remark by saying that the good news was announced by the Chancellor yesterday and that the bad news was announced by the Secretary of State
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today, in the sense that the Chancellor normally announces the benefits and the Secretary of State announces the increases in national insurance contributions that are used to finance those benefits. Clearly, my previous remarks have been taken into account by the Secretary of State because there is no mention of the cost of the increases that the noble Baroness has announced. Are we to understand that there will be no increase in national insurance contributions? If some are to be made, no doubt the House would wish to know.
The policy has changed on the basic pensions uprating. Two years ago there was an increase of only 75p—a matter that caused enormous agitation. Immediately ahead of the general election, that was suddenly increased to £5. As the next general election is not immediately pending, this year's increase is only £3. However, an overall guarantee has been announced that the annual basic state pension will rise by £100 for a single pensioner and £160 for married couples in 2003. Subsequently, the basic pension will rise each year by 2.5 per cent or by the increase in the retail prices index, whichever is the greater. That provided the Chancellor with a very good sound-bite yesterday.
We have just been told that the basic state pension will form the foundation of retirement income, as stated in the manifesto. Will the Minister confirm that that increase is irrelevant to the large number of people on minimum income guarantee? They will have a separate arrangement.
In that respect, is it not the case that the proposals announced by the Minister will result in more and more erosion of the importance of the basic state pension because the basic state pension is not rising as fast as the minimum income guarantee? The effect will be more and more means-tested benefits. In the light of those proposed changes, will the noble Baroness say what percentage of pensioners she expects to be on means-tested benefits in the period she has described, compared with the figure in 1997? There has clearly been a substantial increase in means testing, with the corresponding effect on the incentive to save and so on, although that will be ameliorated to some extent by the pension credit, to which I shall come in a moment.
Is it not also the case that although the Chancellor keeps increasing benefits, many people do not claim them because they do not understand the benefits to which they are entitled? Two years ago, Age Concern suggested that about 750,000 people were not taking up the income support to which they were entitled. Can the noble Baroness say what percentage will not take up the improved benefits that the Chancellor has announced?
I fully accept that the noble Baroness has been seeking to deal with the take-up problem. We are now told that there is a new form for applying for minimum income guarantee, which instead of being 40 pages in length is 10 pages. Some aspects of it are rather curious. A question in Part 2 asks:
"Does your partner agree to you making this claim?".

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If the answer is "No", the form states:
"Please still tell us as much as you can about your partner".
It does not add the usual caveat to use an extra sheet of paper if necessary.
While it is true that the document has been chopped from 40 to 10 pages, a helpful leaflet has been attached to it—amounting strangely enough to 30 pages—saying what the document is all about. It is all very confusing, so there may still be problems of complexity, which bedevil the whole system.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State have become obsessed with a multiple system of tax credits. One must wonder how many people actually understand the system. I have always taken the view that both the Chancellor and the noble Baroness do, although I am beginning to wonder even about that. We should consider what has happened since 1999 when five new tax credits for families were proposed. The Chancellor decided to scrap three of them and he then added another two. I rather doubt whether even the noble Baroness could say exactly straight off the top of her head what those five were, which three were scrapped and which two were added. She is looking a little puzzled, but if the noble Baroness does not understand these matters, it seems highly likely that no one in the country does so.
The serious point to be made is that the system has become more and more complicated. It will be further complicated by the pension credit. While one welcomes the fact that those with savings, within a very narrow band of incomes, will get some benefit, as against having it taken away totally because they are on means-tested benefits, none the less the pension credit system will extend means testing still further.
It was pointed out in one of the weekend papers that, under the pension credit, for every pound of income above the basic state pension, which is £77 up to the level of the minimum income guarantee of £100, an elderly person would receive an extra 60p. Once that total income, including the pension had reached £100, the top-up would immediately be reduced by 40p for every extra pound of income. The marginal rate of tax will therefore be 40 per cent.
Will the noble Baroness explain the position of a pension credit recipient who has income above the full basic state pension and other benefits? I understand that the marginal rate—or tax rate—of withdrawal of benefit will be an effective rate of 52 per cent when the recipient receives council tax benefit, 79 per cent if he receives housing benefit and 91 per cent if the recipient receives both of those benefits. No doubt we can consider those matters at Second Reading and beyond after the Bill is published. It is worrying that this kind of structure is being constructed. We shall examine it in great detail.
While there are welcome aspects of the Statement, the Government's pension policy is in disarray. The basic state pension has been eroded and there has been a massive extension in means testing, to which I referred. The stakeholder pension, which was the flagship of the Government's proposals, appears to be
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missing its target. I understand that of the 416,000 that have been sold, only about 34,000 went to people in the £10,000 to £20,000 income group, at whom the proposal was aimed. We spent many hours in this House debating the state second pension, but Mr Timmins, a well-known authority on these matters, said in the Financial Times that he believed that it had been overcome by events.
On top of that, the occupational pensions scheme, which is so important, is under threat not only by the Chancellor's change to ACT, which is finally beginning to bite because of the rundown in pension fund surpluses, but by other changes on actuarial valuation, the accountancy system, FRS 17, and so on. There remains great concern about the proposal that people must draw their annuity at age 75. We had hoped that the Chancellor would finally have faced up to the problem and removed that limit. It is particularly important because of the low level of annuity rates which are a consequence of the Government's policy with regard to borrowing.
The Chancellor announced yesterday a massive increase in borrowing in the years to come. That is likely to raise annuity rates. But people are still being forced to take their annuities when they reach 75 when they may be able to find a better deal later. This is a matter on which your Lordships voted in favour, only to have it overturned in the Commons on at least two occasions. I hope the Chancellor, having missed this opportunity, will none the less do something about it in the near future.
4.10 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the Minister shot my fox. For as long as I can remember debating these Statements—since 1989—I have been calling for capital limits to be uprated in line with inflation. The Minister has now not merely done it; she has abolished the limit and is bringing in new methods of calculating the treatment of savings. I look forward with a great deal of interest, first, to looking at those methods; and, secondly, to preparing a new message on tape ready for delivery next year. This one is finished. I should like to say thank you. That is a well-earned piece of thanks because the Minister has put a great deal of work into this.
I should like to welcome a number of other points in the Statement. The increase in maternity grants is particularly to be welcomed. It is an expensive time in anyone's life and it does not get any cheaper.
I welcome the increase in the Sure Start grant, but with one qualification which the Minister can probably script for me. Under the Sure Start system one risks disentitlement if one does not accept the help on offer. How many people has that happened to? The Minister may not have that figure instantly to hand. Also, does it have a discriminatory impact on Christian Scientists who do not believe in calling in medical help? We spent a lot of yesterday listening to discussion on incitement to religious hatred and the evils of religious discrimination. We must remember that some people actually believe that it is wrong to call

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in professional medical help. For the benefit system to discriminate systematically against them raises questions which call for a certain amount of thought. I should like to hear that that thought has been given and what the answer is.
I welcome the disregard for the independent living fund. I welcome also the uprating for the capital limit of the independent living fund.
I am glad that there is a rise in the basic pension; I am sorry that the Government could not manage any more. But can the Minister tell us what the take-up figure of the MIG is? We have had a great deal of discussion about the MIG and I will not go through it again. The take-up figure is where it matters most.
The pension credit is, in a sense, undoing the effect on savings which is created by MIG; so we have a sort of "two-step". I hesitate in the Minister's presence to describe it as a "military two-step"; but it is becoming something almost as much interlocked. In fact, the Government's pension policy is beginning to resemble Penelope's Shroud—there is an endless series of re-stitching going on.
That raises one of the big questions on pension credits. In its present form that scheme does not bear the mark of finality; it is something with which a future government may want to tinker. So the two-step will turn into a three-step; then it will turn into an eightsome reel and after that I do not know. So it is a rather uncertain foundation on which to plan for retirement. As one whose retirement is within the next 12 months I must declare an interest in saying that.
It is an extremely complicated system. I know the Minister is making a big point of the forms being filled in at the same time; but I doubt whether many people will understand the interaction between the three elements of MIG, the basic pension and the pension tax credit. Where we have a complicated system and an insecure means of planning, we usually also have a low take-up. The Minister will remember the debates on child benefit in the 1980s, though I regret she did not have the privilege of taking part in them here; I wish she had. The key point was always that, because child benefit was simple, the take-up was remarkably high. Here we have the exact reverse. So we may be producing a system where there is not a great take-up, where an immense amount of thought has gone into it but with a great deal of effort—like racing a car engine out of gear. I await with some anxiety to see what the effect will be.
I must also confess that I was surprised—though this will not surprise the Minister—that the Government have not paid attention to the adequacy of basic benefit levels. I have with me a further briefing from the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, with which I know the Minister is familiar because a copy was sent to her. It draws attention to a number of further studies in progress. They show serious levels of poverty among those on benefit, especially those who have got into debt. That makes it more serious that, first, there is no systematic study of those who are on lower figures than 40 per cent of average income. We do not know
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anything about those who are on 20 per cent or 10 per cent of average income, or in some cases even less. That is a real gap in the department's research.
Secondly—this has been part of my tape since 1989 and I regret that I see no reason to take it off—there is no study whatever of the levels of debt among people on social security benefit. Those two things are badly needed. Until the Government have them, they cannot judge the force of the arguments that the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust is putting forward. That is why those arguments concentrate on the need for a study to determine a minimum level of income necessary to determine good health, which is the policy of these Benches as well as the policy of the trust. But I can see no sign of any government even so much as engaging in the argument. This is another missed opportunity and I regret it.
I am also a little surprised by one or two things in the employment section of the Statement, really as an example of academic method. Paragraphs 31 and 32 draw attention to the much lower number of people who are unemployed. We all welcome that. They appear—I put it no stronger because I am not sure they are saying it—to be claiming all the credit for the active labour market policy. The chronology is wrong for that. The fall in unemployment began before the 1997 general election. Therefore it must have been started by policies for which the present Government cannot claim responsibility. If indeed any large part of it is achieved by the policies of the present Government, we are not given a clear answer as to how.
Paragraph 45—the Minister's new initiative of the offer of a job—sounds awfully good. But I am not sure that when this gift horse is looked in the mouth it will be quite as good as it appears to be. First, I hear a distinct whiff of Louis Blanc behind me. Secondly, I hear the problem about the whereabouts of the jobs and the people. I do not know whether the Minister was in the House recently when my noble friend Lord Greaves asked a question about the price of housing in Burnley and Oldham, where the market has effectively collapsed. We can compare that with the sort of things said about housing by my honourable friend David Rendel, MP for Newbury. Newbury have the jobs and Burnley and Oldham have the housing. And it is not very easy to uproot somebody from Burnley and Oldham and put them in a job in Newbury. I do not know whether the Government have thought that through.
The second, and more serious, is the element of conscription behind this plan. The Minister said that it is reasonable to require applicants to take a job. In certain circumstances that may be so. I would not want to trust the machinery of the state in any form under any party, not even my own party, to make that decision for me. Some very curious decisions have been made. I can recall some made under the youth training scheme in the past. For example, there was an asthmatic who was required to work regularly as a painter. He attempted to do so and was not fit to work for another six months. There was also an electrician

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who was colour blind. He was required to take a job as an electrician. I am rather glad that he did not do my wiring.
I believe that before introducing compulsion the Minister should remember not only that the gentleman in Whitehall does not always know best; the lady does not, either.
4.21 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for their response; and if not the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, then at least the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for the generosity of his response on so many fronts. That was a very pleasant change. But I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, meant to, but forgot.
I turn first to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. He opened with a kind of rallying cry about the erosion of the basic state pension. That is a bit rich, given that last year we increased the basic state pension for single pensioners by £5; this year by £3; and have made a commitment to at least an additional £2 per week in future. If that sort of increase represents the erosion of the basic state pension, then I suggest to the noble Lord that in the use of the word "erosion" he and I do not mean the same thing.
The noble Lord went on to a more substantive question; namely, whether the way in which and the extent to which we are seeking to target help to the poorest pensioners represents means testing. I accept that we can bandy labels between us. There is a real issue here because the noble Lord knows as well as I that if one opts for universal benefits everyone gets the same and one preserves existing inequalities in incomes. We know that in the past decade or so the top 20 per cent of pensioners saw their incomes grow by 85 per cent and the bottom 20 per cent by about 28 per cent. Universal benefits simply preserve that inequality. As a result, everyone gets the same: the poorest one-fifth get the same as the richest one-fifth. The alternative is to try to ensure that five times as much goes to the poorest one-fifth.
That is my view. If one accepts that, the question then is how one can make that targeting effective so that those entitled are able to claim and do so and that they are confident about their claim. What matters is that the money goes to those who need it. Most of your Lordships would be on the receiving end of the generosity of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, but at the expense of some of the poorest in Burnley and Oldham, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, pointed out.
The question is whether what we are proposing, both the pension credit element of guarantee and the pension credit element of reward, represents proper targeting of benefit. I believe that it does, just as taxation targets those who are better off who pay more. As the noble Lord admitted, we are going from complicated forms of 40 pages down to 10 pages. Above all, we are having only five-year checks. Basically, we accept the fact that when a person retires
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and receives a pension, the income is likely to be stable. Pensioners may be affected by the loss of a spouse and may go into hospital for long-term care. They may also have a big inheritance. Apart from that, they are likely to have a stable income.
We look at their income at the time of retirement, check with them what the figures are, and then, all being well, the retired person will continue to receive that money for at least the next five years and probably thereafter. Therefore, we reduce our intervention in their lives to a possible minimum and give them security of income free of bureaucracy which will enable them to enjoy a much more generous lifestyle than in the past.
As a result of what we doing under the pension credit, half the number of pensioners in this country will gain. For example, at the moment a pensioner who is the widow of a local authority manual worker receives only one-half of her former husband's pension, about £100 per month. At the moment she does not gain one penny from that because it is offset against the minimum income guarantee. But in future she will not lose every penny. She will keep £60 of that £100 and she will be better off by £60 per month.
These proposals should not be criticised as being miserly means testing when we are ensuring that targeted money goes to people such as the widow to enjoy the kinds of things that so far she has been unable to do. I hope that the whole House will welcome that as decent, proper and targeted.
The noble Lord asked about housing benefit and council tax benefit. That is a perfectly fair point. At a cost of half a billion pounds we shall be raising the applicable amounts accordingly so that poorer pensioners on pension credits see the full gain. It is a proper question to ask. We are doing it and it is costing half a billion pounds. As a result there will not be the deduction rates which the noble Lord first feared.
The noble Lord asked about the state second pension. I could go into a general defence of our pension policy, but I do not believe that that is appropriate given the time. But no doubt we shall return to the broader issues. The stakeholder scheme is in its early days. It is going well, but there is a long way to go and there are many questions still to be answered about how we reach the self-employed. It is important that we devise all possible means for ensuring that people retire with a pension. A pension credit now means that those even with modest pensions such as £20, £25 or £30 per week will be able to achieve real gains having made those savings.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, what is the level of increase in contributions this year or is there none?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we are not having a general debate on the Pre-Budget Statement. We are talking about the Statement issued today. We have not made an announcement on national insurance as the noble Lord is aware.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, gave a welcome to the end of capital limits. I am glad he is pleased. It means in practice that if a single pensioner receives the full

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state pension he can have savings of up to £35,000 before running out of entitlement to pension credit. We can discuss the technicalities of how one reaches that figure, but it is a really generous response.
The noble Earl asked about disentitlement to Sure Start. He referred in particular to the Sure Start maternity grant of £500. I have the same concerns. We carried out what I call a quick and dirty piece of research. In about half-a-dozen benefit offices we checked the last 20 or so people who had been disentitled from the Sure Start maternity grant, which is currently £300, in order to find out what had happened to them. We tracked them. We found that almost all of them—about 95 per cent—returned to the system. The reason why they had become disentitled was because they had not filled in the forms correctly, they had applied too early, and so forth. We still need to follow through a couple of cases, but we are fairly confident about the outcome. I take seriously the point about religious preferences. We are pretty confident.
At the end of the day it is reasonable to attach this provision to ante-natal care for one very basic reason. We know that the best hope for children to thrive is that they are born at full weight and in decent health. They are likely to do so if the babies have been exposed in the womb to ante-natal care. It is particularly important for the children of the poorest families and some children in the poorest ethnic minorities that they have access to such care. Yes, we are bribing them with £500 to receive that care, but if it ensures that the child has the best possible Sure Start then I hope the noble Earl will agree that it is the decent thing to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, asked for the take-up figures on MIG. We have a total caseload on MIG of 1.7 million people. The campaign was launched in May 2000. We estimated that between 600,000 and 900,000 pensioners might have been entitled to the minimum income guarantee at that time but were not claiming, but we could not be sure. In fact, we had more than 985,000 inquiries. Therefore, we are reasonably confident that we reached those we needed to reach. Following that, we have processed 243,000 additional claims, of which half have been successful. Of those that were not successful, half were over the capital limits and half were over the income limits. That situation may now he revised as a result of the announcement we made today.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, also referred to two further points. He questioned the adequacy of benefit levels and asked whether—this has been a longstanding argument between him and myself—we relate benefit levels to standards of budget assessment, particularly as regards the Family Budget Unit. There is much debate about what constitutes an adequate budget, what goes into it and the methodologies used. I throw two pieces of information at the noble Earl. In 1997, a child under 11 on income support rates—typically the child of a lone parent—would have received from income support £16.95. As of this October, a child under 11 on income support will receive benefit of £34. That benefit has more than doubled in cash terms and constitutes a 90 per cent
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increase in real terms. It is no mean accomplishment to achieve an increase from £16.95 to £34 for children under 11 on income support—the poorest in the country—and it should be acknowledged.
I follow that with a second offering to the noble Earl. In 1998, Jonathan Bradshaw estimated that for a lone parent with two children the gap between benefits and an FBU assessment was about £25. He says that as of last year that same gap fell to something between £5 and £6. That was before the increases of this April, before the increases in income support and child benefit and before the increases next April in the child maintenance premium. I am confident that together those increases will close the gap entirely even before we get to the changes that will be introduced by the integrated child credit. While I dispute much of the methodology of the FBU, I hope that no one in your Lordships' House will believe that we are not committed to, and do not care deeply and passionately about, the welfare of poor children because we do.
Finally, the noble Earl referred to an element of conscription. It is reasonable to expect people to take a job in return for benefit. We are offering measures such as intermediate labour markets which recognise that some people need more help than others. I believe that the introduction of the personal adviser threshold with the support that that provides will enable people to get back to work. I say bluntly that it is no kindness to let someone who is 24, 25 or 27 remain on benefit for half a century. They are entitled to come into the mainstream of life which they will achieve as adults only if they are in work. Of course, they must be available for work; they do not have small dependent children, for example. We have to ensure that we help them. That is what personal advisers do. That is why we are starting these schemes and will extend them if appropriate. It is not right and decent to allow people to languish in unemployment outside the mainstream if we can help them to a better life. I hope that the Statement contributes to doing exactly that.
4.33 p.m.
Baroness Wilkins: My Lords, the announcement of my noble friend the Minister that the earnings of severely disabled people and their partners will no longer be taken into account as regards the Independent Living Fund could not be more welcome. I am extremely grateful to her for the work she has put into that matter to ensure success. I assure her that many hundreds of severely disabled people will be delighted, especially those involved in the Let Us Work campaign and the National Centre for Independent Living. That, together with last week's guidance on local authority charging, which also means that earnings are disregarded in the assessment of income in relation to charges for local authority services, will ensure that work pays for severely disabled people. That is extremely welcome.
I am aware that the change to the ILF owes a great deal to the personal efforts of my noble friend the Minister. It gives me the confidence to ask her to ensure that the Government also heed the justice of the argument that winter fuel payments should be

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extended to disabled people. They are desperately in need of that help. Disabled people who are immobile feel the cold far more keenly than able-bodied people, as noble Lords who see me swathed in clothing will appreciate. The cold gets deep into one's bones and it is hard to get warm through one's own efforts. Disabled people are far more likely than able-bodied people to be at home using up their heating allowances and are far more likely to become ill due to cold. They are far more likely to be on restricted incomes. I hope that the Government will heed the justice of the argument that the heating allowance should be extended to disabled people. Once again I am most grateful to the Minister for her work on the ILF.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend's persuasion and pressure have been rewarded. She has been a doughty campaigner for reform of the Independent Living Fund. She has rightly given us no peace on the issue. I am absolutely delighted that today her efforts are rewarded. Given that she suffered from a virus last week, I am delighted that she is able to be present for the Statement today. As regards winter fuel payments, I am afraid that I have to disappoint my noble friend. The matter was raised earlier in the House. I made the point then that one difference between pensioners and disabled people is that disabled people have access to the disability living allowance. DLA was designed to cover the extra costs associated with disability, including diet, laundry, care and heating. That is why we confine winter fuel payments to the elderly.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, I declare an interest as a chairman of an occupational pension scheme. In the light of the flurry of initiatives on pensions the Minister has now announced, does she believe that the Government made a mistake by removing the tax credit for pension funds in the early years of their regime which removed £3 or £4 billion worth of benefits from pensioners? The fund of which I am chairman lost some £250,000 which could otherwise have been paid out in increased benefits. It seems to me that we are recycling money which could have been made available in the first place.
Further, I have not had the benefit of reading the Statement but I believe that the Minister referred to an increase or to a sum of £6 million to be made available over two years to the rapid response unit. That is perfectly welcome in itself but we need to bear in mind, in the light of the huge loss of manufacturing jobs in this country and the two-speed economy as a result of the Government's valuation of the pound, that that is £60,000 per week across the entire country. While the Government may trumpet it as a huge initiative, it is in fact a trivial sum of money in terms of solving a severe problem in manufacturing industry.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, as regards the noble Lord's first point, in our view ACT rewarded dividends and diverted money from proper investment. I compare the position in the United
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States with the position in this country as regards the percentage of GDP going to dividends and investment. While ACT existed, the UK figure went up from 3 to 6 per cent. However, the United States figure went up from about 3 to 4 per cent. That process occurred at the price of investment in our economy. We believed that ACT deformed the tax system. What matters is the health of the economy and that, in turn, depends on proper investment in the economy on which, in the long term, pension robustness relies.
As to the noble Lord's second comment about the £6 million for the rapid response unit, I take the point about a limited sum of money. However, that is only one part of a wide range of strategies. We seek to respond to the situation of sudden redundancies, major redundancies and so on. The initiative is additional to the employment opportunities resource, the New Deal and the work we are doing on Jobcentre Plus and the like. If the noble Lord has concerns about any particular area he thinks is underfunded, I shall be happy to consider them.
Baroness Greengross: My Lords, I too congratulate the Minister and the Government on having addressed some long-lasting concerns that many of us have had about vulnerable groups in our society such as parents of disabled children and ante and post-natal care for the poorest families through Sure Start. I refer to a group of people who have always been marginalised; namely, those who have saved. It is very much in the culture of our older generation to be thrifty and to save even when that is difficult. For years they have been penalised for doing so. I am delighted that that situation will not continue. I have not had time to study the measures in detail, but the five-year assessment may do much to remedy that situation. However, the means of obtaining such payments is still very complicated and needs to be simplified.
For many years—in particular, when I was with Age Concern—I worried about the low take-up of means-tested benefits. But I agree with the Government's view that the differences in pensioner incomes are now so great that it is better to target those. In my view, it is most important to get rid of the stigma associated with take-up. I believe that the announcement about the pension credit, which I have been awaiting with enormous interest, may deal with that. I hope very much that it will.
My final point concerns the help that the Minister has announced for unemployed people. I hope that, from now on, we can assume that the care, advice and support that will go to unemployed people who have the greatest difficulty in obtaining jobs will be extended to measures for those over the age of 50. Such people represent a very vulnerable group of unemployed people.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, welcomes what we are doing. She and, behind her, Age Concern have obviously been very active in trying to ensure that we develop pension policies that focus on those most in need.

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The noble Baroness talked about how people might obtain the benefit. She is right. At present, approximately three-quarters of pensioners deal with what we used to call "benefit offices" by telephone, which is a more acceptable method. There is also "tele-claiming". All the systems which Age Concern is helping us to pilot are showing a very successful take-up. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that the key to effective targeting is to remove stigma. Once we have done so, I believe that we can be confident that the resources will reach those who most need them.
The second point raised by the noble Baroness related to our help to people over the age of 50. She is absolutely right. That is why we have developed the New Deal for the over-50s. One interesting figure came up when we were dealing with a previous Bill. I was much struck by the situation relating to widows and widowers. Of those over the age of 55, fractionally more widows than widowers are in work. Behind that lies the fact that middle-aged women find it easier to remain in or return to the labour market than do middle-aged men, in particular if they are manual workers. That is why we have been developing new deals and pilot schemes. We want to ensure that the talents and richness that such people have to offer is honed to fit today's economic climate.
Baroness Howells of St Davids: My Lords, we have listened to a very buoyant and uplifting discourse on pensions. However, I want to raise one point which is seen as a matter of injustice by the Caribbean people who came to work in this country, giving more than 30 or 40 years of service. Discrimination still exists against those who have managed to return to live in their home country. Whatever pension they have when they leave this country, they must live on it for the rest of their lives. Over the years, no adjustment has been made to the level of such pensions.
This country is disadvantaged by not adjusting those pensions because the people who receive them have to return to this country for any medical treatment that they need. Their counterparts who remain in this country receive increases in their pension each year. But for those who return home, the level of the pension stays the same. I know that this is a subject which creates a very deep hole for the Government because people from other countries who have never worked here go away and, at the age of 60, claim pensions as citizens.
The pensioners who have given years of service feel that they are badly discriminated against by a state which does not allow an increase in their pensions. In addition, the countries in which they live have a basic standard of living. If we are talking about global poverty, then this is a group which is being penalised in a way that they feel is unjust. I am sorry to raise the matter at this stage, but I believe that it is the only time that I can usefully do so in the House. I repeat that the people to whom I refer are suffering greatly from such a loss.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I sympathise with many of the points that my noble
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friend Lady Howells makes. However, various basic sets of arrangements are in place. One set is with the EU in which mutuality of pensions follows from the arrangements for the mobility of labour. Those pensions are automatically adjusted.
Secondly, we have bilateral arrangements with certain Commonwealth countries and other countries. They are usually of long-standing, most having been made in the 1950s and 1960s. Incidentally, that includes some Caribbean countries. I believe that I am right in saying that there has been no further development of bilateral arrangements, either under the previous administration or ours, since the ear]y 1980s. However, that bilateral relationship does not apply to other countries, some of which were mentioned by my noble friend.
At the end of the day, a judgment must be made about priorities and cost. The unfreezing of overseas pensions would have to apply not only to Caribbean countries; it would have to include South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and so on, where far more ex-British residents live. That would cost £300 million or more. It is the Government's judgment that that does not constitute a high claim on our existing priorities, which are to help the pensioners in greatest need.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, pursuant to the first question asked by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, the Prime Minister at least twice in another place defended the removal of ACT tax credits in the summer of 1997 by saying that the subsequent behaviour of the stock market justified the move. Since, in the past two years, the stock market has fallen by almost one-quarter and, on the basis of the Prime Minister's logic, if the stock market continues to fall towards its 1997 level, can we anticipate the restoration of tax credits? That would be a profound relief to pension fund trustees throughout the country and, subsequently, to their pensioners.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I believe that we have discussed this matter several times in the House. I have no indication whatever that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is minded to make any adjustment in this respect. However, that is for him to determine. If he should be so inclined, he will of course have the opportunity to do so in the subsequent Budget.
However, I repeat: it was the judgment of my right honourable friend that ACT rewarded dividends and diverted money from investments and that that deformed the economy. As I have stated in this House, it is also the case that the value of ACT was equivalent to approximately one-tenth of the difference a decent manager would make to the fund. In other words, what really matters is the health of the economy and the competence of the management of the fund rather than artificial tax privileges, which distort and deform investment in the economy on which pensions must be based.

Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill
4.48 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Schedule 1 [Forfeiture of terrorist cash]:
Lord Kingsland Lord Kingsland moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 75, line 11, after "currency" insert "whether legal tender or not".
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 5, I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 6 to 15 and 17 to 19. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, will speak to Amendments Nos. 20 to 22.
The amendments are largely inspired by the Law Society of Scotland. Amendment No. 5 extends the definition of "cash" for the purposes of Schedule 1. It seeks to ensure that banknotes which are not regarded as legal tender, including counterfeit currency, will come within the ambit of the Bill in relation to forfeiture, seizure and detention of terrorist cash.
Amendment No. 6 probes the circumstances in which it would not be reasonably practicable to seize only the part of the cash which relates to terrorist cash. We would appreciate clarification of the circumstances in which the Government envisage that terrorist cash could not be separated from the whole.
Amendments Nos. 7, 10 and 17 seek to extend the initial period of detention of seized cash from 48 hours to eight days. In our view, authorised officers should be given sufficient time in which to investigate the origin and intended use of such cash. The proposed eight-day period would provide a reasonable time-scale within which to conduct such inquiries and may prevent unnecessary applications for an extension of the detention period.
Amendment No. 8 would ensure that those persons with,
"an interest in the detained cash",
have an opportunity to make representations to the court regarding its continued detention. If cash is to be detained for a maximum of two years, it is appropriate that a person with an interest in the cash should have an opportunity to make representations to the court. Unless such a provision is included in the Bill, the court may make a detention order on the basis of incomplete or inadequate information.
Amendment No. 9 seeks to ensure that the suspect and any third party have a right of appeal and the means to be able to make it. A seizure of funds can have adverse effects on innocent third parties and on legitimate businesses, as well as on the suspect. In our view, there should be a right to representation, funded by legal aid, where necessary, and rights of appeal when the property is seized or subject to a restraint order. The seizure provisions should be subject to PACE codes of practice.
Amendment No. 13 seeks to ensure that the civil procedure to forfeit detained cash cannot take place until,
"criminal proceedings have been concluded or a decision has been taken by",
a law officer not to proceed with the case. We are of the view that the relationship between civil and criminal proceedings should be examined and provision made in the Bill to ensure that consideration is given to an application for civil forfeiture only after a determination has been reached in relation to the criminal prosecution. To do otherwise may, we believe, prejudice evidence that is essential for the criminal trial and subsequent confiscation order.
Amendment No. 14 seeks to make it clear that "forfeiture proceedings" in this part of the Bill are "civil proceedings". It is vital for the nature of the proceedings to be clear in the Bill; that will ensure that an appropriate procedure is used and that the correct regulations are applied for the purposes of legal aid.
Amendment No. 15 provides for "rules of court" to be made to specify the practice and procedure to be adopted in appeals proceedings. Specific provision should be made in the Bill to allow rules of court to be developed for appeal proceedings. Unless that enabling power is included, no provision can be made to govern the procedure of the hearings.
Amendment No. 18 probes the circumstances in which it would be considered appropriate for a court to award compensation under paragraph 10(4) of Schedule 1. If,
"the applicant has suffered loss as a result of the detention of the cash",
and the court is satisfied that it would be reasonable to award compensation, such compensation should be granted. It is difficult to ascertain why compensation should be restricted to exceptional circumstances, as is currently proposed.
Finally, Amendment No. 19 would extend the circumstances in which a person will be held to have obtained property through terrorism. As the Bill is currently drafted, it takes no account of the situation in which a person has acquired property in consequence of an act of terrorism. For example, the situation could arise in which a terrorist purchases or disposes of shares in a company that is subsequently adversely affected by an act of terrorism. That person may benefit from the purchase or disposal, depending on fluctuations in the stock market, as a result of that terrorist activity. Property that is acquired "in consequence or the planned act of terrorism should be subject to the Bill's provisions. The amendment would ensure that such property was covered.
I am greatly reassured by the fact that Amendment No. 5 and many of the amendments that are grouped with it are supported by the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie. I beg to move.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: Members of the Committee should not take too seriously the fact of my support, which the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, mentioned. However, that does not mean that I do not

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support the amendments, most of which come from the Law Society of Scotland and 12 of which are in my name.
The noble Lord explained the amendments very well, so I shall mention only Amendment No. 5. I shall be very surprised if that amendment is not agreed to. It draws the Committee's attention to the fact that Scottish banknotes are not legal tender. Unless the amendment is agreed to, it will be perfectly reasonable for terrorists to hold their ill-gotten gains—or otherwise—in Scottish banknotes. I am certain that that is not the Government's intention. I look forward to the Minister's comments.
Lord Williamson of Horton: I, too, want briefly to discuss Amendment No. 5, which deals with the forfeiture of terrorist cash. It is extremely important to include the Scottish point. The provisions should be absolutely watertight. Will the Minister explain whether currency that is not legal tender may be seized, and whether, therefore, the amendment is necessary? Terrorists are likely to be adept at acquiring Scottish notes and at shifting cash between currencies. I very much doubt whether they subscribe to the view that they should save the pound.
I shall give another example. It would be possible to transfer pounds into deutschmarks at the end of December this year. From 1st January those deutschmarks will not be legal tender under German law, but they could still be used for all transactions. That may seem a rather curious position but it would establish a loophole involving the transfer of terrorist cash. The amendment is important, irrespective of the Scottish point, which I also support. I hope that the Minister will make it clear that we do not have a loophole in this context.
Lord Howie of Troon: I, too, support the amendment. The Scottish element was eloquently raised by the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie. It must have been 30 or 40 years ago when Scottish banknotes were acceptable in England provided that one paid a premium of sixpence, I believe, or a shilling, which the English put away in their piggybanks. The note, although not legal tender, was acceptable provided that one paid a sort of fine for using it. I wonder how that applies in this circumstance. Will Scottish notes be acceptable, provided that a premium is paid, as used to he the case 40 or so years ago?
Lord Rooker: I have not got an answer about Scottish banknotes; I make that clear now. This is what parliamentary accountability is all about—that highlights the scrutiny function of Committee stages. We will find an answer to that excellent question. I do not think that my noble friend Lord Howie was making a point about making money out of a premium.
Lord Howie of Troon: No.
Lord Rooker: However, I can see the possibility of doing so.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: I thank the Minister for giving way. There is no premium now.
5 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I did not mean it quite like that. I do not want to be misunderstood in Scotland, but I thought there might be another way of making a few bob on the side. In due course I shall move Amendments Nos. 20 to 22.
I shall do my best to respond to the amendments in the spirit in which they were introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. I accept that most of them are probing amendments. I shall seek to answer the points raised. We shall have to return to Amendment No. 5 once I have taken advice from my learned friends about Scottish banknotes.
We do not believe that Amendment No. 5 is necessary. Where cash, for example, was known to be counterfeit it would be liable to seizure under normal criminal law for investigation of an appropriate offence. Where it was not known to be counterfeit it might be seized unwittingly in accordance with the Schedule 1 scheme, but once it was discovered to be counterfeit, it could be dealt with under the other powers. We do not believe there is any need for the cash seizure scheme to cover cash which is not legal tender. Powers to deal with such cash and remove it from circulation already exist. I say that on the basis that I shall come back on the point regarding Scottish banknotes. Therefore, I do not believe that Amendment No. 5 is necessary. It is possible that cash could be used for funding various activities. However, we believe that that is taken account of under existing provisions.
I turn to Amendment No. 6. The effect of removing subparagraph (2) would be to deny an authorised officer the possibility of seizing, for example, a traveller's cheque where he knew it was not completely terrorist cash. That is the one example I have. Paragraph 2 caters for instances where the authorised officer may not be able to divide cash into that which he has reasonable grounds to suspect to be terrorist cash and that which he does not; for example, where a traveller's cheque is seized.
That might arise where the officer has intelligence that part of the traveller's cheque was bought with legitimate money and part was bought with the proceeds of terrorism. It is important that the terrorist part of the cash in such circumstances is seized. The effect of the amendment would remove that possibility. Once the cash in the circumstances I outline was paid into an account, which must happen within 48 hours, paragraph 4(2) provides that the non-terrorist part must be repaid. We do not believe, therefore, that the amendment is necessary. I hope that the example I have given explains why the provision is in the Bill.
I turn to Amendment No. 9. It is not wholly clear whether the amendment relates to appeals against forfeiture of seized cash or to the restraint orders made under Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Bill. In the case of a forfeiture order, any other party to the proceedings who is aggrieved by the order may appeal against the order to the Crown Court. That would include the

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person from whom the cash was seized and also possibly a victim of criminal conduct who claimed that the cash belonged to him.
In the case of a restraint order made by the High Court, anyone affected by the order may appeal to the Court of Appeal. In the case of an appeal against the forfeiture order to the Crown Court, Clause 2(2) of the Bill ensures that legal aid will be available for such proceedings. Likewise, anyone affected by a restraint order can apply to the High Court for the order to be varied or discharged where civil legal aid provisions would apply and a person would be able to appeal from a High Court decision to the Court of Appeal in the normal way. I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord.
Amendments Nos. 7, 10, and 17 seek to extend the period from 48 hours to eight days. We believe that 48 hours is an appropriate length of time and follows, as I said earlier, the longstanding precedent set out in the drug trafficking provisions dating from 1990. The provision has been used and we have every reason to believe that it has worked extremely well.
At the 48-hour point, an order for continued detention can be made if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the cash is terrorist cash and that an investigation into the cash or criminal proceedings is underway. We do not believe that it is appropriate to allow cash to be detained for eight days before a court hearing takes place. I am not sure why the period mentioned is eight days. I have not had the advantage of the briefing. If the answer is not satisfactory, perhaps the noble Lord will come back on that point.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 8 and 11. The person with an interest in the cash seized and detained who claims that the cash seized or part of it is not terrorist cash already has a remedy under the provisions of the Bill and under the revised magistrates' courts' rules. We agree with the sentiment of the amendment. It is right in principle that persons affected by seizure should he able to make the court aware of their concerns. That is why paragraph 3(4) of Schedule 1 ensures that the order for the detention of the seized cash must provide for notice to be given to persons affected by it. Furthermore, the revised magistrates' courts' rules will enable those who are given notice under paragraph 3(4) to make representations. The timescales involved for the first hearing will not mean, however, that the opportunity to make representations at that point will be possible. For those reasons, we see no need for the amendment.
The effect of Amendment No. 12 is to do away with the requirement to place certain instruments—the subject of seizure—in an interest-bearing account on the simple grounds that it is not possible to do so. We believe that the amendment is aimed at the fact that it may be difficult to pay some of the instruments defined in paragraph 1(2) as being cash into an interest-bearing account.
I understand that it is possible to pay all types of monetary instruments defined as cash under paragraph 1 of the schedule into such an account.
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Bonds and bearer shares will first have to be converted to cash. If the definition of "cash" is extended using the order-making power under paragraph 1(3)—I am not making law on my feet, but I suspect that provision may have to be extended to cover such bank notes as were referred to earlier—we would ensure that any additional instruments could also be paid into an interest-bearing account.
It is important that cash is paid into an interest-bearing account. There is a simple reason for that. It will avoid the possibility of paying compensation in lieu of interest if a forfeiture order is not made. Therefore, we see no need for the amendment.
Amendment No. 13 seeks to link the terrorist cash seizure scheme with criminal proceedings. We believe that that would be a big mistake. It is not appropriate to make that link as the seizure scheme stands alone. It is not part of the criminal proceedings that might or might not follow. The seizure scheme is a civil scheme focusing on the cash. It has nothing to do with the individual, his guilt or innocence. It would be a mistake to link those. It may be that an individual linked to the cash is facing proceedings for terrorism matters. However, that will not necessarily be the case. Cash might be found without anyone present or any obviously identifiable owner; or the carrier of the cash which may be used for terrorist purposes may be wholly innocent. Therefore, such a link would be a mistake. There is no link between the cash proceedings and any criminal proceedings. That is why Clause 1(2) provides that the powers in Schedule 1 are exercisable in relation to cash whether or not proceedings have been brought for an offence in relation to the cash. The amendment would undermine Clause 1(2). For those reasons I hope that the noble Lord will reconsider and, in due course, not move the amendment.
Amendment No. 14 seeks to make forfeiture proceedings under Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the Bill civil proceedings. I draw the noble Lord's attention to that. I realise that the Bill has been rewritten and slightly changed from how it was in the other place. But the issue is already on the face of the Bill in Clause 1(1). It refers to forfeiture in civil proceedings. Therefore, that matter is actually covered.
Amendment No. 15 proposes that the rules of court make provision as to the practice and procedure in connection with proceedings relating to forfeiture. A power to make relevant rules of court is already available by virtue of Section 144 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 and Section 84 of the Supreme Court Act 1981. Rules governing the procedure in relation to detention and forfeiture of terrorist cash were made under those provisions when the Terrorism Act 2000 came into force earlier this year. That was despite the express reference to another rule-making power in Section 31 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The question which immediately comes to mind is why is it necessary to have this duplication? I do not have the answer. However, the fact is that the rule-making provisions are there. We therefore do not believe that the amendment is necessary.

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Amendment No. 18 concerns compensation in paragraph 10 of Part 4 of the Schedule. If a person's cash is detained but not ultimately made the subject of forfeiture, interest is paid. But if the cash was not put into an interest-bearing account he may be paid compensation in lieu of interest in accordance with the rules set down in paragraph 10(2) of Schedule 1.
The amendment is concerned with the circumstances in which additional compensation may be paid. There are bound to be wholly exceptional circumstances where the normal interest is not sufficient compensation. I have in mind circumstances where a person's cash was detained, and so was unavailable to him, and then was subsequently returned, but that cash had been part of a successful business deal—for example, the buying and selling of a house—and the deal had fallen through to the extent that there had been a considerable loss; in those circumstances he would have grounds for seeking compensation outside and above the interest. But those would be very exceptional circumstances.
There is a lower test for compensation. If we have a lower test, such as that implied in the amendment, then authorised officers may be fearful of making the seizure orders because they might be responsible for large pay-outs. Given the seriousness of the issues at stake, it is not right to bind them in the way that the amendment proposes. Nevertheless, where there are exceptional circumstances, compensation would naturally be payable.
I was not completely clear as to precisely what type of cash Amendment No. 19 was designed to catch. The noble Lord gave an example but the amendment seems to go much wider than the current definition of "property obtained through terrorism" in paragraph 11(1) of Scheclule 1. Property obtained by or in return for acts of terrorism might have been payment for committing a murder. Obtaining property by or in return for acts carried out for the purposes of terrorism might include stealing a car to perpetrate a terrorist act. The purpose of bringing cash which is the proceeds of terrorism within the scheme—in addition to cash which is intended for use in terrorism and cash which belongs to proscribed organisations—is to prevent terrorism. In many cases the proceeds of terrorism are recycled to further terrorist causes. To cast the net too wide would make it difficult to justify cases; for example, how would forfeiting proceeds in the above example of the bargaining of property help to prevent terrorism? Therefore, we cannot support the amendment.
The point is that we are dealing with a civil scheme. We must separate the issue from the people concerned. The people concerned who are linked to the cash, however tenuously, may be wholly innocent, even though it is subsequently proved that that cash was deployed for terrorism.
Amendments Nos. 20, 21 and 22 standing in my name make simple additions to Part 5 of Schedule 1 to the Bill. They tidy up the definition of "property earmarked as terrorist property". Members of the Committee will be aware that Schedule 1 sets out the
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scheme relating to the cash forfeiture. Part 5 explains when the cash which is, or represents, property obtained through terrorism, falls within the scheme.
Amendments Nos. 20 and 22 are simple drafting amendments. Amendment No. 21 ensures that where property falls outside the scheme and is exchanged for other property, that property also falls outside the scheme. For example, where property obtained through terrorism is sold to a bona fide purchaser who has no idea of its origins, that property will fall outside the scheme by virtue of paragraph 16(1) of Schedule 1. If the bona fide purchaser sells the property in return for cash that cash too will fall outside of the scheme. The amendment ensures that that is the case. I hope that in due course Members of the Committee will accept the three amendments.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Howie of Troon: Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps he can clear up a point for me. When he refers to "cash", does he include under that term "currency" whether legal tender or not?
Lord Rooker: On page 75 of the Bill cash means,

"(a) coins and notes in any currency,

(b) postal orders,

(c) cheques of any kind, including travellers' cheques.

(d) bankers' drafts,

(e) bearer bonds and bearer shares, found at any place in the United Kingdom".

It must be cash that is legal tender because if it is counterfeit cash or is not legal tender, it would not be covered. That is why I am seeking urgent advice on the first question that I was asked about Scottish banknotes.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: Perhaps I could ask the noble Lord to go back to his answers on Amendments Nos. 13 and 14. They were aimed at establishing that forfeiture would be, certainly in Scotland, part of the civil law proceedings. I became slightly confused by what the noble Lord was saying. Can he confirm that forfeiture will be a civil matter?
Lord Rooker: Criminal proceedings and the scheme for the seizure of terrorist cash are two entirely separate processes. Therefore, we do not want a link between the two. We are dealing here with cash seizures which are preventive measures. They stand entirely independently of criminal proceedings. So the latter is simply not relevant to the seizure schemes. The key issue concerns terrorist cash. I hope that I have made that clear. Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 deal with civil procedures. Criminal procedures are prosecutions for acts of terrorism. They are quite separate. We should not make a link between the two.
Lord Williamson of Horton: I know that the Minister will return to Amendment No. 5. I specifically raised the point about the German currency. It is a very important currency. Huge amounts of money can be shifted in it. From 1st January the deutschmark will

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not juridically be legal tender. In that case apparently it could not be seized. None the less, early next year one can go into Germany and buy a huge house with deutschmarks. That is the German law. Currency which is not legal tender will be usable for a period of some months.
Lord Rooker: I shall take further advice on that matter and come back to the noble Lord. Like most other sane people I have looked at what foreign currency I have been hanging on to having seen the list of dates by which some European currencies will not be legal tender. There is a gap with some currencies. They will cease to be legal tender but can still be paid in through the banking system. Therefore, it may be that there is a satisfactory answer so far as the deutschmark is concerned.
Schedule 1(2) does not refer to sterling. It states:
"'Cash' means … coins and notes in any currency".
One assumes that they are legal tender, but if there is a gap because of the transfer to the euro—which is possible, because the dates are not the same in all European countries, as I discovered last week after reading a leaflet from the Department of Trade and Industry—there is a mechanism. That cash must go through the banking system in order to be exchanged—that may be the way around that problem. However, I shall take advice and write to the noble Lord on that point.
Lord Kingsland: First, I thank the Minister for giving such a full reply on the many amendments that have been grouped together. I shall briefly respond to what he has said.
First, on Amendment No. 5 and legal tender, the Minister kindly said that he will reflect on the situation regarding Scottish banknotes. I trust that that applies also to the point made about German currency by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton.
The Minister said that he was content to rely on the criminal law in relation to counterfeit currency. I wonder whether that is the ideal approach. The specific procedure here is a civil procedure. In dealing with other amendments, the Minister has been at pains to emphasise the distinction between the civil and the criminal and the importance of limiting this part of the Bill to civil procedure. Yet, in his reply on Amendment No. 5, he admits that counterfeit funds are a matter for criminal law.
I do not want to make a cheap debating point, but that affects the logic of his position on the importance of civil procedure. Will he further consider the position of counterfeit funds before Report? The point is not just the distinction, in principle, between criminal and civil law but that the criminal rules in relation to counterfeit funds may not be as expeditious as are the civil rules laid down in the schedule.
Lord Rooker: In seizing the money, having received advice or intelligence or conducted investigations, the authorised officer may come across other possible
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crimes—not just counterfeiting of money but other criminal activities completely outwith the seizure. The authorised officer would then report to the authorities evidence of criminal activities for investigation. If other possible crimes are discovered—the example that we discussed was the crime of forging banknotes—that does not nullify the fact that the seizure of money is a civil procedure.
Lord Kingsland: With the greatest possible respect to the Minister, that is true but beside the point. The Minister accepted that the present wording does not cover counterfeit money. He also told your Lordships that seizing funds is a civil law issue. I simply suggest to him that he may want to reflect on the matter before Report.
As to Amendment No. 13, which the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, seized after the Minister's reply, the Minister was at pains to say that the scheme was civil and had nothing to do with criminal law and criminal guilt. I draw the Minister's attention to Clause 1(1). That defines the circumstances in which cash can be seized in terms of terrorist acts, which are indisputably criminal. If the definition of the cash is itself intimately connected with the criminal law, is it not difficult to envisage how the two regimes will remain separate?
Lord Rooker: Schedule 1 sets up a scheme to deal with the cash. It is a stand-alone scheme. That is the whole point. The cash may be taken in pursuance of investigation before all the evidence is available. It is a stand-alone, civil scheme, and there is no connection between it and the terrorist activity that the cash may be thought to be funding.
Lord Kingsland: Whether or not the scheme, in any particular case, follows its logic through to the final act of forfeiture, the extent to which it moves down that route will depend on a judgment on whether a criminal act has been committed. The nature of that criminal act will be determined in the context of Clause 1(1). Perhaps the Minister will return to that point on Report.
Lord Rooker: I can help the noble Lord. By the way, it goes without saying that I shall reflect before Report on everything that is said in Committee. We must because of the process: issues will be raised that no one has contemplated. I shall be happy to reflect, but I shall read out the latest note that I have received from the Box, because it is helpful. It states:
"The origin of the cash might well be criminal. But that does not mean that the person carrying the cash is a criminal."
We must separate out the issues. Cash to fund terrorist activities may not be carried by terrorists. Wholly innocent people may carry cash that is the result of criminal activity.
Lord Kingsland: I entirely accept that, but I suggest to the Minister that that in no way undermines my point.

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I have two other reflections on the Minister's response. On Amendment No. 15, he rightly pointed out that the rules of procedure in our courts cover the issue raised by the amendment. Will the Minister—either now or later—tell us whether that is also true of Scottish law?
Amendment No. 18 concerns the question of exceptional loss. The Minister rightly said that it covers matters other than the payment of interest, and went on to give an example in which, in effect, someone would have the right in law to damages. He was reluctant to state that in terms in the Bill, because he felt that that might act as a disincentive to those officers tasked with the act of seizure. Ought your Lordships to endorse a statement by the Minister to the effect that public officials would be influenced in that way?
Lord Rooker: Public officials making decisions under law are always aware that they must take account of consequences such as the cost of their actions and issues such as value for money. We do not want a lower test for compensation. There is a severe test for compensation, but we do not want to lower it.
I gave a couple of examples of wholly exceptional cases: a business deal and a house purchase. If money was withheld from someone and they were unable to conduct their deal or purchase, and the money was then returned because it was not terrorist cash, they would clearly have a good claim. That is fair; I accept that. We do not want to lower the test for compensation, as would the amendment, simply because officers taking decisions on the margin about an amount of cash and the circumstances might err on the side of being too cautious. We are in deep water in searching to obtain terrorist cash. The procedure is new and it would be wrong to lower the test.
Lord Kingsland: As regards human rights, I see the importance of officers being cautious. However, I suggest to the Minister that where an officer finds a legitimate set of circumstances for seizing cash, he should not be put off pursuing his duty by the fact that it might cost the Treasury a little more money than if the Bill were constrained by the current draft.
Finally, I turn to Amendment No. 18. The Minister's reply is a good illustration of why cash conversion—that is, the route it takes into other forms of property or activity—should be traced by a High Court judge and not by a magistrates' court. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.30 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 6 to 19 not moved.]
Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendments Nos. 20 to 22:
Page 80, line 28, leave out "Property" and insert "Earmarked property obtained through terrorism"
Page 80, line 38, leave out "the original property or of and insert "earmarked property, whether the original property or"
Page 81, line 1, after "of" insert "earmarked"
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Terrorist property: amendments]:
Lord Kingsland Lord Kingsland moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 85, line 19, after "that" insert "each of the requirements for the making of the order is fulfilled"
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 23 is part of a series of amendments which alters the procedure for applying for account monitoring orders and the criteria which must be met before such applications can be granted. The amendment makes specific provision in relation to the requirements which must be complied with before an account monitoring order can be made.
We believe that an essential requirement has been omitted from the criteria for consideration listed in paragraph 2(1). Reference should he made to the fact that the applicant has reasonable grounds for believing that an audit is likely to be of substantial value to the investigation. We therefore propose an altered wording in the subsequent amendment to include that requirement and to reflect the drafting of an analogous clause in the Proceeds of Crime Bill. If account monitoring orders are to be available under the proceeds of crime legislation as well as tinder this measure, and if the policy intention behind the orders is uniform, it is important that the provisions are broadly similar.
Amendment No. 25 makes it clear that an account monitoring order need not be intimated to the holder of the account. The rationale behind the orders, as I understand them, is to allow the appropriate officer to monitor transactions in relation to an account over a period of time without the account holder's knowledge. They are an extension to the production order procedure applicable under the Proceeds of Crime Bill.
The new Proceeds of Crime Bill makes specific provision in Clause 367(3) that an application for a production order need not he intimated to the person specified in the application. This part of the Bill is, however, silent in regard to intimation. In our view, in order to avoid ambiguity as to whether intimation is required for the purpose of the account monitoring order, it is preferable to specify the position on the face of the Bill.
Amendment No. 26 specifies what information should be included in the information for an account monitoring order. We take the view that an application for an account monitoring order should specify that the person named in the application is subject to a terrorism investigation and that the order is sought for the purposes of that investigation. As currently drafted, these criteria are not referred to as essential elements of the application. Amendment No. 26 seeks to rectify the position and ensure that the drafting of the clause in this respect will reflect the terms of the analogous provisions in the Proceeds of Crime Bill.
Amendment No. 28 seeks to introduce the definition of "account information" for the purposes of the clause. The concept of account information is

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central to this part of the Bill and it is, therefore, important that a clear definition of the phrase is stated on the face of the Bill. The amendment merely seeks to do that; and in doing so replicates the definition in the analogous clause in the Proceeds of Crime Bill.
Amendment No. 29 details the requirements which must be satisfied before a judge can make an account monitoring order. Our view is that, before an account monitoring order can be made, the judge should be satisfied not only that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person specified in the application has committed a terrorist offence, but also that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accounts information will be of substantial value to the investigation. As currently drafted, the Bill makes no provision for those criteria. The amendment seeks to address that and again reflects the drafting of the analogous clause in the Proceeds of Crime Bill.
Amendment No. 30 probes the circumstances in which it is envisaged that the description of information in an application could subsequently be varied. We are not satisfied that the description of information specified in an application once granted should be capable of being varied by anyone other than the court. The initial application must be granted by the court and any application to vary or discharge should be considered only by the court and not altered unilaterally on the part of the applicant. If the applicant requires further information to be included, a new application should be submitted and efforts made to ask the court to vary the existing order.
Amendment No. 31 makes provision to ensure that information which is subject to legal privilege will not be disclosed under this part of the Bill. Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights enshrines the right to privacy. The law is keen to protect the relationship between a solicitor and his or her client and has made provision for the doctrine of legal professional privilege. In order to preserve that relationship, and ensure that such information and communications are privileged, provision should be made on the face of the Bill to the effect that an account monitoring order will not extend to the disclosure of information subject to legal privilege.
Amendment No. 32 introduces an additional consideration which the Court of Session must take into account in determining whether to make a restraint order. Paragraph 3 extends the current restraint procedure to enable restraint orders to be granted at an earlier stage in the proceedings. We appreciate that the extension of the procedure may be necessary, in some cases, in order to prevent the disposal of the proceeds of terrorist crime prior to the institution of proceedings.
However, due regard must also be had to proportionality and the extent of the evidence available at the investigatory stage. In order to balance the degree of interference which a restraint order imposes in relation to a suspect's property at the early stage of investigation, an assessment should be made as to the likelihood of the assets or property concerned being disposed of at that point. If there is a substantial
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risk that the property will disappear, or some other factor which suggests a degree of urgency, an application for restraint should be made. The amendment seeks to ensure that any action taken is proportionate.
Amendment No. 33 provides for disclosure to a constable or nominated officer as soon as is reasonably practicable. As currently drafted, the Bill provides that a person commits an offence under paragraph 5 of Schedule 2, Part 3, if, inter alia, he or she does not disclose the information to a constable or nominated officer as soon as is practicable after the information comes to him or her. There may, however, be situations in which a person cannot make the disclosure, as soon as would otherwise be practicable, for good reason. In these circumstances, it may be inappropriate to render that person criminally liable. To reflect that, we propose that the offence is restricted to situations in which disclosure is not made as soon as is reasonably practicable.
I turn to Amendment No. 34. Paragraph 5 of Schedule 2 inserts new sections in the Terrorism Act 2000 and creates the offence of failing to disclose information relating to certain criminal activities under that Act. The new section imposes a duty on a person to disclose information which leads him to suspect that another individual has committed a terrorism offence. We support the introduction of that new offence but do not see the point of imposing a duty on a person to disclose certain information if it is already in the public domain.
For example, suppose that a bank is given information to the effect that Osama bin Laden is a terrorist and has committed one of the offences referred to in the Terrorism Act 2000. If that information comes to the attention of the bank by various means in the course of its business, as it may well do, it will be under a duty to disclose it to a constable or nominated officer. If it fails to do so it will commit an offence. The result is that the constable concerned or nominated officer will be showered with information which is already in the public domain.
The constable concerned or nominated officer will have to trawl through documents to find information that is not in the public domain. The task of so doing, if banks are to honour these provisions, as we trust they will, may be too much for the constable concerned or nominated officer and he may miss valuable information which would prevent further acts of terrorism. We therefore propose that information that is already in the public domain need not be disclosed.
As to Amendment No. 35, if a person knows or suspects that another has committed a terrorism offence it is important that he discloses the information on which that is based to a constable or nominated officer as soon as is practicable. That disclosure may lead to further inquiries and the prevention of other acts of terrorism. It is conceivable that the disclosure of such information will lead to the saving of thousands of lives.
However, we believe that it would be unfortunate if the person who made the disclosure informed the terrorist that he had done so. The terrorist could then

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take the appropriate precautions to avoid further detection and carry out further acts of terrorism. We see no conceivable reason why he should be told that such a disclosure has been made. Accordingly, we suggest that the person who makes the disclosure should not inform the suspected terrorist that he has made it.
We are also concerned that any such person should not be deterred from keeping the disclosure from the suspected terrorist. The sole aim is to catch terrorists and prevent further acts of terrorism. A person who makes a disclosure, but does not tell the suspected terrorist, should not be in fear of any repercussions. Accordingly, we propose that a person who has made a disclosure but does not inform the suspected terrorist should not risk civil or criminal proceedings for failing to do so. I beg to move.
5.45 p.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: I support the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. Again, almost all of them come from the Law Society of Scotland. They reflect the fact that both the Proceeds of Crime Bill and the present measure are passing through this Parliament for Scotland on the basis of a Sewel Motion. This means that the Scottish Parliament has given up the right to scrutinise the Bill. This legislation is, after all, concerned largely with criminal justice which is clearly a devolved matter. I hope that the Minister takes these amendments extremely seriously because we must get the Bill right for Scotland.
Lord Rooker: I hope to take all the amendments seriously. I appreciate that use has been made of the Sewel Motion. The decision has been made in Scotland that the legislation on these issues should be considered in Westminster. While that agreement has been freely entered into, it does not mean that we do not take the issues seriously because Westminster is to consider the legislation.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for the way he dealt with the amendments. I shall do my best to answer the points that he made. I shall try to keep to the same order, although I have a separate note that is out of kilter. I deal with Amendments Nos. 23 to 29 as a group. The Committee will be aware that Part I of Schedule 2 sets out the scheme relating to the monitoring of bank accounts of terrorist suspects for up to 90 days. This provides for real time disclosure of transactions and other information which will assist the police in their investigations.
The amendments tabled by the noble Lord in large part replicate the clause without changing the substance of the provision, but we believe that where they make substantive changes they are to the detriment of the functions. The principal change that is effected by the amendments is that the grounds that must be satisfied before an order can be made are amended and, in certain respects, the threshold is increased. The amendments remove the existing grounds to be satisfied. Those grounds are the same in substance as those required before the financial order
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can be made under Schedule 6 of the Terrorism Act 2000. We are trying to mirror the Terrorism Act 2000 as much as possible.
I accept the point about consideration of the Proceeds of Crime Bill in another place. It will be months before that Bill comes to this House—I am unable to forecast its shape—but the Terrorism Act is already on the statute book. We see great benefits to the courts, the police and the financial institutions in framing the powers in this Bill in terms similar to those in the Terrorism Act. In the course of an investigation the police may well use financial information to identify the existence of accounts held by a specified person and use an account monitoring order to obtain disclosure of information relating to the account.
The essence of the difference in approach between noble Lords and the Government is two-fold. First, the court would not be able to make an order unless satisfied that there were reasonable grounds to suspect the person specified in the order of a terrorist offence. Secondly, the police must demonstrate that the information to be obtained would be of substantial value to the terrorist investigation. Put in that way, on the surface they sound reasonable if one forgets the context of the Bill. As to the first point, it assumes that the person specified is suspected of an offence. That may well be true in the majority of cases, but it is not necessarily so. The police may well wish to obtain information relating to transactions on an account when the account holder—the specified person—may be innocent and is perhaps being used by others for terrorist purposes. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord would preclude the use of an order in such cases.
Even in those cases where the person specified is the suspect, the requirement to have reasonable grounds would preclude the use of this investigatory tool at an early stage in the investigation when it might not be possible to establish such reasonable grounds. We are not being unreasonable. These account monitoring orders are approved by a judge. This is not the Government and the police going off willy-nilly.
The purpose of the order is to help deal with terrorist crime and the financing of terrorists. We need the order to assist in the investigations of an inquiry. To that extent, of course, the investigation is the means of establishing the reasonable grounds for believing offences may be committed. In the early part of an inquiry, the reasonable grounds test may not be met, but it would be sufficient under the terms of the schedule for the judge to grant the order.
The second essential difference to which I referred—that the order must be of substantial value to the investigation—again imposes a different test in relation to the account monitoring orders than that which exists in the financial orders under the Terrorism Act at the moment. As I explained, we see real benefits in keeping the two procedures similar. To use a different formulation would lead to questions as to whether one is intended to be more stringent than the other.

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In so far as the noble Lord seeks to raise the threshold for the granting of an order, the Government feel that this would greatly limit its value to the police in their important work of combating the funding of terrorism. We believe it is right that the police should demonstrate that the order will be of value—this is already provided for—but we do not think it should go any further than that.
As to Amendment No. 25, the purpose of the account monitoring order is to investigate a suspected terrorist without indicating to the holder of the account that he or she is being investigated. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord seeks to make clear that the police, when making the application, need not tell the person to whom the application relates. The Government agree that this should be the case. That is why the application is made ex parte without telling anyone else. The amendment does not take the matter any further at all. The police certainly do not need reminding that the whole purpose of the account monitoring order is to examine someone's finances without alerting that person to the investigation.
It may assist the Committee if I make clear that the court rules will require the court to serve notice of the order, if made, on the financial institution but not on the person specified in the application. I hope that this explanation satisfies the noble Lord.
Amendment No. 31 seeks to provide for the circumstances where a financial institution would want to refuse to provide information on the grounds of legal privilege. The information which would be disclosed by virtue of an account monitoring order would relate to the account—principally, details of transactions. We cannot see any occasion when such information would be legally privileged. We believe, therefore, that the amendment is unnecessary.
Amendment No. 32 seeks to spell out for Scotland what is inherent in the process by which the Court of Session comes to make a restraint order—in other words, the court must have reasonable grounds for suspecting that property will be disposed of prior to the conclusion of proceedings. This is another way of articulating the civil standard of proof on which the Court of Session has to be satisfied before it makes the restraint order.
As the Committee will know, a restraint order is in the nature of an interim or temporary provision. Any judge will require to be satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that the property concerned is likely to be disposed of, but it would be unusual—and unduly selective in this context—to make the express provision contemplated in the amendment.
I say that for the following reasons. First, the amendment concerns Scotland only, but there are comparable provisions for England and Wales at paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 2 to the Bill and for Northern Ireland at paragraph 4(2), and no amendment is proposed for those provisions. There is a clear implication that there is a Scottish speciality here when in fact there is none whatever.
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Secondly, no comparable express requirements are proposed for Scotland in relation to the power of the Court of Session under paragraph 18(1) of Schedule 4 to the Terrorism Act 2000. This also concerns the power of the Court of Session to make a restraint order, so there is a further clear implication of a speciality for this particular power only, which is incorrect.
I am grateful for the opportunity to make clear that a court will have to be satisfied, on a civil standard of proof, that a restraint order is necessary because the property concerned may otherwise be disposed of in the interim. I hope that, in due course, noble Lords will withdraw those amendments.
Amendment No. 34 relates to the information order being in the public domain. The Bill provides that a person does not commit an offence if he has reasonable excuse for failing to disclose. This would be capable of covering a case where a person believed the information to be so widely available that it did not need to be passed to the police. The provision provides a way to assess whether a person should be relieved from his criminal liability—that is, was it reasonable for him to act as he did. This is the proper way to deal with what the amendment refers to as "information in the public domain".
It is a wholly reasonable amendment for the noble Lord to table. In the case of wide-spread, publicly available information, it would be quite preposterous to consider that someone had committed an offence because he did not pick up a phone, ring the police and say, "By the way, do you know about this?" I hope the Committee will think that there is an adequate defence.
Amendment No. 35 has a sensible aim. It seeks to ensure that a person who knows or suspects another of committing an offence does not tip off that other person to the fact that the police have been informed. The amendment also seeks to provide protection for a person disclosing information to the police should civil or criminal proceedings be brought against him for doing so.
The first aim is already adequately achieved by the existing provision in the Terrorism Act 2000. Section 18 provides that it is an offence for a person to enter into or become concerned in an arrangement which facilitates the retention or control by another of terrorist property. The Government believe that this provision addresses the concerns behind the noble Lord's amendment. After all, the whole schedule is an amendment to the Terrorism Act, and therefore we believe that that aim is taken care of.
I have come to the end of the amendments—although I may have missed one out—but the noble Lord raised the issue of an order not being varied by the applicant after the order is made. We agree with him. I regret that I am not sure which amendment this related to, but the provisions sought to be deleted provide for a variation of the description of the information in the application—that is, a variation before the order is made. Once made, the variation to

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any order must be made by the court. I want to make that absolutely clear and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to put it on the record.
Lord Kingsland: I shall be telegraphic in the few remarks that I am about to make before I withdraw my amendments.
I thank the Minister for drawing my attention to the parallel which the Government are drawing with the Terrorism Act 2000 rather than with the Proceeds of Crime Bill, which is the parallel that has informed many of these amendments. I shall obviously reflect on that issue. I am grateful to the noble Lord.
As to the question of reasonable grounds, the noble Lord went on to say that the grounds for making such an application would not be "unreasonable". I am tempted to ask the noble Lord whether he sees any gap between reasonableness and unreasonableness. There must be some gap, otherwise the Minister would not have resisted my insertion of "reasonable". I shall re-table the amendment. Perhaps between now and Report stage, which is not very far away, the Minister may wish to come back on that point. This is an important matter—the influence of the word "reasonable" over the conduct of public officials.
The noble Lord was reassuring on the question of legal professional privilege. My noble friend Lady Buscombe will be returning to this point at a later stage and in a different context. I ask the Minister to reflect between now and Report whether he really thinks that the fact that it is unsaid is sufficient protection in the context of legislation which has international ramifications, and where legal privileges are viewed in a different light in different countries.
Finally, on the question of "reasonable" excuse for failure to disclose—the question of the public domain—here we have reversal of the burden of proof. Normally, that is legitimate in circumstances where the facts that compose the excuse are uniquely in the domain or knowledge of the accused. I wonder whether, in the circumstances of "public domain", that matches the normal circumstances in which the courts are prepared to tolerate reverse burdens of proof.
I am grateful to the Minister for taking particular care over responding to the amendments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 24 to 36 not moved.]
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Power to make order]:
6 p.m.
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 3, line 8, after "action" insert "involving terrorism"
The noble Lord said: This is a probing amendment. Clause 4 as drafted allows a freezing order to be made if a foreign government or resident is likely to take,
"action to the detriment of the United Kingdom's economy (or part of it)".
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That expression is extraordinarily wide. Perhaps I may give an example. A Japanese company is considering whether to build a new car manufacturing plant in the United Kingdom or in Switzerland. The Swiss Government offer the company a financial inducement to build its plant in Switzerland—something in the nature of, say, a tax holiday.
That is plainly action to the detriment of the United Kingdom economy. The result is that, at least in theory, the Treasury could make a freezing order stopping anyone in the United Kingdom, or United Kingdom nationals resident abroad, from making payments to the Swiss Government. Some people might say that that was quite right, but I am sure that it was not the intention. I want to probe why such a wide-ranging clause has been adopted.
I expect to be told that the reason is Chat the wording was drawn from Section 2 of the Emergency Laws (Reenactments and Repeals) Act 1964, the section being repealed by the Bill and replaced with this provision. I accept that the wording is drawn from that section. But Section 2 of the 1964 Act dealt with a much narrower issue. It covered the case where a foreign government made an order requiring someone to make a payment or to transfer gold or securities to them and the United Kingdom Government was, under the 1964 Act, given power to block anyone within United Kingdom jurisdiction from complying with the foreign government's order. So the reference in that case to,
"action to the detriment of the United Kingdom's economy",
had a much narrower scope than the new one does. Indeed, the 1964 Act goes back to the days of exchange control. I suppose that the reference to gold is a reference to the days when gold had some real monetary function.
The result is that, whereas the wording was not excessively wide in relation to the 1964 Act, it is wholly excessive when applied to Clause 4 of the Bit. Therefore, Amendment No. 37 requires the action which is to the detriment of the United Kingdom economy to be action "involving terrorism". I assume that that is the main part of what is specifically intended by this clause. It is not necessarily the right way, but I believe that the Government should ask the draftsman to re-examine the clause. As it stands, it is so excessively wide as to be unsatisfactory. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: Before the Minister replies, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, will bear with me for a moment. He seeks to insert into Clause 4 the words "involving terrorism", whereas the clause deals with matters to the detriment of the economy.
We are entitled to look to the Long Title to help us to interpret the Bill. It is intended,
"To amend the Terrorism Act 2000; to make further provision about terrorism and security",
and, as a separate item,
"to provide for the freezing of assets".

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That is what Part 2, and especially Clause 4, purport to do. To insert the words "involving terrorism", would limit the application of Clause 4, and that would be unfortunate.
Lord Goodhart: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for raising that point. He is right. The Long Title of the Bill does contain the words,
"to provide for the freezing of assets".
But my amendment as drafted was not intended as a final version. Its purpose is to raise with the Government the point that the power in Clause 4 goes so wide that it must go far beyond anything that it is intended to achieve. It seems to me that the Government should restrict the drafting of the clause. I accept that the Government's objective here may not be limited to terrorism, although no doubt it includes it. I should like them to accept, however, that the present wording is excessively wide and to reconsider it.
Lord Elton: I find myself surprised and rather alarmed to be in disagreement with my noble friend Lord Renton—possibly for the first time in my parliamentary career. I feel very strongly that emergency legislation should be restricted to the emergency to which it relates. To say that it is wrong to restrict it to that purpose seems to me—if I may respectfully say so—to be misguided.
My position is that one should not give more to a government legislating ventre à terre than is absolutely necessary—because everything that is given to them is scarcely considered. If it does not relate directly to the stated purposes of the legislation, it should not be given.
Lord Renton: I say with deep respect to my noble friend that he may not have realised that the words "involving terrorism" are words of limitation. Here, the Government are rightly trying to protect the economy in a broader sense. If the words "involving terrorism" are inserted in the way suggested, on occasions when there could be a detriment to the economy, but not necessarily involving terrorism, the limitation would be regrettable.
Lord Hylton: I should like to follow up the theme opened by the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I asked yesterday, at col. 242 of Hansard, whether Clause 4 dealing with freezing orders was sufficiently widely drawn to catch illegitimate funds—they derive sometimes from the proceeds of crime, corrupt practices and abuse of state power—placed in London by dictators of foreign states, their families and possibly members of their governments. They place those funds in London not for the benefit of their country but of themselves and their families. The Abacha family case from Nigeria is perhaps the most recent and the most notorious. But it is by no means the only one. It is probable that funds belonging to the Milosevic family followed routes through London. Other similar tyrants include the Duvaliers in Haiti, the Marcos in the Philippines, the so-called Emperor
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Bokassa in central Africa, General Mobutu in Zaire and possibly even Mr Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Those people have had a new word coined for them: kleptocrats. It should be possible to freeze such moneys on reasonable suspicion before they move out of London to other financial centres almost at the drop of a hat.
It has already been mentioned that the existing law which sometimes makes it possible to freeze moneys passing through London is the Emergency Laws (Re-enactments and Repeals) Act 1964 which continued emergency powers legislation of 1939. The difficulty is that that legislation has seldom been used effectively.
Clause 4(2) of the Bill states that,
"action to the detriment of the United Kingdom's economy (or part of it) has been or is likely to be taken by a person or persons".
A possible interpretation of those two lines might include harm done to the City of London, our banking and other institutions by their providing a place in which money looted from very poor countries can find a temporary resting place. That may be one way out of the difficulty. Another way might be through the Proceeds of Crime Bill which is still passing through another place. That may not be entirely satisfactory with regard to freezing because it touches only on the recovery of money by means of a civil action in this country.
I should like to see prevented the movement out of Britain, in particular London, or the spending, of funds belonging to very suspect dictators and members of governments. I hope that the Government will be able to give a reply. I have almost six pages of detailed accounts dated 4th October of this year on how various Nigerian moneys moved through London and on to banks in other countries between 1996 and 1999. I have since read in the press that it is thought that £100 million passed through the island of Jersey alone. The sums involved are very large and I imagine that Jersey got only a small fraction.
Lord Renton: Before the noble Lord sits down, will he confirm that those various matters which occurred a year or two ago did not necessarily involve terrorism?
The Earl of Onslow: I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I do not disagree in any way with the ghastliness of the people he mentioned because they are very unpleasant people. However, some of our complaints have been that the Bill has had things attached to it which are extra to the prime purpose of emergency legislation. We might like to hang many things on to the Bill but noble Lords are complaining that there is too much of that already. Therefore, however worthy the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, makes—and it is very worthy—the provision should not be tacked on to the Bill. There is too much of that already, and I hope that we shall take off much of it.
Lord Hylton: First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that the Nigerian money was nothing to do with terrorism.

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On the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, yes, I would rather that the Bill were very narrow, dealing with an emergency. However, that is not what we have been presented with and it is not what the Government appear to wish to achieve. If the Bill is to be a wide measure, perhaps it can do some useful work as well.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Elton: Perhaps the Minister will reply to the specific point that what he wants to achieve relates to terrorism. If not, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and agree with my noble friend Lord Onslow: this is not the vehicle for that provision. There should be a different vehicle.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I agree with what has been said. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, rightly raises the serious problem of money laundering through United Kingdom banks amounting to some 630 million dollars. That is a lot of money. In order to deal adequately with that issue, the legislation would have to consider much wider matters than are contained in the clause which deals simply with the Treasury freezing the assets of individuals.
I assume that it is not the Government's intention to legislate generally on money laundering because that is a huge subject which requires a separate Bill. Consequently, I support the submission made by my noble friend.
Lord Kingsland: Amendments Nos. 38 to 40, in the name of my noble friends Lord Dixon-Smith and Lady Buscombe, are in this group. I should like to speak briefly to them.
On Amendment No. 38, we all know that the United States is the prime target of terrorist groups such as A1'Qaeda and is likely to remain so. Countries other than the United Kingdom may be targets or become targets depending on the circumstances. After 11th September we all recognise that the terrorist threat is global and to be effective the response must be global too.
The power to freeze funds where they are likely to be used for terrorism is a useful counter weapon. Why should it be limited to protecting the UK economy and UK nationals and residents? To leave funds here, free for use in terrorism aimed at the United States economy or United States residents, is likely to cause outrage in Washington—and rightly so. Global terrorism needs to be tackled globally. The Government should take the powers necessary to restrain funds that are designed to be used for terrorism outside the United Kingdom.
On Amendment No. 39, we are, in a different way, linking up with the noble Lord. Lord Goodhart. We believe that the power to make a freezing order must be limited. It is not enough simply to show that the action about which a complaint is made will cause some detriment to the United Kingdom economy. We suggest that a freezing order can be made only if the
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action that is going to cause a detriment to the United Kingdom economy is unlawful or has the intention of causing detriment.
There can be no complaints from those affected by a freezing order if their action is unlawful or intended to cause detriment to the UK economy. If, on the other hand, lawful means are used and no detriment is intended, it would not be right for the Treasury to make a freezing order.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: As we come to Part 2, I should like to stretch the conventions of the House by referring to an article on the front page of today's Evening Standard. It says that Omar Mohammed Othman, otherwise known as Abu Qatada and described as Osama bin Laden's key contact in Britain, today launched a legally aided High Court hid to be paid social security benefits. He has been cited on a United Nations list of suspected terrorists and, although living on benefits in west London, he was found to have assets of £180,000, which were seized. That is the subject of Part 1, which we have just agreed. He is now using legal aid to come back to the High Court to challenge the decision to suspend benefit. It may be helpful to say how Part 2 operates in respect of that application.
Part 2 makes it clear that the Treasury will have the powers to freeze assets in such circumstances. The provisions enable us to freeze funds when there is a threat to United Kingdom economic interests—I shall come to the constraints in a moment—or to the lives or property of United Kingdom citizens or residents. The freezing order can designate persons, groups or governments outside the United Kingdom and anyone, whether in the United Kingdom or abroad, who assists the funding of such people.
As Mr Othman is included in the United Nations list as an accomplice of bin Laden, under the Bill we could freeze his assets on the basis of intelligence, even if there was no investigation in this country. We could stop the payment of benefits because the freezing orders bind the Crown. We could allow some release of funds, including benefits, where appropriate, to avoid undue hardship. That is provided in paragraph 3 of Schedule 3. We could seize—and have seized—the £180,000 cash that police found in Mr Othman's house under the provisions for cash seizure in Part 1, which I have already referred to.
I hope that it will be accepted throughout the House that those are appropriate uses of the powers provided in Parts 1 and 2.
The Earl of Onslow: If the money has been seized already, why do we need new powers to seize it? I ask that purely in the spirit of friendly curiosity.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Because Mr Othman is trying to get the money back and we want to make sure that he cannot.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Do the Government intend to bring before Parliament orders dealing with

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individuals? The machinery is that a statutory instrument should be laid before Parliament. Will that relate to one person?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am coming to that. There is very severe parliamentary control of freezing orders. They are subject to affirmative resolution procedures. That is tough on Parliament, because there could be a number of them.
The amendments relate to Clause 4, which is the central element of the provisions that will allow the United Kingdom to take swift unilateral action to freeze terrorist assets. There will be two conditions. First, the Treasury must reasonably believe that an action threatens the United Kingdom's economy or part of it or the life or property of United Kingdom nationals and residents. Secondly, the action is to be taken by people resident outside the United Kingdom or by a foreign government.
It has been suggested that the concept of threats to the United Kingdom economy is very wide—much wider than terrorism. I am referring particularly to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. There are unavoidable and desirable constraints on the use of that power. Before we exercise it, we have to consider whether it is compatible with European Community obligations. It could not be used as a means of arbitrary discrimination or as a disguised restriction on the free movement of capital. International law, in particular the World Trade Organisation, would prevent the power being used as an illegitimate tool to protect UK businesses. The European Convention on Human Rights also imposes significant restrictions on the exercise of the power. We can freeze assets only when it is necessary in the general interest and where it is a proportionate interference with the rights of individuals.
The power is just one part of the sanctions regime. If a decision to impose sanctions is taken at European Community level or under a United Nations Security Council resolution, it would not be appropriate to use the power. There are safeguards in the power. As I said, the Treasury must have reasonable grounds for its belief and any freezing order is subject to affirmative resolution in both Houses. A freezing order will automatically cease to have effect two years after it is made and the Treasury has a duty to keep any freezing order under review and to consider whether a change in circumstance means that it is no longer appropriate for the order to continue in force. There are many constraints on what may seem to be a very broad power.
Amendment No. 37 is designed to restrict the power specifically to terrorism. The problem is that the power is intended to provide wide-ranging protection against threats to national security. One reason for these provisions is to counter the new risk of terrorism, but it is also important to cover such situations as wars or civil unrest affecting United Kingdom nationals and their property. The sanctions have been available for many years to counter actions that threaten UK economic interest, wherever that threat comes from.
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I was interested in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, about the restrictions in the 1964 Act. I was not aware of the restriction to gold, but that Act has been used to justify sanctions against the governments and residents of Iraq and Serbia. That was widely thought to be a proper use of it. The amendment would prevent us from doing that in future. The criteria provide a clearer basis for action than simply terrorism, which allows for a more subjective interpretation.
Lord Elton: I do not wish to be a bore on this subject, but I think that I am likely to become so. Can we establish at the beginning that this is emergency legislation directed at an emergency? When the Minister—or my noble friend Lord Renton—starts saying that it would be very useful and desirable to prevent other things happening which are not the product of the emergency, it seems to me that the parliamentary process that we are now using is not appropriate. I am merely picking up on what my noble friend Lord Onslow said a moment ago. The House generally feels that emergency legislation must restrict itself to dealing with the events of the emergency.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I did not use the phrase "very useful" but I do not dissent broadly from what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said. If we included the word "terrorism", we would, in effect, restrict quick and urgent action that was necessary to prevent certain things that cannot be shown at an early stage of an investigation to be terrorism. That will be true for a number of aspects of Parts 2 and 3 of the Bill. We shall resist moves to restrict the powers given under the Bill on, for example, disclosure of information for criminal investigations and proceedings, which is wider than the existing provisions because at the time when it is necessary to allow such disclosure, it will not be possible to know whether such disclosure would be beneficial in dealing with terrorist threats. That is the problem throughout these parts of the Bill.
6.30 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: The noble Lord has made it worse. He has gone on a trawling expedition and we do not like such expeditions. Everybody accepts—some more readily than others—that there may be a need for emergency legislation, but to make it cover every action in case it leads to terrorism, brothel keeping, or whatever, is too wide. We must restrain the Government's urge to tack things on to Bills just because it would be useful or nice or because it makes our lives easier. We are dealing with terrorism, not brothel keeping.
Lord Renton: Before the noble Lord replies, I hope that it may be helpful if I point out to my noble friend Lord Onslow that not all emergencies involve terrorism.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I did not use the words—useful, nice or convenient—that the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, seems to be attributing to me. It

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serves me right for going on to mention Part 3 of the Bill. He is tempted to a view on Part 3 that is completely wrong on the idea that one can trawl for information. However, it would be inappropriate for me to answer that point now, so I shall restrict myself to the amendments that we are discussing.
Amendment No. 37 would restrict the use of Clause 4 in a way that could be damaging to terrorist investigations. Amendments Nos. 38, 39 and 40 go in the other direction. I have already said that the measure will ensure that the powers that were originally intended for use in war time are broad enough to cover the threat of terrorist attacks. To achieve that, we need a broad and flexible power to cover a range of different circumstances. We appreciate that these are serious measures for use only in emergencies and in defence of national security. I am making that point mainly to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Earl, Lord Onslow.
We do not think it appropriate, as Amendment No. 38 would provide, to freeze assets unilaterally in response to actions against any state other than the United Kingdom.
Lord Campbell-Savours: I wonder whether my noble friend can help me. On looking through the Bill, I can find no reference to timing. What would happen if the Treasury made a freezing order at the beginning of a parliamentary Recess? What will be the position if the matter has to be approved under affirmative resolution of Parliament?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: An order of that kind comes into effect immediately on being made and has to be confirmed within 28 days of parliamentary working time. Therefore, it can come into effect even during a Recess, but will fall unless it has been confirmed by affirmative resolution of both Houses within 28 days. It comes into effect immediately, which I think was the point being made.
Lord Campbell-Savours: It would take some time before it secured parliamentary approval. There would be a substantial delay in the Summer Recess, for example.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: No. It would be in force, which is the important point. I think that everyone agrees that that is necessary.
I return to the point about Amendment No. 38 and states other than the United Kingdom. In those circumstances, we believe that we should implement financial sanctions if they have been agreed, for example, by the United Nations or the European Union, rather than seeking unilateral action. We are looking to limit the scope of the Bill as compared with Amendment No. 38.
Lord Elton: I am most grateful for that emollient phrase. May I ask the noble Lord while he is on
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Amendment No. 38 how the Bill, unamended, will affect the economies of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It depends whether or not they are in the United Kingdom. I do not know the answer, but I shall write to the noble Lord.
Lord Elton: They are not, but they are very much dependent upon us.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Then the Bill does not cover them. There may be cases when we wish to freeze funds on behalf of other governments. An Order in Council is currently going through Parliament that will allow the enforcement in the United Kingdom of external forfeiture and restraint orders made in certain designated countries that will include all European Union and G7 states.
I turn to Amendment No. 40, which would change "life" to "persons". We would not wish to exercise those powers in response to less serious actions against United Kingdom nationals, such as petty theft or minor cases of assault. It would be disproportionate to freeze assets against threats to the persons of UK citizens. We believe that the current wording of "life" is appropriate to the gravity of the powers. I emphasise that the use of freezing orders must be consonant with our obligations under ECHR, Community and international law. The qualification that only unlawful or intentional actions against the UK's economic interest is unnecessary. There are extensive provisions to test that there are reasonable grounds for freezing orders through parliamentary scrutiny and appeal to an independent adjudicator through judicial review.
The clause has been approached from both sides. I adhere to the view that the balance that we have struck in the wording is the correct one.
Viscount Goschen: Before the noble Lord. Lord Goodhart, speaks again to his amendment, I should like to ask the Minister a question. He objected to the use of the term "involving terrorism". I agree with my noble friend Lord Onslow and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, that the Bill should be restricted to terrorism. I see no reference to national security. Clause 4(2)(b) refers to,
"action constituting a threat to the life or property of one or more nationals",
which is a very broad description and could relate to almost any crime.
Does the noble Lord object to tightening up that subsection with reference being made to national security, including terrorism, or does he feel that the drafting is perfect?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The drafting is more helpful than referring simply to national security. We have spelt out what national security means, which is helpful.
While I am on my feet, I shall deal with two points that were raised in the debate and which I have not yet answered. The first referred to the Channel Islands and

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the Isle of Man. They are not covered in the Bill, but we are asking their governments to make their own legislation.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked about dictators. We all sympathise with the emotion behind his remarks, but the Bill is not for dealing with stolen assets or corruption funds; it is about national security. The correct vehicle for what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to is the Proceeds of Crime Bill, which includes provisions to freeze funds at the start of a police investigation. I hope that when we come to that Bill, he will raise those points in the House.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I was pleased to hear the Minister refer to judicial review. I sought confirmation in the debate yesterday but the Attorney-General did not have time to reply to me at that time.
I should like to make another point. The Minister described a virtual Grand National course of obligations that have to be surmounted, together with the parliamentary procedures, before a freezing order is ever made. Would it not assist in lowering the fences if it were quite clear from the wording of the Bill that it related to terrorism, as my noble friend suggested in his amendment?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: No. At the time when action had to be taken, it would not necessarily be possible to prove that terrorism was involved. That is why we seek these broader powers and constrain them in a way that I hope meets with the approval of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas.
Lord Goodhart: The debate has gone on longer and ranged a good deal wider than I anticipated when I moved this amendment. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raised the question of the possible use of the clause to restrain or freeze the assets of dictators. I agree with what the Minister said in that regard.
I end by not being satisfied with the Government's response. As regards the drafting, the Minister did not attempt to dispute my interpretation; that is, that it is within the wording of the Bill as it now stands that it should cover the competitive bidding for overseas investment that I was describing. I specifically chose the example of Switzerland because I wished to choose a state which was not part of the European Union.
It is certainly unsatisfactory if we have to rely for the restriction on the extreme width of Clause 4 on international obligations, the rules of the World Trade Organisation and so forth. It would be better if on the face of the Bill some limitation could be imposed on the width of Clause 4. I entirely accept that Clause 4 is not intended to be limited to terrorism and that my amendment is therefore inappropriate. But that gives rise to the wider problem raised by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and it again discloses a problem dealt with by many speakers yesterday, including myself. This is a wholly inappropriate use of emergency legislation because it goes well beyond the emergency.
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Having said that, I cannot redraft the legislation for the Government. It is unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 38 to 40 not moved.]
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Contents of Order]:
[Amendment No. 41 not moved.]
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
6.45 p.m.
Schedule 3 [Freezing orders]:
Lord Kingsland Lord Kingsland moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 97, line 37, after "is" insert "reasonably"
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 42 provides that disclosure to the Treasury under that part of the Bill should take place,
"as soon as is reasonably practicable".
As currently drafted, the Bill states that a freezing order can require disclosure to the Treasury of relevant information as soon as is practicable after the information is received. However, there may be situations in which a person cannot make the disclosure, for good reason, as soon as would otherwise have been practical. To reflect those situations we suggest that provision is made for such disclosure to be made,
"as soon as is reasonably practicable".
A similar sentiment lies behind Amendments Nos. 46 and 47, the first in relation to Clause 11(1)(c) and the second in relation to Clause 11(2)(c). I beg to move.
Lord Monson: Perhaps I may point out that there is a drafting defect in both Amendments Nos. 46 and 47, no doubt understandably in view of the haste with which the amendments had to be tabled. The definite article has been omitted in front of the word "Treasury" and it does not read quite right without the word "the" in front of it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It may be helpful if I say that we understand that these amendments are intended to make it explicit on the face of the Bill that any amendment to a freezing order as well as the making of the order is based on the Treasury's reasonable belief that the relevant conditions are met. We agree with that principle.
Our view is that that is the effect of the current drafting reads in accordance with the Interpretation Act 1978. However, we agree that the Bill should expressly provide that in making changes to freezing orders the Treasury must have a belief, as well as stating that it has a belief, that the relevant conditions are met, and that that belief should be reasonable. We shall table amendments on Report to meet that point.
Lord Kingsland: I am grateful to the Minister for that undertaking. In those circumstances it is proper for me to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Review of order]:
Lord Kingsland Lord Kingsland moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 4, line 5, at end insert "and must revoke such freezing order if it ceases to have reasonable grounds to consider that the conditions set out in section 4 are fulfilled"
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 43 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 44 and 45.
However necessary may be the powers to freeze funds on the say-so of the Government, those powers are draconian and require protection against executive abuse. Just as a power must be exercised only if certain conditions, as set out in Clause 4(2), are fulfilled, so the order should be revoked as soon as the conditions cease to be fulfilled.
There appears to be no protection in the Bill as drafted against the Treasury letting a freezing order run for the full two years, even if the reasons for it have fallen away. Amendment No. 43 requires the Treasury to lift the order when the conditions are no longer fulfilled. So the "victim" of the order if—I may use that expression—has some legal recourse if the Treasury fails to so act.
I turn to Amendment No. 44. There appears to be no provision in the Bill as drafted to allow for the renewal of a freezing order at the end of the initial period of two years. That might have the bizarre effect that the Treasury was forced, as a pure matter of timing, to release funds when it had reasonable grounds to suppose the funds would immediately be used to launch a terrorist attack. It is even more bizarre to allow detention indefinitely, without trial, but impose a time limit in the much less important context of money.
Although we would not normally argue for a swingeing measure, such as a freezing order, to be strengthened, we are prepared to accept that, in the context of terrorism and London's pivotal position as a financial centre, there may be a strong case for renewal in some circumstances—provided there is the possibility of recourse to the courts as proposed in our amendment to line 5. Amendment No. 44 is designed to achieve that.
Finally, I turn to Amendment No. 45. A freezing order prohibits all those in the United Kingdom, and United Kingdom nationals elsewhere, from making funds available to or for the benefit of specific persons named or described in the freezing order. If such a person acts in breach of a freezing order he can be sent to prison for two years.
At the very least, there should be some convenient means by which the existence of the freezing order is brought to the attention of the criminal party. It is hardly fair that the Treasury can make a freezing order, which carries with it criminal sanctions, and not publish it in some way so that innocent people do not inadvertently become criminal.
Such publication can be achieved relatively easily by simply inserting the appropriate notice in the Gazette. It is our understanding, or at least our hope, that many banks regularly read the Gazette to check winding up petitions which have the effect of freezing a company's assets. That is, or should be, an established practice in the banking community. If the list of freezing orders are then published, either before or after the list of outstanding petitions, those responsible for checking such a list will be able to look at the list of freezing orders as well.
This is an important point because the whole purpose of a freezing order is to freeze money and not to catch innocent people unawares and send them to prison. The aim is to freeze the cash and that is achieved if the freezing orders are brought to the attention of those who hold the cash. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: I believe that the Government would welcome the amendments to which my noble friend has just spoken. Clause 7 as it stands is unusual. It merely says,
"The Treasury must keep a freezing order under review".
But these amendments would enable the Government, when reviewing a freezing order, to take various forms of action which could well be necessary in the circumstances. I would hope therefore that the Government will say, "Yes, this will enable us to fulfil our intentions much better". In other words, these amendments are not only in the Government's interest but also in the national interest.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I would have thought that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, would approve of the taciturnity and precision of Clauses 7 and 8. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, might have called there "telegraphic". I believe that they are absolutely clear and admirably short.
Before I deal with them perhaps I may say something about my response to Amendments Nos. 46 and 47. I said that we would introduce amendments at Report stage to cover these points. I did mean Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 rather than Amendment No. 42, which is a separate issue.
Clauses 7 and 8 represent wonderful drafting. They underline the emergency nature of the provisions. They provide for an ongoing review of all freezing orders. They set a maximum period of two years after which freezing orders will cease to come into effect. As regards Amendment No. 43, we do not need to specify in that context that the Treasury must revoke an order when the condition under which it was made is no longer fulfilled. That is clearly the intention underlying Clause 7. As part of our obligation to review we pay careful attention to any change in circumstances There is no point in having a review unless one is prepared to revoke.
However, an explicit provision could impair the effectiveness of the power if the circumstances which led to an order changed but it was still appropriate to have an order in place. As regards Amendment No. 44, I do not see any benefit in it. If the order needs to be

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continued it should be made again subject to affirmative resolution in Parliament. That is for the protection of Parliament. The Treasury would make it clear in such debates that it was replacing an order that had expired. These are serious powers and they should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
As regards Amendment No. 45, we are dealing with statutory instruments. They are public documents made freely available as soon as they are laid, including on the HMSO website. As the targets will be primarily abroad, publication in the Gazette would be unlikely to bring the order to their attention. As a matter of practice the Bank of England does publicise these orders among financial institutions.
As regards banks being liable to criminal penalties, paragraph 7(5) of Schedule 3 provides a defence for those who do not know that the person to whom they have made funds available was the person specified in the order.
Viscount Goschen: Before my noble friend responds to the Minister's comments, can the Minister explain what he understands to be the use of Clause 7 as it stands in the Bill? It states that the Treasury must keep an order under review. What does that mean? It is not specified unless that appears somewhere else in the Bill and I do not know about it. Exactly what review process has to be gone through? Would it be open to challenge? Just to state that the order must be kept under review reflects the kind of wording that Government Ministers use from time to time about policies on which they have yet to make decisions. The current wording is meaningless on its own.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, does not like plain English either. The clause means what it says. The matter has to be kept under review. If there are changed circumstances which mean that the order should be revoked, that will be done. What the Treasury cannot do, according to Clause 7, is simply to make an order and forget it. This clause is entirely desirable as well as being clear.
Lord Kingsland: I thank the Minister for his reply. As regards Amendment No. 43, the noble Lord said that an explicit provision of the sort contained in that amendment would impair the effectiveness of the power. I find it hard to see how that can be so. If the noble Lord has no other complaint than that against the amendment, then surely including it on the face of the Bill would be wholly advantageous.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: There could be a wide range of conditions set out in Section 4. It could be that some of them have changed as the amendment provides and the order must be revoked. Surely that cannot be right. One must admit the possibility that under changed conditions, which have been identified in the review, it would not be appropriate for the order to be revoked.
Lord Kingsland: I am most grateful to the Minister for that further clarification. But the amendment says,
"if it ceases to have reasonable grounds to consider the conditions set out in section 4 are fulfilled".
If the Treasury ceases to have reasonable grounds, in those circumstances, it is hard to imagine any conclusion that the Treasury could reach other than revocation. Perhaps the noble Lord would like to reflect further on this clause before he returns to your Lordships' House at Report stage.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am glad to do that. I always reflect on these matters.
Lord Kingsland: I am most grateful to the Minister. I am also grateful to the noble Lord for his response to Amendment No. 45. I am not quite sure what conclusions I should draw from what the Minister said. Is he accepting my amendment by saying that it is unnecessary or is he accepting it by saying that he is going to add it to the Bill? This is the amendment regarding the Gazette.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: No, certainly not. It would be inappropriate use of the Gazette. The statutory instruments are published and the Bank of England provides all banks with a summary. It is quite unnecessary and an inappropriate use of the Gazette.
Lord Kingsland: I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [Duration of Order]:
[Amendment No. 44 not moved.]
Clause 8 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 45 not moved.]
Clauses 9 and 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Procedure for making certain amending orders]:
[Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 not moved.]
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [De-hybridisation]:
On Question, Whether Clause 13 shall stand part of the Bill?
7 p.m.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: This is an error. The Question should be whether Clause 17 stand part of the Bill. Clause 13 concerns de-hybridisation. I have raised the matter with the learned Clerk and, with the leave of the Committee, the Question whether Clause 17 stand part of the Bill should be dealt with in the right place, which is at the end of the amendments to Clause 17.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clauses 14 to 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Extension of existing disclosure powers]:
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 7, line 6, at beginning insert "Subject to subsection (2A),"
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 48, I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 59, 70 and 81. These all raise the issue of the privilege against self-incrimination. Part 3 deals with the disclosure of information. Clause 17 extends many existing powers of disclosure to cover disclosure for the purposes of criminal investigations or criminal proceedings. Clause 19 concerns disclosure of information held by the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise.
I shall confine my remarks to Clause 17 but they apply also to Clause 19. Clause 17 applies to the provisions in Schedule 4, which contains a list of 53 statutes and a number of Northern Ireland orders, under which information is required by government departments or public authorities. That information is now to be used not only for the purposes for which it was originally required under the 53 statutes but also for the purposes of criminal investigations and criminal proceedings.
A large number of those statutes—I have not attempted to go through all of them, but those I have looked at make the position quite clear—require people in the private sector, individuals or companies, to provide, under statutory direction, information on certain subjects. If that information is to be used for the purposes of criminal proceedings against the persons who provided that information, the question arises whether that is a breach of the privilege against self-incrimination which has been held to be part of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I admit that to some extent the law on that point is in a somewhat uncertain state. Some years ago we had the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Ernest Saunders. Mr Saunders had in the course of the investigation of the Guinness share pushing deal been required to give evidence to inspectors under the companies legislation. It was a statutory requirement that he should give that evidence. The evidence that he gave was then used against him in the criminal trial. Subsequently, it was held by the European Court of Human Rights that there was a breach of his rights under Article 6.
In the other direction we have the decision of the Privy Council in the case in Scotland, the name of which. I believe, was Brown, in which a woman was required to state whether or not she was driving a car at a particular time as that information was relevant to criminal proceedings against her. It was held that the request to give that information was not a breach of her rights under Article 6. Therefore, it is not clear what the position is. I raise the provision largely as a probing amendment to find out whether the Government recognise that some of these obligations under Clause 17, and perhaps also under Clause 19, may breach the privilege against self-incrimination. If that is the case, how do the Government propose to deal with that, or do they simply intend to leave the matter at large and
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allow the courts, when looking at any particular case, to decide whether there is a breach of the privilege against self-incrimination? I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Strictly speaking. I ought to confine myself to the amendments which concern the use to which information can be put by prosecutors, which is not the subject of this part of the Bill at all. This part of the Bill deals only with disclosure. However, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made a perfectly legitimate point to which one ought to respond. Before I discuss the issue of self-incrimination, I should say that the extension here does not concern criminal proceedings. Disclosure provisions already exist in regard to criminal proceedings. The extension here concerns criminal investigations. Therefore, it is less of an extension than the noble Lord indicated.
Let me make it clear that we are not changing the ways in which information can be used; we are simply widening the gateways from prosecutions to investigations. The specific answer to the noble Lord's question is that some of the Acts listed in Schedule 4 already contain provisions that prevent information obtained through compulsory powers being used as evidence against the person who provided it. Those restrictions on use will continue to hold good for information disclosable under Part 3. The noble Lord mentioned the Saunders case. Some of the provisions for information disclosable under statutory powers came into conflict with that case and some of the Acts referred to in Schedule 4 have been amended accordingly. As I say, those restrictions on use will continue to hold good for information disclosable under Part 3.
In addition to the restrictions on use that may already be contained in the enactments listed in Schedule 4, which will still apply, any public authority prosecuting a criminal offence and any court considering the matter would have to consider the Human Rights Act and the Saunders and Brown cases to which the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, referred.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Is the Minister able to say whether the Government accept the recommendation of the secondary legislation committee that the order referred to in subsection (3) of Clause 17 should be subject to affirmative procedure, or has that not yet been decided?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: That point will be dealt with in consideration of a later amendment. In order to curtail debate, I shall say in advance that we shall accept the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
Lord Goodhart: I am grateful to the Minister. It is clear that the Government have given some consideration to the possible self-incrimination aspects. In the circumstances, I believe that broadly my inquiries have been answered satisfactorily. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury Lord Phillips of Sudbury moved Amendment No. 48A:
Page 7, line 7, after "authority" insert "to another public authority".
The noble Lord said: This, too, is a probing amendment. I hope that it will be of use to the Committee in consideration of this complex Bill. Late last night, when grappling with the wording of Clause 17(2), it seemed to me that the scope of disclosure permitted by that clause may be wider than most of us understand or, indeed, than the Government intend. It is wide enough in authorising disclosure by or on behalf of a public authority, given of course that "public authority" is defined by reference to the Human Rights Act.
Therefore, public authorities do not include only governmental departments, governmental bodies and statutory bodies but what are known as "hybrid" public bodies. That term extends to organisations such as the Law Society, the Bar Council, the General Medical Council, a doctor or healthcare worker working within the NHS, a privatised company running a school or a prison, Railtrack and the Press Complaints Commission. It is a massive extension of disclosure prospects.
The point of the amendment is to confine the right to disclose to all the bodies concerned in accordance with the 66 scheduled pieces of legislation, to other public bodies or, as I have expressed it, to another public authority. As the clause stands, I cannot see any reason for wondering whether or not the disclosure is also to be allowed to an individual who comes within paragraphs (a), (b), (c) or (d) of Clause 17(2); that is, an individual bringing a private prosecution, contemplating bringing a private prosecution or contemplating investigating a private prosecution, as covered in paragraph (d).
There, of course, we enter a very deep and broad sea. One is dealing with the prospect of an individual bringing criminal libel proceedings, which very often are highly personal and acrimonious. One thinks of cases such as that of the late lamented Jimmy Goldsmith against Private Eye. One thinks also of criminal damage prosecutions, of rape or attempted rape prosecutions, of theft or attempted theft prosecutions, perjury prosecutions and a host of others.
It will be no answer to the huge range of private activities that fall within paragraphs (a), (b), (c) or (d) to say that some of them require the fiat of the Attorney-General before the prosecution can take place. Of course, paragraphs (a), (c) and (d) of subsection (2) extend to activities prior to the commencement of the prosecution. Only the commencement of the prosecution requires the consent of the Attorney-General in a few cases.
Therefore, as I said, the amendment is designed to prevent the clause extending to that whole range of cases. It would also prevent an unfairness in that, if, indeed, private prosecutions were within the scope of this clause, there would be a serious inequality of arms because the defendant in those private prosecutions
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would not have the same rights of access to disclosed information as the prosecuting individual. On those grounds, I beg to move.
7.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, to some extent, but I do not believe that I shall be able to do so completely. The extent to which I can reassure him is that, as the Bill is drafted, a defendant in a private or public prosecution is included as a person to whom information can be disclosed. But he would not be included if the amendment were carried. Therefore, the amendment would work in the opposite direction to the sense in which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, wants it to work.
The provisions permit disclosure only for purposes connected with criminal proceedings or criminal investigations. That is a very great restriction on the wide range of examples that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, gave in introducing the amendment. However, it is true that private prosecutions would be included, as would, for example, the private prosecution of those accused of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Is that so terrible? I am not sure that I agree that it is.
The Earl of Onslow: In the context of this Bill, yes, it is terrible. We are dealing with terrorism, terrorism and terrorism. We are not dealing with the murder of Stephen Lawrence; we are not dealing with brothel keeping; and we are not dealing with parking on a double yellow line. We want to confine the Bill to what the Government say it is about. Many of us have made that complaint. Yesterday, I and many other noble Lords around the House made that very complaint. We must confine the Government. No one is saying that they should not have these powers if they want them; but they must get them by proper legislation and proper means. That is the complaint that runs through the whole core of this argument.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I appreciate the force with which the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, makes his point, and I appreciate that it was made by a number of other people. From that point of view, perhaps my example was unfortunate, just as the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, of criminal libel and criminal damage could be considered to be unfortunate in the other direction. Therefore, the extent to which I cannot satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is by saying that we acknowledge that the Bill permits disclosure to those involved, whether or not they are public authorities, in criminal investigations and proceedings.
As the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, has widened the discussion, perhaps this is an appropriate moment for me to say something about Clause 17 as a whole. I believe that it is enormously important.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thank the Minister for giving way. Would it be better if I responded to my amendment before he launched into a general statement? It is entirely up to the Minister.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It is up to the Committee. But I have something to say about Clause 17 which affects all the amendments to that clause. If it were for the convenience of the Committee, I should like to find an opportunity to say it. However, I am in the hands of the Committee.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I believe that that is enormously helpful. However, it may finalise the discussion on this amendment if I were to respond to what the Minister said and then leave him free to make his general remarks.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I shall not make general remarks except on an amendment. Shall I simply do it?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Yes.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: There has been much misrepresentation in relation to Clause 17. Therefore, I want to say that these gateways—the provisions for information disclosure—in Schedule 4 all exist. They have all been approved by Parliament. There are no new gateways. They refer to information of specific types which are covered by existing statutory restrictions on disclosure, and they are restricted to information collected under statutory powers.
The duties under the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act still apply to all disclosures. Disclosures must be proportionate, necessary and lawful. Only public officials will be able to disclose, and only in their capacity as public officials. That means that something arising in the pub will not count. I have read that the provision will allow access to information from doctors or bank managers, but they are not public officials, and health records and bank records are not covered by the provisions. We are simply widening each of the gateways to ensure that disclosure is permitted if all other safeguards are satisfied for criminal proceedings, as now, to investigations and to determine whether an investigation should begin.
There is no question of public officials being obliged to make disclosures. It is up to them to decide whether to do so. There is certainly no question of the police or anyone else trawling records. There will be no investigatory access to the records covered by the Acts in Schedule 4. Public officials will have to determine on a case-by-case basis whether they may disclose the information.
Those are huge changes since the Criminal Justice and Police Bill was before Parliament before the election. I hope that our discussion of Clause 17 will be informed by my comments.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That is a most irregular response to a specific amendment. Many people will be astonished to know that Clause 17 covers not only individuals bringing private prosecutions—I enumerated some of them—but also that disclosure vis-à-vis private and public prosecutions will extend to the accused. That goes far beyond the expectations that any of us had.
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I turn to what Jack Straw said on the matter in the other place during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill in January this year. He described the provisions as allowing a,
"reciprocal flow of information between those bodies, the police and the National Criminal Intelligence Service".—[Official Report, Commons, 29/1/01; col. 41.]
Gordon Brown commented in the other place on the provisions as recently as 15th October, which was, of course, before the Bill's publication. He said that the provisions would allow official bodies, particularly the Inland Revenue, to exchange information with other bodies in fighting the financing of terrorism.
There has been a unanimous response to the measure, from Liberty, Justice, the Law Society, the Bar Council, Uncle Torn Cobbleigh and all. The provision is drafted in the widest possible terms as regards the categories, particularly category (d). We shall later come to an amendment dealing with that. We have now heard not only that public authorities include hybrid bodies that are not public at all in the common sense of the word but that they will allow any person bringing any private prosecution to have access to disclosure under Clause 17, and any person accused by a private citizen bringing a private prosecution or by any state, body, police or prosecuting authority.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not claim that the noble Lord and I are of one mind on this matter. There is a difference between us, and I do not want to restrain him from taking any action that he thinks it necessary to take. However, there are important limits—they will limit the circumstances in which information can be disclosed to a person who is not a public authority.
The Human Rights Act will apply to every disclosure that takes place under the provisions. In particular, disclosure will he possible only when it is compatible with Article 8—the right to privacy. Obviously, that limits the circumstances in which the public authority itself can disclose information. However, there are circumstances in which a public authority will be subject to a duty to ensure that it does not breach Article 8 and that it does not enable anyone else to do so. In other words, when a public authority is considering whether or not to disclose, it will have to consider what the person to whom he proposes to disclose the information will do with it. In some cases, it will be appropriate for the public authority to disclose, subject to certain conditions, which would prevent onward disclosure. I hope that that helps the noble Lord, at least in part.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the Minister—he made that point in an earlier speech. It is of little consolation, but we shall discuss that in relation to later amendments. However, I shall not prolong the discussion of this amendment. I shall, if I may, raise the issues later. I suggest to the Minister that he reviews what he said in the light of the amendment and takes counsel about whether the Government

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really intend the gateway to be not a gateway but a huge hole in relation to the confidentiality of information. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving that Motion, I suggest that the Committee should meet again not before 8.25 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Teachers' Contracts
7.26 p.m.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Baroness Sharp of Guildford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they support the increasing use of short-and medium-term contracts in the further and higher education sector.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest. For the years 1981–99, I was employed as a contract researcher at the University of Sussex. Part of the case that I want to make rests on my experience as a contract researcher. I moved to the University of Sussex in 1981 from what was effectively a Civil Service job, working for the National Economic Development Office. In 1982, I was selected as the SDP candidate for Guildford. As a result of that selection, I in effect had to return my return ticket to NEDO. Although I had been seconded from NEDO to the University of Sussex, I had to give up my right to return there and I became willy-nilly a contract researcher. I was lucky because I had a husband who was in full-time employment as a civil servant. My salary was therefore supplemental to his. The flexibility that being a contract researcher gave me was very helpful in my pursuit of a political career.
Initially, I was on a three-year contract, which meant that I did not have to sacrifice pension rights. Had I been on a contract of less than one year, I would not have had my pension rights continued. Subsequently, I found that I had little difficulty in putting in applications and research proposals or in getting them funded, and I was therefore funding my own salary—I did that from then onwards. I gradually moved up within the unit in which I was working. I moved from being a senior researcher to leading a research group, and subsequently led an ESRC research centre. In the process and through the research group, I brought about £7.5 million into the university.
I was lucky, but others in my unit were not. Many of them had had as many as 25 contracts during a working period of 20 or 25 years. Those who were on contracts of less than one year often had periods in which their pension was not paid. There was also constant uncertainty about where next year's income
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would come from. Again, so far as I was concerned, that did not matter too much—my husband was pulling in a perfectly good salary. If I found myself without a job, that would give me a little bit of unexpected leisure. However, for people in their late 30s or early 40s with a family and young children to look after and a mortgage to pay, that was a very difficult situation.
One matter that rankled with me was that I found that I was disenfranchised—I had no right to vote for the senate or to sit on it. In some senses I did not mind about that. When I was a full-time academic at LSE, I found that sitting on the senate was not necessarily a pleasurable experience. Nevertheless, the fact that I was disenfranchised in that way meant that I was a second-class citizen. When the Vice Chancellor's wife convened a dinner party for senior women academics at the university I was not there because I was not a tenured member of staff. I was a second-class citizen. Contract researchers are or have been within the university hierarchy second-class citizens.
Interestingly, the research that I was doing at the time led me to learn rather more about contract researchers. I was following the biotechnology directorate in the Science and Engineering Research Council and evaluating a number of their programmes. That led me to have a better understanding of the concept of the post-doc researcher in the British scientific world. The post-doc is the equivalent of the junior hospital doctor in medical training. When you have done your doctorate and are qualified, you go on to do an apprenticeship of two to three years, after which you are in a position to hold a fully tenured post. The traditional position for post-docs was that after two or three years they obtained substantive posts as lecturers. Those that did not were quietly pushed to one side to work in government laboratories or industry and quietly made to recognise that they did not have a future in the universities.
However, by the 1980s that traditional pattern of apprenticeship had changed. First, the substantial expansion of university research and a contraction in the number of government laboratories and industrial research associations meant that there were many more jobs in universities and rather fewer jobs elsewhere. Secondly, the squeeze on university funding meant a freeze on recruitment. No new lectureships were created. By the mid-1980s, typically, instead of waiting just two to three years for a lecture post young researchers were having to wait five to six years or sometimes even longer.
Meanwhile, because of funding uncertainties universities preferred to take on short-term rather than long-term staff. The anomaly emerged. Numbers employed at universities remained the same but the balance began to change with a larger proportion being employed on short-term contracts. That even extended to lecturer posts. Most first appointments from then on were made as temporary lecturer posts. Those young people, mostly in their 30s, faced all the

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uncertainties faced by my colleagues; that is, problems of getting mortgages and an uncertainty as to where their income was coming from.
In addition, one matter which I found interesting in my research was that most universities imposed a six-year limit on the length of contract of employment. If contract researchers stayed over six years, universities would be liable to pay redundancy pay. I discovered a merry-go-round under which contract researchers were shuffled around from one university to another. They had limited pension rights—contracts of less than one year carried no pension rights—limited employment rights; no rights to sabbatical leave and no career development path. To boot, they were treated within the university world often as second-class citizens. It was no wonder that I found among them a disgruntled group of citizens who often had little time for their universities or their career.
Now, thanks partly to a report from your Lordships' House in 1995 on academic research careers, things have changed. That report highlighted the problems of contract researchers. The CVCP as it then was, now Universities UK, introduced a concordat which promised to create a proper system of research and guidance in research careers. That was followed up by the research careers initiative, which proceeds to this day. The same problems were also highlighted in the Dearing report—I see the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, in his place—and subsequently in the Bett report, which highlighted in particular the degree to which inequalities made their mark on both women and ethnic minorities.
Today we have a new directive from the European Union on fixed-term work, which promises—if we make the best of it—to end the scandal completely. But how much have things changed? A recent labour force survey shows that of the 400,000 employees in higher education, 98,000 are employed on a temporary basis with 84,000 of those on short-term contracts. There are 39,000 research staff. Ninety-four per cent of research staff employed in British universities are all on Fixed-term contracts. The proportion of academic staff on fixed-term contracts increased over the past five years between 1995 and 2000 from 39 per cent to 42 per cent.
I believe that universities have been trying to improve practice, but that is extremely difficult. There are increasing pressures to increase research incomes, but by its nature research income is uncertain. Fixed-term contracts tied to the length of the research contract are well suited to be able to tailor the needs of the research labour to the length of the contract. Other income is extremely tight. There is no capacity to cross-subsidise from the teaching budgets to the research budgets within universities. Increasing pressures on universities from the quality assurance assessment and research assessment exercise have consumed top management time and given little chance for development of long-term policies for human resource management, least of all for those at the bottom of the academic pecking order.
Therefore, I call on the Government to recognise that the problem of contract research remains a real problem in British universities and also in the further education sector. I have not had time to talk about that sector, but many of the same problems apply. I ask the Government to recognise that this remains an important issue. They should encourage publicly-funded institutions such as universities and further education colleges to improve their employment practices. They should not make matters worse by multiplying further the number of initiatives and challenge funds they sponsor. More core funding is wanted in universities, not more initiatives which require more proposals and encourage short-term and uncertain funding.
1 call on the Government to accept that the cost of making good the inequalities revealed by Bett and other reports is substantial, and to fund universities and colleges sufficiently to enable them to right that discrimination. Finally, I call on them not to duck out of the EU directive on fixed-term work which, if implemented, would go a long way to meet the current criticisms of the system. There are dangers that the Government will seek to duck out.
Finally, I call on universities and colleges to consider initiatives which, without cost, could improve the position of contract researchers. Are they still practising the implicit discrimination that I experienced in my time by not giving, for example, a voice to contract researchers or a chance to vote on senate? There are many small matters which, in this way, could help to restore morale and goodwill. If we believe that the collegiate principles of such institutions are important, the concept of membership and equality of membership is also important.
7.38 p.m.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords, it is more than a mere courtesy or formality that causes me to begin my first short contribution in your Lordships' House by thanking your Lordships and the staff of the House for the considerations and kindness I have been accorded in my short time here. I am genuinely grateful.
After 18 years in another place, preceded by 23 years as a village schoolmaster, I have quickly learnt that your Lordships' House, whatever it may appear to others, should not be regarded as some sort of ante-chamber just outside the gates of Heaven. That said, I recall how, after my 1997 re-election to another place, I found myself getting into a lift with a young lady who was obviously unfamiliar with her surroundings. Wishing only to be of assistance I enquired whether she enjoyed it here and for whom she worked. "I don't work for anyone", she replied, with perhaps not altogether feigned displeasure, "I am a Member of Parliament". I promise that I do not have any similar misapprehension about my place in your Lordships House. I am privileged to be here and I am anxious to learn how I may best contribute to the work of the House.

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I have been well cautioned that my first contribution should not be controversial. What I cannot quite work out is why those who so advised me were predominantly former Secretaries of State and Ministers of State for Northern Ireland. Perhaps I made an impression on them. Yet, for me, education is an emotive subject at every level. Perhaps in that it is no different from any other aspect of politics, be it health, the environment or democracy.
In terms of democracy, my own political life in Northern Ireland terms has been dominated by a continuous striving for something better. Education and opportunity for our young people are an essential aspect of that ambition. However well we do in educational provision, we can never do well enough.
When I read the Dearing report I found it, if not somewhat confusing, frustrating and not altogether encouraging. It suggested that a greater reliance on short-term contracts could have a detrimental effect on the quality of achievement within higher education institutions, stating:
"Loss of expertise as staff on short-term contracts look for stable employment may lead to inefficiencies in research, and impair the quality of teaching. Career planning is difficult and the uncertainty may act as a disincentive for people to enter the profession, or remain in it, in the absence of more senior level posts".
However, Dearing later appears to recognise a different reality when he states:
"Short-term contracts can be beneficial for both sides, if managed carefully. They provide the flexibility needed for projects whose funding cannot be guaranteed long term, thus enabling institutions to avoid making commitments they cannot fulfil".
A 1999 report published by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education entitled Casualisation & Quality—a study of the issues for quality and research raised by the employment of part-time and fixed-term staff in higher education, concluded:
"The overall picture that emerges from this initial research is inconclusive, but does give ground for concern. There is plainly a mixed picture".
At whatever level we consider the teaching profession, we cannot believe that we will achieve greater productivity and more commitment if there is a significant element of that profession unsure of its long-term future. Uncertainty does not engender happiness and unhappiness can only diminish the profession.
Obviously, there is some need for further and higher education institutions to have a degree of contractual flexibility but that must not be at a level that leads to instability. The questions to be decided must be: what is a sustainable baseline? Can it be defined on a national basis or does it vary from institution to institution? Can government do more to encourage greater levels of research funding than are at present achieved, through even closer links with industry? That may be the way forward.
In conclusion, reality is that higher and further education will always have to compete with industry and the private sector for the best brains. It will not do
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so successfully unless it either competes on a level playing field—financially the field is not level—or finds more ways of co-operating with the private sector, having defined common purpose and mutual benefits.
7.45 p.m.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe: My Lords, it gives me enormous pleasure to rise to compliment the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, on an excellent maiden speech. It was not only thoughtful but inspirational. I warmly welcome him to the House. I am particularly pleased to congratulate the noble Lord not only on the 23 years that he spent as a village schoolmaster, which I did not know, but also on the years that he spent as the vice-president of the Council of the University of Ulster. The noble Lord is another excellent addition to our debates on universities.
That university, along with its sister university, Queen's University Belfast, has made such a contribution not only to the cultural and social vitality of the Province but also to its growing economic success. The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, has given outstanding service to his Province and outstanding parliamentary service in another place. He has devoted his attentions particularly to defence and policing. But I am sure that we can look forward to his speaking on many subjects in your Lordships' House in the future.
We look forward to that.
I turn to the subject of the debate. I declare an interest as the chief executive of Universities UK. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for introducing this timely debate on a difficult issue, and for her speech. The noble Baroness looked not only at the past but also at the way in which the situation has improved. I hope it will improve further.
University vice-chancellors are aware of the many problems outlined by the noble Baroness associated with the use of short and medium-term contracts in higher education. I want to use this opportunity to describe their efforts to deal with the challenges that the situation presents. Their commitment to making improvements in this area reflects a firm conviction that productive, high-quality research depends on the sector's ability to recruit and retain the best possible staff. But we should not forget that we also need to look at the way the Government fund universities if we are to tackle properly the issues raised by the noble Baroness.
It is certainly true that universities employ many more staff on short-term and fixed-term contracts than they used to. That can lead to problems of job security and career progression. It is perhaps most of all an issue for research staff, some 30,000 of whom are employed on these types of contract. There is nothing wrong with spending a short time as a post-doctoral researcher. But extended use of such short-term and fixed-term appointments is certainly undesirable.
Universities are in no doubt about their obligation to treat all their employees fairly and to offer them opportunities to develop their careers. Like any other organisation, universities want to employ the expert

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staff who are vital to their success. However, universities face acute operational and business pressures. They have to be competitive. They are subject to market forces and must remain efficient and flexible to meet the challenges of the future.
In so doing, universities depend on a variety of sources of funding. Some of them are increasing and some are declining but nearly all of them are variable and insecure. For example, the volume of project grants from the national research councils and charities has risen sharply in recent years as has research undertaken for business and industry. But funding for both of those is for defined, time-limited projects. As a result, universities have little choice but to rely mostly on fixed-term contracts for the staff directly employed on those projects.
But universities certainly are not complacent about what they need to do to improve the conditions of those who work in them. They are tackling the problem in several different ways. Universities UK is represented on the Research Careers Initiative strategy group, which was established in 2000 with the support of the Minister for Science. It has produced a series of reports. The most recent one appeared in September. The RCI helps universities to promote career development of their contract researchers, the majority of whom—I stress this point—will not obtain permanent academic posts. The RCI's support includes addressing researchers' specific needs for training, career guidance and staff development. Many contract researchers need support to help them to move into other areas of work—for government or industrial research—where they build on their post-doctoral research experience.
There is little doubt that all that activity has resulted in measurable improvement, although, as I said, a great deal more needs to be done. There is clear evidence of high-level commitment to change, both within the sector and outside. Funding incentives have been introduced to encourage institutions to give greater priority to human resource issues. Clearer, stronger career structures for research staff are emerging, supported by revised institutional policies and practices that give greater recognition to the interests of that group. Measures are being developed to enable institutions to evaluate their performance in managing staff and research staff are central to such initiatives.
Institutions will also have a role in actively managing access to funding. They will need to support the development of research teams that can secure the income necessary to sustain them. They will also want to offer rolling contracts to those staff whose strengths match the funding opportunities available.
However, short-term contracts are not restricted to researchers. I turn to what is being done by the joint working group on staffing in higher education, set up in the wake of the 1999 Bett report. The report concluded that there was indeed scope for many institutions to reduce their use of fixed-term and casual employment. The group comprises the Universities and Colleges Employers Association and higher
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education trade unions. The group has published a guide to good practice for fixed-term and casual employment in higher education and helps institutions to balance levels of short-term and casual contracts with the demands on them to retain their flexibility.
I am pleased that those central initiatives have fed through to changes on the ground. In an interesting development, individual universities are leading efforts to identify and disseminate good practice. One project group, led by the University of Sheffield, is considering appraisal; the University of Manchester is leading a study to track career trajectories; and the University of Loughborough is considering continuing professional development. Those are just three of many initiatives, which are beginning to make a real difference.
My final point is that there must be a fundamental rethink of how universities are funded if their reliance on short-term contracts is to he reduced—especially for staff outside research. It is well known that the unit of funding for universities has progressively declined over recent decades. I do not want to dwell on the past, but it is nevertheless true that the level of universities' core funding, combined with uncertainty about the size of total allocation from year to year, is central to this issue. The cumulative effect of the declining unit of resource is that universities lack the financial security to underwrite the risks of longer term employment contracts in project-funding areas.
That is one reason why in the spending review submission of Universities UK, we have made clear that extra resources are needed to invest in university staff. Just as importantly, any increases in funding need to be in core funding, to allow universities the flexibility to offer good terms to the staff whom they employ and value. Of course, I do not expect any announcement of extra resources today, but the Minister's comments on the value of stable core funding would be most welcome.
7.54 p.m.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford for introducing the debate. Her account of her own case history explained more clearly the problems that we face with the rise of short-term contracts in the higher education than ever could any set of statistics. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, for his distinguished contribution to the debate and welcome him to your Lordships' House. Let us not be downhearted by the shortness of the list of speakers for the debate. As my grandmother said, good things come in little parcels.
As we have heard from my noble friend, the phenomenon of the rise of short-term contracts has occurred for many years. It applies to both teaching and research staff in the higher education sector. Almost half of all lecturers work part-time, are paid by the hour and are on short-term contracts. Those are not outside experts retained for a particular project but lecturers needed year on year to deliver regular courses. About a quarter of all academic staff are

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contract research staff—mostly full-time but also on short-term contracts. Like my noble friend, many of them have had years on such contracts.
The main concern must be quality. The quality of teaching by staff on repeated short-term contracts may not be of the best. Although the opportunity to gain a variety of experience may be seen to be an advantage, there are fewer opportunities to bed in at an institution and climb the academic tree in one place.
A report of the Further Education and Funding Council Inspectorate found that lessons taught by part-time staff were not always as good as those taught by full-time staff. Many part-time staff are on short-term contracts. Those contracts may affect career prospects of lecturers and the students whom they teach. There are also concerns about systematic monitoring of the performance of short-term staff and the ability to deliver continuity of course provision to students.
It is important for universities and colleges to devote sufficient time to the integration of contract staff—familiarising them with the course and the institution. The establishment is on a constant learning curve when it has a large number of short-term contract staff. The learning curve is a period well recognised in industry as requiring especial effort and investment.
The concordat introduced following the 1995 report of your Lordships' Select Committee sets out two objectives: improving career management and providing long-term support for research staff. How well have those objectives been realised?
Another concern is whether consistency of the examination system and student grading can be maintained when many staff are on short-term contracts, so that results are properly comparable year on year and from one institution to another. There are further concerns about the conditions of work of short-term contract staff compared with those in permanent establishment—as graphically described by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford. Especially in the sciences, the high turn-over of lecturers and research staff introduces a series of hiccups into the otherwise smooth progress of a department or project.
The 1994 report, Learning from Audit, published by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education noted:
"audit reports seemed to suggest that many part-time, casual and short-term staff were excluded from institution-based appraisal, staff development and promotion schemes".
Has anything changed since then?
The situation described by noble Lords presents enormous challenges to the human resource departments of higher education institutions. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, about how they are tackling those problems. The Government would not expect a school to develop an individual ethos and personality—which they say that they want—if that school were staffed by a lot of teachers on short-term contracts. Why should they expect a college or university to do so? It is difficult for
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any institution to establish the loyalty and corporate spirit for which we would hope under the circumstances described by my noble friend.
We on these Benches believe that it is a question of the right balance between the enrichment, flexibility and economic benefits of short-term contracts—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick—and the problems of stress, pension problems, mortgage difficulties and difficulties with continuity, quality, consistency and the monitoring of the delivery of courses mentioned by my noble friend.
8 p.m.
Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, for initiating this important debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, on his excellent maiden speech. As a former Army officer who served in Northern Ireland, I am deeply impressed by his reputation and gallant record. He served in the Ulster Defence Regiment and later as an MP for Fermanagh for 18 hard years. One can conclude only that he is a courageous man. We welcome him to your Lordships' House and look forward to hearing from him on many occasions.
The National Union of Students stated that,
"The increasing tendency to employ lecturers on a part-time and temporary basis leads to diminishing teaching quality as well as demoralisation in the workforce due to job insecurity, poor pay and poor conditions".
In September 2001 around 60,000 academic staff were employed on fixed-term contracts in the UK. A recent report suggests that universities are second only to the catering industry in the "casualisation" of their workforce. During a period of 18 years it is possible to have a contract renewed at least 54 times in the higher education sector. Those facts do not make for happy reading. If the Government wish for high quality teaching in further and higher education, surely they should be resolving the situation.
We on these Benches have no objection to the use of short-term contracts when their use allows for a degree of flexibility both for the benefit of the institution and the needs of some individuals. However, as I shall emphasise today, the degree of reliance on short-term contracts and the reasons given for them goes well beyond that, which is neither sensible nor makes for effective management of further and higher education. It also deters many highly qualified staff from taking up posts at a time of great shortage.
Why has "casualisation" taken place? The usual argument is that the dependence of universities on "soft money" from contracts and awards renders fixed-term contracts expedient. Fixed-term contracts allow the flexibility that is required to deal with uncertainties in the universities' year-by-year funding allocation.
Long-term structural changes are also responsible. Core funding is allocated more precisely and often tied to numbers. The volume of research has grown enormously, mostly on "soft money" from research

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councils and commercial sponsors. Senior academics have become managers of research, chasing contracts and deploying large numbers of short-term staff. To maximise their effectiveness and cope with larger numbers of students, these "managers" are using part-time, short-term and casual staff to spread the teaching load.
A number of interesting issues have arisen from "casualisation". Those issues are not conducive for the nurturing of high quality students in further and higher education sectors, nor are they good for encouraging high-quality teachers and lecturers to settle in a career dedicated to the nurturing of these students.
Sexual equality is an issue. Half of women academics are on short-term temporary contracts. In some universities—for example, St Andrews—women are nearly twice as likely as men to hold fixed-term positions, with contracts lasting as little as three months in some cases.
The prospect of a stable and stimulating teaching career is becoming less attractive. Short and medium-term contracts make the teaching and lecturing professions unappealing to those who might otherwise enter them. Without sufficient teaching staff, it will not be possible for universities to deliver the kind of student increases envisaged by the Government. The Guardian of 1st May 2001 stated that:
"The job is bedevilled by insecurity and only 5% have a modicum of stability".
Difficulties at work are also an issue. Similar to the view expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, Dr Clare Goodness of the Climatic Research Unit, UEA, said:
"It certainly affects morale. You tend to be excluded from some of the decision-making structures in the university. You do very much feel like a second-class employee. You also have to spend a lot of time writing proposals and trying to bring in more money".
Stress is another factor. A pilot survey issued by the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) found that almost two-thirds of contract researchers and teachers in geography fear that insecurity at work is affecting their health and well-being. Almost 40 per cent of those surveyed felt that being on a temporary contract had a negative effect on their work.
Personal finance is also an issue. In many universities, contract researchers cannot hold grants, nor are they entitled to sick pay, study leave or other benefits available to permanent lecturers.
Let us look at some of the disadvantages to students. There is the geographical instability of short-term contracts which are often scattered around the country. For those students who are taught by contract researchers, that could mean a change of lecturer, supervisor or even teacher every few months. What is more, those people are teaching by the hour, which means that there will be little available assistance to students out of class.
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The European Community directive on fixed-term employment is intended to help those on short-term contracts. It aims to prevent discrimination against fixed-term workers and to prevent abuse arising from successive fixed-term employment contracts.
In March 2001, the Government proposed draft legislation to implement the directive. The regulations would outlaw less favourable employment conditions for fixed-term staff compared with their permanent colleagues and limit successive fixed-term contract employment to four years. However, pay and pension benefits are excluded from the legislation. Furthermore, the four-year limit could be exceeded where it was justifiable on objective grounds. Those grounds are not defined. Can the Minister say when the Government propose to bring forward such legislation?
In conclusion, it seems that the predominance of fixed-term contracts can be detrimental to staff morale, the quality of research and the quality of teaching. What action do the Government intend to take in order that our universities have a good employment structure in place for teachers and lecturers? The structure must encourage well qualified people into the teaching profession; promote teaching talent, academic achievement and excellence in research; and inspire more young people into further and higher education.
At present the Government talk about measuring their higher education policy by the percentage of the student population entering into university. Surely the Government should measure the success of their higher education by the number of students who finish their courses with quality degrees. That system must be reliant on a high-quality, dedicated army of teachers and lecturers.
8.8 p.m.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, for introducing the debate on an issue which is crucial to the future prosperity of our country. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, decided to choose this debate in which to make his impressive maiden speech. He sought to impress upon the House—and he did indeed impress us—two points. He said that education could engage the emotions in terms of our desire for the highest quality of provision, and I share with him that emotive commitment to the value of education. He also spoke of the fairness implicit in a level playing field, particularly for staff, and in their relativities to people who work elsewhere. Certainly, the matter needs to be addressed. The Government fully recognise that teachers in all sectors of education deserve proper reward and high value from the community for their contributions. Lifelong learning is central to the Government's plans. We recognise the need for a highly qualified and skilled workforce and a research base of the highest quality if we are to punch above our weight in the international marketplace in future.

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In responding to the points made this evening I should like to consider the question of staff contracts in both further and higher education in the wider context of both standards and responsiveness. Perhaps in this Chamber in the past we have been guilty of giving precedence to higher education. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and others indicated, this issue obtains as much in further education as in higher education. I hope to address these issues on fairly equal terms.
Three themes underpin our post-16 agenda: widening participation, responsiveness and standards. I hope and believe that your Lordships recognise and support widening participation in lifelong learning and note the role played by further education in increasing access to higher education. It cannot be right that only some 40 per cent of young people from lower socio-economic groups go into higher education compared with 70 per cent of those from higher socioeconomic groups. Social inclusion, surely, means giving every young person a sense of worth both to himself and herself and to society, and the education service has a key role in communicating that.
Responsiveness is perhaps more complex and clearly includes the terms on which institutions in the post-16 sector employ staff. For too long we have not connected post-compulsory education closely enough with the world of work and it is now time to make that connection clearer. That does not mean tying public expenditure to commerce but being more sensitive to meeting the needs of the economy by ensuring that public funding goes into further and higher education. To achieve this, post-16 institutions must engage with industry. That is part of my response to the valuable points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Such engagement with industry and the wider world must necessitate a range of part-time provision where people working in one area contribute to the education service and have experience of both sectors. This means that we need flexible contracting arrangements and an increasingly fluid boundary between educational institutions and the wider world. Does that not clearly imply flexible terms and conditions for staff in publicly funded post-16 institutions?
I remind your Lordships that in 1993 in both FE and HE we moved to a position where institutions were autonomous and had freedom to determine the pay and conditions of their staff. Since then they have worked hard to ensure that their employment practices are consistent with best practice in the public sector, including the fair treatment of fixed-term and part-time staff. Part-time and contract staff may need additional support if they are to make an effective contribution, and that too is gaining recognition. Staff are the key resource for post-16 learning and the Government have made support available for good working practices.
I hope, therefore, that the particularly graphic illustration offered by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp—the fact that she was perhaps treated as a second-class citizen within the institution because of her status and the work that she did—is recognised as
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a thing of the past. The contribution of my noble friend Lady Warwick indicates just how sensitive higher education institutions are becoming to the necessity to value part-time staff and short-term contracts and also to recognise the importance of such staff being fully integrated into the HE institution on terms equal to those which apply to their full-time colleagues.
In further education there has long been a tradition of flexible working practices and secondments into and from industry. Some two-thirds of college staff now work part time and about half are on temporary contracts. There is now a move for all FE staff to obtain relevant qualifications, starting with new entrants this year. Support for this is provided by the standards fund for existing staff without qualifications, the invaluable work of the FE national training organisation on standards for all staff in the sector and the teaching pay initiative—£300 million from the Government over three years—to restore career pathways. Part-time staff are vital to further education. All of the initiatives that I have mentioned show that action is in hand to enable them to deliver education and training of the highest quality alongside their full-time colleagues.
As has been mentioned by several noble Lords who contributed to the debate, Sir Michael Bett's independent review of higher education pay and conditions looked into fixed-term contracts. It found that overall 26 per cent of HE staff had fixed-term contracts and 93 per cent of researchers were on fixed-term contracts. The Bett committee found that pay and conditions for fixed-term contract staff were generally as good as those for permanent staff, although there was some anecdotal evidence of fixed-term staff being treated less favourably than permanent colleagues when it came to promotion. I hope that the observations vouchsafed by my noble friend Lady Warwick about the extent to which HE institutions are addressing themselves to these issues guarantees that fairness between different categories of staff is an important priority for HE institutions.
There is no evidence that students suffer as a result of the employment of contract or part-time staff in higher education. NATFHE recently published the report In front the Cold about part-time lecturers in higher education which did not uncover any problems in this area. Membership of the Institute of Learning and Teaching helps lecturers to ensure that they are equipped with the skills necessary to be able to give a high standard of teaching to their students. The ILT encourages membership of part-time staff, which represent approximately 9 per cent of the 8,500 membership of that institute.
I turn specifically to fixed-term staff in higher education. In 1999 a joint working group comprising representatives of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) and the HE trades unions was set up to look at Bett's recommendation that there was scope for many HE institutions to reduce their use of fixed-term employment. As a result, UCEA issued guidelines to the sector on casual and contract employment. The report Fixed-Term and Casual Employment in HE—a Guide to Good Practice

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was published in June 2000. It recommended that institutions should seek to reduce the number of their staff on fixed-term contracts and develop more detailed local agreements with their recognised unions.
I recognise that the pace of change may not be as rapid as we all hope, but there is no doubt about the commitment of HE institutions to ensure that good practice becomes universal. Since then there has been progress more generally on HE pay and conditions. Earlier this autumn, the eight HE unions accepted the 2001 pay deal offered by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association. The deal involves the creation of a single joint negotiating committee and a single pay spine for all staff. The new pay machinery provides employers and unions with a vehicle to modernise pay and conditions for HE staff and to pursue the issues raised by Sir Michael Bett, including the crucial issue of casualisation.
While pay remains entirely a matter for HE employers and the trade unions, we want to help the HE sector get the new machinery off the ground quickly. It has a key role to play in resolving some of the long-standing issues raised by noble Lords this evening. That is why the Secretary of State has undertaken to provide up to £300,000 over three years towards the start-up costs of the new negotiating machinery. The sector is also taking steps to address the equal opportunities issues which affect all staff but which may have a particularly marked effect on casual, contract and part-time staff. UUK, SCOP and the funding councils have set up an equality challenge framework to promote equal opportunities for all HE staff. At its core is the Equality Challenge Unit, an office-based group of four full-time professional equality staff, which will work directly with institutions to help them to deliver the improvements, monitoring and performance that they have promised in their equal opportunity policy statements.
We recognise that there is only so much that the sector can do without additional funding. That is why we have both increased funding for the HE sector and included £330 million over three years to support increases in HE pay and modernisation of the human resource development in universities.
As regards university research, it is not surprising that Sir Michael Bett found that so many researchers were on fixed-term contracts. It is recognised that the concordat to which reference has been made in the debate has begun to produce some very significant improvements in this area. The Research Careers Initiative, chaired by Sir Gareth Roberts, to monitor progress and identify and encourage best practice is an important dimension of this. As a result, the Office of Science and Technology and the DfES have put resources into the improved career guidance and staff training recommended by Sir Gareth.
Returning, finally, to the issue of standards, the results of FEFC inspections in the further education sector show that the percentage of further education lessons taught by part-time staff judged to be unsatisfactory was 3 per cent higher than for lessons taught by full-time staff.
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What are we to read into this? At face value, it would seem that part-time staff are not a good thing if we are to pursue a standards agenda. But if we look more closely a more complex picture emerges, to which I hope my remarks this evening have done some justice. The key, surely, is that all staff, whatever their contractual position, need to be properly integrated and supported if they are to contribute as effectively as their full-time colleagues. Colleges and universities must recognise this. Indeed, they are doing so, and they are putting in place, with government support, the necessary arrangements.
The noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, seemed to indicate that these were novel issues derived over the past four years of the present administration. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, accurately identified at the beginning of the debate, the issue of part-time staff has a long history. We need to ensure that we make progress on the integration of part-time staff fully with full-time staff and guarantee that we have a proper structure in universities and colleges to ensure that everyone gets their true deserts.
I entirely accept the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, that success in higher education should be measured on the quality of the experience of students and their success rates. The success rates of today's higher education institutions bear comparison entirely with the past against a background of the significant efforts made by HE institutions to accept more students.
In my view, higher education is a success story. The number of students is at a record level and the number of applications continues to rise. We are working towards a target of 50 per cent of young people participating in higher education by 2010, with a clear focus on widening participation.
We have taken some tough decisions on funding. Since 1996, the total additional funding for institutions is £1.7 billion, an increase of 37 per cent in cash terms over the six years up to 2003–04, an 18 per cent increase in real terms. With 1 per cent of the world's population, the UK carries out 4.5 per cent of the world's research. We have demonstrated our commitment to help sustain world-class research with the announcement in 2000 of substantial funding for science.
As far as concerns further education, we have pumped an extra £527 million into FE budgets this year alone, a 12 per cent increase in real terms this year, with another 3 per cent next year. Total spending per full-time equivalent student is up by 4 per cent in real terms this year.
Of course there are issues of fairness between groups of staff in both further and higher education institutions. It is essential that we ensure that students taught by part-time staff enjoy exactly the same quality of experience as those taught by full-time staff. There are many challenges ahead of us. It is obvious from the debate that both higher education institutions and further education institutions are well aware of the obligations that they have to part-time

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staff, both in research and teaching. I am quite sure that we will see significant progress in this area in the years ahead.

Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill
8.25 p.m.
House again in Committee on Clause 17.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury Lord Phillips of Sudbury moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 7, line 7, after "authority" insert "pursuant to an authorisation order"
The noble Lord said: This group of amendments is important. Amendment No. 89 sets out a proposed new clause dealing with what are called "authorisation orders". Such orders would be the only method by which public bodies could be put in the position of having to consider disclosure under Clause 17.
In the light of what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said earlier, I should explain briefly why we believe that this major change to the Bill is essential to its fairness and fair working. The noble Lord made the point two or three times that many of the objections to Clause 17 are misplaced because the workings of the clause will have to be consonant with the requirements of the Human Rights Act, and he referred to the aspects of the Human Rights Act which deal with proportionality and reasonableness.
However, although I am a great supporter of the Human Rights Act, both in concept and now, it has always seemed to me—I am not alone in this—that it would be a bad day for Parliament if it resorted to legislation which failed to grapple with the details, particularly as they may affect civil and individual liberties, but in every case fell back on the parrot cry, "Well, don't worry, old son, you've got the Human Rights Act". We on this side of the House feel very strongly—and I know that the main Opposition party concurs—that it is vital that the protections which, in our view, should be integral to what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, admitted was a huge extension of disclosure, should be clear, practical and useable. Above all, using the Human Rights Act to get at your remedy if the remedy is not on the face of the Act is an extremely uncertain business, not only because the Human Rights Act is couched in the most wide and general terms but because the only way of getting those protections is by court process. I need hardly tell the Committee that going to law to obtain protection against unfair disclosure, or against the denial of a disclosure that should be given, is not practical. There is no legal aid for that sort of case. The costs are way beyond the resources of anyone, other than through an organisation with a strong commitment to the legislative principles.
Therefore, we are convinced that the Government will do well by their own purposes, and certainly by those who have to use the provision—and it will be mightily well used—if they provide the clear
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authorisation procedure proposed in the amendment. We are not hanging our hat on every jot and tittle of the proposal. We are open to suggestions from the Government as to how it might be improved and these could be examined at the next stage of the Bill.
In addition, there is a big problem for applicants for disclosure, as well as for those in respect of whom the disclosure applications are made. Without the provision suggested in the amendment, the public authority receiving the request for disclosure will, first, have to decide whether it falls within the terms of subparagraphs (a) to (d). Secondly, it will have to decide whether the Human Rights Act comes into play. In order to determine that, it will probably have to engage in a dialogue with the person making the request in order to elicit a good deal more information. It will then have to apply the Human Rights Act to the prevailing facts and circumstances. That will be an extremely difficult task. If the Human Rights Act does apply, it will then have to decide whether the disclosure can be made, and whether it should exercise its discretion in making the disclosure. The final decision will be subject to judicial review although, again, that may be more a theoretical than a real problem.
In all this, I have made no mention of the individual whose confidential information is the subject of the disclosure request. Let us not forget him or her. As matters stand, if all we are doing is relying on the Human Rights Act, he or she will not even know that a request has been made, let alone by whom or why. The person will not know whether the request has been granted, or whether the disclosure request has been dealt with fairly. There is no oversight of the whole system or the working of this vital part of the legislation, such as is provided for in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act in the form of the commissioner.
For all those reasons, and others, we believe that it is in the interests of public authorities and the individuals whose confidential information is at stake, and in the public interest, to have a clear system of controlling the disclosures allowed for by Clause 17.
Perhaps I may turn briefly to the particular proposal. In relation to subsection (1), it requires a judge to determine the applications made for disclosure. In relation to subsection (2), if he makes an order it must specify the information to be disclosed—that is surely helpful to all concerned—and the purpose for which the order is made; namely, whether it is made under sub-paragraphs (a), (b), (c) or (d). The authorisation will make the disclosure subject to such requirements as the judge thinks fit. That is an extremely useful provision. It will allow a judge to make necessary conditions in all the circumstances, one of which may be that the order is brought to the attention of the person whose confidential information is at stake. Then the order must be served on the public authority in respect of which the disclosure request is made. We go on to prescribe evidence on oath. There must be reasonable grounds for believing that the public authority holds the

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information, that the information is not liable to disclosure by other means, and the whole is to be heard in secret.
Such provision may seem cumbersome, but it provides a clear framework within which all of this could function. It would reduce at a single stroke the widespread public concern over Clause 17 as drafted. On those grounds, I commend the amendment to the Committee. I. beg to move.
8.30 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: Is it right for a Back-Bencher to enter the debate at this stage? The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has demonstrated, first, that he has a complete grasp of an extraordinarily complicated subject, which I, frankly, do not have. I am not a lawyer. If I wanted to bring a case under the Human Rights Act, I think I should instruct the noble Lord, to the immense benefit of his practice, I hope.
The noble Lord is pointing out that there is an element of sloppiness in the Government's thinking. That is either due to idleness or because they have not had time to get it right. It could be a case of, "We just want to make sure that we can do anything, just like that. We can grab anything. If the legislation is not tight, it does not matter". That attitude of mind runs all through the Bill. It is an unattractive attitude of mind. I hasten to add that when some of my noble friends were in government such temptation did not always pass them by. It is a habit of government.
Those of us who, for the benefit of their country, have never been allowed near a Front Bench in any circumstances are entitled to point this out. We are by nature natural libertarians and rebels. We want the Government to legislate tightly. If they do not, my learned friends buy more villas in Zurich out of the fees that they generate by going to the human rights court on this matter or that. It is as simple as that. My noble friend Lord Phillips—I call him "my noble friend" because I have always been attracted to his libertarian point of view—is doing himself out of pounds, shillings and pence by making sure that the Bill is properly, tautly and correctly drafted so that the objects that the Government say they want are clear and concise and we know absolutely where we are.
There is too much sloppiness. That was demonstrated in relation to the previous amendment. The Minister said that when making a forfeiture order we may not know that it is to do with terrorism when we start. I did not like that. That tendency runs the whole way through the Bill. I suggest that it is the duty of this place to tighten up the legislation, not only for the sake of the country but for the sake of the quality of government legislation.
Lord Elton: The trouble with this procedure is that Back-Benchers like myself do not have time to inform themselves to the extent that they should, and therefore have to ask questions which would otherwise be superfluous. I do not know whether this is the occasion to ask for this information from the Minister, but I hope that he will find an occasion to explain to
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me the effect of subsection (2). I understand that it places all the provisions listed in Schedule 4 in a new sort of category described in paragraphs (a) to (d). That is clear enough. But the effect of those categories is not clear. No doubt it is clear to noble Lords who are familiar with this ground. It would help in our assessment of what is said if we could be told.
Lord Hylton: As was mentioned in the debate yesterday, the words "any criminal investigation whatever" and "any criminal proceedings whatever" are very wide indeed. This seems to me to have a bearing on personal privacy, on confidentiality and on economic and business matters. On those grounds this series of amendments is helpful. The amendments give clarity and precision to the Bill and I am strongly in favour of them.
The Earl of Northesk: I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I also apologise for returning to the Chamber a little later than I would have wished. I accept the strictures of my noble friend Lord Onslow about the complexity of the issues before us.
I want to make one important point. As I suggested at Second Reading, the provisions of Part 3 taking in tandem with those of Part 11 represent a regime of management of personal date by public authorities which is of an entirely new character. These proposals could be said to constitute a form of data matching and/or data sharing throughout the machinery of government.
Perhaps I may address the Minister's remarks prior to the dinner break. In so far as the Minister argues that there are "no new gateways" he is correct. That is not the point at issue. It is, to use the Minister's words, that there is a widening of the gateway. I am not convinced that the Minister has satisfactorily explained that point. No one should underestimate the significance of this issue in terms of giving Government control over citizens or how open to abuse such a system would be.
Because the regime would integrate data in entirely new ways, it involves categorically new and more perilous dangers. Necessarily, therefore, new methods should be contemplated to offer protection. Unfortunately the Data Protection Act was not constructed to address this problem. Indeed, the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, which I quoted at Second Reading would seem to imply that the policy contained in these proposals was not even a twinkle in the Government's eye during the passage through Parliament of the Data Protection Act. As a result, although useful, that Act provides no concrete limitations as to how data can or should be dealt with once it has been lawfully acquired by law enforcement.
Moreover, principally because of the enactment of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act the ability of the Data Protection Act properly to enforce subject rights and the data protection principle has been compromised, at least in part, because of what could be called tensions between the two Acts. They pull in different directions.

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For those reasons, an entirely new authorisation procedure, as suggested by the amendments, is necessary, partly to address the very much greater risk posed by the wholesale data matching regime being made available to public authorities and partly because the Data Protection Act was not designed to deal with this problem.
Baroness Buscombe: I support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, in relation to the amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Let me agree with the noble Earls, Lord Onslow and Lord Northesk. These are complex problems and they are complex amendments. I pay tribute to the care which has gone into their framing. The central aim of this part is to allow—with the safeguards of the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act (and I shall return to that point in more detail in a moment) and the duty of confidentiality which is not taken away by this Bill—public authorities voluntarily to disclose information to agencies involved in criminal investigations. They are already permitted to do so—I have said this more than once but it is important to state it—in relation to criminal proceedings and, as the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, recognised, I said that this part simply widens the gateway to include investigations.
Let me pause for a moment to consider the ability under present legislation to disclose information in relation to criminal proceedings. That has been going on for a long time. If it had caused any of the problems suggested here, surely those problems would have arisen by now.
8.45 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: How does this clause affect September 11th?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I shall develop my argument. I shall make that point, as I have done in response to preceding amendments. It is a valid question and I do not duck it because it is important.
It is important that we should realise the practical effect of the amendments. It would be to transform the aim that I have described in this part of the Bill into a form of judicial control over disclosure which might well prevent some of the most important pieces of information being disclosed in time. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, buries his head in his hands. He has a continuing complaint about our argument that it is not possible always in advance and in time to define what is a terrorist offence because there is no proper definition and, therefore, we have to include criminal investigations and criminal proceedings. But if we are investigating someone who is a potential terrorist, we have to act on the spot; we have to act at the time. The effect of the amendments would be that an authorisation would have to be sought from a judge by the person seeking the information. That information would have to specify what is being sought and it is not
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always possible to know what is being sought. That procedure would have to take place before the request for information could even be put to the public official who has to decide whether to give the information.
The Earl of Onslow: As regards the history of obtaining warrants, magistrates can be woken up in the middle of the night. Judges can be incredibly rapid in producing the right permission if they are asked by the right person. They will be woken up in the middle of the night. It is possible to do that. All one is saying is that the ancient rights of Englishmen should not be sacrificed through a perfectly justifiable fear of what occurred on 11th September. We must always be careful to protect those rights. The system is sufficiently flexible if it is properly channelled to protect those rights. I think that that is what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is saying. That is what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, does not accept as possible. I know that he is sincere; I know that he is a good lad. But I do not believe him in this case.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think that every Member of the Committee should put themselves in the position of those involved in investigations of terrorists and consider the ease with which supporters of Al'Qaeda, whoever they may be, can move from one country to another, from one place to another, and can conceal or destroy evidence which might connect them with the organisation. In this country, we are not always in the position of the retreat from Kabul where the Al'Qaeda had to leave houses full of evidence of their involvement in international terrorism. It does not work that way in this country. If we have delay of the kind involved in prior judicial control, we will lose the scent; we will lose the information; we will lose the opportunity to deal with potential terrorists. It has to be done immediately.
The Earl of Northesk: As I explained at Second Reading, under the RIP Act, the law enforcement authorities are given authority to obtain and retain data, and so on. I do not see the virtue of the argument that the provisions are about giving information to law enforcement that it would not otherwise have.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The argument is that we have had the power to ask for information relating to criminal proceedings. If we restrict the power to criminal proceedings, we shall lose the scent and the ability to catch people who are terrorists or supporters of terrorism in this country. That is why it is being extended from proceedings to investigations. If there had been a major problem with proceedings, no doubt somebody would have told us.
The Earl of Northesk: I apologise to the Committee, but I should like to clarify that point by quoting directly from the front page of today's Evening Standard, which says:
"The initiative, codenamed Operation Landmark, was the result of a painstaking 10-month investigation by the National Crime Squad and follows an analysis of 16 days' internet traffic to

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33 paedophile internet groups. Officers discovered data from 9,800 individuals throughout the world who were asking for images of children".
The law enforcement authorities appear already to have the necessary powers on the disclosure of information.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I cannot complain about the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, quoting from the front page of the Evening Standard, because I have already done the same this evening, although from an earlier edition. I have not seen the article to which he refers, so I do not have anything useful to say about it.
However, I have something useful to say about the other constraints on the process. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, spoke as though the only constraint was the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act was not effective for this purpose. The Data Protection Act will apply in most cases, imposing restrictions on disclosure. It also gives the individual the right to ask the data controller what disclosures about them have been made in certain circumstances. The Data Protection Act is policed by the Information Commissioner. Surely that provides an alternative avenue of redress. If we add to that the fact that the duty of confidentiality on public officials towards patients or customers is in no way diminished by the provisions of the Bill, it will be seen that, although this is an extension, it is a justifiable one.
I wish that the noble Baroness, Lady Park, was in the Chamber, because this is about intelligence. All that we know about the prevention of terrorism has highlighted the need for the co-ordination of agencies, particularly when there is a clear case for the free flow of information and a need for clear and effective channels. All that is implicit in the Bill. The prior judicial control required by the amendments would put at risk the intelligence work that is essential for that incredibly difficult task.
The provisions will mean that public officials understand their obligations better, especially thanks to the publicity that has been given to the matter in the past few days. That means that they are more likely to respect the safeguards.
I have to come back to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. Of course we cannot limit the provisions to terrorism as such, because of the interaction between terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering. Drug trafficking and money laundering are very often precursors to terrorism or tools for terrorists. If the powers covered only the act of terrorism, we would weaken our ability to deal with terrorism. That is why we need a wider definition.
The Earl of Onslow: The noble Lord mentioned drug trafficking and money laundering. We all agree with the Government that those activities have to be properly policed and stamped on and that people who indulge in them should be chucked away to get a striped suntan. Nobody is arguing with that. We are arguing that using the powers produced by emergency legislation to go on a hunt for a drug trafficker arid then incidentally coming up with something on
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terrorism is the wrong way to do it. By all means do it properly—I believe that there is a new 400-odd clause Bill on the subject in another place—but for heaven's sake let us concentrate on terrorism aspects in this emergency legislation, which is difficult enough for us to understand anyway. It is complex and we do not really have time to digest it. Let us limit its scope as much as we can, not because we are pro-drug trafficking or pro-money laundering, but because we want to get the legislation right in both cases.
The Earl of Northesk: Before the Minister answers that point, perhaps he will address the substance of the question. Do the provisions in the Bill open up the possibility of an enormously wide range of data matching and data sharing across public authorities? Parliament has previously sanctioned such behaviour on a case-by-case basis via primary legislation.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think that I can deal with both those points at the same time. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, talks about a hunt and the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, talks about data matching. They are both basing their comments on the false assumption that it is possible for investigatory authorities to conduct a trawl for information. That is not the case. Clause 17(2) simply defines in extenso what is meant by a criminal investigation. There is nothing more sinister than that. Public authorities involved in criminal proceedings or investigations can ask public officials for information relevant to their search. The list of such public authorities is quite limited. It does not remotely cover all public authorities and is nothing like the definition of public authorities provided in the Human Rights Act. If they are required to specify exactly what they want in advance to a judge, they will run the risk of missing it and of asking for the wrong thing.
Under the clause, the public official has to decide whether there should be disclosure of the information that he has in his power. He has to bear in mind the relevant data protection and human rights legislation, the duty of confidentiality and all the other protections that we have when weighing up whether it is relevant to the case and whether he is justified in disclosing it for the purposes of the investigation. I repeat, if we deny that possibility, we will weaken the intelligence effort and reduce the chances of catching terrorists. That will leave us all a little bit more at risk.
To require judicial control at the beginning would not only cause a delay, it would require the investigatory authorities to know more precisely what they are looking for than is likely at the early stages of investigation and it would prevent public officials from volunteering information that they suspect is relevant to an investigation relating to terrorism. Those are serious defects in the amendments.
Lord Elton: Will the Minister explain to me, as I plod along behind the Committee trying to understand, what there could be in Section 9(1) of the Diseases of Fish Act 1983 or Article 6(1) of the Sex Discrimination

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(Northern Ireland) Order 1976 that it would be necessary to treat retrospectively as though it were connected with terrorism?
9 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: No, I cannot. It is not retrospective, but that is not the point. I could have been briefed on every one of them if we had had enough time. That is a defect of hasty legislation—I shall give the noble Lord that for nothing.
Each Act has been included in the schedule because there are items of information collected under statutory powers that could be relevant. I repeat that it is only those items of information that are collected under statutory powers, and each item of information provided under those Acts must be covered by the existing statutory restrictions on disclosure. That applies to the Diseases of Fish Act 1983 just as much as it applies to the Health Act 1999.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the Minister for endeavouring to defend the Government's position. I am totally dissatisfied with what he said. The issues around Clause 17 are of the greatest possible moment and the Minister's answer does not hold water. His main point is that, unless the Bill is enacted as it stands and the Government refuse to have a framework or system for obtaining disclosure, terrorists will run amok and the chances of the security and police authorities catching them will be destroyed. That is nonsense.
It has been made clear in interventions that the law as it stands, and as it has always stood, requires that citizens whose houses are to be searched or whose possessions are to be confiscated should be subject to the protection of a magistrates' warrant or order to allow the police to proceed. That action can be carried out with the greatest rapidity. Applications to a judge under the procedure provided for by the amendment could be done virtually instantaneously. A duty judge would be available at a moment's notice to deal with the matter, which can be done entirely orally. We totally reject the notion that the proposal is defective.
I grant that the amendment could be improved if there were added to it something that specifically addresses the imminent threat that might be posed by the discovery of certain potential terrorist activity. But that amendment could be made, which reduces the vestige of the justification of the Minister's argument.
Constant references to the Data Protection Act do not assuage my anxiety or that of anyone else. There was a reference in Clause 45 of the previous Bill, which can be found in Clause 18 of this Bill but which has been excised from Clause 17, to the effect that nothing authorised the making of any disclosure that was prohibited by any provision of the Data Protection Act 1998. In effect it said that the framework of the 1998 Act should not he punctured by the provisions of this Bill.
Protection for the framework of the 1998 Act is punctured by the absence of that provision in Clause 17 of this Bill. The Data Protection Act 1998 is
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one of the Acts of Parliament included in Schedule 4. The provisions of Clause 17 are as wide as the blue sky—at least we all agree on that. The exceptions will now be part of the Data Protection Act arrangements, which means that the restrictions on disclosure provided by that Act vis-à-vis its present and former commissioners, staff and agent, no longer hold and that Clause 17 provisions are written into it.
We view this—I was about to say lacunae, but it is a huge black hole at the heart of the Bill—as undermining its effect. It may look good to give authorities the widest powers that they will enjoy under the Bill, although the Minister's constant references to public officials and official agencies betray the fact that the measure extends far beyond the police and state authorities, as I tried to explain earlier. We on this side of the Chamber will have to give a great deal of thought to what to do at Report stage. We shall certainly table an improved amendment, but I sincerely hope that the Government will consider what has been said tonight. It is not insignificant that not a single speaker in the Chamber has supported Clause 17 as it stands.
The Earl of Onslow: Before the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, withdraws his amendment, I seek a scintilla of hope for those of us on this side of the Chamber who have genuine and deeply held doubts. Will the Government perhaps reconsider and say that it is just possible that we may be right? That would enhance the reputation of the Government and this Chamber. I know that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and I am beginning to know that the noble Lord. Lord Rooker, are both men of independent minds who will listen. They do not have to do anything too publicly but they could say to the Government, "There was something in what old fuddy-duddy Onslow and young Phillips and Northesk had to say, so perhaps we should consider the issue again". That is all that we ask.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will table some more amendments at Report stage, and I hope that the Government will listen more carefully and intelligently than they have done so far.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I want to say something to those who believe what has been said as sincerely as they do; and let us try to avoid personalising the issue: of course it is necessary for us, as far as we can, to restrict the scope of these disclosure provisions. I have explained how we have sought to do so. In so far as the pressure is to continue to restrict the scope of these amendments, those who are trying to do so have an argument on their side which we recognise and share. But at the same time they have to recognise how essential it is in the present circumstances—not just in this country but in the whole world—not to allow potential or actual terrorists to slip through our fingers because of defects in the law. That has been happening and must not be allowed to continue.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: In the spirit in which the Minister made those last remarks, one of the problems with the pace of the Bill's proceedings is that one does

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not have the usual opportunity to review and discuss. None the less, if the Minister would make time available to contemplate some of the issues that we have talked about tonight, I should welcome that.
I remind the Minister that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act that his Government introduced only last year has all the protections for which we are calling in the amendment. It has an Interception of Communications Commissioner; it requires authorisation for every directed surveillance, it has a warrant for all sorts of interventions; it has appeals by Surveillance Commissioners. All that framework is presently contained in the RIP Act. This is a more potentially important piece of legislation than RIPA.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: First, this Bill does not override the statutory restrictions on disclosure. That is why we need these provisions. Secondly, my noble friend Lord Rooker has already said that he has booked the Ministerial Conference Room 10A on the first floor from 11 o'clock every morning. Anybody from any party who wants to come along after midday on any day that the House is sitting to talk about any aspect of the Bill will be welcome. My noble friend says I have gone a bit wide. But of course we are open to talking to anybody.
Lord McNally: Yesterday both Front Benches paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. He made that offer at that time. Perhaps it would be helpful if we were to serve notice that my noble friend Lord Phillips intends to come along at 12 noon tomorrow and explore with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and his officials the areas which are causing concern.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It is certainly better to give notice. We can then ensure that the officials who know about this particular part of the Bill are present.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Buscombe Baroness Buscombe moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 7, line 10, after "any" insert "counter-terrorist"
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 50, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 50A, 51, 53, 53A, 54, 72 to 75, 77, 77A, 78, 91 to 96.
Paragraph 3 of the Explanatory Notes to this Bill states:
"The purpose of this Bill is to strengthen legislation in a number of areas to ensure that the Government, in the light of the new situation arising from the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, have the necessary powers to counter the increased threat to the UK".
We shall be covering ground that in some senses has already been covered this evening. But I make no apology for that. Clauses 17 and 19 of this Bill, as presently drafted, go way beyond that purpose.
Clause 17 permits disclosure by public authorities to assist in any criminal investigation or criminal proceedings being carried out in the United Kingdom
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or abroad. Clause 19 allows the commissioners of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise departments to disclose information to assist any criminal investigation or criminal proceedings being carried out in the United Kingdom or abroad, and also allows disclosure to the intelligence services in support of their functions.
This new power to disclose information, which may have been given in confidence, extends to assist any criminal investigation or criminal proceedings rather than merely terrorism. It therefore goes way beyond the purpose of the Bill and we seek to limit Clauses 17 and 19 with these amendments to permit disclosure to assist any investigation or proceedings relating only to terrorism.
We have serious misgivings about allowing such disclosure, particularly where information has been given to the public authorities, the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise in confidence. Terrorism is the greater of the two evils and we must prevent terrorism at all cost—almost at all cost. We therefore support the Government as regards Clauses 17 and 19 in so far as they are limited to disclosure for the purposes of countering terrorism.
We are in two minds as to whether disclosure should be permitted to assist criminal investigations or criminal proceedings. We can see that as regards serious crime the balance probably comes down in favour of disclosure. On the other hand, we could not support disclosure for the purposes of minor criminal offences.
In particular, in Amendment No. 96, we ask the Government to amend the Bill to ensure that terrorism has the meaning given to it by Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and I ask Members of the Committee to refer to Part I of that Act where it makes absolutely clear that "terrorism" means,
"the use or threat of action where … the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and … the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause … [if it] involves serious violence against a person … involves serious damage to property … endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action … creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or … is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system".
It reads very differently from this current Bill.
A line will have to be drawn somewhere, but now is not the time or place to discuss exactly where. There must be wider consultation and further consideration of these two clauses in so far as they will permit disclosure as regards any criminal investigation or criminal proceedings. I thank the Minister for suggesting that we have further discussions outside the Chamber on this particular point. We believe passionately that such a wide power is not appropriate in emergency legislation.
In particular, the General Medical Council has expressed serious concerns with regard to the possible extent and purpose of disclosure of, for example, identifiable patient records under the Bill. I would very much appreciate some assurance from the Minister

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with regard to the concerns of the General Medical Council. In fact, I am saying this on purpose because, if anything, we can at least this evening seek to try to reassure various bodies beyond the Palace of Westminster in relation to these clauses. Unfortunately, as yet we remain unconvinced of the Government's argument. However, I believe that it will help all of us if we have an opportunity now to flush out some of our differences, as we have already begun to do this evening, and also perhaps to check on the record where reference has been to made to this part of the Bill in the media.
The General Medical Council states:
"We are concerned that this Bill may introduce measures that could require the disclosure of identifiable patient records held by the Commission for Health Improvement and the Audit Commission as part of criminal investigation anywhere in the world".
The GMC continues:
"Currently, we advise doctors that they may disclose information in order to 'assist in the prevention, detection or prosecution of a serious crime', usually a crime which will put someone at risk of death or serious harm (such as terrorism). That is because only serious matters will expose third parties to a risk so serious that it outweighs the patient's privacy interest. Disclosure of medical records in relation to non-serious crimes may seriously undermine the trust that is central to the doctor-patient relationship. The Bill does not appear to place any restrictions, or conditions on disclosure of data and it is possible that a police force could simply require records to be disclosed without any justification. [For example, say] we are looking for people who have had 'X' condition or shown 'Y' symptoms). A criminal investigation in this context is defined by the Bill as 'an investigation of any criminal conduct, including an investigation of alleged or suspected criminal conduct, and an investigation of whether criminal conduct had taken place'. We are, therefore, keen to establish the possible extent and purpose of disclosure of identifiable patient records under the Bill. The Audit Commission has access to records and does demand patient information for some investigations. CHI also holds copies of patient records and we are seeking to establish their position on this issue.
The Bill also gives the Treasury, by Statutory Instrument, the ability to add provisions contained in subordinate legislation to the list given in the schedule (4) to the Bill. If there are confidentiality provisions contained in subordinate legislation (and we believe there may be) then it is possible that they might be added in the future".
Perhaps I may also refer very quickly to a transcript of an interview on Radio 4 yesterday, which was included in the "Today" programme, with Beverley Hughes MP. She stated:
"Schedule 4 of the Bill lists all of the pieces of legislation that at the moment regulate that and the only thing Clause 17 is doing is simply making it clear to officials that they can give the specified information earlier on in an investigation and as regards to the NHS the only provisions that are included are the disclosure of the price of medical supplies and information relating to the Audit Commission's financial enquiries into the NHS. There is nothing at all to do with patient records or the doctor/patient relationship whatsoever and as I've said it is an example of the kind of scare mongering we had in relation to parts of the Bill which is very misleading".
The General Medical Council and a fair number of other bodies have been in touch with us in the past 24 to 36 hours on this point. They all say that they cannot agree that the Bill, as currently drafted, reads like that at all. So we are offering the Government an
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opportunity to clarify the situation. So far we are not convinced, but we and many others would like some kind of reassurance on this matter. I beg to move.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: The width of these provisions has already been discussed in previous amendments, but the extension of the existing disclosure powers from proceedings to investigations, and even beyond that to deciding whether an investigation should take place, is, as I understand it, to apply to everything and not simply to terrorism. The purpose of this group of amendments is to try to confine the scope of the provisions; that is obvious.
My Amendment No. 51 seeks to include the words "involving terrorism". Its purpose is to limit the scope of an inquiry for the purpose of this emergency legislation. Those are broad words, "involving terrorism". We have to deal with the argument that the Minister has put forward; namely, that the Government want these wide powers because investigating bodies will not know whether a case involves terrorism until they decide to investigate and then carry out the investigation. I have used the words, "involving terrorism" in my amendment to enable those who seek such information to say, "We are from the security services and it is our duty to investigate the possibility of terrorism and information you may have which may assist us". That limits the scope of the people who can make that inquiry.
If a local police constable goes down to the fish counting centre and says, "I demand to see your records of anthrax infected salmon that have come into the River Dee in the course of the past few months", I imagine that his application for that information may be resisted as it would not appear from such a request that he was a person involved in investigating, or considering the investigation of, terrorism. It seems to me that this clause attempts to encompass the widest investigation or disclosure of information when it could be limited to the scope of the emergency provisions.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My name is attached to several of the amendments in the group. I want to make only one point in elaboration of what the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said vis-à-vis health matters and to pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, before the dinner break when he was categoric in saying that doctors would not come within the purview of Clause 17. I have to tell him that that is not what Human Rights Practice, which is one of the standard works in relation to the Human Rights Act, states.
The Health Act 1999 is one of the statutes enumerated in Schedule 4. Whereas at the moment health records can be obtained by police only on a circuit judge's order, and only then in respect of serious arrestable offences in respect of UK criminal proceedings, if this measure passes without this set of amendments being accepted, that will no longer be the case. The wide provisions of Clause 17 will be incorporated into the Health Act 1999. There will be no requirement for the criminal matters concerned to

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be serious arrestable offences. There will be no requirement for the criminal matters to be confined to UK criminal proceedings.
As I said earlier, Human Rights Practice states explicitly that doctors working within the NHS, and therefore within the framework of the General Medical Council, are part of a public authority and their records are therefore—certainly in terms of Clause 17—available for disclosure.
Lord Hylton: I believe that this series of amendments is helpful and my sympathies are with it. However, I should like to ask whether the Minister is able to give an assurance that, in principle, no officially held information will be disclosed to countries—for example, those in the former Soviet Union, in the Middle East and in a good many other places—which have criminal justice and human rights systems greatly inferior to our own. I ask that because I believe that such disclosure could put at risk asylum seekers and refugees already in this country and their families who may still be in overseas countries. Such people who remain overseas could be in danger of torture and other serious malpractice.
Viscount Goschen: This series of amendments appears to crystallise the arguments that we put forward in connection with a number of other amendments, including the group containing Amendment No. 37, earlier in this evening's proceedings. The Government have made it clear in a number of statements that the purpose of this legislation is very specific and that the Bill is targeted particularly at countering a heightened terrorism threat. That is why we are agreeing to the swift procedures.
In debate on an earlier amendment—I believe that it was Amendment No. 37—when we discussed the question of including words such as "counterterrorism" in order to make the Bill more specific, the Minister appeared to indicate that that was altogether the Government's intention but that, in that case, the inclusion of those words would limit the freedom of the Government.
In this situation, as I read Clause 17(2)(a), these amendments are being inserted after the statement that the purpose of any criminal investigation must be to counter terrorism or must involve terrorism, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. Surely that gives the Government all the latitude that they need. The criminal investigation itself must be dedicated towards a counter-terrorism purpose, as is already stated in Clause 17(2)(a). But if, for example, another investigation which was not terrorism-based suddenly threw up information about terrorism, presumably at that stage there would be a fresh investigation which would be dedicated towards counter-terrorism.
Therefore, I believe that a number of noble Lords would be interested in listening to the Minister if he said that the word "counter-terrorism" was in some way not broad enough. As I suggested earlier this evening, the act might, for example, be a terrorist threat or a threat to national security, however broadly
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the Minister wishes to draw the phrase. However, to leave the matter totally open appears to question the Government's statement that the aim of the Bill is purely to counter terrorism. I believe that this provides a very good opportunity for the Minister to confirm whether that is still the case or whether the Government wish the Bill to be applied more widely to issues that have nothing whatever to do with terrorism.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: As has already been said, the arguments here, which are central to Clause 17, were visited when we dealt with previous amendments. I shall be required—indeed, I shall require myself—to give the same answers as I gave on previous occasions. I shall have something very specific to say about the General Medical Council, and one or two new points have been made to which I also want to respond.
However, fundamentally, I want to explain again what we are trying to achieve in Part 3 and. in particular, in Clause 17. The provisions of Part 3 are designed to clarify to public authorities whether or not they may disclose information. Restricting their disclosure solely to cases of terrorist offences would be a significant impediment to them. In each case it would force them to satisfy themselves, for fear of acting illegally, that the information was directly related to criminal conduct in relation to terrorism.
I heard the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, make the point that his amendments which use the phrase "involving terrorism" are different. They do not appear to be different but I shall examine the point and consider between now and Report whether there is a significant and helpful difference in wording.
Under the present drafting, individuals need to satisfy themselves that information would be relevant to a criminal investigation or proceedings. The amendments would limit the provisions and render them significantly weaker—and "weaker" is not meant in an abstract sense. It means weakening the pursuit of terrorism. I come back to that point time and again.
The Earl of Onslow: The Minister started by arguing that we can go looking for any criminal but then said, "If we cannot do that, it works against our ability to act against terrorism". That is a logical inconsistency of the first order. Either one is looking for terrorism or one is looking for offences such as parking on double yellow lines or brothel-keeping. There is no point in saying, "Yes, we are going to look for brothel-keeping", and hope that by accident we shall uncover terrorism. The Bill should not allow one to go trawling for brothel-keepers. Let us by all means pass an Act that allows us to go trawling for brothel-keepers but let us restrict the terrorism Bill to terrorist offences. That is the point that those of us on this side have been hammering home. The Minister argued that we can start with other offences and that accidentally we shall come on to terrorism. That cannot be the right approach and it is not what the Bill should do.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I disagree with the noble Earl on a point of logic, quite apart from his

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argument about terrorism. When the anti-terrorist squad, for example, or any other body is looking for terrorism, they are looking for activities that one can discover but which may not themselves be terrorist activities. Those activities involve other criminal activities that could lead one to terrorists. There is no alternative way to start an investigation involving terrorism other than by looking more widely.
Viscount Goschen: The Minister is being extraordinarily patient and I apologise for intervening again, but I am not sure that he is right. Clause 17(2)(a) states that the purpose of the investigation has to be to counter terrorism. My noble friend Lord Onslow pointed out that the Minister said that the investigation could be into anything. The Minister's argument is rather like suggesting that one should be given the authority to intercept all telephone calls on the off-chance that something criminal might be said. The authority has to be satisfied only about the purpose of the investigation, not that every little piece of information is definitely terrorist related. It has to be satisfied about the situation in which a person comes to it and says, "I am a counter-terrorism officer"—or an officer of the security services, for example—"and my intention in asking for the information is to pursue terrorism". That does not involve asking the authority to judge whether that piece of information is terrorism-related or not; nor does it involve conclusions about the way in which the original inquiry came about.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not know how the noble Viscount can avoid asking the authority to judge whether terrorism is being searched for or not, because its ability to disclose information depends on whether the approach falls within the scope of the clause. That is why it is not enough for me to have a flash on my shoulder saying, "anti-terrorist squad" and it is not enough to say that the offence that I am seeking to uncover is a terrorist offence. All sorts of other offences are—to use the jargon—the gateways to terrorism. Those who are looking for terrorists have to go through other routes in order to discover those terrorists.
I have accepted interruptions, which I do not resent in any way, but I want to finish my earlier argument about why the matter can become so difficult. We cannot separate the matter from what public officials are able to disclose or the need for them not to be restricted in what they are able to disclose. Let us consider, for example, overseas investigations. How will public officials assess whether such investigations relate to terrorist offences? The amendments would prevent those officials from disclosing where they could not satisfy themselves that overseas investigations were being carried out as part of terrorist investigations.
We are talking about the ability to disclose, not about what they are told. Serious criminal offences, such as drug dealing and money laundering, are often fundamentally bound up with terrorism. It is
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important that public officials are able to disclose information related to those offences in order to assist in the fight against terrorism.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thank the Minister for giving way. Does he not appreciate that these dilemmas, the boundaries and definitions of statutory entitlements and duties, are the everyday experience of magistrates, judges and police? If he had permitted the introduction of the authorisation procedure that we pressed on the Government half an hour ago, the problems of which he is making a chimera would not be there at all.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I shall ask the noble Lord a question in return, which I shall try to make rhetorical. Is the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, not aware that all of the problems which he and everyone else are introducing into this legislation are ones which exist with existing legislation? All of these powers of disclosure exist for criminal proceedings. What is happening here is that they are being extended to criminal investigations. What on earth is wrong with that? It is in the early stages of catching terrorists that we need this power of disclosure. That is the change in this part of the Bill.
The Earl of Onslow: I shall answer the question the Minister asks. What is wrong is that this is emergency legislation concerning terrorism, not general legislation concerning criminality. That is the exact answer. It is not a chimera, which I believe is a Greek image which vanishes. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, is not in his place. He would certainly tell me if that is right. That is the difference. That is the point on which those of us on this side of the House take a different line to the noble Lord, who is doing his level best. I do not think that it is good enough. He is doing the best he can. That is the argument which we are trying to get through to him.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: If the objection is so fundamental, why did not the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, vote against Second Reading? Why does he not vote against Third Reading instead of bringing this up at every single point on every single amendment? If the objection is as fundamental as that and impervious to the argument we put forward on the amendments before the Committee, there is nothing else I can do to persuade him. I shall try to finish my argument as quickly as I can.
In practical terms the criteria set out in Part 2, with which we have already dealt, provide a clearer basis for action than terrorism, which allows for a more subjective interpretation. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, asks for wider consultation and further consideration. Frankly, that is a delaying tactic. This is not an issue which merits or justifies delay. We are two-and-a-half months away from the worst terrorist attack which has taken place in the western world within a century. Historians would go further back. We have to respond in a timely way. We see investigations take place in Spain, Belgium, Britain,

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the United States, and all over the world. Are we to be the one country in the world which does not have the powers to pursue those investigations properly? I find it inconceivable that that is what noble Lords would wish to do.
I turn briefly to the General Medical Council. Under the Health Act 1999 and health legislation there is some information held by the health service which fulfils the qualifications in this legislation. In other words, it is covered by the existing statutory restrictions on disclosure and is information collected under the statutory powers. It is true that under certain circumstances under statutory powers the Audit Commission can demand certain patient records. However, I understand that they are demanded in statistical form rather than that which is identifiable to individual patients. To the very limited extent that health information is collected under statutory powers it is covered by this legislation. It does not cover doctors. Whatever may be the case for other purposes, I give the assurance that doctors are not public officials for this purpose. The information that they hold on medical records is not covered.
At present individual patient records can be disclosed if they are required for criminal proceedings. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, fairly read out the ruling of the General Medical Council about what can be disclosed for serious crime. She defined that clearly. Terrorism is a serious crime. The GMC's agreement and the ethical standards that it applies to medical staff will he extended from criminal proceedings, which it accepts at the moment, to criminal investigations.
If there is some doubt about the role of the Audit Commission's work we shall look at that between now and later stages of the Bill. Even in the event of medical records in the hands of the Audit Commission becoming subject to one of the statutory restrictions which we are modifying, that does not necessarily mean that disclosure will be permitted. The Data Protection Act, the Human Rights Act and the duty of confidence will apply. If the information in question is confidential then disclosure will be difficult. This is not a question of the police coming and asking for records and trawling for whatever they want to know even if they do not know what they want to know.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thank the Minister for giving way. How on earth can the Minister make that assertion? He has no control over the police. The police on occasions do things that they should not. They have obsessions that they should not have. How can he say that?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: That is an extraordinary question. The police have statutory duties for the pursuit of crime. The fact that I have described the limitations on what the police can do does not mean to say that there are not those who break the law, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is suggesting.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That is my very point. It would not involve a breakage of the law because these powers are so wide that unscrupulous or ill-advised or unwise use of them could be permissible under the legislation, which is what we are trying to prevent.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have risked—if not worse than that—wearying the House by repeating the substantial constraints that there are, both legal and in the drafting of the legislation. We land up with the position where the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, does not believe me. There is not very much that I can do about that. I have stated the position. I hope that I have given the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, the assurance that she sought. I know that I have not convinced those who want to restrict the whole of this part of the Bill in this way. But I put it to them that the greater good of the international pursuit of terrorism and our participation in that deserves some consideration.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: There are very few constraints in the way that this clause is drafted. It is drafted in the widest possible terms. However, I am very grateful to the Minister for his saying that over the next few days before we come to Report stage he will consider the expression that I have used in my amendment which involves terrorism.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, was here before dinner. When speaking to Amendment No. 48A I set out precisely the very extensive constraints on the clause and the way in which it has been written as represented in public. I suggest that before commenting further the noble Lord reads Hansard.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I think that I was here—I referred to it as the Grand National course that the Minister will require. In answer to my point, the Minister said that it will not be enough for a person to have a flash on his shoulder reading "anti-terrorist squad" or to say to a person from whom he is demanding information, "I am investigating terrorism". Yet of course any person who goes to an authority for such information must demonstrate that he has a right to that information. As the Bill is drafted and as the current provisions for criminal proceedings—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: He has the right to ask for that information. That is the only right that he has and unless he does it convincingly he will not get it.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Exactly, he must establish that he is a police officer, for example by showing a flash on his shoulder, by producing his warrant card or by demonstrating that he is investigating a crime. It is only one step further for him to say, "The crime that I am investigating involves terrorism. That is my interest. That is my duty. That is why I want the information that you can provide". I hope that the Minister will consider that when he considers the wording of my amendment.
Lord Hylton: While the Minister considers that, I return him to my point about overseas. Clause 17(2)(a) and (b) both refer to criminal investigations and proceedings,
"in the United Kingdom or elsewhere".
Given that, I hope that the Minister can give me the assurance that I sought. He may say that my worries are covered by Clause 18, but it is written in such convoluted language that I have great difficulty understanding it. Can the Minister explain it or produce any other reason to allay my concern?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think that I had better write to the noble Lord on that subject.
Baroness Buscombe: I thank the Minister for his full and robust response to this group of amendments. As my noble friend Lord Goschen said, it crystallises the nub of our concern, which is that the gateway is too wide. In the brief time that we have had to consider the implications of the Bill, we have encountered significant opposition to it. We do not want to weaken the pursuit of terrorism—there is no question of that. All that we want is to limit the Bill to say that the purpose of the investigation should at the outset be the genuine pursuit of terrorism. I again thank my noble friend Lord Goschen for making that point.
We want to ensure that authorities can pursue investigations properly but in a way that means that they are genuinely limited to terrorism. Whether they turn out to be successful pursuits of terrorism is another matter, but terrorism should be in the minds of those authorities when they set out in their task to require the disclosure of information.
I thank the Minister for his assurance when he said that doctors are not public officials. I shall invite the General Medical Council to read tomorrow in Hansard what the Minister said. I also thank him for his reassurance that if there is any doubt—and we have doubts about the role of the Audit Commission—he will consider the matter further before we, in a sense, say goodbye to the Bill in the coming days.
There are several issues relating to Clause 17 that we shall want to pursue, but, for our part, we shall endeavour to be brief, because we shall want to return to them on Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 50A to 55 not moved.]
Lord Phillips of Sudbury Lord Phillips of Sudbury moved Amendment No. 56:
Page 7, line 16, leave out paragraph (d).
The noble Lord said: This amendment and Amendment No.80 seek to exclude paragraph (d) from Clause 17(2) and paragraph (e) from Clause 19(2). The paragraph concerned refers to,
"the purpose of facilitating a determination of whether any such investigation or proceedings should be initiated or brought to an end".
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It is apparent to the Minister that everyone in the Chamber bar the Government Front Bench believes that that entitlement to disclosure is far too wide. It means that an individual or body can engage in a pre-review of whether he wants to begin an investigation which may give rise to proceedings. We believe that that is far too wide and it serves no useful purpose. Given everything that has been said, I beg to move.
Baroness Buscombe: I rise simply to say that I entirely support what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this amendment when speaking to other amendments. If the power of disclosure is to have any effect, it must have effect when the suspicion first arises. I am not so much concerned with the provision of the initiation of an investigation because if I were to ask for disclosure of information I would merely say, "Yes, I have started the investigation. I started five minutes ago. Can you help me?" I do not believe that that is the problem.
The reason that we need the provision is for bringing to an end any investigation of proceedings. It will allow the authorities to clear an individual's name by providing information which shows he is innocent and allows the investigation to be closed. It will also be able to help the police to determine whether an investigation should start by providing information on an individual thought to have left the country or thought to be dead.
Both of those circumstances seem to me to be entirely inoffensive. The first could easily be overcome if the provision were not made, but the ability to use it to clear someone's name seems to me to be extremely valuable.
Lord Hylton: I note that subsections (2)(c) and (2)(d) do not include the words "in the UK or elsewhere". Nevertheless, I suspect that that phrase may be read into them. If it is capable of being read into them, it reinforces what I said earlier in the debate on the clause about disclosure to overseas countries.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: They refer to "such investigation or proceedings", which relates back to subsections (2)(a) and (2)(b). Therefore, it means the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
I believe that I can set at rest the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, because there is no question of information being disclosed to those abroad who would misuse it. He gave the example of eastern Europe, but probably there are better examples. However, I shall write to the noble Lord giving all the details of the constraints which make it impossible under the legislation for information to be passed to those who would misuse it in the way he fears.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I should love to have a clear example of a non-terrorist case which falls within paragraph (d) because it would represent 99.99 per cent of the cases within that provision. I should like a

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clear example to show why the Government believe that only paragraph (d) provides the kind of protection that is needed for non-terrorist offences. However, I shall not have such an example, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Buscombe Baroness Buscombe moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 7, line 17, at end insert—
"() Information to which subsection (2) applies shall not be disclosed by the public authority until such time as that public authority has undertaken a pre-disclosure assessment of the request for information and it has been shown by the requester—

(a) that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the information in question would be relevant to an inquiry into terrorist activity;

(b) that the data subject has committed an offence related to terrorism; or

(c) that the request to disclose information on a particular individual is proportionate in the context of the offence in question."

The noble Baroness said: In rising to move Amendment No. 57, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 64 and 88. The purpose of these amendments is to add appropriate safeguards to the provisions. We shall try again. Clause 17 provides that information obtained by a very wide range of public authorities under a vast array of legislative provisions listed in Schedule 4 would be capable of being disclosed for the purpose of a criminal investigation into, or criminal proceedings for, any offence in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, or for the purpose of,
"facilitating a determination of whether any such investigation or proceedings should be initiated or brought to an end".
The clauses in Part 3 are identical to those in Part 2 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act which came into force earlier this year. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has considered the provisions of the current Bill. In its report published on 14th November 2001 the committee referred to its earlier criticisms of provisions in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill. In particular it concluded that,
"There is a need to introduce adequate safeguards into this legislation. Consideration should be given to amending these provisions to include … a requirement that there should be reasonable grounds for suspecting that the information in question would be relevant to a criminal inquiry or that the data subject has committed an offence, and a requirement that a pre-disclosure assessment be made of the proportionality of disclosing information on a particular individual in the context of the offence in question.
"Consideration should also be given to limiting the very wide power to make disclosures 'for the purposes of initiating … any such investigation or proceedings'. We draw the attention of each House to these provisions, and consider that necessary safeguards should be provided to ensure they are compatible with the right to privacy".
It is our view that the provisions as drafted are much wider than is necessary for the prevention of terrorism. We wholeheartedly endorse the views of the Joint Committee in pressing for the need for appropriate safeguards to be included in the provisions. Clause 17(2) relates to the disclosure of information by or on behalf of a public authority. The definition of "public
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authority" in Clause 20(1) is by reference to Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 which is in very wide terms and includes courts, tribunals and,
"any person certain of whose functions are of a public nature".
When the Joint Committee considered the provisions in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill it heard evidence from Mr Hartnett who said:
"we have described a 'public authority' as that which has the same meaning … as in Section 6 of the Human Rights Act. So we feel that that not only deals with the specific point about disclosure, but the fact that we have anchored this … to Section 6 or the Human Rights Act means that any disclosure that a public authority makes must be compatible with Article 8 of the convention … and thereby it has to meet the tests of reasonableness and proportionality which we understand the committee was concerned about in January".
However, it cannot be assumed that the Bill will he interpreted in such a way that disclosure will be compatible with Article 8 of the convention. By including a clause which makes express provision for tests of reasonableness and proportionality means that there can be no doubt that Article 8 should be complied with. The fact that there may be a need for this anti-terrorism legislation to enter the statute books fairly quickly is not an excuse to sacrifice certainty. I beg to move.
10 p.m.
The Earl of Northesk: I support the amendment. I agree with every word of my noble friend's introduction of this group of amendments, specifically in regard to the human rights issue. However, I should like to add a few thoughts of my own.
I know that the Minister is not entirely in concurrence with my view on this point, but. I repeat, my concern is that Part 3—particularly when taken in tandem with Part 11—represents carte blanche for data matching and/or data sharing throughout the machinery of government. The worth of the amendments is in limiting the scope for the use of such techniques to matters relating solely to terrorist activity as well as subjecting them to a proportionality test. In this way we could perhaps be assured that there will continue to be a presumption that authority for the future application of such measures will be on a case-by-case basis via primary legislation. At the very least, as my noble friend suggested, that will deliver greater consistency with the ECHR.
There is a subsidiary issue, albeit one of important significance. I refer to some of the concerns that were inadequately debated in the context of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill during the previous Session. As far as I am aware, the existing statutory disclosure provisions as they relate to the Revenue authorities, while limited in scope—I accept that—have operated well, striking the right balance between the rights of the individual, the requirements of the state and the public interest. Part 3 is a fundamental departure from the principles upon which this regime is based; namely, that information disclosed to tax authorities for tax purposes should be used only for tax purposes.
I can understand the desirability of disclosure, particularly in terms of the terrorist threat, but, none the less, its potential for undermining the successful

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operation of the existing regime, especially the so called Hansard procedure, was a principled objection to Part 2 of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill in the previous Session. It is even more of an objection in the face of the drafting before us today.
To get back to the point, the Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that the situation is exacerbated because of the vast scope for data matching when cross-referenced with Part 11. By imposing the test of proportionality and limiting the scope of the disclosure regime to terrorist activity, the amendments go at least some way towards addressing the problem.
I would add one other thought. The Bill has been severely criticised for the way in which it introduces elements of, as it were, non-emergency legislation. Necessarily, this suggests a less than adequate process of consultation. This is becoming a matter of particular anxiety for the financial services sector in respect of this part of the Bill. I very much hope that the Minister does not underestimate how deeply harmful these provisions could be if they are enacted as they stand. The amendment is justified on this basis alone as it would ensure that a wider and more appropriate disclosure regime could be developed, with appropriate consultation and in a less hurried way.
I do not gainsay in any way the Government's purpose in bearing down on the financial aspects of terrorism. Nor do I mean to be alarmist. But to take risks with the pre-eminence of the City—and the position could be that serious—by legislating too broadly and quickly would, I suggest, be both unwise and unreasonable. As I said, I support the amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think—and I hope—that there is a profound misunderstanding and that we are not as far apart as may at first appear.
The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, quoted the Joint Committee of January this year. But, of course, the Joint Committee was referring to the Criminal Justice and Police Bill as it was before the House prior to the election. Most of that Bill disappeared during the wash-up; it was abandoned because there was still disagreement about it. However, the important issue is that there are huge differences between the proposals in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill and what is provided in this Bill.
The Joint Committee recommended in January of this year in regard to the Criminal Justice and Police Bill that, inter alia, there should be a pre-disclosure proportionality test which would oblige the individual disclosing the information to assess the proportionality of disclosing information in the context of the offence in question; that there should be a time limit placed on the grounds on which information should be disclosed—specifically, as they stand in this Bill, at Clause 17(2)(c) and (d); and that Clause 19(2)(c) and (d) should be narrowed.
Since then, we have provided on the face of the Bill that only public authorities can disclose. That covers
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all of these points. It means that the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act apply to all of these disclosures. That, in turn, means that the recommendations of the Joint Committee—for example, on proportionality—are available here. It is necessary to look at the difference between the pre-election Bill and this Bill in order to understand the extent to which we have taken into account all of the recommendations of the Joint Committee.
Baroness Buscombe: I must apologise to the Minister. I have been a bit slow on the uptake. While I was saying that it is our view that Part 3 of the Bill is identical to Part 2 of last year's Criminal Justice and Police Bill, I was actually quoting from the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights which was published on 14th November.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful for that. If it means that I have to think about something that I have said, I shall certainly do so. The differences between this Bill and the previous one certainly are of huge significance.
The amendment is complicated. Perhaps I may make three points. First, the amendment is framed in terms of public authorities facing requests for information. While it may be the case that such requests are made, the intention is to allow bodies to volunteer information where this would be helpful in preventing or investigating crime, without having to be asked for it first. It will be for the body holding the information to decide whether to disclose it. There is no element of compulsion or obligation on the public authority to disclose.
Secondly, the Human Rights Act already obliges any public authority to consider, before disclosing, whether disclosure is proportionate. We have provided that the disclosures under Clause 17 will only be from public authorities, so that the Human Rights Act, unlike the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, applies to all of these disclosures.
The third point relates to the problem of restricting the disclosures to terrorist offences. We have gone over that ground and I shall not weary the Committee again. I must repeat, however, that in cases where a criminal investigation is in its early stages it may not be clear that a terrorist offence has been committed or that the investigation will become a terrorist investigation. In such cases, if the amendment were accepted officials would not be able to disclose potentially vital information.
The rest of the arguments used in relation to the amendment are ones to which I responded during debates on previous amendments. I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
Baroness Buscombe: I thank the Minister for his response. Again, I apologise for my rather late intervention, which was not particularly helpful.
I shall be brief. The Minister said that the amendment is complicated in three ways. Perhaps we should re-think our drafting. I shall consider his

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remarks with care—although I should forewarn him that my initial response is that we cannot agree with what he has said. However, we should like to read his remarks in Hansard. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 58 and 59 not moved.]
Baroness Buscombe Baroness Buscombe moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 7, line 18, after "may" insert ", after consultation with the Scottish Ministers."
The noble Baroness said: Again, I shall be brief. In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 61, which is a Liberal Democrat amendment, and to my Amendment No. 66.
Amendments Nos. 60 and 66 are probing amendments. They relate to one of the provisions in the Bill which impact on an area of devolved competence, criminal law and procedure. To take full account of the devolution settlement, we have been asked by the Law Society of Scotland to recommend that provision is made on the face of the Bill for consultation with Scottish Ministers prior to an order being issued by the Treasury.
We entirely support Amendment No. 61 tabled by the Liberal Democrats. I beg to move.
Lord Goodhart: Amendment No. 61 stands in my name and that of my noble friends Lord McNally and Lord Thomas of Gresford. Clause 17(3) states:
"The Treasury may by order made by statutory instrument add any provision contained in any subordinate legislation to the provisions to which this section applies".
It can add by order any secondary legislation to the 53 statutes set out in Schedule 4. Under Clause 17(4) that statutory instrument is subject to the negative resolution procedure.
Amendment No. 61 gives effect to a recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that the Committee should consider converting that from the negative to the affirmative resolution procedure. That is what Amendment No. 61 provides. I understand from something that the Minister said earlier that the Government may he minded to accept that. If so, I need say nothing further.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: I have put my name to Amendments Nos. 60 and 66. I hope that the Minister's response to these amendments will be that there was a simple omission; and that the devolution settlement devolved criminal law and criminal procedure in Scotland. While I accept that Parliament reserved to itself the power to override the Scottish Parliament and therefore does not need to consult Scottish Ministers, I believe that that would be bad politics. Accepting the amendments would be good politics.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: As the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, anticipated, I can confirm that we shall follow our usual practice of bowing down before
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the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We shall produce amendments to provide for the affirmative resolution procedure.
I think that the noble Earl is trying it on a little with Amendments Nos. 60 and 66. If on every occasion that secondary legislation involved devolved administrations we had to put into the legislation that we shall consult the Scottish Ministers we would have a substantial increase in the size and scope of legislation and more Scottish forests would fall as a result. Of course, we shall consult with Scottish Ministers but we do not have to say so. We have a Sewell memorandum on this Bill. All the primary legislation has been agreed by the then Acting First Minister as appropriate to be applied to Scotland It is hardly conceivable that when we come to secondary legislation we should face these difficulties.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My one complaint about the use of a Sewell Motion procedure is this. No doubt the Minister of Justice approved the Bill when it was published. The Scottish Parliament does not have the chance to see the Bill until after it has become an Act during the process of which it may have been modified.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It was agreed not to debate it. It will have the chance to see it and we shall discuss all the subordinate legislation with Scottish Ministers. We do not need to put that on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Buscombe: I thank the Minister for his response and accept what he has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 61 not moved.]
10.15 p.m.
Baroness Buscombe Baroness Buscombe moved Amendment No. 62:
Page 7, line 25, at end insert—
"() Nothing in this section shall authorise the disclosure of information which is subject to legal privilege.
() For the purposes of this Part, information is subject to legal privilege if it forms part of communications made in connection with, or in contemplation of, legal proceedings and for the purposes of these proceedings being communications which would in legal proceedings be protected from disclosure by virtue of any rule of law relating to the confidentiality of communications."
The noble Baroness said: The amendment relates to legal privilege. I shall be very brief. The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, on the principle of legal privilege during the Second Reading debate on the Criminal Justice and Police Bill in April this year are relevant here. He said:
"Legal professional privilege enjoys its historical importance in our criminal and civil law because it protects the citizen against unreasonable interference by the state. Citizens can talk to their lawyer in private and by so doing protect their human rights and protect their desire to prove their innocence if charged, if they can. In the view of many, that is still a vital part of our democracy. It distinguishes us from a totalitarian state where such concepts are regarded as irrelevant. It is an important feature of our legal life

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and of our system of human rights as we now have them and it should not be damaged or diminished without the most careful consideration".
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, will not mind if I quote from him a little further. He went on:
"In an age of electronic records, I find it difficult to accept that the Bill will allow the seizure of electronic material by people who have no idea what they are doing in terms of distinguishing between what is privileged and what is not. Once obtained, even with an obligation to return it as soon as possible if it is privileged, are we really to think that the information obtained by the police if it is privileged will not be stored, at least mentally if not in some permanent form? I find that extremely concerning. It could give rise to a state of affairs whereby, at one extreme, lawyers do not record their advice and, at another, they encrypt their communications with their client or their records of them".—[Official Report, 2/4/01; col. 684.]
That entirely supports the concerns expressed earlier this evening by my noble friend Lord Kingsland. I beg to move.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: The Law Society of Scotland suggested the amendment to us. I shall restrict my remarks to the simple point that not including the amendment will lead to ambiguity, whereas including it would prevent that. That is particularly important when so much in the Bill is rightly being done behind the backs of suspected terrorists. The public need to know where we stand on the issue.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: We strongly support the amendment. People dislike bestowing statutory privileges on lawyers, but this is one privilege that is for the benefit of people.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The Committee is not going to catch me disagreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, about legal professional privilege. However, the relevant Acts in Schedule 4 already contain provisions that prevent people being compelled to produce information that is subject to legal professional privilege. Nothing in the Bill will extend those duties or possibilities. It is very unlikely that information that is subject to legal professional privilege will be obtained under the provision listed in the schedule. Information subject to legal professional privilege will certainly not be obtained by compulsion under the existing enactments. Only information that is required by statute is covered.
Although the amendment has such distinguished provenance, it is misconceived. This part of the Bill deals with the disclosure of information, not the obtaining of information. There are already protections in place to ensure that information that is subject to LPP is not obtained under the listed enactments.
There is a possibility that the information could be provided to a public authority voluntarily. It could then be disclosable under the new gateways. But it would still be necessary to consider the other restrictions such as confidentiality. If a person discloses legal advice to a third party in confidence, that duty of confidence would still prevent disclosure
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even if the new gateway applied. We support the thinking behind the amendment, but I hope that it will be recognised that it is not necessary.
Baroness Buscombe: I thank the Minister for his response. The amendment may appear misconceived but it is there for a purpose. Our purpose has been achieved, which was to obtain the Minister's reassurance. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 63 to 65 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 17 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: We have had a long and at times arduous debate on Clause 17, but disclosure is at the heart of the Bill. The clause has the widest ramifications. Those of us who view it as too wide are unhappy at the outcome of tonight's debate. I am also tempted to reflect again on the fact that not a single speaker—beyond the Ministers involved—has defended the clause as it stands.
The Minister has admitted that it provides a huge extension of rights of disclosure. There is no doubt that a public authority to which a request for disclosure is made under Clause 17 will be unable to refuse it without good reason. That would be a judicially reviewable decision. The Minister is indicating that that is not true, but a public authority to which a request for disclosure was properly made under Clause 17 could not simply refuse to comply. It would be a reviewable decision according to Wednesbury principles and it represents a right on the part of those requesting the disclosure.
The provision is not confined to terrorism, which is the purpose of the Bill; it is not confined to UK offences; it is not confined to serious offences; and, it is not confined to disclosure by government departments and state bodies. It extends to public authorities—hybrid authorities, in particular, so a vast array of organisations will be subject to the measure.
It is not confined to disclosure to public authorities. The Minister has confirmed tonight that individuals carrying on private prosecutions will be able to use Clause 17 along with authorities. It will also—this was a surprise—extend to all those who are accused in respect of private or public prosecutions. Therefore, a vast new array of potential users of the clause come into view.
It will not be confined to individuals in this country but includes individuals abroad. It will not be limited to reasonable, relevant or proportionate requests for disclosure. On all that, the Minister says that there is the Human Rights Act, which, as everybody knows, will be an unreachable remedy for the vast majority of people.
Clause 17 and the extended powers it gives are not confined just to the 66 statutes in Schedule 4—they can be added to; they are not confined to requests for disclosure from abroad only where there are comparable legal rights and protections for UK

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citizens; they are not confined to requests for disclosure from abroad only where there is a comparable integrity of the administration and application of those foreign laws; and they are not even confined to requests for disclosure in connection with actual prosecutions or investigations. As we know, paragraph (d), as it currently stands, will allow a far wider disclosure than that.
Not at any point are any of these disclosure arrangements subject to the say-so of a magistrate or a judge, not even to a warrant. Attention was drawn to the vastly different regime under the RIPA Act which does indeed provide the sort of protections we sought in the amendment on authorisation. There is nothing here except the dim and expensive prospect of legal proceedings by way of judicial review or under the Human Rights Act. And it relates not only to future effect; it also relates to retrospective facts—those already in the kitty, so to speak.
All in all, we feel that this clause disfigures an already problematic Bill. It is offensive to our traditions and to the real but limited needs giving rise to it, and indeed to common sense. It is condemned by Liberty, Justice, the Law Society, the Bar Council, the BMA and the General Medical Council. We have all been showered with representations soberly made by sober organisations which fear for the extent of this measure.
Finally, there is no sunset provision in the legislation. If it was truly a measure that related to terrorism, a sunset clause would be added here as it has been added elsewhere in the Bill.
I do not intend to reiterate what I said less than 24 hours ago at Second Reading on the background to this. But we believe strongly—I think I can speak for both Benches on this side of the Chamber—that it should be withdrawn and resubmitted in a fair and sensible form. At this hour of the night I do not intend to press for a vote.
Baroness Buscombe: I rise simply to support the words of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. I hope that we can pursue some of these areas further outside the Chamber between now and Report stage.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I believe I have responded to virtually all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in the deliberate statement that I made on Amendment No. 48A before we broke for dinner. The only new element in what he said is to say that there would in effect be an obligation on public authorities to disclose.
That is simply untrue. Nothing is provided either here or anywhere else which forces public officials or public authorities to disclose any information. What is given in this clause is the power to give information. I have already described the safeguards in place. I have already commented on the fact that a large amount of public debate on this issue has been on the basis of serious misconceptions about the provision.
Lord Goodhart: Does the Minister agree that since the authorisation means that the officers of a public
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authority are exercising a public function in deciding whether or not to agree to a request for information, their decision would in fact be reviewable by a court and therefore they would be bound to act reasonably in deciding whether to give the information? If they were acting unreasonably in refusing it, they could be ordered to give it.
10.30 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: This has been quite a depressing debate. It has reminded me of my grandmother. When she became engaged to be married, my grandfather said to her, "Marriage is a question of give and take" to which she replied, "You give and I take".
In my view the arguments on this side of the Committee have been overwhelming, not just because I have tried to advance some of them. I sincerely hope that if I can be persuaded by an argument on the other side, I will be. I was. I was very influenced by what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said as regards the first amendment. He said in relation to it that the magistrates are quite capable of dealing with the question of drug money confiscation and that they had done so for 10 years. So I was influenced by what he said. In other words, I was prepared to listen to what he said.
The impression I have is that, however good the argument on this side, the noble Lord has been given instructions to resist, resist and resist. None of us is arguing in any way that terrorism should not he defeated as quickly and efficaciously as possible. The noble Lord suggested that I should divide the House the whole time. He would not like me to carry out his instructions. There are 185 amendments. That figure, multiplied by 20 minutes, is something in the region of 90 hours of parliamentary time, which I suspect takes us beyond next Easter or something like that. I am sure that that is not part of the Government's programme.
All I am saying is that in my view the arguments have been overwhelming. They have been resisted with charm and great ability by the noble Lord. But he has not convinced one single Member of his own Back Benches to speak in his support. He is unable, however much he has tried, to counter the arguments put brilliantly by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Some of us have tried to chip in as well. It is very depressing when one hears intelligent people producing intelligent arguments, not just for "yah boo" sakes, being resisted and resisted. That is all I have to say tonight and I am now going home to bed.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I did not say to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, that he should divide the House on every amendment. I said that he is irreconcilable and there is nothing that we can do about meeting his requirements. He should have divided the House at Second Reading and he can still do so at Third Reading. It is not about the detail.
I have huge affection for the noble Earl and it is permanent. I have had it ever since he opposed the poll tax on the grounds that it was unfair that he and his head game keeper should pay the same local tax. That

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will never go away. The affection and admiration that I have for him over that will never disappear. But he is irreconcilable. He does not want any part of this Bill. The only proper thing to do is to vote against it as a whole and not on every single amendment.
I respond only to the single new point that was made; namely, the possibility of a refusal to disclose on request being reviewed. In theory that is the case and it is possible. But how would it succeed? The public authority does not have, and is not given, a duty to disclose. It is only in the unlikely circumstances that it could be said that a public authority was unreasonable—and unreasonable, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said himself in the Wednesbury sense—in refusing to disclose that there could be any question about it. It is a power and not a duty. I am sorry if I am being repetitive, but the public authority will be subject to the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act. The Human Rights Act does not require somebody else to pursue the public authority to secure that the human rights provisions are complied with. It is a duty on every public authority to comply with that Act. It would be an offence not to do so.
I conclude as I believe that we can bring this matter to an end. We believe that Clause 17 with the restrictions that I have set out—which have been so widely misunderstood by the public—is a significant help in combating television.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I meant to say terrorism. It is "Newsnight" time; I am sorry.
I have set out the safeguards that are in place. I have made it clear that the measure is aimed at terrorism but that it will help with criminal investigations. I recognise that the responses which have been made to Clause 17 are sincerely felt although I believe them to be misconceived. If there is anything we can do between now and Report to remove misconceptions and to narrow the distance between us, we are, of course, willing to try to do that.
Clause 17 agreed to.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Clause 18 [Restriction on disclosure of information for overseas purposes]:
[Amendments Nos. 66 to 68 not moved.]
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Amendment No. 68 seeks to—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Amendment No. 68 was discussed with Amendment No. 63.
Lord Hylton: I hope that I may say a few words regarding Amendment No. 68, whether or not it has been moved.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff): With respect to the noble Lord, there is no amendment
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before the Committee at the moment. The movers of the amendment say that it has not been moved. If the noble Lord wishes to move it, he is, of course, perfectly entitled so to do.
Lord Hylton Lord Hylton moved Amendment No. 68:
Page 8, line 38, at end insert—
"( ) Nothing in this Part authorises the making of any disclosure to an authority of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom unless the law of that country or territory provides, in relation to the use, retention and disclosure of the information in question, equivalent safeguards to those applicable under the law of the part of the United Kingdom in which the information is held."
The noble Lord said: I move the amendment. I had not read the amendment when I sought to obtain an assurance from the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, on precisely this subject matter. This amendment expresses more elegantly than I did the kind of thing that I want. I suggest the inclusion of only two words to those who drafted the amendment; that is, to add the words, "and practice" after "the law" in the second line. That would cover the huge discrepancy which exists in many countries between what the law says and what actually happens. I strongly commend the amendment to the Minister although he has kindly offered to write to me. I beg to move.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has got the matter into play, I say briefly that I think his proposal is absolutely right. If foreign public authorities are to have the advantages of our legislation, they must provide comparable protections and that must go beyond mere law to practice because, as we know, the manner in which some judicial processes are carried on in other jurisdictions is not such as would give real protection to our citizens and public authorities.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have given the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, the principal assurance that he sought; namely, that there are severe restrictions in terms of human rights with regard to who outside this country can receive information disclosed under this part of the Bill. However, this particular amendment is about data protection systems. The Data Protection Act already restricts the extent to which information can be disclosed to countries outside the European Economic Area. The significance of that is that data protection legislation is virtually common within the European Economic Area.
Before making disclosure for the purposes of an investigation where no proceedings are immediately in prospect, the data controller must usually ensure that the country has an adequate system of data protection in place. I repeat: an adequate system of data protection. That does not mean a formal law which is then disobeyed. Therefore, I believe that I shall be able to add to the letter which I am writing to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and which I shall place in the Library of the House, the assurance that is necessary for Clause 68.
Lord Hylton: I am delighted to find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord

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Phillips. I note what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Clause 19 [Disclosure of information held by revenue departments]:
[Amendments Nos. 69 and 70 not moved.]
Lord Thomas of Gresford Lord Thomas of Gresford moved Amendment No. 71:
Page 9, line 9, leave out paragraph (a).
The noble Lord said: This amendment deals with an entirely different matter. However, I do not propose to worry the Committee for long because it is essentially a probing amendment. Paragraph (a) of Clause 19(2) refers to disclosure,
"for the purpose of facilitating the carrying out by any of the intelligence services of any of that service's functions".
This is an entirely new provision which did not appear in the Bill that was withdrawn last May. That Bill contained only paragraphs (b), (c), (d) and (e).
Therefore, for some reason, an addition is made to the policy by permitting disclosure of the information held by the commissioners of Inland Revenue and the commissioners of Customs and Excise to the intelligence services for any of their functions—that is, for any purpose whatever. It does not refer to an investigation; it does not refer to criminal proceedings; and it does not refer to the possibility of determining whether there should be an investigation or proceedings. It is the broadest clause in this part of the Bill that one can find. It is linked with Amendment No. 84, which I now appreciate is badly drafted. However, that amendment was consequential only, and I do not intend to refer to it further.
I want to know from the Minister for further consideration on Report why such wide powers are granted and what is the true purpose behind this provision. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I confess that I was not aware that this matter was not referred to in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill. I simply looked at the amendment on its merits on the face of this Bill. The amendment seeks to remove from Part 3 the references to the intelligence services. Therefore, it seeks to remove a new statutory gateway which in their view—I am talking about the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ; that is what is meant by "intelligence services"—would assist them in their vital function of combating terrorism.
One of the central objectives of the Bill is to assist the Government in combating terrorism. If vital information cannot be passed to the security services or, as the Bill states, the intelligence services, that would represent a serious impediment to that effort. I understand the concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, has in making a comparison with the previous Bill. But I cannot believe, in the specific context of terrorism—even though the noble Earl,
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Lord Onslow, has gone home—that it would be right to exclude reference to the intelligence services from the provisions of the Bill.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: The powers that are being sought are novel and extensive. They mean that the files of all taxpayers in this country will be available for consideration by the security services for any reason whatever. As I have said, the investigation of terrorism need not be involved. Having pondered the matter, I shall return to it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Before the noble Lord concludes, I must say that what he suggested simply is not so. The same restrictions that I described in relation to Clause 17 also apply to Clause 19. Tax records are not held for statutory purposes and therefore cannot be disclosed in the same way. It simply is not the case that the intelligence services can do things outside their own statutory functions. The statutory function of the security services includes the prevention of terrorism and is quite well defined. They cannot simply require any information for any purpose.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: As I understand the position—perhaps the Minister will confirm this—the remit of security and intelligence services has been extended way beyond questions of terrorism and into the investigation of drugs, serious crime and so on. Just how far their remit goes we do not know.
Lord Avebury: People trafficking?
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I hear my noble friend's intervention.
Encapsulated in this provision is a grave extension of principle. I understand that the security services can act only within their statutory framework and I bear in mind what I describe as the Grand National course, which was outlined in relation to Amendment No. 48A. I accept that there is a framework but, within that, the security services control what they like.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Tax information is covered by Clause 19.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: The Minister has admitted his first failure of the evening—it is the first time that he has been wrong. We hope that he will accept that he may be wrong in principle in relation to this huge extension of power. I shall not pursue the matter further now but I give notice that I shall pursue it with more information on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 72 to 88 not moved.]
Clause 19 agreed to.

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[Amendment No. 89 not moved.]
Clause 20 [Interpretation of Part 3]:
[Amendments Nos. 90 to 96 not moved.]
Clause 20 agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 37 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I am not going to take much time because there has been a full debate on these matters on two occasions.
This is the first of a series of amendments to oppose the Question that Clauses 37 to 43—the whole of Part 5 of the Bill—stand part concerning incitement to religious hatred. By leave of Members of the Committee, I shall deal with them all en bloc. This is not an exercise in confrontation. As my noble friend Lady Buscombe said, and I support, it is a hope and belief that through the power of argument in this place we shall have another opportunity to persuade the Government.
If that is the approach, what could be more persuasive than the sense of this House as expressed yesterday and early this morning on the important area of Part 5 of the Bill in the light of reports of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee that floated into the Printed Paper Office today, and debate in your Lordships' House on 21st November in which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford sounded a note of caution and in which the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said that for the first time he had found himself in agreement with anything I had ever said in your Lordships' House, albeit there was controversy as to whether criminalisation of incitement to religious hatred would or would not protect our Islam communities or work an unintended mischief?
There was controversy as to the scope of safeguards for the freedom of expression by those of any faith or none in favour or against any religion regarded as such. On those matters there was an area of controversy. But there was unanimity on the crucial issues, save from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who I had the privilege of having a word with today, who supported the Government for reasons which, with respect to her, did not convince me. They were that because of acts of terrorism, they have increased prejudice and created the present danger. With that dissent—I have been right through the Official Report; that was the only dissent—what was agreed by the House was, first, that there was no or no sufficient connection with terrorism and that Part 5 should not be included in the Bill. It runs right through the speeches in this House. Secondly, much further discussion, thought, safeguards and assurances, for which we all know there is no time, are required before Part 5 could be accepted as drafted or amended.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: I thank the noble Lord for giving way. It is not quite accurate that there was total agreement that those clauses should not be
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part of the Bill. In my contribution I suggested that the matter needed to be tackled, even as part of this Bill. I also suggested:
"There is some merit in having the legislation in this Bill. September 11th and its aftermath placed stresses and strains on the religious fabric of society".—[Official Report, 22/11/01; col. 223.]
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I apologise to the right reverend Prelate. That is fairly watery support. If I misread it I hope he will forgive me.
The Attorney-General (Lord Goldsmith): As the right reverend Prelate has made that point, can I also draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. He said that the time was right now. I understood my noble friend Lord Ahmed also to accept that it was appropriate now that this should be in the Bill, although he had doubts in relation to it.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I certainly do not take that interpretation of those speeches. But let us not discuss that.
Assume that the noble and learned Lord's intervention is totally justified in those instances and assume that I am wrong. The fact remains that the broad sense of this House—whatever the noble and learned Lord may say, whatever the right reverend Prelate may think or say and whatever may be the position—was clearly in favour that there was no or no sufficient connection with terrorism and that Part 5 should not have been included in the Bill. From that I will not retract.
Secondly, the broad sense of the House was that much further discussion, thought, safeguards and assurances for which, as I have said, there was no time, are required before Part 5 can be accepted or indeed amended.
Thirdly, the broad consensus of the House was that if incitement to religious hatred is to be criminalised that should be done after discussion on a comprehensive basis in another Bill. The right reverend Prelate, if I remember correctly, assented to that proposition, but I may be mistaken.
It is the hope that the Government shall defer to the broad sense of this House between today and Report stage by a concession to remove Part 5 from the Bill for the reasons that I have given. If in certain particulars they were in error in the opinion of Members of the Committee, it cannot be contended that they do not represent the broad sense and advice of this House. I ask the Government to yield to persuasion.
11 p.m.
Earl Russell: First, I owe an apology to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. During his speech I was talking into the other ear of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, about the possible wording of an amendment on which I hope that we have now reached agreement. So if he did not absorb everything that the right reverend Prelate said, the fault is mine. I am sorry for that and I offer an apology.

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We have three separate questions here. First, should incitement to religious hatred be an offence? Personally, I am inclined to the view that it should. As a 17th century historian I know something about religious hatred. I know that people have died as a result of it. I remember reading of an occasion when Archbishop Laud on trial before this House rashly expressed the opinion that the Pope was only probably anti-Christ. He was therefore denounced over and over again as the very pander and broker to the whore of Babylon.
That makes one of my points. But I am not certain whether or not such language is covered by the Bill. Before any such Bill reaches the statute book I think that it would be well to know whether or not that is the case.
Therefore, in principle, because as a House of Parliament we must be concerned with keeping the peace, we should be prepared to consider legislating on the subject. That leaves us with the two questions: whether we should legislate in the Bill and whether we should legislate in the draft. My noble friends as a whole say that we should not do it in this Bill. Such a provision is not emergency legislation. It needs to be drafted with immense care, sensitivity and thought, after the widest consultation and after consideration of all the possible ways in which it could be misinterpreted in court. We do not think that the provision will receive that within the timetable allowed for the Bill. The consequences of that could be serious.
I appreciate the force of the argument repeated by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark: that September 11th has put a strain on the social fabric where religion is concerned. I am on record—the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, will bear me witness—as having spoken up about the need to protect the reputation and standing of British Muslims before any Bill was in evidence. I feel strongly about that need. The Bill does not meet it. There is something inherently paradoxical about saying that one is doing two things at the same time because they are not connected.
Those Members of the Committee who have faced discrimination because they happen to be women will know that such discrimination is usually preceded by the words, "This is not because you are a woman, but …". Those who have faced discrimination on grounds of race are familiar with the phrase, "It is not because of your race, but …". Those who have been discriminated against for being from public school have faced the phrase, "It is not because of your education, but …".
The mere conjunction of the two things reinforces in the minds of many people the idea that we are in fact engaged in hostilities with the Muslim community, which is the very idea that we most want to avoid. There is opinion poll evidence to that effect, as well as my experience from talking to large and varied collections of people on the matter. So although the objective of including the provision in the Bill was good, and one that I share and respect, we will not achieve it.
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But what I am really worried about is the drafting. It seems to be assumed in the drafting of the whole of Part 5 that one can make a read-across from racial to religious hatred—that one can use the same legislative framework to deal with both. That strikes me as a dangerous and misplaced assumption. After all, thank God, race is not an opinion; race is not protected by free speech. Correspondence in the press, much of it based on misunderstanding—but misunderstanding that the Bill as drafted does not do enough to dispel—is concerned that freedom of speech and freedom of thought in religious matters should be preserved. I share that concern.
What we need is a clear distinction that we hate the sin and hate the sinner. I look in the Bill for that distinction and I do not find it. We also need a test of mens rea, which must take account of circumstances. I am reminded of John Stuart Mill's famous passage on the corn chandler. We need something along those lines in our drafting. The opinion that all property is robbery, or that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, ought not to be prohibited when merely circulated through the medium of the public press but ought to be prohibited when orally delivered to an excited mob before the house of a corn dealer.
That is a clear distinction that goes to the point of intention. It is a distinction that the Parades Commission in Northern Ireland has attempted to apply in practice.
I can remember that when I was young, magistrates ruled that Mosleyite processions were not allowed to go through certain Jewish areas, although they were allowed to go through other areas, because the sheer decision to go through such an area was considered conduct liable to provoke a breach of the peace. I can understand that reason and I can respect it. The choice of route on occasion may be a deliberate expression of hostility and it is for that reason, rather than the fact that it is a parade, a speech or whatever, that it should be restricted.
We need some attempt at mens rea in the Bill. We need something in the words which are to be complained of to express an implied threat. I am rather disinclined to prohibit the view that the Pope is Antichrist if it is expressed purely as an abstract proposition. But the words spoken to Edmund Campion on the scaffold—"In your Catholicism all treason is contained"—are words which, I hope, will be covered by a properly drafted Bill.
We have a vitally important distinction which I believe is not beyond the skill of our present parliamentary draftsmen. We have not even attempted to look for it. There is something here we ought to be doing, but we need to go back to the drawing board and start again.
11 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Blackburn: There may be few Members in the Chamber tonight, but I do not believe that we should underestimate the number of people who are listening and will be reading the purport of the debate. We are dealing with a most sensitive subject

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and I believe that there is a direct relationship between incitement to religious hatred and the events of 11th September. They have totally transformed the lives of the people among whom I live and work in East Lancashire, where Christians and Muslims—the two faiths—work together but face each other within the local communities. I cannot overestimate to the Committee the significance of the events of 11th September to those communities.
We have a regular annual meeting when the Christians and Muslims meet in some number to discuss general issues; for example, drugs. We had such a meeting in October on family values. There was not a single Islamic speaker, from scholars to ordinary members of the audience, one might say, who did not begin their remarks without referring to "Islamophobia". It was in the air and in the nature of the people in the community at that time.
I have a great deal of sympathy with what has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, but I urge the Government to continue to try to address the matter in the coming days. The time is short. I believe that it is entirely proper that it has a place in the Bill. I have great sympathy with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who said that the words in the Bill and in the amendment may not be right. One has immense sympathy with Amendment No. 100 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, where he brings in the protection of academic and theological debate and discussion. Everyone wants to include that, yet his amendment loses the provision at Clause 40(4) on page 20 which is the balancing protection for people of no faith.
Having heard the debate and the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I do not believe that it is beyond the draftsmen in this House to attempt to produce something within the next few days. It is necessary for the Government and those such as the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Alloway, who would remove these clauses or amend them to reflect before the Report stage in order to achieve a balance between protecting those in so many of our communities who have genuine fears of incitement to racial hatred which they live with daily and the curtailment of the freedom of speech, of serious debate, which we enjoy.
If we do not get that right, we shall arouse fears in other communities. A number of Christian people have written to me because they are seriously worried about some of the implications of these clauses on what they might want to say about the faith held by others. I believe that the time is now. It will be difficult whenever we do it. But there is a direct link between this matter and the terrorism which we seek to suppress.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Before the right reverend Prelate sits down, is he aware that today I found in my chambers unsolicited a long e-mail from an Islamic association, at the back of which appendix A listed all the communities—I believe that there were five—that it represented? In essence, it did not believe that enough thought had been given to this problem, it was wholly unhappy that this matter should be rushed and
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so on. It wanted more time for consideration to be given to this matter. I left the document on a table in the Library and during luncheon someone borrowed it. Therefore, I apologise for speaking to a document which I have read but somehow has gone.
The Lord Bishop of Blackburn: I was unaware of the private correspondence of the noble Lord. However, I understand that two days ago the Muslim Council of Great Britain, which is a significant body, issued a statement which was largely supportive of these clauses. Certainly in the communities with which I have communication and where I live and work there is broad support for this measure, with the realisation that we are in a difficult and sensitive area of legislation.
Lord Williamson of Horton: I am not deterred by the late hour from intervening on this extremely sensitive point where we must be careful to make the right decision. A wrong decision is likely to be exploited and will probably be counter-productive. I am among those who believe that we should not include this provision in the Bill. However, I should like to make one or two brief comments since amendments have been tabled at Committee stage and I am not sure how the issue will finally be resolved.
Like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I feel that it is important to distinguish between the different questions posed by the amendments which have been tabled. The first question is: should we legislate at all to add religious hatred to offences under the Public Order Act 1986? Secondly, if so, should we do it simply by adding "or religious" after "racial"? I share the view of the noble Earl that that is not a good way to handle the issue. Thirdly, should we increase the penalty, which is the effect of what is proposed, from two to seven years? Fourthly, since Amendment No. 103 is also before the Committee, should we abolish the crime of blasphemy? That has not been mentioned so far, but if we look back to the history of our country that matter has been in the news quite often in past generations. I do not believe that we are ready to insert that offence into this Bill at present.
I should like to comment on the other points. First, if we did go in that direction at this time, which I do not favour, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, would be a gallant attempt to limit the offence of religious hatred by introducing the criterion of intention to contribute to criminal conduct against a member or members of a group. I believe that it would be an improvement if in the end we went in that direction. Secondly, I consider that the increase in penalty from two to seven years is disproportionate and I do not support it. Thirdly, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, to remove blasphemy from the list of common law offences.
11.15 p.m.
Lord Desai: As noble Lords will know, I feel very strongly about this issue and have always done so. In answer to the questions posed by the noble Earl, Lord

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Russell, I would prefer that we did not legislate at all on this matter. If we are going to legislate, I would prefer that we did not do it the way we are doing it now by adding "religious" to "racial" hatred. If we are to go down this route, I would prefer some kind of amendment—although I have not yet grasped the details that would take us down the road suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith.
Singling out the Muslim community in defence of this clause will do a great deal of harm. I said that yesterday and I will now say it again: it will do a great deal of harm. The partition of India was based on a confusion between religion and nation, and millions of people died in that confusion. When people say that they hate Muslims, it is not a question of religious orthodoxy; it is not about the Koran; it is not about the Pope being the Anti-Christ; it is not a doctrinal dispute; they hate the Pakis basically. They hate a certain group of south Asian immigrants who happen to be Muslims; they hate the Muslim nation in Britain.
But it is not the nation of Islam—as represented in the US by the Black Muslims—which is being targeted. The people being targeted are south Asian Muslims from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. They are not a race. I do not think that we should raise the whole gamut of problems connected with religious hatred, theology, disputations between sex and Christianity and so on. I strongly believe that religion is the wrong label. I do not know what is the right label, but religion is the wrong one.
There should not be discrimination against British Muslims, but in labelling people by religion rather than as a certain kind of ethnic group we are making a major mistake. The consequences will be horrendous because the Hindu community in Britain will be deeply offended. Although the Bill relates to all religious hatred, everyone is saying that this is a problem connected with Muslims.
The Prime Minister said that we are all children of Abraham. Many people in this country are not children of Abraham, but we have to look after them as well. We do not have a cartel of Christianity, Judaism and Islam—they are very similar religions and so they quarrel all the time—but if you say that the Bill is for Muslims you will offend a large part of the ethnic minorities.
Baroness Whitaker: Does my noble friend accept that people of no belief are also protected?
Lord Desai: As an atheist, I am deeply offended by that. Hindus are not people of no belief. If you say that, you will have a deep problem.
Baroness Whitaker: The Bill refers to people or religion or belief.
Lord Desai: I still believe that we should not go down this road. We will import, in a more excited manner, all the divisions of the sub-continent, and that is not the road we want to go down.
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I know that I will not get my way on this—I know that the Government will get their way and that I am wasting my time—but I still believe that I should say it.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: Perhaps I may briefly make two points. First, the members of the Inner City Religious Council, which has been in existence now for more than a dozen years and consists of members of all religious faiths, have, for all that time, been pressing the Home Office to bring in legislation of this nature. It is not only to protect the Muslims; it is thought to be necessary by the representative people of all faiths.
They have not had a great deal of success over those years with the Home Office. If I may quote from the speech last night of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, it will indicate why they have not. He said:
"Having waited for 16 years for it to become law, we can face with equanimity the possibility of having to wait for a few more years".—[Official Report, 27/11/01; col. 189.]
Although I do not agree with them, I understand the logic of Members of the Committee who say that this provision should not appear in this Bill. But I do not believe that if the provision were removed from the Bill it would appear in another form in the foreseeable future. It would not appear at all. Now is the time to tackle this issue. Following the events of 11th September, it has become pressing, but it is a matter about which the faiths have felt strongly for many years.
Lord Lucas: The noble Lord, Lord Desai, should not give up hope. There is every hope of postponing this part of the Bill.
I entirely agree with those who say that incitement to religious hatred should be an offence. We can all see instances where what some people get up to or might get up to should be prohibited by law. But religion and race are absolutely not parallel. Race is something that you are born with; religion is something that you choose, or at least partly choose. Religion stretches from being part of the culture that one is born into, to politics. There are elements of religion which are just as disputatious and rightly subject to argument as people's political beliefs. I do not believe that we are about to legislate against stirring up political hatred.
There are things that are done by various parts of Christianity which cause me enormous difficulties and offence. One major example is the Catholic position on birth control and its consequences for the rest of the planet. I should not wish to be restrained in arguing about that; nor should I wish to be restrained in arguing about some of the stranger practices and elements of Sharia law. Also, I should riot want those who express more extreme views about the treatment of animals to be restricted in their criticism of Jewish and Islamic practices in the killing of animals. I do not agree with them, but I do not believe that they should be restricted. They pass reasonable comment on a religious practice which is essentially political. It is not something that should be subject to protection. It should be subject to reasonable criticism.

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We have to draw a fine line between someone's intention: whether it is to argue against a particular religious practice or whether it is to stir up hatred against a religious group. That is difficult to do—as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said—by merely trying to draw a direct parallel between race and religion. The issue of race is simple. We should not accept discrimination in any form, ever. We should not accept the stirring up of hatred or dissent in any form, ever. That does not apply to religion. In religion we have to draw a much more difficult, much greyer, much more human balance; and we need a rather more complicated piece of legislation to do it. I cannot see how, in the time-scale given for this Bill, we can achieve what we should all like to achieve.
Lord Hylton: I shall be brief. We need to remind ourselves that we live in a largely secular society in which attendance at any form of religious worship is dropping and is at a very low level. That is not to say that moral values influenced by religion are not more prevalent than religious observance.
It is true that since early September there has been an increase in attacks on religious buildings—mosques, synagogues and churches. But they are not widespread across the whole country; they are localised. Therefore, I support the view advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and backed up by the noble Earl, Lord Russell.
I return to remarks that I made in the debate yesterday. This extremely complex and difficult subject would be far better left to more mature considerations, outside of any emergency context. I went on to say that if the Government will not remove these clauses or split up the Bill, they are likely to do lasting harm which they will come to regret.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I may have to apologise to the Committee because even at this hour of the night I do not have the remotest idea how long my remarks will take. I apologise sincerely for that. However, we find ourselves in a serious difficulty.
When the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms pointed out this remarkable grouping, he said that it is to enable us to have a proper discussion over the method by which we take this matter forward. The noble Lord may not have thought those words through but I read into that—I am open to be corrected of course—that in fact the Government were not absolutely certain whether it was right to take forward Part 5 of the Bill at this time. I may be reading far too much into what the noble Lord said. I am happy for him to tell me that that is so. I am prepared to accept that I may be wrong.
Lord Carter: When we saw this extraordinary grouping, I simply explained to the noble Lords, Lord Campbell and Lord Dixon-Smith, that, although on Report we could have an amendment to leave out Part 5, I thought that the intention was to have a general debate on the whole of Part 5. Each clause of the Bill has to be put forward in Committee. The only way to
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deal with the matter in Committee was to list the whole business as a debate on clause stand part. I assumed that the Committee would welcome a general debate on the whole of Part 5, hear the Government's response and then decide what to do. It is up to noble Lords to decide how to deal with it but by having this grouping it enables the Committee to have a general debate on the whole of Part 5. That is all.
11.30 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that explanation. It seems to reveal an uncertainty.
The difficulty is that the grouping seems completely to remove Part 5 from the Bill while at the same time containing amendments of substance, one of which we have proposed, which would attempt to improve the Bill. Although we have done the best we can in the time available, I do not regard that amendment as either the be-all or end-all of what is required in order to make the Bill adequate and sufficient. So we are looking at a general debate as to methodology.
I have a fundamental problem. Having considered the subject with some care, I accept the principle that legislation in this area is desirable. I have no difficulty with that proposition. However, is this provision appropriate as an add-on to the Bill? That is what it is. Except in the most indirect of indirect ways, I cannot find any linkage between this part of the Bill and anything to do with anti-terrorism. Similarly, I cannot find anything that relates it to security or national security. I would resent the suggestion that it had anything to do with crime. Those areas are encompassed in the Title of the Bill. Therefore we have a difficulty.
I have already described this as a premature Bill. I do not doubt the Government's honour and intentions in bringing the measure forward. I am sure that it was done for the best of reasons. However, given the timescale in which the Bill has had to be drafted—it is still only 11 weeks since September 11th—and the pressures that there have been throughout that period, one would have to have the gravest doubts about the adequacy and, even more significantly, the depth of any consultation across religious groupings of all sorts. I do not doubt that soundings were taken here and there, but soundings are not consultation.
Another problem is that we are dealing with matters that impinge enormously on the boundaries between freedom of speech and the possibility of it becoming something else. Looking at history, it is thoroughly deplorable that religion of all sorts over the millennia has all too often been hijacked by man for entirely human, and often thoroughly disreputable and dishonourable, purposes. It gives me no satisfaction or pleasure to acknowledge that. As an historian, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, knows about that subject in far greater depth than I do. We are in danger of going down the same road to a degree if we are not careful.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn, speaking in favour of the Bill, made the perhaps inevitable Freudian slip—he was probably not aware of making it—of referring to racial instead of religious

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hatred. Most of the motivation of those who in recent times have dealt in a wholly deplorable way with some Muslim communities has been not religious but racial. We need to recognise that.
If we are to deal with the subject, we should all be certain that whatever law we end up with must deal equally with each and every religion and, if necessary, those who have no religion. When we go down that road, we begin to impact strongly on the fiercely evangelical branches that exist in almost every religion. Once we start going into that area, we begin to get into great difficulty.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn said that we should go ahead with the proposals because they are here and we have the time, but he acknowledged that what we have before us may not be ideal. We have a week in which to draft what is in effect a new Bill, if that is what we are to attempt to do. I am a modest man. I would not attempt to cover such a subject properly in that timescale. I think that it was the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who said that we cannot read over from religion into the Public Order Act 1986. It is not as simple as that. Really major effort would be required.
I conclude, sadly, that if we are to go down this road, we no longer have an option. We cannot discuss the detail without great difficulty, and if we come back at Report stage when debate is more constrained, and then at Third Reading when it is even more constrained, we shall not have the time physically to do the work and still less to carry out external consultations that are properly required before dealing with this part of the Bill.
I accept that it is desirable to legislate to try to contain those unfortunate aspects that occasionally reveal themselves in our society as a result of religious prejudice. I make a clear distinction between religious and racial prejudice. We have to be far more careful, study and consult and take far more time than we can possibly give to this subject in the seven days that are left to us before the Government hope to enact the Bill.
When we reach those further stages, there will be only one real option: to strike these clauses from the Bill.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Before my noble friend sits down, may I ask whether he accepts that racial hatred is adequately covered by our present law?
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am happy to answer in the affirmative. Of course it is. Indeed, many of the other incitement problems are also covered in other areas of the law.
Lord Hylton: May 1 ask whether the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has spoken to his Amendment No. 97? If he has done so, it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I say something about Amendment No. 101.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, illustrates precisely the difficulty that we face. Before I
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can speak to that amendment, I have to speak to the Motions on clause stand part. If we were to start on that process, we would have to begin with a Motion from my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway which would mean that the amendment would become redundant.
Lord Goldsmith: The sense that I have taken from the debate this evening is that all Members of the Committee who have spoken agree that what we ate trying to outlaw in Part 5 is objectionable. The hatred and incitement of hatred of particular groups is to be deplored, should not be condoned and must be outlawed. The disagreement is on how to achieve that and whether to do it in this Bill.
I had understood from the amendments that have been tabled that there were specific points on the drafting of the proposed clauses. We have listened, as we always do, with care and attention to proposals from Members of the Committee to improve the aim that we wish to achieve, on which there seems to be agreement. I am happy to deal with specific problems in the proposals. As the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, did not feel it appropriate this evening to explain those amendments, I shall do that in the briefest possible form, simply to indicate what the concerns are.
Lord Avebury: Will the noble and learned Lord make clear that in speaking at this moment he is by no means pre-empting further debate on the remainder of the amendments which have not yet been moved?
Lord Goldsmith: I am entirely in the hands of the Committee. A number of clauses are grouped together. If in fact all that is being put at the moment is whether Clause 37 shall stand part of the Bill, I shall simply say that that does not concern religious hatred. Clause 37 is about racial hatred and an amendment to the definition in that regard.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: The noble and learned Lord is out of order. If no amendments have been moved, it is not in order for the Government Front Bench to speak to them.
Lord Goldsmith: I understood from what the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, that he was speaking to the whole of these matters. I entirely accept that groupings are not mandatory. But I understood that we were speaking to the whole of this group. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I entirely support the Minister in that we have to be debating something; that it has to be a Motion. If there is no Motion before us, we are all seriously out of order and have been for some time.
Perhaps I should say this in relation to Amendment No. 100, which is the main one in this group. What we seek to deal with in that amendment is the point of mens rea, which was raised by the noble Earl. Lord

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Russell. How far we succeeded in that remains to be seen. If I give it that introduction, at least the Minister will have a hook on which to hang the hat.
Lord Avebury: Perhaps I can ask for further clarification. The Chief Whip said that we were debating all these amendments together, including all the clauses. I thought that after the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith spoke—presumably he was addressing himself to his Amendments Nos. 97, 98, 99 and 100, although it was not clear to me from what sounded more like a Second Reading speech on Part 5—that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, would speak to his Amendments Nos. 101 and 102 and following that the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, would speak to her Amendment No. 103. I was therefore surprised when the noble and learned Lord stood up and appeared to be pre-empting further debate.
Lord Goldsmith: I was not pre-empting. This is Committee. I stood because no one else was standing. The grouping is set out and no one indicated that they objected to it. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, agrees. If the Committee wishes to deal with this in a different way, so be it. The last thing I want to do is to stifle any debate on any point. I want to deal with points raised by the Committee and I am happy and ready to do that. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will come to my rescue.
Earl Russell: I can assure the noble and learned Lord that as far as I can see he behaved with impeccable propriety and entirely in accordance with the customs of the Chamber. Nevertheless, it may be for the convenience of the Committee if at some stage Amendment No. 103 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, was debated. If he could indicate when it may be convenient for us to do that, it may help us.
Lord Goldsmith: If my noble friend Lady Whitaker would like to deal with that now and that is convenient to the Committee, I am happy with that course. The matter has then been put and I can respond to the whole group.
11.45 p.m.
Baroness Whitaker: I shall be brief. This is a very discrete aspect of the general debate and this is not an original amendment. It follows the Bill moved by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in 1995 and it implements a recommendation made by the Law Commission in 1985. They said,
"we take the view that where members of a society have a multiplicity of faiths or none at all it is invidious to single out that religion [i.e. that of the Church of England] for protection … the common law cannot remain as it is … our consultation confirmed this view".
Their consultation was of over 1,800 organisations, groups and individuals.
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The Law Commission implied one semi-reservation, saying that the only persuasive argument against the amendment was,
"the criminal law should provide some protection to religious believers from suffering offences".
It is because in this Bill the criminal law does provide such a safeguard that it is right to attach repeal of the blasphemy law after Clause 42 and I support the inclusion of Part 5 for the reasons that the right reverend Prelate set out so tellingly.
The Law Commission's assumption that it is inequitable to protect one part of the Christian faith without signalling equal respect for other faiths, or non-religious beliefs, is the main reason for this amendment.
But there are others. "Blasphemy" is quite undefined in law. Since one of the main attributes of law is certainty, this is hardly satisfactory. Blasphemy, nevertheless, is an absolute offence, one of strict liability, which means intention plays no part and any defendant is unable to give evidence about their own belief or purpose. In theory, one could commit accidental blasphemy and be just as guilty. It is hardly surprising that the Home Office undertook in 1989 to take no more state prosecutions for blasphemy.
I suggest that now we have a proper provision which protects believers of every kind from incitement to hatred on the grounds of their belief, this arcane and inequitable law should become history. So should its equally vague accompaniment, "blasphemous libel".
Finally, the Law Commission also held that the offences of disturbing a religious service or devotions, and striking a person in a church or churchyard should not be criminal by virtue of being crimes against the Church of England, but to the extent that they constitute criminal behaviour, be caught by the criminal law in general. Thus I propose that this part of the Law Commission's amendment should also be adopted.
Lord Avebury: I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has managed to get her oar in at last. I am sure that it will be greatly to the convenience of the Committee if the noble and learned Lord replies to this amendment when he deals with all the others which are grouped with it, as was suggested by the Chief Whip.
I believe that many people will object that blasphemy is even more remote from the purposes of the Bill than Part 5 itself. But there we are. It was discussed in another place and we have it before us here. It is a very useful opportunity for clarifying what is the present attitude of the Church. The right reverend Prelate will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that the official position at the moment is to wait and see what happens to this Bill and only then to express an opinion on the blasphemy law.
In 1995, after my blasphemy abolition Bill was defeated at Second Reading, the most reverend Primate set up a small staff group to consider what was the best way forward from the Church's point of view. I do not know whether that group ever reached any

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conclusions but I understand that its present view is not that the blasphemy law should be extended to cover other faiths, as Mr Dobson suggested might be the case in another place.
That is certainly reassuring as it would open up a Pandora's box if that were done. I think that not many people realise that the blasphemy law now has a very limited meaning in law—much less extensive than it has in ordinary English usage—being confined to the use of scurrilous or grossly offensive or abusive words tending to vilify the Christian religion. Blasphemy and blasphemous libel—the difference between the two concerns whether the matter is spoken or written—are, of course, offences at common law, as the noble Baroness explained, and their scope has been progressively narrowed over the three centuries of their history. The working definition is that which is contained in Stephen's Digest of Criminal Law, which was used almost verbatim by the trial judge in the Gay News case in 1979. For the benefit of those who think that there will be a great restriction on people's ability to criticise other religions, the denial of any of the doctrines of Christianity, mocking or poking fun at Christian beliefs, or the portrayal of sacred persons or objects in a profane setting would not be enough to satisfy the test. Some people belonging to other faiths might well be disappointed, if the blasphemy law were extended to cover other religions, to discover that its application is so restricted, and I am afraid that there would be constant pressure for the offence to be widened.
The Home Secretary said,
"There is a good case for … removing existing blasphemy law".—[Official Report, Commons, 26/11/01; col. 707.]
But then he suggests, also at col. 707, that the Church of England's Board for Social Responsibility should hold a debate about helping the Government to,
"achieve a measure that is less anachronistic and more appropriate to the 21st century".
The right honourable gentleman was being very modest as the provisions of this part of the Bill already deal with speech, behaviour or writing that is threatening, abusive or insulting and likely to stir up hatred against a religion, and would allow prosecution in any conceivable circumstances where blasphemy might now be used.
I do not intend to enter into an argument about the general merits of Part 5 and I assume, for the purposes of the amendment I am discussing, that we shall pass the amendments dealing with incitement to religious hatred as they stand, whether or not the Committee thinks that there should be further consideration and further consultation with outside forces. But in this particular case of blasphemy why should this long delayed reform wait on the Board for Social Responsibility? With great respect to the Church of England, it has had more than six years to consider it since the previous occasion when it came before this Chamber and it is time we came to a decision. If it has to be done by separate legislation, the arguments put earlier by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark apply with even greater force. It is very unlikely that time would be found for that in the
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parliamentary timetable. It would take up scarce parliamentary time. With all the pressures that exist I cannot see it happening. There will always be something more urgent in the queue. As Mr Dobson suggested when he moved the amendment in another place, let us do it now.
Perhaps I should say a few words about the other offences mentioned in subsection (1(b) and (c) of the amendment which were dealt with in the Law Commission's Offences Against Religion and Public Worship document of 1985. Those are largely concerned with obstruction of religious ceremonies. As an example, Section 2 of the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 penalises any person guilty of,
"riotous, violent or indecent behaviour"
in a place of Christian worship or in any churchyard or burial ground. The Law Commission cites a case where a person was convicted under that provision as recently as 1968 when he disrupted a church service attended by members of the government, his purpose being to draw attention to the then government's alleged support for US policies in Vietnam.
At the time, the Law Commission did not believe that Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 would work in this context because, in the special circumstances of a church service, it was unlikely that a breach of the peace would have been provoked. Now, under Part III of the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by this Bill, the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with the intention of stirring up religious hatred, or whereby religious hatred is likely to be stirred up, is an offence whether the action occurs in a place of worship or elsewhere. I hope that it can be agreed that all the rarely used provisions in those ancient statutes should be repealed.
In 1995, I argued that the Public Order Act 1986 would deal with utterances or the display of writing that fell within the definition of blasphemy as it had been developed by the courts and, specifically, in the Gay News case. There was still a gap at that time in that, if such material were published but never displayed, it would not be caught. The new offence of incitement to religious hatred closes that loophole as it extends to the publication and distribution of written material. I hope that it may be agreed that any material offensive enough to be prosecuted as blasphemous under the law as it now stands would be equally capable of being dealt with under the 1986 Act as the Government now propose to amend it.
Therefore, the right reverend Prelates can afford to relinquish the special protection which the blasphemy law has afforded their particular religion. In doing so now, when the Home Secretary—as he said in another place—has not yet made up his mind on the matter, they would earn the respect and esteem of other faiths. Priests and bishops of the Church of England are always affirming their commitment to a genuine multi-faith society. Here is an opportunity for them to demonstrate that in a practical and public manner that will cost them nothing.
The Lord Bishop of Blackburn: The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, challenges these Benches to make some response to what he has just said. Perhaps I may say, first, that I do not believe that it is appropriate to piggy-back this very serious matter on to this emergency Bill. If it were done in that way, I believe that it would send out quite the wrong signals as to what we intend, and not simply to members of the Church of England. It is not always understood in the wider community that, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, rightly says, this measure applies only to the Church of England. I believe that the behaviour of many other people rides, if I may express it in this way, on the back of that understanding.
The matter was made quite clear in the Second Reading debate yesterday evening by the right reverend Prelate, my brother the Bishop of Southwark. The position is that, as of today—I shall return to that "as of today" in a moment—the Church of England is not opposed to a review and a revision of the blasphemy law if something better can be put in its place. That would affect other religions and, indeed, other Churches. However, the reason that I say "as of today" is that tomorrow the subject of blasphemy legislation will be on the agenda of the Archbishops' Council, which is the leading consultative body in the Church of England.
Therefore, we remain ready as a Church to enter into discussion with the Government. But I believe that it is a matter for the Government to instigate this type of discussion with the Board of Social Responsibility, or whichever body is appropriate in the Anglican Church and in other faith and religious groups. But I believe that it would be strange to remove legislation which at present at least protects some at a time when others are seeking a similar provision. It appears rather paradoxical to go about it in that way.
I now turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. Leaving aside the whole question of blasphemy, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I am seriously concerned about the implications of removing paragraphs (b) and (c), as set out in her amendment. Such offences may seem archaic, but there is growing evidence in this country of disrespect for people engaged in worship and devotion and, indeed, of the desecration of sacred places. That is a sad fact, but it is a fact.
As we react to the consequences of international terrorism, this is not the moment to remove clauses from the Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness will not move her amendment because I believe that it will rouse fears in many people at present. I also hope that the Government—this may be the assurance which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, seeks—will give this matter serious consideration and, if appropriate, bring forth legislation on some other occasion in order that we may have a clearer understanding of the blasphemy law and the need for it, or otherwise, within contemporary society.
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Midnight
Earl Russell: As we are in Committee, I hope that Members will forgive me for stating three sentences on this amendment, which I have not previously discussed. Its purpose, which I support, is to create equality and not to cause offence—I take the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn about paragraphs (b) and (c). If we agree to the amendment, we will, in a redrafted Part 5, have to think about giving protection against hurt that is liable to lead to a breach of the peace, which we would not otherwise need to do in that form; that is another reason why Part 5 is not yet in a fit state to be approved.
Lord Goldsmith: I make it clear that I will speak to the entire group and that I am doing so at least three minutes earlier than the time at which I started speaking yesterday.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will forgive me for pointing out that I certainly did not stop my noble friend Lady Whitaker from speaking to her amendment; I am happy that that debate has now taken place. I want to deal, first, with the amendments that refer to the details of the proposed incitement. We should be able to do so briefly, given that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has not really developed the argument. Secondly, I want to say something brief about the proposed maximum penalty, which is picked up in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I shall also deal with the amendment relating to blasphemy, which was spoken to by my noble friend Lady Whitaker, and Amendment No. 185, which proposes a formal consultation exercise. I will then deal with what has really been the substance of this debate; that is, whether the matter should be dealt with now, and in what form that should be done.
Before doing so, I remind the Committee of two points, the first of which involves the structure of Part 5. Although we have been concentrating on the question of incitement to religious hatred, I ask Members of the Committee to consider the fact that Part 5 deals with rather more than that. Clauses 37 and 38 relate to the existing offence of racial hatred and amend the definition. No one has suggested that those are inappropriate amendments to make in this country and Northern Ireland, and I shall say no more about them.
Clause 39 will introduce incitement to religious hatred. Clause 40 is importantly different—it will add the concept of "Religiously aggravated offences"; that is, offences that are criminal offences. That has been done in relation to racially aggravated offences. The consequence—no one has spoken against this idea—is that particular conduct that is criminal would be treated as the worse because of the circumstances in which it took place. That would obviously be for the courts to decide. I had not understood that that part of the Bill was an issue in another place, at least with the main opposition party.
Clauses 41 and 42 deal with the penalties for the existing racial hatred offence and the new religious hatred offence, to which I shall return.

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The second point that I want to touch on briefly involves what the incitement to religious hatred offence amounts to in terms of its ingredients. It may help the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who picked up the question of what the mens rea is, and other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who asked about what would and would not be an offence, if they consider what those ingredients are. I recognise that, in order to appreciate what they are, one has to read Clause 39 as it will be inserted into the Public Order Act—Members of the Committee will doubtless have done that.
I shall describe the ingredients. The first is that there has to be the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or a display of written material of the same sort. That does not involve soberly expressed—or even robustly expressed—opinions.
Secondly, there needs to be either an intention to stir up racial hatred or, having regard to all the circumstances, a likelihood that racial hatred would be stirred up. Why is the second part necessary? It is because if someone uses language in circumstances which the rest of us, a jury or magistrates, would consider likely to stir up racial hatred they cannot pretend that they did not have the intention behind it. But there is an important additional element in Section 18(5) of the Public Order Act, which I hope will come back to the point raised by the noble Earl. That states:
"A person who is not shown to have intended to stir up racial hatred is not guilty of an offence … if he did not intend his words or behaviour, or the written material, to be, and was not aware that it might be, threatening, abusive or insulting".
There is an additional mental element which is included by way of specific defence. That would apply, as it does to the racial hatred offence, to the religious hatred offence. I invite Members of the Committee to consider that.
Hatred is a strong concept. It is more than contempt, disagreement or robust disagreement; it is hatred of a group and not of the religion. That is an important indicator also. Finally, as I mentioned yesterday, the offence is one which cannot be brought by way of private prosecution; it is an offence which can be brought only by or with the consent of the Attorney-General.
I turn to the first set of amendments. Amendments Nos. 97 to 99 seek to change the test to be applied to one of the incitement to religious hatred offences and to remove the provision which allows the person to commit an offence if in the circumstances their words or behaviour were likely to stir up religious hatred. That would be replaced with a test which requires that the person should contribute to criminal conduct against or by a member of a religious group. That is the essence.
There are two reasons for suggesting that that is not a good amendment. First, we suggest that it does not improve on what is proposed. Secondly, the amendment would criminalise something which is already a criminal offence. Therefore, it achieves nothing. It certainly does not achieve the intended end. It is the case that some people will deliberately seek to incite religious hatred but will do so in a calculated
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way. They will then say, "I didn't think that that would incite hatred". But it should not be possible to say that where it is clear to any judge and jury that any reasonable person must have considered it likely that others would be incited to hatred. That is why the 1986 Act refers also to the likelihood of hatred being stirred up. However, as I have just drawn to the attention of Members of the Committee, the Section 18(5) defence means that there will still be a specific defence in that case if the person did not intend his words or behaviour to be threatening, abusive or insulting. That is the first point.
The second point concerns contributing to criminal conduct. The simple fact is that inciting someone to commit a criminal offence is already an offence. That is what the common law offence of incitement is about. Religious hatred, like racial hatred, is not in itself, at common law or otherwise, a crime. It is not an offence to be a racist. That is why we must have a specific offence of inciting racial hatred. We cannot rely on the common law incitement to an existing criminal offence. That is why, for the same reason, we would need a statutory offence if we are to criminalise the behaviour of inciting religious hatred. But if all we do is to make that subject to being criminal conduct in any event, we do not achieve that end. We are simply criminalising that which is already criminal; it achieves nothing. We welcome any help in improving the Bill. However, I hope that when Members of the Committee think further about that point they will see that that does not achieve their end and will not pursue it.
Amendment No. 100 is another approach to the same theme. It concerns the six aggravating offences. The amendment looks rather long. That is because it picks up the same variation in all cases. What is being put forward is a defence that a person charged with this offence can show that his words were reasonable in all the circumstances or that he acted in the public interest.
The second part of the amendment defines reasonable conduct by reference to the circumstances in which the words or behaviour occurred. The third aspect defines what amounts to a person acting in the public interest by reference to words or behaviour that is fair, academic, political or theological comment.
I remind Members of the Committee that the starting point is that there have to be words which are threatening, abusive or insulting, either intended to or likely to stir up religious hatred. The question is: in what circumstances would the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words intended to or likely to stir up religious hatred be reasonable or in the public interest?
What we are looking at—as my noble friend Lord Ahmed powerfully pointed out yesterday—is the kind of circumstances where, on a website, a far right group is peddling hatred of particular groups. We may have words which are no different in kind from the words which could be used about groups which benefit from the existing protection—Jews or Sikhs. If the same

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language is being used in relation to another group but defined by its religion, that is the kind of conduct that we are concerned about.
I doubt that Members of the Committee would think that that kind of situation would be reasonable or in the public interest. The very essence of these offences, the people that we are concerned with, are not people who are reasonable. They are not people who are acting in the public interest nor are they discussing the finer points of theology.
It is not a question of robust criticism or one of disagreement with cults or with other religions and their beliefs. I repeat this again because it is so important. It is the use of threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour at its start.
I add that the offence will not in any event be brought unless I or my successor or successors decide that it is in the public interest that it should be brought. That is a safeguard for your Lordships to judge. It will help considerably, I suggest, to prevent unreasonable offences being brought. But the Government are alive to the concerns which have been expressed here and in another place. We do not underestimate that concern. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary said in response to an amendment, somewhat differently phrased but on the same theme proposed by Sir Brian Mawhinney in another place, that we will look again at whether there is a construction which can be used to protect the people we are all agreed we want to protect without creating new loopholes which will be exploited by the people we all agree we should be able to prosecute.
Amendments Nos. 101 and 102 deal with the penalty. The simple point here is that the Government believe that the increase from two years to seven years reflects the seriousness with which the offence should be treated. It is in line with the existing sentence of seven years for the range of racially aggravated offences in the Crime and Disorder Act. In the Government's view, that properly reflects the impact that these offences have on communities and public order in this country.
I turn to Amendment No. 103, the proposal for an introduction into the Bill of provisions in relation to blasphemy. The Government believe—a point I made yesterday—that the Bill is devoted to matters connected with, and which have arisen since, September 11th—anti-terrorism measures. Blasphemy does not come up in that context. We do not believe that the Bill is an appropriate vehicle for amending or repealing the common law offences.
It is quite right, as has been pointed out, that as long ago as 1985 the Law Commission recommended abolition of the law on blasphemy and blasphemous libel. Even at that stage, it talked about the introduction of an offence of incitement to religious hatred. The matter has not cropped up suddenly; as some Members of the Committee have said, it has been discussed for some time and been the subject of much consultation.
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However, the response to the Law Commission's paper—a response that has been reflected in what was said today by my noble friend Lady Whitaker, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn—demonstrated that there were important differences on the right way to deal with the issue of blasphemy. When the Law Commission issued its recommendation, there was considerable support for retaining the laws on blasphemy—some 1,700 out of 1,800 respondents were in favour, although many of them wanted it to be extended to cover other religions or faiths.
That is obviously a major issue between Members of the Committee: should we abolish the provision altogether or extend it to other faiths? That debate has important implications. While we wholly respect the reasons why the amendment has been proposed and the sincere concerns that surround the important topic that it covers, I must disappoint my noble friend Lady Whitaker. The Government do not consider the Bill to be the right vehicle to deal with the issue of blasphemy.
I shall deal briefly with Amendment No. 185 before returning to the main point. Amendment No. 185 is intended to stop both the incitement to religious hatred and the religiously aggravated offences in Part 5 coming into effect until after a formal consultation process with certain criminal justice organisations. That leads us well into the question of whether it is right for us to deal with the matter now.
The point of the provisions in Part 5 is to strengthen the law where it is weak and where it is necessary to deal with events after September 11th. I shall not repeat what I said last night, but since that date, there have been incidents that have given rise to grave concern in certain parts of the community—attacks and harassment. It is the connection between the events of September 11th and those events that has been in the Government's mind in bringing forward the provisions now.
I pray in aid the recent report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and invite Members of the Committee to study it. It deals expressly with the issue of freedom of expression, which certain Members of the Committee have raised. As I understand it, the Committee expresses itself content with what it has been told about the intention of the Bill: that the legitimate, pressing social need to outlaw particular despicable conduct justifies the limitations that the Bill would impose. Freedom of expression is not absolute. It is not absolute in relation to racial hatred. We do not permit people to say things that will incite racial hatred; that is not a legitimate exercise of the freedom of expression.
Our Joint Committee also draws attention to the concluding observations of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights earlier this month. It noted the recent upsurge in religious harassment and attack and urged the United Kingdom to extend its criminal legislation to cover offences motivated by religious hatred.

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In addition to that powerful urging to deal with the matter now, we have what I suggest is the important support of the right reverend Prelates present in Committee, both of whom spoke powerfully about the need, in order to provide proper protection in our community, to deal with the matter, and to deal with it now.
Baroness Buscombe: While dealing with that point, will the noble and learned Lord the Attorney General respond to a powerful speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, yesterday when he said that he would have preferred a separate Bill dealing with incitement to religious hatred rather than the carrot and stick approach in this Bill?
Lord Goldsmith: Gladly, and I very much understand and respect what underlay that remark made by my noble friend Lord Ahmed. It may have been part of the thinking of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, when he spoke yesterday, but if I misinterpret him I apologise.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark said, the choice we have is to deal with an urgent problem now in this Bill—it is the vehicle which exists—or to put it off. I understood my noble friend Lord Ahmed to be saying that, while he would have preferred to have dealt with the matter separately, he took the view that it was right to deal with it now because this is an opportunity to do so.
I noted the words spoken tonight by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn, who said, "The time is now", and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who said, "Now is the time. It is a pressing issue". I invite the Committee to consider what the consequences would be for failing to deal now with an urgent problem and an anomaly. I return to a point I made earlier: is it not an anomaly that offensive threatening behaviour towards Jews and Sikhs is criminal but towards Muslims it is not?
That does not mean that the Bill, if passed, would protect only the Muslims. I deal here specifically with the point raised by my noble friend Lord Desai. It may he that 11th September is the catalyst for bringing the provision forward now and it may be that the attacks on the Muslim community are the catalyst for bringing it forward now. We believe that the Muslim community must be protected against false accusations. As my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary made so clear, terrorism and belonging to the Muslim religion are very far from being part of the same thing. They are absolutely not the same thing at all. Muslims must be protected. That is the catalyst for the provision but the protection provided if the Bill were passed would be for every religious group; for Hindus and everyone else. I suggest that that is the right answer to my noble friend Lord Desai.
That is the key issue. I have indicated that the Government will look carefully at the point raised here and by Sir Brian Mawhinney on the precise definition. However, perhaps I may remind Members of the Committee that the overall structure is a tried and
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tested one for the racial hatred cases. It has not been dreamt up in a day for this Bill. Much thought has been given to it in the past and I suggest that we ought to consider seizing the opportunity to give the protection now rather than putting it off.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Perhaps I may make a plea to the noble and learned Lord to clarify these clauses. It is extremely difficult to shuffle one part of the Bill into pre-existing legislation. Is it beyond possibility that before we return to the matter the Home Office officials in charge of the Bill could produce the clauses as they would appear? A practitioner would have the gravest difficulty in following the Bill; the CPS must make decisions upon it; and those who are liable to commit such offences would have no idea what the legislation was. Could we have something clearer?
Lord Goldsmith: Yes. There are two ways to deal with it. When the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, began I was not quite sure whether he meant for the purposes of this debate. I smiled because I was sure that he of all people would have no difficulty in putting the Bill and the Act together. It is possible to consider the inclusion of a Keeling schedule so that the Bill contains a version of the Public Order Act which would be amended to include this matter. Perhaps we may take it away. I accept the importance of understanding what the provisions do, and I shall ask for that to be considered urgently.
Lord Lucas: As I understand the noble and learned Lord, as long as moderate language is used a person can argue factually as hard as he likes. If one considers in particular some cults, which doubtless call themselves religions, one can argue for their prosecution, abolition and avoidance by all sane members of society as long as one does it in reasonable words. Is the noble and learned Lord saying that the fact that one expresses strong opinions does not make one liable to prosecution?
Lord Goldsmith: Yes, absolutely. The use of moderate language is not abusive, threatening and offensive, and it is not intended or likely to stir up hatred of a group.
Clause 37 agreed to.
Clause 38 agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes): I must advise the Committee that because of pre-emption, if Amendment No. 97 is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 98 and 99.
Clause 39 [Religious hatred offences]:
[Amendments Nos. 97 to 100 not moved.]
Clause 39 agreed to.
Clause 40 agreed to.

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Clause 41 [Racial or religious hatred offences: penalties]:
[Amendment No. 101 not moved.]
Clause 41 agreed to.
Clause 42 [Hatred and fear offences: penalties]:
[Amendment No. 102 not moved.]
Clause 42 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 103 not moved.]
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Clause 43 agreed to.
Lord Carter: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at twenty-nine minutes past midnight.

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