Sitting of 5 December 2002

Preamble
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY

    Coal Industry
    Paddy Tipping: How much financial support has been made available to the coal industry in the current year. [83602]
    The Minister for Energy and Construction (Mr. Brian Wilson): Under the UK Coal operating aid scheme, £14,785,956 has been paid to coal producers since 1 January 2002.
    Paddy Tipping: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply, and for the help that has been given to the coal industry. Does he accept, however, that the best way to continue to have diversity and security of supply is to make a decision to back the British coal industry, just as a decision has been made to back the nuclear generator, British Energy? Is it not better to have indigenous sources of supply, rather than being dependent on imports of gas? Gas could constitute 80 per cent. of our energy provision by 2020, but 90 per cent. of it will be imported.
    Mr. Wilson: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. One of the major issues that the White Paper will have to consider is the extent to which we are going to become dependent on imported sources of fuel, as opposed to maintaining our historic self-sufficiency in energy sources. I do not accept my hon. Friend's analogy with nuclear energy. The reason for backing the nuclear industry was to maintain security of supply and the safe operation of nuclear power stations—of course, it would have cost more to close them down than to keep them open. I strongly believe, however, that we should have a UK coal industry, and I hope that what the Government have done in the past, as well as what we shall do in the future, underwrites that commitment in tangible terms.
    Adam Price: Does the Minister recognise that most people in the industry believe that it is on the brink of collapse? Will he tell us why we are not going to get, as part of the draft 10-year
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    plan, the maximum flexibility with all three forms of aid available, so that we can combat all the uncertainties that we will face?
    Mr. Wilson: I do not think that people in the industry believe that it is on the verge of collapse. That kind of talk does not help anyone, including the people who work in the industry. It is true that, as a result of the rundown of the coal industry and its privatisation in the 1990s, there is now only a relatively small number of deep-mine pits operating. Some of those are threatened by economic circumstances, some by geological circumstances. I would prefer, however, to consider them on a one-by-one basis. Since 1997—and certainly since I came into this job—when we have been asked to help and when it has been practical to do so, we have done exactly that. Let us look at the individual circumstances of each of this relatively small number of pits. The investment aid scheme, which we have had authorised by Brussels, and on which we are now consulting, would be another weapon to use in this battle.
    David Taylor: The 450 workers at Daw Mill colliery, some of whom are my constituents, face an uncertain future because of geological difficulties, which could be eased by short-term assistance. Does the Minister accept that the Department of Trade and Industry cap of £5,000 per job is inadequate for that purpose? Should we not be able to devise a more appropriate aid regime? Why cannot we ring-fence some of the generating market for coal fired power stations with clean burn technology?
    Mr. Wilson: On my hon. Friend's last point, I have no doubt at all that the future for coal lies in clean burn technology. That is something that I am anxious to promote, both domestically and internationally. On the point about the cap, that was placed on the amount that any one producer could receive. Under the operating aid scheme, UK Coal received an amount up to that cap. I extended the scheme until the end of this year, but, if we were going to extend it further, such an extension would have had to be applied for by the end of October. The difficulties that have arisen at certain UK Coal pits recently are, therefore, not covered by the operating aid scheme. We think that a better avenue to pursue is the investment aid scheme, and that was also the view of the industry in the consultation process.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does the Minister agree that North sea oil and gas reserves are running out, and that we have a massive balance of payments deficit on our trade? Things are going to get even worse now, with our reliance on imported fuel of one sort or another. Money is being handed out to British Energy, as it has been handed out in the past to UK Coal and to Richard Budge. Does it not make sense to say that we will take over the industry—this small coal industry—for £70 million? That price is minimal compared with the cost of keeping on shoving money into the pockets of the coal owners.
    Mr. Wilson: I am sure that my hon. Friend has spotted the dichotomy between the previous request—that we should shovel more money into the pockets of

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    the coal owners—and his approach, which has the virtue of simplicity. However, his basic point on the increasing dependence on imported fuel is extremely important, whether it is coal or gas. The White Paper must consider all that in the context of security of supply and this country's strategic interests in terms of energy and in the wider sense. I certainly believe that we need, and should have, a continuing coal mining industry. No one on the Labour Benches has anything but contempt for how the coal industry was treated in the decade before 1997. We have had to pick up the pieces and we have shown considerable commitment in doing so.

    Liability Insurance
    Brian Cotter: What recent discussions she has had with manufacturing firms on the cost of public and employer's liability insurance cover. [83603]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths): DTI Ministers have had a number of meetings with firms and with business bodies at which the cost of public and employer's liability cover was discussed. I recently met representatives of the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum of Private Business, both of which raised the issue. My DTI colleagues have met other industry bodies.
    Brian Cotter: Bearing in mind the fact that Axa Insurance has today announced that 210,000 small firms are operating without employer's liability, and therefore illegally, will the Minister ask the Department for Work and Pensions to carry out its review urgently, ensure that it covers issues such as competitive practices and consistency of cover, and ensure that firms are given proper notice when the insurance basis is to be changed?
    Nigel Griffiths: I will certainly ensure that my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions are aware of those issues and carry out a comprehensive and effective review.
    John Cryer: I have had discussions with companies in my constituency, mainly building and scaffolding firms which report that their premiums are going up four and five times over a year. That is clear profiteering by the insurance industry, which blames 11 September, but what 11 September has to do with scaffolding I cannot imagine—it escapes me. The industry is using 11 September as an excuse, and unless 'we intervene to stop this naked profiteering, small and medium-sized firms will go under because of it.
    Nigel Griffiths: My hon. Friend makes a good point. On 25 September, my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Construction met the National Federation of Demolition Contractors, which put points forcefully lo him. It is important that spurious reasons are not given for driving up the cost of insurance. We have been working with the Association of British Insurers and the British Insurance Brokers Association to examine how
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    small and other firms can be covered by liabilities insurance and how giving spurious reasons for not providing cover can be avoided.
    Mr. Henry Bellingham: The position is obviously extremely serious and I am grateful to the Minister for what he is doing, but there are a lot of horror stories out there. What does he say to the Humberside family run steel fabrication business, which is, I believe, in the constituency of the Deputy Prime Minister, that has been forced to make five people redundant and cease trading because its combined public liability and employer's liability bill has increased from £3,600 to £28,000?
    I am well aware that the Minister cannot control market forces, but has he spoken to the Chancellor about the huge £300 million increase in the insurance premiums tax take? Could a cap be put on that take and some of the surplus paid back to business? Could not that money be used to provide a pool of employer's liability insurance, backed by the Government—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is far too long.
    Nigel Griffiths: I welcome all practical and constructive suggestions, and I have met my colleague the Financial Secretary as well as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on this matter. The House will have been pleased to hear the Chancellor announce last week a review of the employer's liability insurance scheme. The impact on manufacturing and on the type of firm referred to by the hon. Gentleman will be important parts of that review.

    Development Prospects (Warrington)
    Helen Jones: What estimate she has made of economic development prospects in Warrington; and if she will make a statement. [83604]
    The Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions (Alan Johnson): Warrington continues to benefit from the conditions of economic stability, high employment, low inflation and low interest rates, which are the hallmark of the Government's economic policy. The regional economic strategy illustrates the way forward for the whole region to achieve a sustainable and competitive economy.
    Helen Jones: As my hon. Friend knows, Warrington needs to create more highly skilled and highly paid jobs. Will he take a personal interest in the Omega site, which is the largest industrial development site in the northwest? Will he also liaise with the Deputy Prime Minister to ensure that the regional planning guidance, which in its draft form would hinder development of the site, will in its final form ensure that we can develop it to create jobs not just for Warrington but for the entire subregion?
    Alan Johnson: I know how important the site is, and I know of the problems that were raised during public consultation on the draft regional planning guidance. I will stay in touch with my right hon. Friend the

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    Deputy Prime Minister, who I am sure will take those representations into account before formulating the final version early next year.

    Energy Prices
    Mr. Bill O'Brien: What action she is taking with regard to energy prices for private households; and if she will make a statement. [83605]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): Average domestic gas prices have fallen by 10 per cent. in real terms since 1997, and electricity prices by 19 per cent. Customers who switch supplier can, on average, save about £23 on their annual electricity bill and about £55 on their annual gas bill.
    Mr. O'Brien: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern for families on low incomes who face a cold Christmas? The £200 winter fuel allowance for pensioners is appreciated by many elderly people, but my concern relates to the future cost and supply of energy. We are warned that gas prices will rise, that nuclear prices will rise and that supply will diminish. The only stable fuel for energy supply is coal. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the coal industry will be maintained, and that future energy supply will be guaranteed?
    Ms Hewitt: I share my hon. Friend's concern about the plight of elderly people, in particular, who face the prospect of a cold winter. The £200 winter f0uel bonus that he mentioned amounts to over a third of the annual average fuel bill. We all know from our constituencies how welcome it has been. We will shortly publish the first of the Government's annual reports on the progress of our fuel poverty strategy, but we already know that some 2 million households have been taken out of fuel poverty.
    My hon. Friend raised extremely important points about security of supply, to which we will return in the energy White Paper.
    Dr. Vincent Cable: I believe that wholesale prices have fallen by 40 per cent. over four years and retail prices by less than 13 per cent. Does that not imply that very large windfall profits are now being earned by the electricity distributors? Whom does the right hon. Lady hold responsible? Has the regulator perhaps been rather naïve in lifting price-capping while competition is not fully effective? Or is the problem that the Government have given insufficient guidance to the regulator to attach priority to the protection of consumers, especially poor consumers?
    Ms Hewitt: As I have said, retail prices for electricity as well as for gas have indeed been falling. Industrial electricity prices have fallen by between 20 and 25 per cent. in real terms since the beginning of the reform of the electricity market in 1998. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the actual cost of domestic electricity is a much smaller proportion of the total bill than is the case with industrial suppliers, but we have asked Ofgem to keep a close eye on the operation of the market, and we
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    are already making amendments to the new electricity trading arrangements to ensure that they work more effectively in future.
    Mr. Kevin Hughes: If we continue to worship the guru who says that cheap is always best, how long will it be before most of our electricity is generated from imported sources? Will that not leave us vulnerable?
    Ms Hewitt: That is an important point. As both my hon. Friend the Energy Minister and I have said many times recently, in the White Paper we will look for the best way of ensuring in the medium and long term that we have the diversity of supply in our electricity market on which security of supply for all our domestic as well as our industrial customers depends.
    Mr. Tim Yeo: I congratulate the Secretary of State on having recently exceeded the average length of tenure achieved by previous occupants of her post over the past 20 years.
    Does the right hon. Lady agree that energy prices would reflect the environmental costs of energy production more accurately if the arbitrary and burdensome climate change levy was replaced by an emissions trading system, and that such a system would allow both nuclear power and renewables to compete with fossil fuels on fairer terms?
    Ms Hewitt: The climate change levy has a very specific function, which we set out clearly when we introduced it, and that is to improve the incentives for investment in new, high-quality renewables. The climate change levy, coupled with the renewables obligation, is indeed strengthening investment in renewables, while at the same time the climate change levy provides an effective and powerful incentive to industrial consumers to improve energy efficiency. I would remind the hon. Gentleman that the climate change levy was introduced following a report by Lord Marshall, the former president of the Confederation of British Industry. We are working with our European partners on the introduction of a European emissions trading system and we shall have more to say on that subject in the energy White Paper.

    Industrial Policy
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: If she will make a statement on the place of science and innovation in the Government's industrial policy. [83606]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): Science and innovation are at the heart of the Government's industrial policy.
    Dr. Starkey: Part of the justification for the very large sums of money that the Government have put into scientific research is that scientific research can be exploited for job and wealth creation, but small businesses are notoriously poor at picking up those results and turning them into extra jobs. What is the

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    Department doing to try to encourage co-operation between small and medium-sized enterprises and university science and technology departments?
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point because, despite the outstanding record of some smaller firms, the average performance in introducing a new product on which competitiveness depends is really quite inadequate. Last week, I announced a wide-ranging review of the UK's innovation performance and the results of that review will help us further to strengthen performance. What we are already doing through the LINK programme and through investment in the science base and, for instance, the centres of manufacturing excellence, is to make it much easier for small firms in particular to work far more closely with the science and technology base, and thus to introduce the new products and processes on which their future success will depend.
    Mr. Derek Foster: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the commercialisation of science and technology and innovation is crucial to areas such as my constituency in the north-east? Will she therefore congratulate the north-east centre for scientific enterprise, which is based at Durham university, on its success and perhaps even beef up the amount of Government money that it can obtain?
    Ms Hewitt: I am delighted to have this opportunity to congratulate that centre on the investment it is making and on its success. I am very pleased to say that my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for small business will be visiting it in a fortnight. We have already in the past few years more than doubled the rate of spin-off companies coming out of the university science base, and I am sure that the centre in my hon. Friend's constituency will be just as successful in future.
    Mr. John Bercow: In seeking to foster a climate for the growth of science and innovation and in recognising that regulation can be onerous and debilitating on the one hand, or enabling and protective on the other, can the right hon. Lady tell me and the House what assessment she has made of the benefits of the Regulatory Flexibility Act 1980 and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act 1996 in the United States?
    Ms Hewitt: That was a long way of getting to an interesting point about regulation. I take some comfort, though not too much, from the recent report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which investigated the climate for regulatory reform across all industrialised countries. It found that the UK has a much better set of policy levers for bearing down on unnecessary and over-complicated regulation than almost any other country in the world. We have in particular looked at the example of the United States and drawn on the lessons from that and from other countries, including the Netherlands, to ensure that we remain at the forefront of good regulation, because we are determined to sustain the position that the The
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    Economist intelligence unit recently identified of having one of the best regulatory and entrepreneurial environments for business in the world.
    Mr. Gareth Thomas: Given that one aspect of science and innovation for which there is huge potential in Britain is the sustainable energy industry, does my right hon. Friend accept that a bolder and more ambitious target—such as 25 per cent.—is appropriate beyond 2010 for renewable technologies?
    Ms Hewitt: I am happy to agree with my hon. Friend, in general terms, about the importance of setting ambitious targets for sustainable energy. We shall of course be setting those targets in the energy White Paper, to which I know he is looking forward with great interest.

    Trawlermen (Compensation)
    Shona McIsaac: If she will make a statement on the compensation scheme for former Icelandic water trawlermen. [83607]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths): Following the 1997 election, the Government made a commitment to compensate former trawlermen who lost their livelihoods as a result of the settlement of the cod war with Iceland in 1976. Thousands of former trawlermen have received compensation totalling tens of millions of pounds.
    Shona McIsaac: While I fully accept that the compensation scheme put right a serious injustice, will my hon. Friend put his hand on his heart and tell me whether he believes that further injustices may be being perpetuated because the standards of proof of eligibility are being set so high that many men are being denied the compensation owed to them? Does he feel that a balance-of-probability standard of proof would be better in these cases?
    Nigel Griffiths: No, I do not. The independent adjudicator, who arbitrates on appeals, has so far been unable to provide a way of identifying vessels eligible for the scheme, and of preventing unsubstantiated or bogus claims from those who did not trawl in Icelandic waters. Any move away from the evidence that we have accepted to date would be unfair on more than 4,600 former trawlermen who have received legitimate payments.

    EU State Aid
    Mr. Clive Betts: What proposals she has put forward to reform EU state aid policy. [83608]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Miss Melanie Johnson): We continue to press the European Commission to reform its state aid

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    rules, to introduce more economic analysis to its consideration of cases, and to streamline its procedures. The Commission is receptive to our objectives and ideas.
    Mr. Betts: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. She will doubtless recognise the problems caused to many regeneration schemes by the Commission's outlawing of state aid given through the previous partnership investment programme. While welcoming the interim arrangements made with the Commission, does she accept that there is now a need for long-term, permanent agreements that allow state aid to be given in a way that recognises the importance of public-private partnerships in delivering regeneration in many of our towns and cities?
    Miss Johnson: I do indeed. We are pursuing a twin-track strategy on regeneration: we are encouraging the Commission to introduce a new regeneration framework, and in parallel we are supporting effective regeneration schemes under the existing rules. Given my hon. Friend's Select Committee work, he is well aware of that strategy, which includes six regeneration schemes for which approval has already been granted.
    Mr. Mark Field: As the Minister knows, one of the ideas inherent in EU state aid policy is ensuring as far as is possible a level playing field throughout Europe in economic affairs. With that in mind, has she any comments to make on the agency workers directive, which her Government signed on our behalf only last week?
    Miss Johnson: This is unfinished business, as the hon. Gentleman ought to appreciate. He will also know that, in general, we are at the low end of state aid, and that the Commission regards us as a very good performer in terms of the overall league tables.
    Mr. David Chaytor: In the context of the loan to British Energy and the necessary approval from the Competition Commissioner, if the Government were to reverse their previous policy of requiring nuclear generators to internalise the costs of radioactive waste management and decommissioning, would that be acceptable under current EU state aid criteria?
    Miss Johnson: As my right hon. Friend made clear in her statement to the House on 28 November, the restructuring is based on a proposal for solvent restructuring. That was preceded on 27 November by the European Commission approving the rescue aid that the Government are giving to British Energy. That approval also covers the proposal to fund the company until 9 March next year,
    Mr. Tim Yeo: Will the Minister confirm that the £450 million of aid for rural post offices—finally announced to Parliament on Monday after being trailed by Government spin doctors in the middle of October—is not state aid but simply involves the spending of surpluses generated by the Post Office in its profitable years? Does not the need for that aid arise from the Government's mistaken decision to stop
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    paying cash benefits to pensioners and other claimants at post offices, which will cut sub-postmasters' incomes by 40 per cent?
    Miss Johnson: That decision has been cleared by the Commission. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that his question is inaccurate, as pensioners who do not want to use the new arrangements will be able to turn to the universal bank, which will cover future payments through post offices. The House will appreciate that 3,500 rural post offices closed in the time of the previous Conservative Government.

    Manufacturing Sector
    Mr. Ben Chapman: What support she is providing to the manufacturing sector. [83609]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): The Government's manufacturing strategy that was published in May identified seven key areas of activity for Government and industry that are crucial for manufacturing success. We are taking action in all of those areas to help British manufacturers cope with very difficult global conditions.
    Mr. Chapman: My right hon. Friend may be aware that Candy Domestic Appliances, a company that has manufactured refrigerators in my constituency for decades, recently announced its closure. Despite exemplary efforts by the unions and the work force, the company simply found that the pound-euro exchange rate was an uncompetitive barrier that it could not surmount. In the light of that, and of the global restructuring that is in train, will my right hon. Friend say what plans she has to help firms such as Candy, and to sustain a UK manufacturing base?
    Ms Hewitt: I was extremely sorry to hear about Candy's decision to transfer production from my hon. Friend's constituency out of the UK. As he is aware, officials from my Department were in close touch with the company and the unions throughout the discussions. We went through the various investment options to see whether the plant could be kept open. I am sorry that that did not prove fruitful.
    The Government have set out, in their manufacturing strategy and in the one published by the regional development agency, exactly what we will do to ensure that more of our manufacturers remain competitive. They can do that by improving skills, for example, and in particular by strengthening the links between smaller manufacturers and our outstanding science base. It is from that science base that the new products and processes that are the key to manufacturing success will emerge.
    Mr. Richard Page: The right hon. Lady will be aware that, under this Labour Government, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost in this country over the past few years. What representations has she made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and what calculations has

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    her Department made, regarding the effects on employment in the manufacturing sector of the national insurance changes that will come in from April?
    Ms Hewitt: Every business leader to whom I have spoken since the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor agrees that it is essential that we put more money as a country into the national health service. The question therefore is not whether we are going to make more money available, but where it will come from. There is general support throughout the country for my right hon. Friend's decision that the costs of that investment in the NHS should be borne fairly, through a 1 per cent. addition to the national insurance contribution from employers, employees and the self-employed.
    I note that the Opposition want to go back on that increase in NHS investment. I do not think that that will commend itself to the public any more than most Conservative policies.
    Mr. Martin O'Neill: Business across the country has welcomed the manufacturing strategy. Among manufacturers, there is qualified optimism about what could happen in uncertain times, but also still a nagging concern about the impact of the climate change levy on industries that are both capital intensive and labour intensive. Will she undertake an industry-by-industry survey of the impact of the climate change levy after 18 months? Will she try and give us an assessment of how the concept of fiscal neutrality is applied in this context? It seems to escape the understanding of many people, who are paying a lot of money and not getting much in return.
    Ms Hewitt: On fiscal neutrality, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made it very clear that there is no net gain at all to the Exchequer from the climate change levy, because what is paid by business has been recycled in lower national insurance contributions. It is also worth stressing that any business customer that secures its electricity from renewable sources does so without any payment of the climate change levy and any industrial company that has signed up to one of the energy efficiency agreements gets an 80 per cent. discount on their climate change levy. We are of course working with industry to keep the operation of the levy under review and in particular to see whether the eligibility for those 80 per cent. discount agreements can be widened in ways that would be beneficial to our industry.
    Mr. Tim Yeo: Is not the best help that the Government could give the manufacturing sector a cut in the £47 billion of extra taxes that Labour has imposed on business, a cut in the burden of red tape and regulation, a decent transport system, a supply of school and college leavers whose qualifications and skills meet the needs of employers and a Secretary of State who fights the corner of manufacturers instead of criticising management?
    Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense, as he well knows. He has not bothered to refer to the cuts in corporation tax introduced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, the research and development tax credit—initially for smaller firms, now for larger firms,
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    welcomed universally by manufacturers and worth nearly £500 million—and the substantial investment that we are making after years of neglect in developing skilled scientists, engineers and technicians—one of the most pressing problems for manufacturers. The hon. Gentleman fails to tell the House that we have lower levels of business taxation than Germany, France and Italy—lower, indeed, than 12 countries of the European Union. On all the recent international benchmarking surveys, we have a better regulatory environment than almost any other major industrialised country.
    Mr. Andy Reed: I am sure that my right hon. Friend, as a fellow Leicestershire Member of Parliament, is aware that Brush Electrical Machines has had to reduce its working week to four days in recent times. However, there is good news for the company, if only we can get the assistance of the DTI, the East Midlands development agency and Leicestershire agencies to ensure that there is a shift in production to some new exciting products. Will my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that she will use her good offices, as a fellow Leicestershire MP and as Secretary of State, to ensure that the company gets every assistance to move this exciting project forward, even if that means some cash help as well?
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend will understand that the Chancellor does not allow me to bring a cheque book to Trade and Industry questions. However, I readily undertake to ensure that my officials will work with him and with the company to see whether any help can be given, possibly through the regional development agency, to ensure that the exciting opportunities that are opening up to the company are seized and lead to success and further job creation.

    Broadband Services (Perth)
    Annabelle Ewing: What discussions she has had with the Scottish Executive regarding the introduction of broadband services in Perth constituency. [83610]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths): My right hon. Friend's broadband taskforce involves all the devolved Administrations and the English regional development agencies and is working to increase the availability and take-up of broadband throughout the UK. Scotland is also benefiting from the £30 million UK broadband fund. This has been the subject of consultation with the Scottish Executive.
    Annabelle Ewing: I thank the Minister for his answer, but he will be aware that great swathes of my constituency of Perth are not covered by affordable broadband and that Scotland lags at the bottom end of the UK coverage league table. When does he foresee a national strategy for broadband roll out in Scotland? Will he undertake to discuss with his Scottish Executive counterparts a national funding package to secure broadband roll out as soon as possible in rural areas such as my constituency?
    Nigel Griffiths: One minute—four facts. Scotland receives £4.4 million, the largest single allocation from

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    the UK broadband fund. There are technology trials in Campbeltown, a rural part of Scotland, totalling £65,500. Establishing a wireless network in the Western Isles is getting £1 million worth of resources. In the hon. Lady's constituency, the DTI is contributing £70,000 to trials in Crieff to ensure the use of electrical means rather than telephone wires or cable TV. Any other Member from any other party would be congratulating the DTI and the Government.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot allow that question to go beyond the hills of Perth.

    Fireworks
    Mr. Harold Best: If she will propose legislation limiting the use of fireworks to local government licensed events. [83611]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Miss Melanie Johnson): I have no plans to limit the use of fireworks to organised public displays, including local organised events.
    Mr. Best: Will my hon. Friend explain a little further why not?
    Miss Johnson: One reason is that it would require primary legislation and our current programme does not include such a Bill. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that the Government supported a private Member's Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy). Sadly, it was talked out on 3 July 1998, but it would have included provisions such as those referred to by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. John Randall: Does the Minister appreciate that many Members have received numerous complaints on the subject of fireworks, especially from people in urban and suburban areas? One of the biggest problems is the level of noise. In my constituency, that affects elderly people and people who keep livestock outside, especially birdkeepers. If the hon. Lady is unable to consider legislation such as that proposed by the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best), is there some way noise from fireworks can be reduced to acceptable levels?
    Miss Johnson: I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman and his constituents, and indeed all constituents, including my own—all of whom have in recent times suffered from a high degree of noise nuisance from fireworks, as have their pets. The package of measures that I announced on 15 October will do much to cut noise from fireworks, because a ban on air bombs will be effective from January. They are among the noisiest repeating fireworks that are cheaply available and cause noise and nuisance that is completely unacceptable in local communities.
    Mr. John Battle: Although I welcome the package of measures, they go nowhere near far enough. Fireworks continue to be sold well after bonfire
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    night. Some fireworks are so powerful that they can blow up telephone boxes. It seems that there is consensus for legislation on both sides of the House, so can we introduce a licensing scheme, with licensed distributors, for the sale of fireworks and stop their sale from shops? Secondly, can local authorities licence events such as parties and celebrations so that there is some control of the whole business? I am sure that there is agreement on both sides of the House for the speedy introduction of legislation to tackle that abuse.
    Miss Johnson: I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a degree of consensus, which we welcome. I am also aware that we need to give the measures that I announced some time to take effect, as there will be a lead-in time for the fireworks industry as regards the sale of fireworks. However, in addition to those measures, the Government stand ready to look further at the need to promote quiet communities and to secure safety through other opportunities that may arise in the future.

    Liabilities Management Agency
    Tony Cunningham: What discussions she has had with trade union representatives on the implementation of the Liabilities Management Agency. [83612]
    The Minister for Energy and Construction (Mr. Brian Wilson): My officials are in regular dialogue with national officers from all the main unions representing the employees of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., Magnox Electric and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. They have also held a number of meetings with union representatives at site level. A meeting with Sellafield representatives is taking place today.
    Tony Cunningham: I very much welcome that, because my constituents in west Cumbria would urgently like a meeting with the Minister. Would my hon. Friend be prepared to meet representatives from west Cumbria, where there are serious concerns about the implementation of the LMA, especially as regards wages and conditions?
    Mr. Wilson: I should of course be pleased to meet them. I occasionally meet stewards and full-time officials from Sellafield, both formally and informally, and I should be pleased to discuss the issues and, I am confident, to lay their concerns to rest.
    Mr. Andrew Lansley: When the Minister comes to implement the Liabilities Management Authority, is he proposing to transfer historic waste liabilities from British Energy to the LMA? If so, will he transfer with that funds and assets from British Energy commensurate with those liabilities?
    Mr. Wilson: That is still an open question and was not part of the arrangements announced last week.

    Ceramics Industry
    Ann Winterton: What recent assessment she has made of the future economic viability of the United Kingdom's ceramics industry. [83613]
    The Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions (Alan Johnson): The ECOTEC study published in March 1999 is the most recent report on the ceramics sector. This led on to the creation of the Ceramics Industry Forum, which is supported by £3.3million of DTI funding. More generally, departmental officials keep up to date with developments in the sector through regular meetings with ceramics firms and intermediaries covering a wide range of productivity and competitiveness issues.
    Ann Winterton: Is the Minister aware that the UK ceramics industry has been better placed than its European counterparts to withstand competition from low-cost importers because of the comparative flexibility of the UK labour market? However, will he address the concerns of ceramics manufacturers in the Congleton constituency, as well as the British Ceramics Confederation, who believe that that slight advantage is being seriously eroded by the incessant imposition of unnecessary and unrelated regulations by this Government, which add costs and reduce competitiveness and will affect future investment and employment opportunities?
    Alan Johnson: I accept that the ceramics industry feels that it has an advantage in this country thanks to the splendid policies of this Government. The intelligent question from the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and the answer from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State addressed the issue of regulation. All sectors of manufacturing are, of course, concerned about additional regulations, but they are also extremely discriminatory in terms of the regulations about which we are talking. For instance, employment regulations such as the minimum wage, the right to paid holidays and the right that part-time workers be treated the same as full-time workers do not even register on most manufacturers' Richter scales. Most good employers in this country see such measures as decent and proper terms and conditions for their employees. The problems in ceramics are being addressed through the industry forum, for which the Conservative party was committed to remove funding as part of £300 million of cuts in business support. The industry is taking the issues forward and having an intelligent debate about regulations, which is not always what we hear from the Conservative party.
    Ms Joan Walley: May I dissociate myself from any call that the Government should not be looking at extending employment rights to workers in the ceramics and potteries industries? However, my hon. Friend the Minister is well aware that we cannot disguise the fact that the ceramics industry has faced severe problems, arising particularly out of the
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    global market in which it is operating. It is important that we stick with the agenda of innovation and design. I invite my hon. Friend to visit—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I call the Minister.
    Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend can invite me to visit; I am just not sure where. [Laughter.] She makes an important point about the ceramics industry. The only answer—not just in ceramics but in other sectors—is to add value and to continually innovate, so that we can compete on the same basis as our competitors from Japan, Germany and the United States; not in terms of low pay or low skills but in terms of high added value. I should be pleased to visit Stoke-on-Trent. I was due to visit twice, but the visits had to be called off because of parliamentary business. However, we will rearrange the visit shortly.

    Broadband and Television Services
    Mr. Chris Bryant: How she intends Ofcom to ensure universal access to broadband and television services. [83614]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths): The Communications Bill currently before the House imposes a number of duties on Ofcom. These include securing availability of a wide range of television and radio services of high quality, calculated to appeal to a variety of tastes and interests, and securing these throughout the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Bryant: BT maintains that it is forbidden by competition law from rolling out broadband services in my constituency in areas such Treorchy and Ferndale unless it can prove that it is not subsidising doing so and that it has got 600 people signed up in the constituency. If that is true, is competition law an ass in this area? If it is untrue, will the Minister tell BT to get its act together?
    Nigel Griffiths: I would appreciate it if my hon. Friend could supply me with the details, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set up the UK broadband taskforce, with a co-ordinator in each region and each devolved nation to ensure that public expenditure on broadband has the maximum impact on its availability. I will certainly draw the issue that he raises to the attention of the co-ordinator in his area.

  MINISTER FOR WOMEN
  The Minister was asked—
  MINISTER FOR WOMEN

    Women (Public Life)
    Helen Jones: What steps she is taking to encourage more women to enter public life. [83637]
    The Minister for Women (Ms Patricia Hewitt): We have introduced legislation on women's representation that allows all political parties to take positive steps to increase the number of women who hold elected office.

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    With the Minister for Social Exclusion and Deputy Minister for Women, I have been holding events all around the country for women who are interested in public appointments, and I am glad to say that the vast majority of the women who have attended those events now intend to apply.
    Helen Jones: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer and for the work that she has undertaken on this issue, but may I ask her also to open discussions with many local councils to encourage them to hold their meetings at a time when more women can attend? In particular, may I ask her to pay attention to encouraging more women from deprived areas to put themselves forward for appointments in public life, so that we get a proper spread of representation throughout the country?
    Ms Hewitt: I entirely agree with the points that my hon. Friend makes. Where public bodies hold meetings in London, it is a matter of course to pay travel and child care expenses, but I agree with her that local councils and, indeed, regional bodies need to consider this issue, particularly if they are to ensure that they benefit from the skills and experience of women in low income families.
    Fiona Mactaggart: Will the Minister look at the person specifications for many of those public bodies, which do not sufficiently value the experience of interacting with public service that almost every mother, for example, in the country has? Will she encourage Departments to consider specifically what experience of public services people who apply for appointment to public bodies have?
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. A great deal of the skills that we need on public bodies includes common sense and the practical daily experience of bringing up a family and using public services. That is increasingly what those who make such appointments are looking for, but I will certainly draw the issue to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends who are responsible across Government for those appointments.
    Mr. Andy Reed: What progress she has made in increasing the proportion of women appointed to public bodies. [83638]
    The Minister for Women (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I have already referred to the programme of events that my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Exclusion and Deputy Minister for Women and I have been holding. I am delighted to say that 2,000 women have already attended those events. On 11 September, we will launch a practical guide that will help more women to find out about public appointments and apply for vacancies.
    Mr. Reed: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will she further explain those regional seminars? Has she been able to ensure that women from ethnic minorities from her own city—Leicester—and from Loughborough, of course, have taken part in them?
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    We want people from ethnic minorities, particularly women, to come forward. Will she ensure that the specific needs of those groups are taken into account?
    Ms Hewitt: I am delighted to respond to my hon. Friend's question. I recently attended one of those events in Leicester with 200 women from black and Asian communities from Leicester, Loughborough and further afield, all of whom were extremely eager to seek appointment to public bodies and had an extraordinary range of energy and experience to offer. Any headhunter would have been proud of them, and I have no doubt that, in the next year or two, we will see many of them taking up vacancies on public bodies.
    Sue Doughty: The initiatives that the Minister describes are all very welcome, but the number of women on public bodies has increased by only 2.7 per cent. since Labour came to power. We may compare that with other countries, such as Iraq. In the United Kingdom in 2001, the percentage was 34 per cent., but Iraq surpassed that figure in 1990. By 1998, the figure for women in the public sector was 40 per cent. The Government have set a target that women should hold 45 per cent. to 50 per cent. of the public appointments made by Departments by the end of 2005. In the same briefing, however—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not like to interrupt the hon. Lady, but she is supposed to be asking a supplementary question.
    Ms Hewitt: I think that I have got the gist of the question, although I must say that I would not have chosen Iraq as my exemplar of equal opportunities. A regime that employs professional rapists in its military hardly seems to me to be an exemplar that any hon. Member would wish to quote.
    The hon. Lady is, of course, right that we still have a great deal of progress to make in this area. Since becoming Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, I have been able to appoint, on open competition, Barbara Mills, Gwynneth Flower and Eve Pollard to the Competition Commission, Margaret Prosser and Angela Risley to the Low Pay Commission, Marisa Cassoni and Rosemary Thorne to the board of the Post Office, Barbara Thomas to the board of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and Catherine Mitchell to the energy advisory panel. We are, therefore, making progress, and my Department has a target to ensure that between 45 per cent. and 55 per cent. of appointments made each year will be women.
    Margaret Moran: As my right hon. Friend is aware, many women in our communities are doing excellent work, and those skills should be recognised by public bodies. Those women are working, for example, on the new deal for communities, in neighbourhood renewal zones and on regeneration projects. Will she consider instituting an accreditation scheme so that the skills that those women acquire are recognised by the public bodies to which they should be applying?
    Ms Hewitt: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the extraordinary experience that women, particularly those who are involved in neighbourhood regeneration,

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    could bring to bear in local councils and in a much wider range of public appointments. I am wary, however, of the idea of a new accreditation scheme, as I think that that may complicate matters further. What may be more valuable—I know that she will want to assist in this—is ensuring that every public body that is seeking new appointees recognises the value of that neighbourhood and community-based experience.
    Mrs. Caroline Spelman: One of the problems with the crime of domestic violence is unduly lenient sentencing, as seen in the Court of Appeal this week. Can the Minister tell us what measures the Government have taken to increase substantially the percentage of women at all levels of the judiciary to help restore women's confidence in the criminal justice system?
    Ms Hewitt: The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General has been enormously active in ensuring that outrageously lenient sentences in such cases are appealed by the prosecution and that the judiciary, male and female, are aware of the seriousness of this crime and reflect that in the sentences that they award. Of course, my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor has been taking steps to ensure that there is a much higher proportion of women on the bench, which will certainly help to overcome the problem of lenient sentencing.

    Greenfield Report
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: When will she publish the Greenfield report on increasing the involvement of women in science. [83639]
    The Minister for Women (Ms Patricia Hewitt): On 28 November, I published the report by the noble Baroness Greenfield, which contains a number of proposals for improving the recruitment and retention of female scientists and engineers. I warmly welcome Baroness Greenfield's report. We will study it carefully, and we will respond in due course.
    Dr. Starkey: I too welcome the report by Baroness Greenfield, and I urge other Members to try to get copies of it. May I suggest that, yet again, this report on improving the representation of women in science and engineering has concentrated on women in research, and particularly on women in research in the universities? I suspect that that is because of the availability of data. The scientific work force is much wider than that, and includes all levels of representation in the private and public sector. Will the Minister investigate ways of getting better data on women's representation throughout the scientific work force, and examine ways of improving women's representation throughout it?
    Ms Hewitt: I am glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend that I have already commissioned research that will give us a much better understanding of the number and percentage of scientists, engineers and technologists employed right across the private and public sectors. There is an important point behind her question. About 40 per cent. of the men who have science, engineering and technology degrees are employed in related occupations. Only about 25 per cent. of women with similar degrees are so employed, and about 50,000 women with science and relevant degrees are not employed at all. Therefore, a vast pool of talent is out there if only we and business can tap into it.

Business of the House
12.30 pm
Mr. Eric Forth: Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Robin Cook): The business of the House for next week is as follows:
MONDAY 9 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Extradition Bill. Followed by proceedings on the Consolidated Fund Bill. Followed by proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill.
TUESDAY 10 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the European Parliament (Representation) Bill.
WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER—Motion on the retirement of the Clerk of the House. Followed by a debate on European affairs on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
THURSDAY 12 DECEMBER—Debate on DEFRA issues on a substantive motion covering agriculture and the environment.
FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the following week will be:
MONDAY 16 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Hunting Bill.
TUESDAY 17 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill.
WEDNESDAY 18 DECEMBER—Consideration in Committee of the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill.
THURSDAY 19 DECEMBER—Motion on the Christmas recess Adjournment.
FRIDAY 20 DECEMBER—The House will not be sitting.
The House will return after the recess on Tuesday 7 January. I commend to hon. Members the handy pocket calendar produced by the Clerks of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear. Hear."] For the first time, it sets out the dates in full for a parliamentary Session.
Mr. Forth: I thank the Leader of the House not only for the business for next week but for the news about the handy pocket calendar. I am sure that it will be essential for us all.
Will the right hon. Gentleman please clarify exactly what the mysterious debate on Thursday 12 December will be about? So far, we are in the invidious position of not knowing what it will be about. We know that it will be about DEFRA, so can we have a guarantee that it will, at least, cover such vital issues as flooding, CO2 emissions, domestic waste and the like? Can we have clarification; otherwise it will look like just another case of "defracation"?
Yesterday in PMPs—[HON. MEMBERS: "What?"] Prime Minister's porkies. Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) asked the Prime Minister about the drugs tsar and asked specifically:
"what has happened to him and his targets?"
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The Prime Minister first waffled about extra finance and increased spending, at which point Hansard records hon. Members asking "What about the tsar?" There was no reply from the Prime Minister.
Matters then got worse. The Father of the House, no less, asked about a curious episode involving the Iraqi football team and FIFA. In his response, the Prime Minister said:
"I would not say that we had better information than FIFA. But leaving aside that incident".—[Official Report, 4 December 2002; Vol. 395, c. 905–6.]
At that point Hansard records, "[Interruption]", and no wonder. If the Prime Minister, when he reluctantly appears in the House once a week, refuses point blank to answer questions from myself, my hon. Friends or, indeed, the Father of the House, can we please have a rerun of Prime Minister's questions after this session each Thursday in an attempt to get some proper answers out of him?
Mr. Cook: I have a high regard for the right hon. Gentleman. However, given the pun that he inflicted on the House, it will soon be time for him to take his Christmas recess—and preferably he will not return with puns that have come out of crackers. Those are the worst ones of all.
I do not see any mystery about next Thursday's motion. I am repeatedly asked by hon. Members on both sides of the House to hold debates on agriculture, the environment and foot and mouth. It is right that we should have a full day's debate on those topics and a full motion will be tabled in good time. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that those Members who wish to raise the subject of foot and mouth, for instance, will be competent to do so under the terms of the motion.
The drugs tsar is capable of speaking for himself. I would not dream of entering into that particular debate.
On FIFA, although there appears to be a difference of evidence between those who played in the Iraqi football team, those who have managed to leave Iraq confirm that the incident in the dossier did happen to them, while those who remain in Baghdad continue to insist that the Hussein family is made up of perfect gentlemen, and that they have no complaints. I know which of the two I choose to believe.
Mr. Paul Tyler: The Leader of the House will be aware of the great deal of public concern about the strange sequences of bungled butlers' cases. He will have noted that the Prime Minister yesterday implied at column 902 that the Crown Prosecution Service is investigating that. Can the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the appropriate Law Officer on who is conducting the investigation? Is it an internal one or is it objective on either side? What is its remit and the time scale?
The Leader of the House will also be aware that, on suspension, the Northern Ireland Assembly had 28 Bills awaiting consideration. Those are now coming to this House in the form of statutory instruments and are jumbled together in threes. As they are to be considered in a Statutory Instrument Committee Upstairs, they cannot be amended. Is that a satisfactory way to ensure proper scrutiny? In particular, is it not curious that staff

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in the Stormont Assembly, who would usually ensure that the Bills are in a proper form, are being retained on full pay and twiddling their thumbs?
Mr. Cook: On the question of the collapse of the butlers' trials, I have no first-hand personal cultural experience of employing a butler and do not know many people who have. The hon. Gentleman will have heard that the police have provided for an inquiry into their handling of the case. Indeed, I heard Lord Harris discussing that this morning. On the CPS, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that he expects it to learn the lessons and to do so quickly. Whether it is necessary to have a review to learn those lessons, I would not wish to say, but I hope that the CPS will reflect on the substantial sums of public money that were laid out on both trials. That must perplex many of my hon. Friends whose constituents come to them because they cannot obtain legal aid to assist them in much more important issues.
On the Northern Ireland Bills, let us be realistic. There are enormous demands on the time of the Chamber and the House. I am pleased that by Christmas we will have had Second Readings of 17 Bills in this place and in the second Chamber. That is probably a record in the interval between the Queen's Speech and the Christmas recess and it shows the substantial progress that we are making. Within the limits of the pressure of Bills that it is necessary for us to introduce, we will obviously try to do all that we can in relation to our duties for scrutiny in Northern Ireland. But none of us is pretending that this place can be a satisfactory substitute for the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is why our efforts are focused on doing all that we can to ensure that the Assembly is restored. I hope that those who are in politics in Northern Ireland will assist us in that objective.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: The Leader of the House will have read about the latest bullying of the inspectors by the White House yesterday, when it demanded "multiple, simultaneous, aggressive inspections". With this weekend's deadline for the Iraqis to produce their list of weapons or weapon materials due, can we have a debate early next week so that the House can vote on whether it wants to support the dangerous warmongers in the White House or to join with the rest of the world in seeking a non-military solution?
Mr. Cook: We have recently debated Iraq and I am perfectly confident that we will have other debates on it. However, it is very important that we proceed with our legislative programme in the remaining two weeks before the Christmas recess.
On the UN inspectors in Iraq, I have full confidence in Hans Blix, whom I had the privilege of meeting when I was Foreign Secretary. I have told the House that I believe he will do the job with great independence of mind and great thoroughness, given the nature of his technical and diplomatic background.
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It is worth recalling that at present barely a quarter of the total complement of the inspectors has arrived in Iraq. I am confident that as the complement builds up, so will the number of inspections.
Mr. Roger Gale: The Transport Act 2000 gave local authorities the right to introduce congestion charges. The Secretary of State for Transport appears, with good reason, to be getting cold feet about that. Given the likely public outcry, and the outcry from business that will face additional costs in January in London, will the right hon. Gentleman find time early in the new year for the House to debate the implementation of congestion charging in London under the Government's legislation?
Mr. Cook: The House has provided the legislation under which congestion charges have been brought forward in London. The scheme for London is the responsibility of the Mayor of London. As we have repeatedly stated, it is important that in bringing forward a scheme, he seeks to achieve consensus and consent from the people of London, and ensures that the scheme will result in a better transport system for London. It is the mayor's scheme, not the Government's scheme. I would not wish to give the mayor the satisfaction of debating every proposal that he makes.
Mr. George Galloway: Will the Leader of the House try to find time for a discussion about the plight of British passport holders travelling in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories? My wife—one of those people—has been virtually arrested four times in a week, and told by the Israeli armed forces that the holding of a British passport is worthless for people of Palestinian origin. I have discovered through our excellent diplomats who are working in the area that this is a situation faced by every British citizen of Palestinian origin. My right hon. Friend will accept from me—I know that he knows this—that it is one of the mysteries of the age that important countries like ours allow Israel to get away with things that no other country would conceivably be allowed to do.
Mr. Cook: In fairness, I should say that my colleagues at the Foreign Office complain robustly if there is any example of a British passport holder being harassed by Israeli authorities. As for the general thrust of my hon. Friend's question, I entirely agree with him. All British citizens are entitled to equal respect and equal attention, both by the British Government and by every other Government. British citizenship is blind on the issues of race or ethnic origin. That is absolutely right, and we are proud of our multicultural diversity. We must insist on the same rights of respect for all our citizens, whoever they might be, from foreign Governments.
Mr. Andrew Mackay: As the Leader of the House was in his normal place on the Government Front Bench during question time yesterday, he will have noted the confusion after the Prime Minister's answers to questions about university finance and top-up fees. It was to such an extent that in today's newspapers it is suggested that the Prime Minister has backed down. Yet the Secretary of State for Education and Skills says something that is quite the opposite. There is total confusion.

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May I ask the Leader of the House, on behalf of students and parents in my constituency and elsewhere, to arrange for the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, or better still the Prime Minister, to come to the Government Dispatch Box to clarify the situation, rather than hiding behind a suggestion that some time in February, perhaps, a decision will be reached?
Mr. Cook: Early in the new year—possibly in January—a White Paper on the review of funding of students in higher education will be published. The right hon. Gentleman is asking for someone to come to the Government Dispatch Box to announce the results of that review before we publish the White Paper on the review. I know that this will probably be a vain plea, but I would invite the House to be more mature on this matter. There are a number of options to be debated, and it is right that these options should be put to the House and the country for debate. It is the start of a process. We should not start now to rule out specific options on the basis of closing down the process before it has even begun.
Mrs. Louise Ellman: In view of yesterday's public statement from the chief executive of the Strategic Rail Authority, will my right hon. Friend clarify the role of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and Members of this place in deciding where investment in our railway system should go?
Mr. Cook: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has rightly and properly drawn on the Strategic Rail Authority to try to ensure that the right priorities are set for the railway industry and that we get to grips with some of the major investment projects, such as the west coast main line, which have not been successfully taken forward by those who were in charge of them previously. We are putting a substantial sum into the 10-year programme, of which investment in the railways is a part. Responsibility for that rests entirely with the Secretary of State for Transport, who is accountable to the House. Everyone in the rail industry recognises that it is an advance to make the Strategic Rail Authority more hands-on, so that it can be in the driving seat and provide more leadership in the industry.
Rev. Martin Smyth: I understand the response that the Leader of the House gave the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) on Northern Ireland Orders in Council, but may I have an assurance that if faults are found in those orders after they are passed, there will be opportunities, either in a forthcoming Northern Ireland Assembly or in the House, to amend them quickly? May I also plead for a debate in the House on Burma, so that its ethnic population and the Burmese rural community can have a sense of peace and provision at Christmas time?
Mr. Cook: I am very sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman's reference to the situation in Burma. When I was at the Foreign Office, I had the privilege of visiting one of the refugee camps in Thailand for people from Burma. I was deeply moved by the dignity and patience of people who were obliged to flee and by the tales of the very real brutality which had forced them to walk for
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days over the mountains to escape, including that of one man of 83 who was a former veteran with our own forces in the last war. We owe a debt of gratitude to those people for assisting us in the war. We will continue both to remember their plight and, as the Government are doing, to put pressure on the Burmese Government to improve and change their ways.
On the issue of Northern Ireland, I am sure that if there are any faults in the orders, we will hear about them. Indeed, I suspect that I personally may hear about them on a Thursday morning. Should any such problems emerge, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is ready to rectify them.
Mr. Neil Turner: My right hon. Friend will be aware that after business questions there will be a statement on the local government settlement, which makes detailed and complex changes to the financing of local government. It will be difficult for Members to make detailed comments without having had the time to study the settlement. Will my right hon. Friend make time for a debate in the House so that when Members and their local authorities have had a chance to look at it, we can make studied comments on the changes?
Mr. Cook: It is customary for us to debate the local government settlement some time after the statement, and I fully accept that many hon. Members will wish to express views on it. In fairness to the Minister for Local Government and the Regions, who will be making the statement this afternoon, I should tell the House that he asked me last week to provide notice of it during business questions. Having been given advance notice, hon. Members could be here to talk about the impact on their local area. I know that my right hon. Friend is keen to make sure that he maximises communications with the House, for which he should be respected.
Mr. Michael Jack: The Chancellor of the Exchequer was pleased to pray in aid of his estimates and statistics the endorsement of the National Audit Office. I mention that, because I wish to ask for a debate on Government accounting standards. When it comes to accounting for Network Rail's £21 billion contingent liability, the Chancellor rejected the very source of advice prayed in aid of his Budget assumptions. We should therefore have a debate to ensure that the Government are not indulging in any more Enron-style accounting practices.
Mr. Cook: On reflection, I think that the right hon. Gentleman will feel that he did not find the right way of making his point. Nor does it assist the House to appear to imply that the public accounts are in any way irresponsible or false in the way that Enron's were. Were such an idea to gain currency, the right hon. Gentleman would be the first to admit that it would have a severe effect on his constituents and everybody else's, because it would reduce confidence in those accounts. The accounts are presented professionally on the advice of professional statisticians, and I see no reason to disagree at all with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's judgment on Network Rail.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I note that my right hon. Friend announced that the Regional

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Assemblies (Preparations) Bill will be considered in Committee of the whole House. Has he considered whether it might be for the convenience of the House that at least part of the Hunting Bill should be considered in Committee of the whole House?
Mr. Cook: As my right hon. Friend will be aware from his long and distinguished service in the House, the reason why the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill comes back to the Floor of the House is that it is a constitutional measure, and, by convention, we deal with important constitutional issues on the Floor of the House. The Hunting Bill does not necessarily or naturally fall into that category, but I hear what he says and I shall discuss it with my colleagues who represent the Department introducing the Bill. We should not lose sight of the fact that the Government deserve credit for bringing the issue before the House so that it can make a decision. At whatever stage, whether in Committee or Report, there will be an opportunity for the full House to take part in that decision.
Bob Spink: Can the right hon. Gentleman find time for a debate on the derisory Government funding of children's hospices and, in particular, of the Little Havens children's hospice in my constituency, which receives less than 2 per cent. of its income in Government support? We could also debate the Conservative manifesto promise of providing 40 per cent. Government support for children's hospices. Does he agree that that is a more appropriate funding level?
Mr. Cook: I shall happily look into the particular case to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I fully understand that it must be a matter of immediate concern to his constituents. On the broad issue, however, we are frequently struck by the fact that we are faced outside the Chamber by Conservative demands for reductions in spending and taxation, but inside the Chamber we hear only demands for further spending. At some stage, the Opposition owe it to the rest of us to try to square that circle.
Mr. David Clelland: When does my right hon. Friend anticipate that the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform will report to the House? When will the House have an opportunity to vote on any options that the Committee might propose? Will those options be amendable and is it intended that the issue should be decided on a free vote?
Mr. Cook: We have given an assurance that the issue will be taken on a free vote. That was the basis of my statement last June. Indeed, any motion that we put before the House is, by definition, amendable. My understanding is that plenty of options will be proposed by the Joint Committee, and I am not sure whether it will be necessary to table amendments to provide for any more options than the many with which we will be presented. As to the timing, I said last week that the Chairman of the Committee had given an undertaking that he would report before the winter solstice. The solstice is even nearer than it was last week, but,
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nevertheless, I believe that the Joint Committee has a programme of sittings that should enable it to meet that target.
Patrick Mercer: The Leader of the House will be aware that in the days preceding the terrorist atrocities in Bali and last week in Mombasa, certain Governments issued warnings to their travelling public. The British Government did not do so. In the light of the closure of the high commission in Nairobi, will the Foreign Secretary come to the Dispatch Box to explain the situation before more lives are lost?
Mr. Cook: We have taken the decision about the high commission in Nairobi—it may be said that we have done so with reluctance, as we do not welcome the closure of business in any important capital—because of specific intelligence that we received precisely about a threat to that high commission, so it was right, proper and responsible for us to respond. We have received no information about a specific threat to residents in Kenya generally. That is why no specific warning was given.
If we were to be pushed into a position in which, whenever we received a general warning that was not specific, we urged people to close down business in a wide range of countries, we would be doing exactly what al-Qaeda wants us to do. It wants to disrupt business, normal life and commercial success in such countries, and we should not try to anticipate it by doing that for it.
Mr. Kelvin Hopkins: Following the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), does my right hon. Friend agree that Richard Bowker's statement this week is more evidence of the catastrophe of rail privatisation that was inflicted on the country by the Conservative party? Does he therefore agree that we should have a full debate on the Floor of the Ho use on the future of the railways in which we could even discuss the possibility of bringing the whole railway system back into public ownership and operating the state-owned system that works so well on the continent of Europe?
Mr. Cook: I fear that the ambition of my hon. Friend's policy objectives would require more than one day's debate on the Floor of the House, but I would not disagree with his preamble, as what we are trying to do in introducing the additional remit that we have given to the Strategic Rail Authority is to remedy the weak regulation under which privatisation took place. We would not have had to take those steps or have this discussion if privatisation had not proceeded with such haste and been introduced with such incompetence.
Mrs. Angela Browning: Would the Leader of the House agree to our having a debate on social affairs? Yesterday, the Prime Minister said:
"I believe that signing the social chapter was essential in order to keep this country's influence in social affairs."—[Official Report, 4 December 2002; Vol. 395, c. 898.]
I think that I have missed something, as before the Prime Minister signed the social chapter, we ourselves had complete control. I would be interested to hear about the benefits of the social influence that the Government have gained by signing the social chapter.
Mr. Cook: I have always taken the view that if one is patriotic, one will want British people to benefit from

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the same rights as are available to those in our neighbouring countries. I cannot for the life of me see why the British people should be denied the advantage of the working time directive, which will give more than 2 million British residents the right to a paid holiday this Christmas—a right that they never had before. I recall the Conservative party saying before the last election that, if we signed the social chapter, it would cost Britain half a million jobs. Five years on, one and a third million more people are in work than before we signed it. The only people who lost their jobs were the Conservative MPs who opposed our signing the social chapter.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: May I get back to the royal butlers and the aftermath of the collapsed royal butler trials? Many people will be deeply concerned about the affect of recent events on the reputations of senior royals. Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to read early-day motion 281, which I tabled?
[That this House believes all members of the Royal Family who receive gifts from heads of state or heads of government should be invited to enter these in a register updated annually which would be made public, specifying in each case where the gift is located or how it was disposed of]
The motion respectfully calls for the establishment of a royal register of gifts, which would specify the gifts' location. If they had been disposed of, it would specify when and where. Will my right hon. Friend use his good offices to draw the motion to the attention of those at the palace?
Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend's concern for the reputation of the royal family does him credit as a staunch monarchist. I read his early-day motion with interest when I studied all the motions this morning and I note the innovative idea that he proposes. I hope that it may be possible for the royal family to consider the proposal in the review that they are currently carrying out. No doubt, it would add some transparency, but it is a matter for the royal family to consider and I am sure that they will do so very carefully.
On the two trials, we should not lose sight of the fact that the questions and lessons that need to be asked and learned perhaps rest more with the public services—the police and prosecuting authorities—than with the royal family.
Annabelle Ewing: The Leader of the House will be aware of the impending disaster facing the Scottish fishing industry, in which some 40,000 jobs are on the line. He may also be aware of today's mass rally meeting in Edinburgh, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond). Does he accept that the urgency of the situation and the dire consequences for Scotland—the key decision in the Fisheries Council is being taken in December—merit an urgent statement from the Prime Minister to let us know what he intends to do as UK Prime Minister to fight for Scotland's fishing industry?
Mr. Cook: We had a debate on the fishing industry only a couple of weeks ago. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural
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Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), the Fisheries Minister, has done all that he can to keep the public and the House informed of our attitude. Of course, we fully understand the very deep concern in the fishing community about the proposed reductions. However, the hon. Lady should also express some concern about the state of North sea cod stocks. There will be no future for her community or the fishing industry if there are no fish. Unless we take urgent action on conservation, there will be no fish left. She owes it to her constituents not merely to represent their anxieties in the House, but to provide leadership in the local community to ensure that it is sustainable in the long term.
Harry Cohen: May we have early clarification and transparency on the Government's policy on the London Underground public private partnership? Have the Government backtracked on their commitment on an early transfer of the tube to Transport for London? What financial commitments flow from that?
Mr. Cook: What the Government said in the recent statement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is that we want to proceed with the PPP. It is precisely because we want work to continue in preparation for the PPP that we have provided the proposed indemnity against court action. However, it would be rather strange for us to transfer the London Underground to the Mayor of London while he is still contemplating court action to prevent the PPP from proceeding.
I would say, as a constituency Member, that I am slightly baffled by the attitude taken by the Mayor of London on this question. I can assure the House that, if the sensible, pragmatic, forward-looking West Lothian district council were to be offered the billions of pounds now on offer to the mayor, it would, by now, have found some way for such a scheme to proceed. If the mayor really has the interests of his people at heart, he should now stop putting delays in the way of this project, and enable us to make the essential investment necessary to improve the London underground.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the Leader of the House arrange for us to have a debate on parliamentary answers? Is he aware that I have put a number of questions to various Departments asking whether they would list the funds that they make available to organisations and individual members of the public who might apply for them? Most Departments have given reasonable answers to that question. The Secretary of State for Education and Skills, however, has provided me with this answer: "We do not hold information centrally on all organisations and individuals who apply for grants, or the amounts paid. Therefore, this question could only be answered at disproportionate cost." Is it not ridiculous that the Department cannot tell elected Members of Parliament how it is spending public money, for which it is accountable to the House?
Mr. Cook: I should be happy to consider the hon. Gentleman's question, but, the way I apprehend what he was saying, he was asking about grants to individuals.

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Frankly, I am not surprised that the Department for Education and Skills cannot say what individuals have received financial grants up and down the length of Great Britain. I would be surprised if any Minister were in a position to collate such information—indeed, I am rather glad that they are not. Ministers are there to ensure that the policy directions of their Departments are correct. They should not make individual decisions about who gets money out of them.
Mr. Michael Clapham: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the debate in the Chamber on 24 October on the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002, in which the Minister, accepting the world-wide mountain of evidence that white asbestos was dangerous to health, expressed an intention to implement those regulations. It is outrageous, therefore, that the Lords are seeking to annul those regulations this morning. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that, if the Lords make that decision, the regulations are brought back to the Chamber so that they can be implemented directly?
Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend has a long record of pursuing this issue, and he is to be complimented on that. It is certainly a matter that has a serious impact on those who have come into contact with white asbestos. I do not know what the outcome of the hearing next week will be, but I can assure my hon. Friend that it will be considered very carefully and, I am sure, expeditiously, by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
Sir Sydney Chapman: Notwithstanding the debate due to take place a little later today in Westminster Hall on the third report of the Select Committee on International Development, can the Leader of the House hold out any hope that we might have a debate on the Floor of the House on one of the most important international conferences ever to have taken place—the world summit on sustainable development, in Johannesburg? Alternatively, does he think—perhaps this is a question for you, Mr. Speaker, rather than for the Leader of the House—that the all-embracing omnibus DEFRA debate in a week's time might give us the opportunity to raise these important issues?
Mr. Cook: I am happy to confirm that the debate next Thursday will provide the opportunity for issues relevant to the Johannesburg summit to be raised. It is a debate on agriculture and the environment, and DEFRA was, of course, one of the lead Ministries to go to Johannesburg, so it would therefore be entirely competent to raise those issues in that debate. I am well aware of the interest, both in the House and among our constituents, in the contribution that the Government have made to international development, and I personally take great pride in the fact that we have increased by half as much again the overseas aid budget that we inherited from our predecessors. I will certainly look for opportunities for the House to debate that.
Mr. James Wray: In view of the confusion that has been created this week in the
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press and the media over health boards up and down the country, will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the fluoridation of public water supplies? A legal case to prove that Strathclyde regional council was in breach of the Water (Scotland) Act 1946 has cost £2 million, and Lord Jauncey said at the time that he thought that fluoride was a "medicinal product". If that were the case, the council would be in breach of section 130 of the Medicines Act 1968, and would need a product licence to provide fluoride. It would also need to have the product passed by the Committee on the Safety of Medicines. Could we find time to debate this matter in the House?
Mr. Cook: I fear—I say this with deep regret—that this might be an issue on which my hon. Friend and I have differing views. I should declare an interest in that I am vice-president of the British Fluoridation Society. Since my days, long ago, as a health spokesman for my party, I have never been in any doubt that fluoridation has a real and significant impact on dental health. As someone who has had more than his fair share of hours spent in the dentist's chair, I would wish to do all that I can to spare future generations that experience.
Mr. Andrew Turner: May we have a debate on Government abuse of the work permit system? In it, perhaps Ministers could explain to my constituent Toni Prior why her American fiancé, Troy Ridgeway, cannot obtain a work permit—despite the fact that he has gone through the legal process, has a job to go to, a home, and no recourse to public funds—when 1,200-plus permits are available to people from Sangatte who have no known jobs, homes or skills, and have shown their determination to abuse and bulldoze their way through the asylum process.
Mr. Cook: I cannot comment on the case of the hon. Gentleman's constituent—[Interruption.] I think it would be deeply improper of me to comment, given the fragmentary information that I have been given in his question. On Sangatte, the one issue that has been raised more than any other in the Chamber over the past couple of months—including frequently at business questions—is the importance of the Government taking action on the number of people trying to come here illegally from Sangatte. We have now secured an outcome in which the camp is to be closed. We shall now no longer have illegal immigrants coming over from Sangatte. Only four arrived through the channel tunnel in the whole of October. Conservative Members cannot have it both ways. They cannot demand action to close Sangatte, then criticise the Government for achieving exactly that objective.
David Taylor: Following the question from the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) about the decision by Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General and head of the National Audit Office, that the £21 billion loan guarantee to Network Rail should have appeared in the Treasury balance sheets earlier in this Session, will the Leader of the House please find time for a debate on this matter? The amount of off-balance sheet activities that the Chancellor is sanctioning now aggregates to £100 billion or more, which is 10 per cent. of gross

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domestic product. This is more than a concern for sad accountants who ought to get out more; it is a concern for the House. We should demonstrate to the public at large that decisions at the heart of our economic strategy are based on professional decisions and not on political dogma.
Mr. Cook: I am not quite sure what point my hon. Friend was making in his closing remark. [Interruption.] No, I mean that genuinely. I believe that we have immensely handicapped the investment in our public sector by the way in which we have refused to recognise that the economic activity of investment in our transport system has precisely the same economic impact whether it is done by the public or the private sector. If it is right for Network Rail to invest when it is a private company, it must plainly also be right and economically beneficial for it to do so when it is within the public sector. My hon. Friend should not be putting up barriers against sensible investment in our future transport system, which will be good and efficient and will make Britain more competitive.
Mr. Mark Francois: Will the Leader of the House find time for an early debate on the subject of increasing violence between next-door neighbours? I understand that, only recently, a married man living in the Westminster area was viciously mugged by his highly aggressive next-door neighbour after a long-running dispute over something called top-up fees. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether there is any truth in the rumour that the Prime Minister has now officially applied for an antisocial behaviour order against his own Chancellor?
Mr. Cook: I—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer!"] For a moment there, time stood still for me. I think that the hon. Gentleman was trying to be funny—
Mr. Keith Simpson: Yes, he was.
Mr. Cook: Ah! I am glad to have that confirmation, because there was some doubt on this side of the House as to whether he was so trying. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, if he waits for the review next year, he will find that all neighbours within the Government are in full support of each other.
Mr. John Battle: Further to the question on asbestos from my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham), if a proposal from a Conservative Front Bencher in the House of Lords on the annulment of regulations that have been debated in the House in Government time and signed into law can be passed, where does that leave us in terms of the process? The regulations on white asbestos are long overdue and we cannot afford a parliamentary ping-pong while people go unprotected.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Get rid of the Lords.
Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) expresses a characteristically robust view.
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Clearly, that is an issue of great gravity and of considerable and wide political interest. I am sure that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will take note of our exchanges and whatever outcome there may be next week.
Mr. John Bercow: Further to the Leader of the House's disappointing replies on top-up fees to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), may I reiterate the plea for an urgent clarificatory statement of Government policy? Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise the fact that, for so long as Ministers continue to argue like ferrets in a sack, doubt will continue to persist as to whether he stands by his statement of 24 April 1997 to Leeds university student radio, to wit, "Tuition costs must be picked up by the state. We are quite clear about that"?
Mr. Cook: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking me down memory lane. My interview at Leeds university had slipped my mind, but I shall certainly make a point of reinvestigating it.
Again, I must tell the House that if we are to have a review and if that review is then to provide a number of options, there is no point whatever in the House trying to decide which options should be in and which should be out before the first paper has even been published. It is important that the Government should have the capacity to propose options for consultation for debate, and I think it important that the Government should ask hard questions and be willing, occasionally, to ask themselves tough questions. That does not necessarily mean that the specific tough questions may be those that result in the chosen option, but we should not try to close down a debate before it has even begun.
Mr. Ian Davidson: Will the Leader of the House consider scheduling a debate following yesterday's announcement in Germany that unemployment there has risen to 4.16 million, which is 9.7 per cent. of the working population? Only seven constituencies in this country have a greater percentage of unemployed. Given that we are constantly being told that the euro is a great success, can we have a debate on what failure means?
Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend has strong views on those matters. If I may, I invite him to retain, if it is possible, perhaps not an open mind, but just the chink of a loophole in his mind to accept some new ideas on them when we receive the economic assessment. On the specific question of Germany, if he reviews the matter with German industrialists, he will find that many of them are clearly of the view that the German export industry would have been badly hit had Germany stayed out of the euro.
Mr. David Cameron: Will the Leader of the House find time for an urgent debate on the future of adult placement schemes? I raised the matter in the summer Adjournment debate, I have written letters to Ministers and tabled written questions, but I have not received a single answer. Is he aware that families who take in vulnerable adults and keep them out of the care

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system are giving up because they are regulated by the National Care Standards Commission and they have to work through 33 policies and a huge bureaucracy? Why cannot they be regulated by local social services departments, just like foster care schemes and as they were for many years?
Mr. Cook: While it is important to have a local dimension to any inspection system, it is also important that schemes are operating to national standards. I would not accept any criticism of the importance of our having national standards to ensure that adults in care are properly cared for. I shall draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of the Secretary of State responsible, who may wish to write to him, but I see nothing wrong with having national standards to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
Mr. John Lyons: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the case of my constituent, Mr. Sandy Mitchell, who has been sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia. The legal process is under way in that country. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that time is found for Ministers to keep the House informed of any developments?
Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend touches on one of a number of very distressing cases that are of real concern to Her Majesty's Government. We have repeatedly made representations on those cases and our consul in Saudi Arabia is in contact. My hon. Friend rightly refers to what one might describe as the opaque character of the Saudi Arabian judicial system, but we will do all that we can within the limits of operating under that system to ensure that the case is represented and to secure fair treatment of Sandy Mitchell and the others who have been accused.
Mr. Andrew Lansley: May I reiterate the request for a debate made by the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins)? In January 2002, the Strategic Rail Authority told my constituents that the West Anglia Great Northern modernisation and enhancement would be complete by 2006–07. Now we are told that it may happen in five, 10 or 15 years, if at all. The Leader of the House must recall that the chairman of the SRA, Richard Bowker, said in January that that plan marked a line in the sand. When will the House have an opportunity to find out what happened between January 2002 and today that means that all those potential rail network enhancements have been thrown out of the window?
Mr. Cook: In fairness to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, he has taken action to try to ensure that we can achieve greater certainty and a greater sense of priorities among the major projects that
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are necessary to modernise our railway system. The Conservatives, however, suspended virtually all investment during the rail industry privatisation, which resulted in spectacular failures of investment in major lines, so it hardly lies in the mouth of a Conservative Member who supported that privatisation to criticise us as we try to sort out the mess that they left behind.
John Cryer: Following on from the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen), there seems to be a widespread and genuine belief that the Government intend not to transfer the tube from the aegis of London Underground Ltd. to Transport for London. Some of us have dealt with the senior London Underground managers and, if for no other reason, we are filled with alarm when we envisage them dealing with some of the sharpest operators in Britain in the form of Jarvis and the others. Can we have a debate, or at least a statement, to clarify the confusion that seems to be generated as to the tube's future?
Mr. Cook: I am happy to do what I can to roll back any confusion that may exist. As I understand the position, there is no doubt that Government policy is to transfer London Underground to Transport for London. The only question that has arisen in the light of the Secretary of State's statement is how quickly we can do that. Plainly, it is difficult to contemplate transferring London Underground when the Mayor of London is still maintaining the possibility of legal action to stop the PPP proceeding. The way forward is perfectly clear and perfectly simple: the Mayor of London has to accept that London needs a modern underground system. It needs investment to secure that, and the way to get ahead with that investment is to allow the PPP to proceed. We must not put the money into the lawyers rather than into the underground.
Mr. Roy Beggs: Will the Leader of the House make time for the Foreign Secretary to come to the House to make a statement on UK relationships with Iran and afford the opportunity to discuss the abuse of human rights there as well as the execution of women and of prisoners who are politically opposed to the brutal regime of the mullahs? I believe that the matter is urgent, and there are allegations that Iran, too, is acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Cook: Of course, there are human rights abuses in Iran—indeed, the Government have repeatedly condemned and made representations about them—but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to discuss our relations with Iran he should also recognise that there have been elections in which the overwhelming majority of those voting elected for people who want to take Iran forward in the 21st century and who want to roll back the repressive power of the mullahs. It does not help those who want change and modernisation in Iran to confuse their representatives with those mullahs to whom he refers.

Local Government Financial Settlement 2003–04
1.19 pm
The Minister for Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): With permission, I should like to make a statement about local authority revenue finance for England 2003–04.
I am pleased to be able to announce that next year's local government settlement will see total support from Government grant and business rates of £51.2 billion. That is a cash increase on this year's settlement of £3.8 billion, or 8 per cent. It provides substantial real-terms growth in the funding we are providing for local government. The £51.2 billion consists of £24.3 billion in revenue support grant, £15.6 billion in business rates, £4.1 billion in police grant and £7.3 billion in special and specific grants. Today, I am announcing details of the allocation to individual authorities of the £39.9 billion of revenue support grant and business rates. Taken together with the police grant, that represents an increase of 5.9 per cent. cash over this year's allocation.
We announced last year that from 1 April next year we would introduce a system for distributing grant between authorities that would be fairer, more transparent and more just. Members will know that we have taken a long hard look at the grant distribution system. We had no doubts about the need to replace the outdated and discredited standard spending assessment system, but developing a robust, appropriate and fair replacement has been a challenging task, not least because of the many competing claims from different categories of local authority.
We held detailed discussions with local government and those with expertise in this area as we looked at all the current formulae and the options for change. We held 15 meetings of the technical group in just over a year, and many more meetings were held with those with an interest, covering education, police, personal social services and other council services. We then carried out a wide-ranging consultation on those options, including useful seminars and debates in the House in which Members let us know their views. The consultation paper included 47 specific options, and another 52 exemplifications were carried out at the request of local authorities.
We received some 55,000 responses to the options on which we consulted over the summer. More than 1,000 of those came from councils, members of the public, Members of Parliament, business organisations and others with an interest; the remainder were sent in response to various campaigns. Several petitions were also received. I announced the publication of an analysis of those responses earlier today by means of a written statement. Copies of the analysis have been placed in the Vote Office.
To reach a conclusion we needed to balance the pressures, the evidence and the representations. One of the major problems with the old SSA system was that it attempted to take a view on what authorities needed to spend. That was unrealistic and inconsistent with our approach to devolving responsibilities, so we will not continue the arrangement. Notional spending allocations do not imply anything about the budget or spending choices that will need to be made. Councils,
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in consultation with their council tax payers, should properly take such decisions. The one exception is in respect of the Government's key priority of education: we have said that we want to see authorities pass on increases to schools. In summary, the purpose of the new system will be to distribute grant according to authorities' relative circumstances and relative ability to raise resources from council tax.
The new grant distribution formula will, in the main, no longer rely on past spending patterns. That is one of the main criticisms of standard spending assessments. The new formula will ensure that the distribution of grant is relevant to the circumstances that councils face now, reflecting up-to-date spending patterns where appropriate.
We have worked hard to make the system less complex and difficult to understand. This was never going to be easy. The sheer size of the sums going to local authorities, the wide-ranging responsibilities undertaken by councils and the differing circumstances faced by authorities across England mean that there will inevitably continue to be a degree of complexity in the formulae used. However, we have simplified the structure of the system, which can be summarised as a basic allocation to each authority with top-ups reflecting particular circumstances such as deprivation, high wage costs and sparsity.
The formulae also no longer include the perverse incentives and inadequate indicators that were present in the old system. For example, the old fire formula was based on the number of calls each authority received. That meant they had little financial incentive to improve fire safety and safety education, and so reduce the number of calls. We have tried to remove such anomalies from the new system.
Many Members will have a particular interest in our decisions on the area cost adjustment. We have concluded that pay costs should be recognised within the system, but the ACA has been redesigned to minimise the "cliff-edge" effect. It will in future better reflect the different circumstances in London and the south-east, and the fact that authorities outside those areas have differing pay costs. It will also reflect the needs of areas outside the south-east with high pay costs.
We have also increased the extent to which the system takes account of councils' relative ability to raise council tax, known as resource equalisation. It means that we make a more realistic assumption about average council tax. It does not mean that we reward high spending.
We have made good the promise to ensure that no authority's schools will lose out in real terms from the changes. The new education formula ensures that every education authority's per-pupil allocation will rise by at least 3.2 per cent. in cash terms, well above inflation.
The environmental, protective and cultural services formula has been greatly simplified, and now better recognises the basic costs that all authorities face. We have made some detailed changes to personal social services, simplifying the system so that there is now a single formula for residential and domiciliary care for older people—although as PSS was reformed comparatively recently, these changes are less extensive than others. We have listened to the argument put to us by small authorities, particularly shire districts, that

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they face a fixed "cost of being in business". We have allocated a flat-rate £300,000 element to most classes of authority to recognise that cost.
As I promised, the system will incorporate floors and ceilings to safeguard authorities from excessive short-term variations in grant. For the last two years we have guaranteed that no authorities would receive less grant than they did in the previous year on a like-for-like basis. Councils with education and social service responsibilities did significantly better, of course, and last year we were able to ensure that all councils received a grant increase at least in line with inflation. As Members will know, we have already made it clear that no local authorities will receive a cut in grant next year in cash terms.
The "floors" will ensure that every authority in the scheme gets a reasonable level of grant increase, given the overall distribution and the total level of funding available. To pay for the floors we will impose a maximum on grant increases, and scale back the rises received by authorities between those two levels. I am pleased to be able to announce that I am setting the floor levels so that in 2003–04 all authorities will receive a grant increase on a like-for-like basis well ahead of inflation. That means a real-terms increase in grant for all authorities.
The floor increases in cash terms for police and fire authorities and shire districts will be 3 per cent. The floor for unitary authorities, county councils, metropolitan districts and London boroughs will be 3.5 per cent. To pay for the floor increases we will set a ceiling of 4.9 per cent. for single-service police and fire authorities including the Greater London Authority, 8 per cent. for unitary authorities—county councils, metropolitan districts and London boroughs—and 12.5 per cent. for shire districts. Increases above the floor but below the ceiling will be scaled back by 5.4 per cent. for police and fire authorities, 1.3 per cent. for shire districts, and 4.6 per cent. for authorities with education and social service responsibilities.
As I said earlier, we will phase in the new education formula in such a way that no authority's schools will lose out in real terms. The education formula will incorporate a floor of 3.2 per cent., in cash terms, and a ceiling of 7 per cent. per pupil.
In addition to the increases in funding for local authorities' general grant, we are providing further increases in grants for specific initiatives. Of key importance will be the neighbourhood renewal fund, which will allocate £400 million of grant via local strategic partnerships to help support and kick-start public services in the most deprived areas—£100 million more than in the current year. On a like-for-like basis, local authorities will receive £1.3 billion more next year in special and specific grants.
As we promised in the local government White Paper, we have looked closely at these grants to ensure that ring fencing is kept to the minimum necessary. Members will be aware from the recent announcement on freedoms and flexibilities that the proportion of funding paid to local authorities as ring-fenced grants will, on current plans, be reduced over the three years of the spending review. Excellent councils will also receive additional
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freedoms from ring fencing. Ring-fencing revenue funding is set to decrease from 12.4 per cent. to below 10 per cent. by 2005–06.
Our plans for next year provide local authorities with good increases in grant. The increases mean that since 1997 we have raised Government grant to local authorities by some 25 per cent. in real terms, compared with a 7 per cent. reduction in real terms in the last four years of the previous Administration.
There could be no clearer illustration of our commitment to supporting and helping local authorities to deliver the strong local leadership and quality public services that local residents rightly expect and that local government wants to provide.
Given the significance of the review that we have undertaken, local authorities have understandably been awaiting today's announcement with some anxiety. Some authorities have been predicting a settlement under which councils will have to make cuts or impose significant council tax increases. I am glad that today's announcement demonstrates that those fears, and the scaremongering from our political opponents about cuts in grants, were unfounded and unjustified. The good increases in funding provided by the spending review, the realistic levels of floors and ceilings we have been able to set, and the decisions we have taken on the distribution of grant to local authorities mean that there is no reason why councils cannot continue to improve services while sticking to reasonable council tax increases. Today's proposals are good news for local government and as such I commend them to the House.
Mr. Eric Pickles: I should like to say a little more than the ritual thanks to the Minister for giving us early sight of the statement. To his great credit, he went out of his way to ensure that all hon. Members have a very clear idea of the changes. I am sorry, therefore, to start on a slightly sour note, but I shall be brave about it.
A written ministerial statement promised that the consultation analysis would be available in the Vote Office and the Library. I am sorry to tell the Minister that it is not to be found in either place; I hope that his officials will ensure that that is rectified.
Today, we know the real cost of the Chancellor's vanity and who pays the price of his failure to add up the figures in March. Today, we will see for the first time ordinary families on ordinary salaries in ordinary homes facing £1.000 council tax bills. In the few short years since Labour started to target them, ordinary families' council tax bills have risen by more than 40 per cent. Council tax bills of £1,000 are just the start. The Government have promised a 16 per cent. increase in council tax over two years—a slippery stealth tax buried on page 197 of the pre-Budget report: so much for open government. Council tax bills of £1,000 will be in addition to the £35 a week for every man, woman and child that will be paid in extra taxation. The Government propose the introduction of a new band of council tax, which will push even more middle-income families into higher bands, particularly in the south-east and London. This will make matters worse.

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In last year's statement on the local government finance settlement the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers), said:
"There is no reason why we should see large increases in council tax"—[Official Report, 4 December 2001; Vol. 376. c. 169.]
Yet average council tax in England went up by 8.5 per cent.—four times the rate of inflation and the biggest cash increase in the history of council tax. However, the right hon. Gentleman should recognise that last year was part of the grand tradition of local government settlements established by the Deputy Prime Minister, who said in his statement in 1998:
"we look to local authorities to set sensible budgets that will keep council tax increases as small as possible."—[Official Report, 5 February 1998; Vol. 305, c. 1259.]
The reality was that different council taxes rose by 8.6 per cent. in band D—three times the rate of inflation.
The Minister has just said that the distribution of grant to local councils means that there is no reason why councils cannot continue to improve services while sticking to a reasonable council tax increase, yet the Government have promised a rise of 16 per cent. over two years, or seven times the rate of inflation—a rise caused mainly by this settlement and the rising burdens that the Government have placed on local government.
Last year the former Secretary of State promised:
"From 2003, we will introduce a system that is transparent, fair and just.""—[Official Report, 4 December 2001; Vol. 376, c. 169.]
It is right that we should judge him on those criteria. The Deputy Prime Minister has added his own special touch of mystery and ambiguity to a system that was complex and incomprehensible. We now have a system that is more complex, opaque and unjust than the one that it seeks to replace. The labels may have changed, but the reality remains the same. This is looking less like a consultation exercise and more like the last page of "Animal Farm", when the animals could not tell the pigs from the people. All this has been done just to transfer money from Conservative authorities to Labour ones. It seems that the Government are using a particularly heavy sledgehammer to give money to a few nuts.
It seems that the front-page headline in The Times in July was right when it predicted:
"Labour will tax Tory voters to fund heartlands"
Mr. Steven Pugsley of the Rural Services Partnership said that
"taking money away from rural services at a time when communities are looking far ministers' reassurance that they have their interests at heart would be unforgivable. The options under consideration would decimate vital services to market towns, villages and rural communities"
Last year, the Government made great play of the fact that there would be no scaling back of grant to pay for the floors and ceilings. The effect of scaling back falls on to a relatively small number of authorities. Birmingham would lose £1 million, Oxfordshire would lose £800,000 and Derbyshire £750,000. This year the Minister has announced the reintroduction of scaling back. What is the cost of this scale-back and will he confirm that it will affect local education authorities? How much money will be cut from education?
The new system depends heavily on a council's ability to raise council tax—resource equalisation. The Minister hopes optimistically that this does not mean
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that we will reward high spending, but it does mean that well-run councils that have been prudent and kept council tax down will be penalised. The system will penalise debt-free authorities that will face having their capital receipts raided to pay for badly run authorities.
Let us put partisanship aside for a moment. Next week we will have the verdict of the Audit Commission on councils in England. Conservative Members suspect that high-performing authorities will lose grant and need the protection of the floor announced today. Equally, we suspect that low-performing authorities will be rewarded by the settlement. Will the Minister give a guarantee that this will not happen?
Poverty and need are treated differently depending on where one lives. Can the Minister explain why, under the formula, Lancashire receives £85.48 more per child than Leicestershire and why Durham receives £83.20 more per child than Buckinghamshire? Is it not a sad reflection on the formula that Labour has chosen to ignore and airbrush out rural poverty?
The minimum grant or floor announced today will be insufficient to meet the needs of local education authorities in that it refers only to schools and pupils. This complex minimum grant takes no account of pressures facing LEAs such as school transport and special educational needs. If authorities are forced to apply for grants wholly on education, little will be left to fund other front-line services. This will lead to a macabre game of musical chairs. Councils will raid social services budgets; pressure from the needs of the elderly will lead to bed-blocking, which in turn will cause the Government to fine authorities, leading to an increase in council tax. It makes no sense to have different Government Departments tugging each other and local authorities in opposite directions, all because, in the words of The Times:
"Labour will tax Tory voters to fund heartlands".
Does the Minister agree with the Chancellor's estimate that council tax will increase by 16.3 per cent. over two years? Will he confirm that band D properties will incur bills of £1,000 for the first time? How many authorities, and how many local education authorities, will receive just the floor figure? How many LEAs' grant will be subject to scaling back, and can the Minister explain the curious fact that, according to his statement, the amount raised through business tax is £1 billion down on the figure published in Hansard last year?
This is a missed opportunity. Consensus could have been reached on reform of the system; instead, the Minister has chosen to ignore advice from Members on both sides of the House. This is the same old Labour, and the same old fiddled figures.
Mr. Raynsford: To change the tone, may I start by thanking the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) for his kind words about the provision of information? I say to him quite openly that this is a complex subject, and we tried our best to ensure that all Members had the opportunity to see the figures, and to understand what we are seeking to do. The full details are in the Vote Office, but, according to the normal convention, they were accessible only from the moment that I sat down.
The Opposition have been scaremongering about council tax increases for some time—long before this settlement. They talked about the threat of cuts in

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services, and about huge council tax increases, but those claims were based on wholly erroneous and unjustified interpretations of the consultation. It is now absolutely clear, as I hope they will have the good grace to admit, that all that scaremongering was unjustified. I hope that they will at least ponder the contrast between this Government's 25 per cent. increase in support for local government over six years, with the 7 per cent. real-terms cut under the Tories.
The hon. Gentleman's claim that the settlement will force up council tax is simply wrong, as is his claim that rural areas will suffer a loss. If he looks at the detailed figures, he will note that rural shire districts across the country as a whole get a 7.6 per cent. grant increase. What a contrast that is with the individual cuts that they suffered under the Tory Government! I can attribute his claim that the scaling factor will result in a loss to education authorities only to his misunderstanding of what it is. The scaling factor is designed to help to pay for the cost of the floors. The floors are supported first by the ceilings, but authorities that would otherwise receive more than the ceiling do not do so, and the scaling factor reduces by a very small margin the grant—
Mr. Pickles: What is it worth?
Mr. Raynsford: I have already given the hon. Gentleman the figures. They are in the statement, which he had for three hours before the debate, and I am astonished that he has not even bothered to discover them.
The hon. Gentleman's suggestion that high-performing authorities are somehow going to be penalised is quite wrong. There is no correlation between the work done by the Audit Commission, which is looking at the performance of authorities, and the needs assessment that informs the distribution. He will see that some high-performing authorities receive very good grant increases, and that some authorities that are performing less well also do so. That is because the two activities are quite separate. I am sorry that he has failed to understand that.
The hon. Gentleman's criticism of the children's education allowance is particularly ill-founded in a year in which we can state that, overall, there is a £200 per pupil average increase. That is in marked contrast to what happened when the Tories were in power. He confused the Chancellor's estimate of council tax increases in the Red Book, based on previous year trends, with what will actually happen, which will be a matter for individual authorities to determine. He also asked about the number of authorities that will get the floor level increase. The answer is clear from the figures that I have already provided, but he ought to be pleased that the floor is there. Without it, many authorities would suffer losses.
I shall pause for a moment to describe one scenario. Westminster city council has faced a real problem, not because of anything to do with our Department but because of the census data, which show a significant fall in the population of that area. Were a floor not in place, that authority would have suffered a serious reduction.
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Is he complaining about our efforts to provide protection for authorities through such a floor? His remarks suggest that the Conservatives have a wholly unsatisfactory understanding of what we are seeking to do. Their approach to local government has been condemned by their own record in government.
Mr. Edward Davey: I thank the Minister for his statement, and for his courtesy in providing a particularly early sight of these very complex figures. I begin by welcoming a particular aspect of the statement. The Government have listened to some of the representations that were made. I am glad that Ministers have now checked the map and that they now recognise that Kingston-upon-Thames is not in east London
Overall, however, the statement is extremely worrying for my constituents and for millions more. Rather than increasing council freedoms, the statement is a control-freak statement. Rather than being generous with Government money, the settlement is generous only with council tax payers' money. Does the Minister not realise that he has utterly failed to deliver on his promise of a fairer, more transparent and simpler system? Is it not true that, under the new system, there will be large council tax rises in the worst-hit areas for several years? How can that be fair?
Despite the Minister's claim that he is reducing ring fencing, most councils will see more special grants next year. He has abolished seven special grants and introduced 16 new ones, but how can feeding that financial fog increase transparency? Is it not true that, by looking solely at the grant system and failing to replace the unfair council tax, and to take budget power from Whitehall, the Government have missed the chance to establish a genuinely simpler system? As the Minister admitted, the Treasury predicts a 7.2 per cent. rise in council tax next year, but do not the Government always underestimate council tax rises—by a massive 3.1 per cent. last year? Is there not a real threat that average council tax rises next year could top 10 per cent.—four times the expected rate of inflation? The Government cannot duck the blame for rocketing council tax. It is Ministers who place councils in a financial straitjacket, with less room to move than Houdini, but they cannot escape the blame.
The Minister claims that his floors and ceilings will protect council tax payers, but he has set the level very low. Does he acknowledge that, at best, such protection will be partial and short-lived? What will happen in year 2 or in year 3, when the changes really kick in? If he is so concerned with protecting the losers, why were the Government not honest enough to announce the floors for years 2 and 3? Not only would that have shown the truth about this statement; councils could have planned for the future. Indeed, through his own local government Bill the Minister will force councils to plan budgets over the longer term, yet in this statement he is refusing to give councils the very information that they need to make those plans. Is he not just a little shamefaced about that hypocrisy?
The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) complained greatly about shifting cash between different authorities: I say "Westminster and Wandsworth" to that. Will the Minister at least concede, however, that huge shifts leave him open to the

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charge of gerrymandering? Does he not realise that, because the grant review was so rushed, that charge will stick? Will he confirm that he has breached Cabinet Office guidelines on good consultation by releasing the consultation's conclusions along with his settlement? Should not the Government have learned from their embarrassing mistakes in last year's settlement, and from the A-level debacle, and delayed the review by one year to allow for a full and independent analysis?
The most disappointing aspect of today's statement is without doubt the Minister's failure to bring clarity and equity to local education authority budgets. In so doing, he has ignored the principal recommendations of every professional group: Ofsted, the Audit Commission, and head teachers and governors associations. Why did he reject their idea that the bulk of education standard spending should be distributed using an activity-led formula? Given that the Government are increasingly telling schools what to do, why has he abandoned the principle of activity-led funding in favour of the discredited historical spend data? Will he explain to the House how schools appear to have lost £250 million between the Chancellor's spending review and this statement?
It was noticeable that the Minister did not bother to boast about increases for social services. Frankly, we are not surprised. Will he confirm that, with increased demand pressures and national insurance costs, the settlement represents at best a standstill for social services? How will that solve bed blocking and help children at risk? The Government may say that it will take time to make up for the lost years of Conservative underfunding, but social services are often life-and-death services. Why have they fared so badly?
The Minister said that the Government were removing the perverse incentives in the formula for fire authorities. When will he publish the new formula?
When they began the settlement process Ministers promised to move a mountain, but they have brought forth a molehill. The Minister can rightly claim that this is a better settlement than any delivered by a Conservative Government, but it will mean council tax hikes and little new cash for the most vulnerable. It will certainly not lead to the rebirth of local democracy.
Mr. Raynsford: I thought that the spokesman for the official Opposition had made a pretty poor fist of his response—until I heard the Liberal Democrat spokesman's effort. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's acknowledgements of the representations that he made in respect of his constituency, and I am pleased that he is pleased that we listened to them. I shall make no jibes about geography.
I wholly reject the hon. Gentleman's allegation that the Government have a control-freak tendency. The settlement is part of a process in which we are devolving greater power and responsibility to local authorities, as I am sure he will understand when we discuss the Local Government Bill in Committee later in the Session.
The hon. Gentleman complained about council tax rises, without mentioning that Liberal Democrat councils had the largest increases last year. Liberal Democrat Members should look to their local authorities before they criticise others. He also asked why we were not giving absolute guarantees of the floors
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and ceilings for future years. I have explained that ad nauseam, to him and to other hon. Members. Until we see the full details, including the latest demographic data, it is impossible to set an accurate floor that also allows a reasonable gap between it and the ceiling. The hon. Gentleman must understand that. No responsible Government could do otherwise, but we have said repeatedly that there will be floors and ceilings, that there will be protection for authorities, and that there will be greater certainty. That is an indefinite pledge, and we have said that it will be a continuing part of the system. The Government have made a clear commitment that floors and ceilings will continue to be parts of the system.
The hon. Gentleman complained that the Government had not consulted sufficiently. We consulted before we published the consultation paper. We listened to the consultation, and we are publishing the figures today so that they can be consulted on. The Liberal Democrats have an extraordinary approach: they would love life to be one long continuous consultation—all talk and no action.
Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman said, schools have not lost out. They are gaining substantially, as the settlement gives an extra £200 on average per pupil. It is a travesty for the hon. Gentleman to claim that there are losses.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about inadequate funding for social services, even though the settlement contains an overall increase of 5.5 per cent. in PSS resources, and an additional £100 million specifically for bed blocking. Extraordinarily, he omitted to mention that, and even criticised the Government for increasing the number of specific grants. That shows that Liberal Democrat Members have only the most rudimentary understanding of the essentials. Their questions are very wide of the mark.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. This statement has run for just over half an hour already. I have to protect the important business that follows, so I ask hon. Members to restrict their comments to one point only. In that way, I shall be able to call as many hon. Members as possible.
Andrew Bennett: I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for the hard work that he and his ministerial team have put into consulting so widely on this matter. I thank him, too, for the extra money that has been made available, and for edging towards fairness. However, he will come before the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions tomorrow morning. Will he be able to convince that Committee, or my constituents in the Bull's Head, that this system will be more easily understood? Will voters in local elections be able to determine whether their local authorities are efficient and well managed, or whether the funding system is still hampering their activities?
Mr. Raynsford: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks about our consultation, and about the

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settlements in respect of Stockport. Stockport is to receive a 6.8 per cent. increase, and Tameside one of 8.3 per cent. I am sure that he and his constituents will be extremely pleased about that. My hon. Friend raised the question of whether the system was easy to understand. I have openly accepted that it is complex—but the obverse side of the coin of fairness is complexity. One cannot have both fairness and simplicity: to take account of all the myriad circumstances that have to be considered, it is inevitable that the formula has to be reasonably complex. That is unavoidable if one is to be fair. We could have a simple system, but it would not be fair. I do not think that my hon. Friend would like that.
Mr. David Curry: We have a rebadged area cost adjustment, but it may well have more frontiers than its predecessors. We have a new, gothic structure in resource equalisation, which might well prove to be as complex as area cost adjustment. How much of the new structure depends on council tax banding and resources? When the Government allocate money to schools, what account has been taken of the size of school balances? Does the Minister think that school balances should not accumulate beyond certain levels, rather than mounting up and sitting Gollum-like in school treasurers' caves after collection?
Mr. Raynsford: The right hon. Gentleman asked a series of questions, but did not mention that Craven, one of the two districts that he represents, is to receive an increase of 12.5 per cent. I am sure that he and his constituents will be delighted by that. On the education question, my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards will write to the right hon. Gentleman with a detailed response.
Mr. Clive Betts: I want to ask about area cost adjustment. Many of us have argued that my right hon. Friend should take account of the costs that local authorities actually incur, so why has he decided to use the new earnings survey, which reflects costs in the private sector? Why do authorities in the Merseyside area now qualify, whereas those in south Yorkshire and Tyneside do not?
Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend raises an interesting question about area cost adjustment. His authority of Sheffield has received an increase of 6.1 per cent. I am sure that he and his constituents will be very pleased about that. We have reformed the area cost adjustment to ensure that it takes a wider view of areas with especially high costs. Parts of west Yorkshire do qualify, but wages costs are inevitably the driver, and it is not possible for every area to benefit. The settlement is an attempt to recognise that there are additional costs associated with delivering services in high-cost areas, and to do so in a much more sensitive way than the old area cost adjustment mechanism. I think that we have made progress on that.
Mr. Gary Streeter: Does the Minister agree that when he began his statement, every child in Devon received £200 a year less than the
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national average for education, and that now that he has sat down, that serious discrimination remains untackled? Why did the Minister not look at that serious problem affecting west country children, instead of just loading council tax rises on to their parents?
Mr. Raynsford: Children in Devon and elsewhere in the country have benefited from the very substantial increases in education spending that the Government have made over the past six years, and that we continue to make. On average, there is a £200 increase in the amount per pupil this year, and that significant increase follows previous increases. Obviously, circumstances vary between areas, but Devon county council has received a good above-inflation increase of 4 per cent. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is delighted that the district of West Devon, which he represents, has received an 11 per cent. increase in grant.
Mr. Martin Salter: I thank my right hon. Friend for recognising the needs of local authorities that are trying to deliver public services in areas of high housing cost such as Reading, Slough and the Thames valley. An increase of 8.8 per cent. for Reading is welcome, but may I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the need for his Department to give practical help to local authorities desperately trying to boost the amount of affordable an d key worker housing in their areas?
Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend will be as delighted as we are that Reading is receiving an 8.8 per cent. increase and West Berkshire one of 8 per cent. He may wonder why Reading is getting 8.8 per cent., given that the ceiling is 8 per cent. I should have explained that the capital element is outside the floor and ceiling, which is why some authorities can do even better than the ceiling.
My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister attaches great importance to affordable housing, and will announce his proposals for community plans to secure effective communities, more provision of affordable housing and the building of decent communities, particularly in areas of need such as the one that my hon. Friend represents.
Mr. Roger Gale: In his statement, the Minister said that he had made detailed changes to personal social services and simplified things so that there is now a single formula for residential and domiciliary care. In Kent, that appears to mean that the Government are to take millions of pounds from social services and give it to Richmond house, so that the Department of Health can give it back to primary care trusts, so that they can give it back to social services—with all the administrative costs deducted. At the end of the day, my constituents will have to pay more for their residential care. Why?
Mr. Raynsford: Kent has received an above-inflation increase of 3.9 per cent., which is a good settlement by any standards. The Government are particularly concerned about bed blocking, which is a serious problem. It is necessary to do something about it. It does not help if people occupy beds in hospitals unnecessarily because of inefficient provision of alternative accommodation. The arrangements that the Government are putting in place

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are designed to ease that problem. A substantial grant is available to local authorities to help them meet their obligations. I hope that the system will achieve what I know the hon. Gentleman wants and what we certainly want—a reduction in bed blocking.
Mr. Bill O'Brien: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I am glad that the Department is looking at the index of mass deprivation in connection with distributing resources, particularly in education and social services. He referred to the population figures, and the fact that over the past 10 years we have been using the 1991 census figures, with 1 million people incorrectly included in the formula. That means that authorities in SIGOMA—the special interest group of municipal authorities—have been losing out in funding over the past 10 years. I hope that that injustice to SIGOMA has been recognised. Can my right hon. Friend give an indication of how the Government are approaching the funding gap between what local authorities are spending and what they have been allowed?
Mr. Raynsford: I know that my hon. Friend has been campaigning assiduously for a long time not only for his own authority but for others in the parts of the country that he cares about passionately, which are represented by the SIGOMA group. I hope that there will be a broad welcome for the settlement, not just in Wakefield, which is receiving a substantial 7.9 per cent increase, but in many other areas represented by SIGOMA. On population change, we have rightly chosen to include latest population figures and put in place safeguards to ensure that authorities' budgets are not unreasonably disrupted by very sharp short-term movements. We want to use the most up-to-date data on that, as well as on the spending needs that underpin the basis of the new settlement.
Mr. Desmond Swayne: Is there not something utterly perverse about the Minister claiming that there is £100 million in the budget to prevent bed blocking, when £100 million is precisely the figure that the Department of Health has in its budget for the revenue that it will raise from fining local authorities?
Mr. Raynsford: I note that the hon. Gentleman did not make any reference to the 3.7 per cent. increase that his county council has received, which he ought to welcome. Had a Tory Government been in power, his authority would have been facing a cut in its settlement. He should be celebrating the real-terms increases that the Government are delivering. Our concern is to reduce the incidence of bed blocking. It is precisely to encourage and incentivise authorities to do their best to deal with the problem that the arrangements that I have described were put in place.
Mrs. Louise Ellman: I congratulate the Minister on the continuing increase in local government funding. How can the settlement that he has announced help the Liberal Democrats who run Liverpool city council to address the continuing problems of multiple deprivation and population loss?
Mr. Raynsford: I know that my hon. Friend will celebrate the fact that her city has received a 7.3 per cent.
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increase. We did not hear much about that from the Liberal Democrats, did we? All we heard from them was doom and gloom about how poorly local government is doing. Actually, local government knows that the Government have been helping authorities with real-terms increases in grant, and those increases are going to authorities of all political persuasions. There is no discrimination against a particular category of authority. Liverpool should certainly be pleased about the settlement that it has received.
Angela Watkinson: The Minister has given an assurance that no local authority will have a cut in cash terms. The right hon. Gentleman will also know, because I have mentioned it on several occasions, that the London borough of Havering is one of a small group of authorities throughout the country that has received a perversely low settlement under the old formula. Will the Minister give a further assurance that the London borough of Havering will not receive a cut in overall terms?
Mr. Raynsford: Yes, I am pleased to give the hon. Lady that assurance. The Havering settlement involves an increase of 3.5 per cent., which is a good percentage point ahead of inflation, and I hope that she and her constituents will be pleased with it.
Ms Joan Walley: My constituents in Staffordshire Moorlands and Stoke-on-Trent will be asking what extra money there is and whether the allocation is fairer. Will my right hon. Friend tell me how, in respect of neighbourhood renewal funding, it will be possible to make sure that every penny provided will be allocated to the areas of highest deprivation in Stoke-on-Trent?
Mr. Raynsford: I am sure that people in my hon. Friend's constituency will be pleased about the settlement. Stoke-on-Trent is receiving a 6.5 per cent. increase and Staffordshire Moorlands district is getting a 12.5 per cent. increase, which is on the ceiling. So there are good results for my hon. Friend's authorities, and I am sure that her constituents will he pleased. We obviously want the considerable resources allocated through neighbourhood renewal to get through to meet real needs, but that should be determined locally, with the local strategic partnership working with the local authority to ensure that there is an identification of projects dealing with real need that can be the focus for that very important funding.
Mr. David Heath: For about 15 years we have waited for the day when the old formula system was swept away and Somerset schools got a fair deal equal to that of other parts of the country, and we had enough funding to put policemen on our streets. However, that step change in education has not taken place and there will be fewer, not more, police officers in Somerset as a result of the settlement. Is that fair?
Mr. Raynsford: The previous settlement was not introduced 15 years ago but came in more recently, so if the hon. Gentleman has been waiting for a change he has got his figures wrong. That is not altogether

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surprising, because his curmudgeonly question did not recognise the fact that his local authorities have done extraordinarily well out of this settlement. Somerset county council has received a 6.8 per cent. increase and Mendip one of 12.1 per cent., but the hon. Gentleman did not have the decency to recognise that fact.
Mr. Eric Martlew: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Cumbria county council, which is run by the Conservatives in cahoots with the Liberal Democrats, has been saying on its website that the council tax will have to go up because money is being taken away from rural areas? Can he confirm that that is not true? Can he also confirm that Cumbria has a 7 per cent. increase for education—the highest anywhere in the country?
Mr. Raynsford: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I confirm, as I have already said in response to an earlier question, that rural shire districts have done well out of the settlement. It is certainly the case that local authorities in his area have benefited. Cumbria county council is receiving a 4.7 per cent. increase, and Carlisle, I am sure that he will be delighted to know, is getting a 9.9 per cent. increase. I know that his constituents will be really pleased with that.
Sir George Young: For next year, the Government have responded to the strong campaign from Members of Parliament representing Hampshire and elsewhere who were concerned about the big increases in next year's rates by raising the floor above their previous proposal—and we welcome that. But does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there are enormous longer term consequences for Hampshire residents from changes in the formula, and that unless he can go further than he has gone so far today, my constituents will simply assume that the pain has been deferred?
Mr. Raynsford: I know that the right hon. Gentleman is very familiar with these issues, because he occupied my post in a former Government—but of course when his party was in government he had to stand at the Dispatch Box and justify cuts in allocation, whereas I am pleased to be able to tell him that Hampshire county council is receiving an increase of 3.7 per cent., and that his local authority, Test Valley borough council, gets a 5.8 per cent. increase.
As I have said, the floors will continue in the system indefinitely. They play an important role in giving certainty to local authorities. The one thing that I cannot do is to predict precisely what the floor level will be—for reasons that I made clear in answer to an earlier question—but the right hon. Gentleman will know that the floors this year are not that dissimilar from last year's levels. It is certainly our intention to ensure that there are no steep changes in the floors year by year. We have to examine the latest detailed figures before we determine the floors in any one year, but our aim is to try to build consistency and give greater certainty to local government.
Mr. Iain Coleman: I welcome the Minister's statement, but his decision to set
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the floor for London local authorities at 3.5 per cent. will come as a grave disappointment to my local authority, Hammersmith and Fulham. My right hon. Friend is well aware that Hammersmith and Fulham is a high-performing authority, but the borough treasurer advises me that it faces a £10 million cuts package and a likely council tax increase in excess of 10 per cent. Can he assure me that if the local authority can show evidence that the settlement gives them peculiar difficulties, he will meet us and listen to those representations?
Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend's authority is one of several in central and west London that have been affected by the census data to which I referred earlier. I should have thought that he would welcome the fact that there was a floor to protect authorities from suffering a cut. I should have thought that, rather than being disappointed with a floor of 3.5 per cent., he and his constituents would be pleased that the Government have ensured that there is an above-inflation increase for the authority, which would not otherwise have been the case, because of census information.
I entirely acknowledge my hon. Friend's point that Hammersmith and Fulham performs well, and we look forward to seeing the result in the comprehensive performance assessment issued by the Audit Commission next week. High-performing authorities have generally proved their ability to work well and prudently with their budgets and to deliver cost-effective services, and I am sure that my hon. Friend's authority will want to do that.
Mr. Charles Hendry: How will the Minister allay the concerns of East Sussex county council that a small increase may indeed turn out to be a reduction when we take account of the additional responsibilities that the council will be required by the Government to carry out? Is it not the truth that the figures do not compare like with like, because the services that the council has to cover this year have been extended?
Mr. Raynsford: I find it slightly odd that the hon. Gentleman should regard a 3.8 per cent. increase for his authority as a rather poor settlement. He will recall that when his party was in power authorities were getting reductions, not 3.8 per cent. increases. This is a good settlement for the hon. Gentleman and the people of East Sussex and, with the extra margin above inflation that we have granted, it should certainly enable the authority to work prudently and deliver efficient services.
Mr. David Chaytor: I welcome the settlement on behalf of my constituentsߞit is the best that my local authority has ever received. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his work in producing a fairer and simpler system. We can make representations on the new system until 14 January, but does that also apply to the allocation of neighbourhood renewal funds? Does my right hon. Friend accept that the sharp and arbitrary cut-off point for the allocation of neighbourhood renewal funds works against some of the smaller

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metropolitan districts, and others with high levels of deprivation, but where such deprivation does not extend right across several wards?
Mr. Raynsford: I very much appreciate my hon. Friend's extremely kind remarks. I am sure that he and his constituents are delighted at the 8.2 per cent. increase in Bury which is, as he says, the best settlement that it has ever received. I am delighted for him. The Minister for Social Exclusion and Deputy Minister for Women has responsibility for neighbourhood renewal and is holding further consultations about the formulae used to assess eligibility. I cannot promise my hon. Friend more than that, but I am sure that if he talks to my hon. Friend she will be more than receptive to any representations that he would like to make.
Mr. Keith Simpson: During the past few months, the Minister has gone out of his way to consult Members of Parliament and others. He knows that, in an Adjournment debate, I raised the local government finance formula for Norfolk. The Minister will reply now by giving me the headline figures for Norfolk and—in headline terms—they will look reasonably good. However, leaving that aside—as the Prime Minister would say—can the Minister explain to Norfolk taxpayers how that headline figure will equate to all the extra costs that have been loaded on to Norfolk county council during the past two or three years? Next year national insurance will cost us about £600,000. Most of any increase will be taken away, according to his own Government's figures. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to meet me and a delegation of MPs from Norfolk to discuss the formula shortly?
Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman will be aware from correspondence in the local press that there has been a lot of speculation in Norfolk about alleged cuts as a result of the settlement—[HON. MEMBERS: "Scaremongering".] I had to write to point out that it was indeed scaremongering. I am pleased to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that Norfolk county council receives an increase of 6.3 per cent., that Breckland district council receives an increase of 12.7 per cent., and that Broadland district council receives an increase of 12.5 per cent. I should be happy to receive a delegation of the hon. Gentleman and other Members—they will be able to tell me how they intend to spend the extra money that we are giving them.
Mr. David Kidney: Conservative and Labour Staffordshire Members who are absent are hosting a lunch for the distinguished and much respected county clerk, Mr. Bernard Price, who is retiring next year. I know that those Members would have liked to be in the Chamber, especially my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack).
May I add my words of praise to the Minister personally for the great amount of time that he has taken over the consultation for the Green Paper and in holding seminars for Members? Will he confirm that responses from residents in the authorities of the F40 group were prominent among those to both the Green Paper and the consultation? Will he explain whether the focus on the basic allowance approach benefits F40
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authorities? It certainly appears that Staffordshire will benefit, so does he agree that the new focus will see off the scaremongers who said that the new system would be no better for Staffordshire than the old one?
Mr. Raynsford: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks about the consultation and the efforts that we made to ensure that everyone was as familiar as possible with the way in which we were approaching the process. I am sure that he is delighted with the results for his authority: Staffordshire county council receives an increase of 7.1 per cent. and South Staffordshire district council receives an increase of 13 per cent. Those results are extremely good.
My hon. Friend has been an assiduous campaigner on behalf of the F40 group, and the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) met delegations from F40 led by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford on several occasions during the consultation process. He will be pleased to know that overall, the F40 authorities receive an increase of 6.8 per cent.
Mr. Paul Burstow: I thank the Minister for meeting a delegation from the London borough of Sutton during the consultation on the formula review, which appears to have been helpful as regards today's settlement. However, will the Minister tell us whether the scaling-back figures are included in the exemplifications that have been provided for Members? If not, what does that imply for my local authority?
Can the Minister tell us how the £100 million allocated to be paid back to the NHS—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I asked for one question only.
Mr. Raynsford: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for acknowledging the attention that we gave to his representations and I am sure that he is as delighted as his constituents will be that Sutton has received 7 per cent., a good increase. He asked about the scaling factor; he will know that that was applied before these figures were announced. There is no scaling back on the figures announced. It is the process involved in determining the floors and ceilings to ensure that there is a zero sum process to support the floors through both the ceiling and the scaling factor.
Ms Karen Buck: My right hon. Friend will be aware that London local authorities entered into this process with some scepticism and there will be many, such as Brent and Tower Hamlets, that are pleased with a settlement that reflects their high costs and levels of deprivation. My authorities, the Conservative boroughs of Westminster and of Kensington and Chelsea, have spent recent months advising their residents that they can expect cuts of up to £40 million. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that they will receive increases of between £4 million and £7 million, and that the cuts that Westminster proposes—such as the £250,000 play charges for the poorest parents in the borough—are wholly unnecessary?
Mr. Raynsford: There is no justification for scaremongering—no more in Kensington and

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Westminster than in other parts of the country. We have always said that we were seeking a fair settlement and that we would ensure that no council faced losses. As we have put a floor in place, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster, are protected from the consequences of the census data that showed a lower population than had been previously expected. Those factors apply in those authorities as well as in the neighbouring authority of Hammersmith and Fulham, to which I have referred. I am sure that my hon. Friend and her local residents will be relieved that we have a floor in place; otherwise, there would have been a serious consequence from the adoption of the most up-to-date census data.
Mrs. Angela Browning: I seek a direct answer to my question, not a pre-prepared one. Is it still the Minister's intention to sequestrate the capital receipts of debt-free councils and redistribute them, such as the receipts of East Devon district council in my constituency, which has benefited the council taxpayer by keeping taxes low and providing good services and is now to be penalised for that good stewardship? It is, of course, a Conservative-controlled council.
Mr. Raynsford: I am sorry that the hon. Lady has not recognised the extremely generous settlement that we have given to her authority. Not surprisingly, she has not mentioned that Mid Devon will get an increase of 12.5 per cent. We have always taken account of the availability of capital receipts on the principle that it is right that when resources that have been paid for by central Government—housing stock, predominantly—are realised through sale, there should be a contribution to the wider national housing scene. That has always been the case. We are proposing changes relating to debt-free authorities that, as a result of current arrangements, would not be subject to that regime and would get an unfair advantage if that were not changed. That will be part of the legislation going through the House, which the hon. Lady will be able to debate in due course.
Mr. Frank Field: May I thank my right hon. Friend for the statement, and for the way in which he involved people in the long consultation process? Birkenhead has one area with the highest proportion of poor children anywhere in the country. What increase in taxpayers' resources will be going to Wirral council to help provide better services to some of the poorest people in the country?
Mr. Raynsford: I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words. I am sure that he will be delighted that Wirral will receive an increase of 7.7 per cent., which is equivalent to £18.4 million of additional grant. In addition, the authority will be receiving £5 million in neighbourhood renewal funding. These are substantial increases being made available to meet the needs of his deprived community, and I am sure that he will welcome that.
Mr. Michael Portillo: Will the Minister recognise that the floor, though welcome, is
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an insufficient fix to meet the dismaying problem of the very poor response rate to the census, particularly in inner London boroughs? Is it not plausible that part of the problem is the fact that asylum seekers have been given insufficient help in filling out their forms? As at least some of the newcomers from Sangatte will probably find their way to inner London, will the Minister say what plans he has to make sure that local authorities are properly compensated for the costs that they face, at least in the short term?
Mr. Raynsford: Last year the right hon. Gentleman was complaining about the ceiling for Kensington and Chelsea. Had we taken on board his representations that the ceiling was unfair, there would have been no finance for the floor, from which his authority is a beneficiary this year. The census issue is a complex and serious one, and I know that a number of authorities that have seen a substantial reduction in their population in the latest census data compared with what was anticipated are naturally concerned. However, the floor provides protection for those authorities, as I acknowledged in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck). I say the same to the right hon. Gentleman. As far as asylum seekers are concerned, the Government are keen to ensure that there is a robust regime in place to handle our responsibilities and to ensure that there is effective help for authorities that have to meet additional costs because of the presence of asylum seekers in their area.
Mr. David Clelland: My right hon. Friend should be congratulated on finally getting rid of the anomalous and unfair standard spending assessment system; that will be widely welcomed. He has said that one of the factors that he takes into account is the relative ability of authorities to raise council tax. Does he agree that many authorities in the south of England that benefited from the fiddling of the former Government have low council tax bases, and that their ability to raise funds from council taxes is far greater than authorities such as—to pluck a couple out of the air—Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead? Does the settlement fully reflect those differences and, if not, why not?
Mr. Raynsford: I am pleased that my hon. Friend acknowledges the progress that we are making in terms of grants to local government, and in eliminating some of the anomalies and unfairness inherited from the previous Government. I believe that the settlement announced today is good news for both Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead, both of which have received significant increases. Above all, my hon. Friend will be pleased that there is in place a framework that acknowledges the needs of more deprived communities. Deprivation is taken into account and the resource equalisation process helps authorities with high needs but a low council tax base. That is an important element in our new structure.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We must now proceed.

Points of Order
2.30 pm
Mrs. Angela Browning: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to raise a point of order, of which I have given Mr. Speaker notice. I seek your help, because this is the second time that I have had to ask for assistance in obtaining a reply to correspondence that I have sent to the Department of Health. I wrote on behalf of a general practitioner in my constituency, Dr. Stephenson, on 21 June, and despite tabling a named-day question that was due for answer on 25 November, I have been unable to obtain a response from the Department. May I ask for your support in ensuring that the Department responds more efficiently to requests for information from Members of Parliament?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): I suggest that the hon. Lady place that information before the Select Committee on Public Administration.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I recognise the difficulties that the Chair always has on statements such as the one that we have just had, in which so many Members wish to speak. As the only Surrey Member of Parliament who was standing, I was, unfortunately, unable to intervene to protest at the inadequacies of the local government settlement for my area. Can you advise me how I might approach the difficulty that we have when the Minister is armed in advance with the figures for the settlement and the percentages? We cannot get those figures unless we leave the Chamber at a time when we are seeking to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair. The Minister was insufferably smug in responding to every Opposition question with figures in front him that we did not have, and which we could not get unless we left the Chamber. If we did so, we would not have been able to catch your eye. Can you advise us whether it might be possible, with future statements on local government finance, for the Minister to release the figures to all Members of Parliament half an hour before the statement starts, so that we can see the inadequacies of the Government's redirection of funding to their friends in the north before we come into the Chamber?
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I realise that a statement of that importance and magnitude has a dramatic impact on the constituencies of all hon. Members, but the occupant of the Chair ought to have in mind the necessity to call people from the counties. No Derbyshire Member was called, although three—the
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hon. Members for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) and myself—were attempting to speak on an issue that has been great importance for a number of years. I do not think that a Member was called from the east midlands, which has been left out on area cost adjustment. Mr. Speaker told us the other day that he would allow statements that he regarded as important to run on. No statement is more important for all our constituents than the one that has been made today.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yes, I am sorry that I was not called, but I do not complain. All I will say now is that Bolsover hit the ceiling—12.5 per cent.
Mr. Mark Francois: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not notice many Members from Essex being called during the statement, either. We are one of the largest counties in the country. As 75 per cent. of all the county council's money comes from central Government, this issue is vital to 1.5 million people. May I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), that in future when we have a statement on matters as technical as local government finance, it would be helpful if we could at least be given 30 minutes to look through the papers before we have to respond to what the Minister says?
Madam Deputy Speaker: I have considerable sympathy with the many hon. Members who were rising in their places, but whom I was not able to call. It is exceedingly difficult, and those who occupy the Chair try their best, bearing in mind the fact that, of course, some hon. Members have been called during earlier statements on local government finance. I was very aware that hon. Members were leaving the Chamber—I assume, to go to the Vote Office—and returning with bundles of papers, and in no way does that mean that the occupant of the Chair is unlikely to call them during such a statement.

Points of Order
  BILL PRESENTED
    INCOME TAX (EARNINGS AND PENSIONS)
    Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Mr. Secretary Smith, Mr. Paul Boateng, Dawn Primarolo, Ruth Kelly and John Healey, presented a Bill to restate, with minor changes, certain enactments relating to income tax on employment income, pension income and social security income; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to he read a Second time on Monday next, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 13].
ESTIMATES DAY
[1ST ALLOTTED DAY]
ESTIMATES DAY
  VOTE ON ACCOUNT: 2003–04

    Government Drugs Policy
    [Relevant documents: The Third Report from the Home Affairs Committee, Session 2001–02, on The Government's Drugs Policy: Is it Working? (House of Commons Paper No. 318-I); the Government's reply thereto (Cm. 5573); and the Home Office's Annual Report 2001–02 (Cm. 5406).]
    Motion made, and Question proposed, pursuant to Resolution [26 November],
    That resources, not exceeding £4,651,171,000, be authorised, on account, for use during the year ending on 31st March 2004, and that a sum, not exceeding £4,597,261,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, on account, for the year ending on 31st March 2004, for expenditure by the Home Office—[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): I advise the House that the 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches comes into operation when the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) finishes his speech.
    2.32 pm
    Mr. Chris Mullin: That makes a pleasant change, Madam Deputy Speaker.
    May I start by welcoming the Government's new drugs strategy, which was published recently? I am glad to see that it now contains some more realistic targets, with one notable exception: the suggestion that opium production in Afghanistan can be reduced by 70 per cent. in five years and entirely eliminated in 10 years. I think that that is what Sir Humphrey would call "a brave decision, Minister".
    Mr. Nick Hawkins: Courageous.
    Mr. Mullin: At least the Minister has the comfort of knowing that, when the day of reckoning comes, he is unlikely to be still in the post that he now occupies.
    I particularly welcome the increased emphasis on harm minimisation, the commitment to increased resources for treatment and to making heroin available on prescription to chaotic users. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for having taken seriously the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. I hope that he will give further thought to our proposals regarding safe injecting houses.
    I have been a member of the Home Affairs Committee for eight of the past 10 years, and I think I can say that our inquiry into drugs policy was one of the most detailed that we have conducted during that time. I would also like to think that, in due course, our report may prove to be one of the most influential, but the jury is still out on that. We held 11 oral evidence sessions with 45 witnesses, including experts from the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland and, besides their evidence, we also took into account over 200 written submissions.
    As we quickly discovered, there is no one true path. On the contrary, there is an absolute difference of opinion among experts of every relevant profession—
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    doctors, police and social workers. Opinions, all advanced with equal passion, range from those that argue that prohibition has failed and therefore should be abandoned to those that argue that because all drugs are harmful—and they are—existing bans and proscriptions should be maintained or, indeed, tightened. In between, there are many shades of grey.
    May I thank all those, from whatever side of the argument, who helped to guide us through that minefield? In particular, I thank Ruth Runciman, who provided us with valuable help and advice at an early stage in our inquiry and whose report for the Police Foundation on the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is essential reading for serious students of drugs policy and proved extremely helpful to us during our deliberations.
    Perhaps it would be helpful if, at the outset, I were to place on record a few basic facts about drug abuse in this country. First, all illegal drugs and most legal ones are to a greater or lesser extent harmful. That message cannot be repeated too often. However, it is a mistake to pretend that all drugs are equally harmful; they are not, and most young people know that, even if we do not.
    Secondly, legal drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco, are responsible for far greater damage to individuals and to the social fabric in general than illegal ones. To take only the most obvious example, about 120,000 people a year die from tobacco-related diseases compared with about 1,600 who die each year from illegal drug abuse. In addition, an unknown number of injecting drug users die prematurely from HIV and hepatitis C.
    Thirdly, although a substantial number—about half—of our young people dabble in drugs at some stage in their lives, they usually use so-called soft drugs, and happily most of them soon grow out of it. So more than 2 million young people in any year use drugs, usually cannabis or ecstasy. Fourthly, there are about 250,000 so-called problematic drug users in this country—the highest level in Europe—and they are responsible for about half of all acquisitive crime in this country.
    Heroin users are by far and away the biggest problem. They destroy not only their lives, but those of their families and their communities. Despite the best efforts of police and customs, the number of heroin addicts in this country has risen remorselessly over the past 30 years. In 1970, there were only about 1,000; today there are around 200,000. Let no one argue that our drugs policy over the past 30 years has been such an overwhelming success that all we need to do is carry on down the same old road.
    Most of the remaining 50,000 problematic drug users are addicted to crack cocaine. Unlike heroin, which dumbs down people, crack can lead to violent and unpredictable behaviour and is responsible for a growing amount of gang warfare in London and elsewhere.
    Once those basic facts have been digested, certain conclusions are inescapable. First, a policy based upon retribution alone will not work. Given, as I said, that more than 2 million young people dabble with illegal drugs in any year, it is obvious that they cannot all be locked up or even fined. In any case, what is the point of criminalising tens of thousands of young people who are in every other respect law abiding, most of whom are

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    unlikely to inflict lasting damage on themselves or anyone else—although some do—and who will grow out of it anyway in due course?
    Mr. Jon Owen Jones: I wonder whether my hon. Friend watched television last night and saw a remarkable young man, destined for great things—perhaps he will be Prime Minister one day—Master Will Straw. Will my hon. Friend reflect on the fact that, in the opinion of some hon. Members, the best thing for Master Will Straw, as a supplier of what will now become a category C drug, would be for him to spend a very long period in jail? What good would that do?
    Mr. Mullin: As I think my hon. Friend wants me to say, it would do no good at all. As I recall, however, Will Straw's father took the appropriate action at the time, which, I hope, put him on the straight and narrow.
    Secondly, law enforcers should overwhelmingly target those who deal in drugs for profit, especially those that cause the most harm—heroin and crack cocaine.
    The third inescapable conclusion is that drug addiction is overwhelmingly a health problem and should be treated as such. It is now widely recognised in this country and others that harm minimisation is a thread that should run through all policy on drug abusers, concentrating in particular on those who are doing the most damage to themselves and to society. Overwhelmingly, that means heroin users. The prize for society as a whole is large. If we can reduce the number of heroin users, we will reduce the amount of burgling and mugging by addicts seeking to fund a habit. Research conducted for the Home Office shows that for every £1 spent on treatment, about £3 is saved in costs to the criminal justice system.
    Simon Hughes: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us his view or that of his Committee on whether the experiment in Lambeth produced the right response from the authorities—concentrating on the hard end and not spending time and effort on soft drugs? Does he accept the view of the Home Office research study, which shows that cannabis, on the balance of the evidence, is not a gateway drug, and that little evidence exists to suggest that somebody who starts on cannabis moves automatically or naturally from there to other more serious drugs?
    Mr. Mullin: I have not read the research to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I agree that cannabis is not necessarily a gateway to other harder drugs; it is in some cases, but cigarettes are just as likely—in some cases, more likely—to lead to harder drugs. With regard to the Lambeth experiment, I have no detailed knowledge of it, except to say that one of the effects of conducting such an experiment in isolation in one borough is to pull in so-called drug tourists, which somewhat skewed the way in which the experiment was viewed. It must be right, however, to focus remorselessly on those who deal in the hardest drugs and those that cause the most damage to society as a whole.
    My fourth inescapable conclusion is that harm minimisation means that we need to be realistic about the relative harm caused by different types of drugs. At
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    present, the law is an ass. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, ecstasy is classified alongside heroin and crack cocaine as a class A drug, supply of which attracts a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and possession of which attracts a maximum sentence of seven years. Furthermore, existing law makes no distinction between dealing for profit and so-called social supply: a group of young people sharing among themselves. The Select Committee concluded that the law should recognise such a distinction. Purely on the basis of the science, we also recommended—as did the Police Foundation previously—that ecstasy should be reclassified from class A to class B, for which, incidentally, substantial penalties are still available. I am sorry that the Home Secretary did not take that up.
    Pete Wishart: I wholly agree with the Home Affairs Committee's conclusion that it is absurd for ecstasy to be grouped with heroin and cocaine, because that diminishes the arguments against heroin and cocaine. Does not the hon. Gentleman agree, however, that it should not be included in class B with amphetamines and barbiturates? Did the Home Affairs Committee consider broadening the bands and having wider categories for all illegal drugs?
    Mr. Mullin: What the hon. Gentleman says sounds as if it makes sense, but I would want to study the matter further before venturing a firm opinion. I am in no doubt, however, that drugs need to be categorised according to their degree of harmfulness. After that, it becomes a scientific issue. On ecstasy and perhaps one or two other drugs, the science is clear.
    The logic that applies to ecstasy applies to cannabis, too. The Committee therefore welcomes the Home Secretary's proposal to reclassify cannabis from class B to class C. He has since said that he proposes to extend police powers of arrest not just to cannabis users but to all other category C drugs. At first glance, that seems to be a step backwards rather than forwards, and I should be grateful if the Minister would address that point when he replies.
    A policy of harm minimisation requires realistic, honest education targeted on those at most risk. It should address the harmful effects of all drugs, including alcohol and cigarettes. On illegal drugs, it should focus on those that are most harmful, which, in most cases, means heroin. The message needs to be simple and unambiguous: heroin is a loser's drug. That message should be directed at communities with the highest incidence of heroin abuse, and at the most vulnerable young people, who are often underachievers and school drop-outs, and those from communities in which work for the unskilled has collapsed, as it has in some of the ex-pit villages of Nottinghamshire, south Yorkshire and County Durham. In that respect, I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) in highlighting the problems in his area. Above all, the education message should be delivered by people with street cred—not by men in suits—and ideally by recovered addicts.
    In conclusion, I should mention that some people believe that we ought to go further. We took a good deal of evidence on that. Some of those who gave evidence to us argued that we should decriminalise all drug use, concentrate law enforcement entirely on dealing, and,

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    for users, concentrate only on education and harm minimisation. That is more or less what has already happened in countries such as Portugal. We rejected decriminalisation because, apart from the obvious political realities, we thought that it would send the wrong message to the 50 per cent. of young people who at no time in their lives touch illegal drugs, many of whom, according to research, are deterred precisely because drug taking is illegal, and, of course, because they care about the effects on their health. Nevertheless, we should study carefully what is happening in Portugal and elsewhere to see what we might learn from it.
    Others argue that all currently illegal drugs should be legalised and regulated in the way that cigarettes are. Some surprising and serious people hold that view, including a former chief constable, a former British ambassador to Colombia who had first-hand experience of the devastating impact of the American-sponsored war on drugs in that country, and Mr. Fulton Gillespie, a most impressive witness, whose son had died of a heroin overdose, and who believed that his son would still be alive today if heroin were legalised and regulated. Their arguments were that prohibition has failed, that most of those who have been killed by heroin died because it had been adulterated by criminals or because they had taken the wrong dosage, and that we need to get the trade out of the hands of criminals.
    All those arguments have a certain logic. We rejected them because they ask us to gamble gains that are at best theoretical against the inevitability of a significant increase in the number of users, especially among the very young. The one question that the legalisers could not answer satisfactorily was what they would do about crack cocaine, which as I have said, leads to violent and unpredictable behaviour. Those arguments will not go away. We should be under no illusion: if existing policies fail to stem the tide of heroin—past policies have utterly failed, as the street price of heroin, although stable now, is as low as it has ever been—new ones will have to be tried. Some old arguments will have to be revisited and some old prejudices set aside in favour of what works.
    For now, however, the path is clear. Our policy must be based on three clear pillars: prevention, treatment and harm reduction. That is what our report recommends, and I am glad to see that that is the direction in which the Government are moving.
    2.49 pm
    Mr. Nick Hawkins: A number of different issues need to be considered in relation to the Government's drug policy. I want to start, however, with what has been noticed and commented on widely this week in the media. We have seen headlines such as "Labour drops key target on drugs". The accompanying article said:
    "More than four years into a 10-year strategy to tackle drug misuse the Government yesterday conceded that it was too ambitious. Ministers set out an 'updated' strategy that abandoned almost all of the original targets. The strategy then went on to outline a new national action plan."
    Anyone who has examined in detail what the Government promised to do when they appointed the drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell—with the huge fanfares that everyone who follows the issue will recall—will
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    recognise what has happened. The Government have conceded that everything that they were trying to do and that they told everyone that they were going to do has failed.
    I do not blame the Minister personally. I know that he works extremely hard and is very diligent. However, I urge everyone who follows our proceedings to note that the Government have abandoned the targets and are starting again only a few years after they announced with such a fanfare what they would do. They must therefore face serious criticism.
    Paul Flynn rose—
    Mr. Jon Owen Jones rose—
    Mr. Hawkins: I will give way much later to the arch-legalisers from south Wales. We have crossed swords many times and I have told them before that I will never agree with their views about legalisation. I may give way to them much later on one or two points of detail. I shall start by considering what the Government are doing before I deal with the crackpots on the Labour Back Benches.
    The Government suggested that Keith Hellawell would be the answer to the nation's drugs problems. When I saw Mr. Hellawell reacting on television to questions about the Government's new announcement, he described it as all spin to cover up failure. That is the Government's much-heralded drugs tsar talking. His words should be taken seriously.
    Fortunately, police forces and media commentators still listen to Mr. Hellawell. He is still the authority—and is treated as such—that Ministers from the then Home Secretary downwards praised so highly when they appointed him. We had a change of Home Secretary and we all know that the new Home Secretary fell out with the drugs tsar. As with so many much-trumpeted Labour appointments, the drugs tsar paid the penalty for falling out with the new Home Secretary. The Government's failure has been made clear by their drugs tsar.
    We have seen other descriptions in the media of what the Government are now saying will be their revised targets. We have seen them described as "tough love" and as the "national heroin service". Addicts will be given free drugs even though that policy has failed before. Press commentators are right to warn all law-abiding members of society about the dangers of drugs and about the dangers of weasel words.
    Two of the weasel words that the Government repeat constantly refer to so-called "harm minimisation". I have considered these matters for four years as a member of the Opposition Front-Bench team, and for many years before that, including those years when I prosecuted and defended drugs cases in some of the most deprived areas of the east and west midlands. I have seen the way in which weasel words are used. Harm minimisation is often treated by campaigners as code for giving up and as code for legalisation. We must start using clear facts in the terminology that we use.
    I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) who opened this important debate, and to the work that his Select Committee has done. As he rightly said, it produced an extremely thorough and

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    detailed piece of work. All parties and those outside the House have benefited hugely from the detail of that investigation and from the evidence that the Committee collected. However, those of us on the Opposition Front Bench do not have to agree with all the Committee's conclusions, and I know that the hon. Gentleman, who takes these matters as seriously as I do, recognises that fact. He also recognises that I and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), the shadow Home Secretary, have repeatedly said that we welcome what the Home Affairs Committee did in investigating the matter so thoroughly. There are conclusions, such as the fact that certain drugs should remain class A, with which we entirely agree.
    Mr. David Cameron rose—
    Mr. Hawkins: We also agree, as the hon. Member for Sunderland, South and the Minister know, that clear emphasis should be placed on intensive rehabilitation. Like the Home Affairs Committee, we have called for a huge increase in the amount of rehabilitation available, particularly for those addicted to class A drugs.
    John Mann: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Hawkins: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman after I have given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron). However, I should pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is a relatively new Member of the House. He has done much valuable work that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has also publicly praised.
    We want any changes to the law or to the Government's targets to be evidence based. I know that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South and his Select Committee would be clear in saying that there should not be a rush to judgment on such important matters.
    Mr. Cameron: Does my hon. Friend not think that there is some cause for celebration? Following the Select Committee report, which puts a great emphasis on treatment, both sides of the House are emphasising treatment. The Government are doing that through the ditching of their many targets, and we are doing so through the talk of mandatory treatment. Is that not something to celebrate as we go ahead to deal with this difficult problem?
    Mr. Hawkins: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He is a member of the Select Committee that produced this valuable report. We need to ensure that we have real treatment. In answers given to me and to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset at recent Home Office questions, the Government have used the wholly misleading figure of 118,000 people in contact with treatment agencies. The Chairman of the Select Committee and I know perfectly well—evidence to the Select Committee makes it clear—that being in contact with a treatment agency is vastly different from receiving the intensive rehabilitation that my hon. Friend the Member for Witney, many other members of the Select
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    Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and I are talking about. We mean real intensive rehabilitation for many more people.
    John Mann: I am a little confused, because the Conservative party website says that the Government's treatment plans
    "seem to echo our own proposals".
    Precisely how much residential rehabilitation does the hon. Gentleman think should be provided? The Leader of the Opposition suggested that it should be available for everybody and the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) suggested, in response to me, that it should be provided to many. How many residential rehabilitation places does the hon. Gentleman think should be provided?
    Mr. Hawkins: We have made it clear from the Dispatch Box—in particular, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has done this—that, as a start, an incoming Conservative Administration would increase tenfold the number of real intensive rehabilitation places from whatever figure is inherited at that time. A tenfold increase is an exponential increase, and that is what is needed. In the end, any Government addressing the problem of people seriously addicted to class A drugs will have to ensure that they work towards intensive rehabilitation being available to everyone who needs it.
    John Mann: I have a copy of the Conservative implementation paper on home affairs, and it specifies in the small print that the 10 per cent. relates only to juvenile class A drug addicts. That is obviously a much smaller figure than the one that the hon. Gentleman quoted. He mentioned a 10 per cent. increase—I am sorry, a tenfold increase—on the current figure, but the small print to the document states:
    "We have assumed that half the in-patient places are for young people."
    It therefore assumes a fivefold increase. I seek clarification. Are we talking about a fivefold or tenfold increase? Is the document or the hon. Gentleman right?
    Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman became confused between 10 per cent. and tenfold in his second intervention. We have said tenfold, and we have also said—this is common ground with the Minister—that there needs to be a particular focus on young adults because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has put it, they are joining the conveyor belt to crime. It is most important that the number of those addicted to hard drugs should not continue to increase, because they are so disproportionately involved in acquisitive crime to fund their drug habit.
    Another issue on which the Government need to do much more is that of drug drivers. The Minister knows that I have been pursuing that for some time. Last week I was fortunate to be to invited Hampshire constabulary to speak at the launch of their Christmas and new year campaign against both drink drivers and drug drivers. They had seen my speeches on drug drivers, our work on

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    getting information from all police forces in England, Scotland and Wales and the work by my researchers, Rhiannon Sadler and Anarkali Moonesinghe, on getting information from coroners. All the police forces and coroners said that insufficient information was collected nationally about the number of deaths and serious injuries that are caused by those who drive when addicted to drugs.
    Sometimes it is a matter of trying to disentangle whether someone has been drinking and taking drugs. We have at last acquired a clear picture, which is, I am afraid, that the Government do not have enough information. There is also a clear lack of joined-up government. Whereas the old Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions had acquired a well written report from the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne, just up the road from my constituency, on the huge increase in the number of fatal and non-fatal accidents caused by drivers under the influence of drugs, the Home Office did not use that information as an impetus to start collecting figures. Almost every coroner who responded to my office said, "We need more information. It has to be collected centrally. Only the Home Office can do it."
    Some police forces, such as Northamptonshire and Strathclyde, are involved in pioneering work and have started their own projects. Hampshire police were launching their new Christmas and new year campaign called "Are you FIT to drive?" FIT is an acronym and refers to the test that the Hampshire police will use, which they demonstrated to me and the media. What was most moving about the launch at the Hampshire county constabulary headquarters at Netley last week was the contribution by the victim of a drug addicted driver. She had made a remarkable recovery thanks to her courage and her family's support and was prepared to appear before the media—television, radio and the press—to say what had happened to her when she was unwise enough to get into a car driven by someone who was under the influence of drugs. The driver had also had vastly insufficient sleep, having been up for days at the Glastonbury rock music festival. As a result, people in the accident were killed.
    The young lady who spoke at the launch was lucky enough to survive and I was impressed by the courage she displayed by standing up and saying, "I want to persuade other people not to have anything to do with drug drivers." That is fine in terms of influencing passengers of drug drivers, but what about those entirely innocent victims who are driving lawfully along a road and are hit head on by a drug abusing driver? They have no opportunity to avoid the problem but are nevertheless the casualties of it.
    The Government have presided over a huge increase in drugs use, as confirmed by their figures. It is clear that something is going wrong. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South referred to a consistent failure of policy since the second world war. I agree that the figures speak for themselves. Drug use has increased tremendously over those years. In recent years, however, it is not so much a case of things being tried and found wanting, but of things being found difficult and not tried properly. That is where I part company with the hon. Gentleman and his Committee's report.
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    When the hon. Gentleman talks about the reclassification of ecstasy, he should ask the parents of the late Leah Betts and the relatives of the other victims of ecstasy what they think.
    Mr. Mullin: I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman took the subject seriously. I think made it clear that the arguments about ecstasy—whether one thinks it a good or a bad thing—are based purely on the science. We have taken the advice of scientists on which category it should fall into. Were it to be reclassified into class B, the penalties available would still be great and would leave those who use it in no doubt about society's disapproval.
    Mr. Hawkins: I assure the hen. Gentleman that I take the issue seriously. We will have to beg to differ. Unfortunately, reclassification sends the wrong signals. I think he will agree with me on one thing at least. When we talk about sentences available, we are, of course, referring to maximum sentences. He will appreciate that my practical experience in the courts is that people rarely get the maximum sentence. We are dealing with signals that the Government have sent.
    Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Home Affairs Committee recommendation is worthy of support because we need to ensure that the relative harm is understood? The evidence shows that heroin and crack cocaine are the big killers. They are the nasties. Ecstasy occasionally kills people. Cannabis has killed no one. The logic of the Committee's recommendation and the logic of the view taken by the Liberal Democrats, which I hope will eventually percolate through to the Conservative Benches, is that it is nonsense for ecstasy to be in the same league as heroin and crack cocaine, or for cannabis to be in the same league as either.
    Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman knows that I do not agree with him. The signals that we send to young people are important. I have just talked about those who suffer death or serious injury as a result of drug induced driving. He says that cannabis has killed no one, but there are many cases in which the person responsible for a fatal accident committed the driving offence as a result of the use of cannabis alone.
    Mr. Cameron: I had to think long and hard about the problem when I served on the Select Committee. Does my hon. Friend accept that the signals argument goes both ways? What signal does it send to young people that ecstasy is in the same class as heroin and cocaine?
    Mr. Hawkins: My answer is straightforward: it sends a valuable signal. I have no desire for our opposition, which is based on the tragic experience of people like Leah Betts' parents, to change. We do not want to send out the signal that heroin is less serious now.
    The Government have to take notice of what the respected schools health education unit has discovered as a result of the Government's signals. The Minister will be aware of the media surveys that show that almost every young person who does not follow politics or take note of the details of what we say in the House thinks that cannabis is legal. They have seen the general message. The figures from the unit confirm a huge jump in the use of cannabis.

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    The number of boys in their early teens who smoke cannabis has rocketed in just two years since the Government started to give every young person the impression that cannabis is legal. Some 29 per cent. of those aged 14 and 15 said last year that they had tried the drug compared with only 19 per cent. who admitted using it in 1999. A large-scale research project found that school children are increasingly likely to believe that cannabis is safe and has no down sides. The 10 per cent. jump in young drug users reversed a previous decline in drug taking by school children which was reported by the same research group in the second half of the 1990s. That was when Conservative Ministers were trying to clamp down hard on crime in general. Indeed, crime had dropped for the first time since the second world war as a result of tough anti-crime policies.
    The Government's mistaken signals have reversed that. There has been a huge increase in crime, much of it drug related. The Prime Minister said, in his much vaunted soundbite, that he would be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", but the biggest single cause of crime is the use of drugs. The greatest single cause of crime stems from those who are addicted to drugs and are funding their drug habit by acquisitive crime. The Government have not been tough on the causes of crime.
    Nearly 16,000 pupils were asked to complete questionnaires at 334 schools.
    Mr. Jon Owen Jones: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We were told at the beginning of the debate that there was a 15-minute limit on speeches following the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). It seems that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) is being given a great degree of leniency.
    Madam Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) is not being given any degree of leniency. The 15-minute limit applies only to Back-Bench Members. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) was exempted from the limit because he is the Chair of the Select Committee.
    Mr. Hawkins: You will confirm, of course. Madam Deputy Speaker, that I had confirmed with you in the Chair what the position was before I rose.
    As I have said, nearly 16,000 pupils were asked to complete questionnaires at 334 schools. The responses showed a similar boom in girls using cannabis. In 1999, 18 per cent. of girls aged 14 and 15 had smoked cannabis. However, last year the figure was 25 per cent. The survey covered 15,881 pupils aged between 10 and 15. The findings are severely at variance with what was said by the Prime Minister and other Ministers when they first came to office, proclaiming their commitment to the so-called war on drugs. Instead, the figures have gone dramatically in the wrong direction.
    Ms Bridget Prentice: I hoped to bring the hon. Gentleman out of his fantasy world into the world of reality. He talks about the majority of crime being committed by drug users and refers to it as acquisitive crime. Yes, that is true. However, the
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    Committee did not discover that those who took ecstasy were among that group. The hon. Gentleman must think seriously about the findings set out in the report and about the scientific evidence. He must think again about placing ecstasy in the same class as heroine and crack cocaine. Ecstasy is qualitatively different.
    Mr. Hawkins: I entirely disagree with the hon. Lady. She talks about science, and I shall quote once again from one of the reports on the recent figures in the recent survey. It states:
    "The terrible irony is that all the while the deceptive message that cannabis is safe has been taking hold among school children because of the misguided approach of Whitehall"—
    that is a reference to Labour Ministers—
    "and the police. The evidence points increasingly in the opposite direction. Last week"—
    the hon. Lady is talking about science—
    "three respected scientific studies linked cannabis with the huge increase in the amount of depression and schizophrenia."
    Another scientific study showed that it is five times more likely to cause cancer than tobacco. The physical and mental health of an entire generation of youngsters is being put at risk because of the Government's willingness to accept the drugs agenda of a small liberal metropolitan elite.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth)>: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us what his party's policy is on the classification of cannabis.
    Mr. Hawkins: The Minister heard me say earlier—I have said exactly the same to him in Committee—that when we come to office, any changes that we make will be evidence based. We believe, unlike the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice), apparently, in examining the science. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has always said, as has my right hon. Friend the leader of the Opposition, that we will try to do everything on the basis of evidence, and not on the basis of the pro-legalisation fantasies that are shared by a number of Labour Back-Benchers.
    I recognise that the Minister takes these issues seriously. That being so, he needs to examine the experience that we have had in visiting intensive rehabilitation clinics in Sweden, where they have managed to create a social consensus that illegal drugs are so damaging to society that all the forces in society need to work together to try to take illegal drugs out of the system. There is a social consensus in which teachers and head teachers, parents and society at large do not tolerate illegal drug taking. As a result of that, there is far less acquisitive crime and far fewer drug addicts. The population is healthier. We need to try, if we possibly can, to use the evidence of what has been done in Sweden and the evidence of the more successful rehabilitation clinics that I have visited in this country, such as the excellent Promise centre in south Kensington, where I met some of the addicts and their families only two or three weeks ago, to ensure that we have a more sensible and effective anti-drugs policy than the Government's failed policy.
    3.15 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who is the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, and all members of the Committee, for the thorough and thought-provoking way in which the Committee's recommendations were produced earlier in the year.
    The report and all the work that went into it has made a crucial contribution to the Government's policy, although we were not able to agree with all of the Committee's recommendations. For example, we have different views on the reclassification of ecstasy. Ecstasy is a drug that has not been misused to the degree that cannabis has, or for the same length of time. Knowledge of the long-term health consequences of the use of ecstasy is not as well founded as it is in respect of cannabis, but people die as a result of taking it. I believe profoundly that much of the harm minimisation work that is necessary to save the lives of those who are abusing ecstasy can still take place without any need to reclassify it. I hope that we proved that when we published the safer clubbing guidance earlier in the year. We were therefore not able and not minded to accept the Committee's recommendation.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South is already aware that we did not support the Committee's request that we consider a provision for injecting rooms. However, many of the Committee's other recommendations have been extremely valuable and they have been fully embedded in the updated drugs strategy. For example, the Committee's call for a renewed emphasis on harm minimisation and for the focus of education to be on class A drugs and problematic drug users now stand as central features of the new updated strategy.
    Dr. Brian Iddon: I am not convinced by the arguments on ecstasy. There is a great deal of science available, and it seems that ecstasy damages the brain. Whether that is reversible or irreversible is a point of controversy. Is my hon. Friend prepared, as he has done with cannabis, to refer ecstasy to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for a serious study?
    Mr. Ainsworth: We cannot go down that road and we have made it clear that we are not prepared to do so. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has a remit to keep under review the classification of all drugs. It is free to do that and it will continue to do so. From time to time it will make recommendations to which we will have to respond. It will do so with regard to cannabis and ecstasy. There is no need for us to approach the council. The Government's position is clear on the classification of ecstasy. As we do not know what the long-term consequences of the abuse of ecstasy are on individual health, and because it kills people unpredictably, we are not prepared to reclassify ecstasy.
    In our new strategy, we will focus on the most dangerous drugs, the most damaged communities and the individuals whose addiction and chaotic lifestyles are the most harmful, both to themselves and others. The misery that they cause cannot be overestimated, which is why, under the strategy, all controlled drugs are illegal and will remain so.
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    We are making an unparalleled investment to tackle the harm that drugs cause. Direct annual expenditure will increase by 44 per cent. over the next three years, with a total investment of nearly £1.5 billion by 2005–06. The extra resources that we are committing to the fight against drugs demand high standards of delivery. Home Office teams will work with local partnerships and agencies to identify problems and ways of tackling them, including better mechanisms for supporting effective delivery and improved systems for monitoring and evaluating progress.
    The strategy is not new—we are not starting from scratch. We are learning from, building on and adapting the 10-year strategy started in 1998. The strategy will be driven by a stronger focus on education, prevention, enforcement and treatment to prevent and tackle problematic drug use. We will deliver that key agenda by using what we have learned over the past four years—what works and what does not. The Opposition spokesman talked about the former drugs tsar and what he had to say. I wish to make it clear that the strategy is not a dog's dinner. It may be more fitting to point out that the dog barks when the caravan moves on.
    Bob Russell: Will the Minister put on record the fact that while more young people are taking drugs than ever before, they are still a minority? The vast majority of young people do not take drugs regularly. In his fight to prevent more young people taking drugs, will the Minister pay tribute to the excellent work by voluntary youth organisations and youth leaders, who play a vital role in making sure that the number of young people taking drugs is reduced and does not increase?
    Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is partly why we are not prepared to contemplate, and the Select Committee on Home Affairs did not recommend, going down the legalisation or decriminalisation route. There is evidence that a lot of young people are deterred from experimenting with drugs by the fact that they are illegal. The majority of people do not take illegal drugs, but we should not underestimate the size of the problem. We should pick up what the Chairman of the Select Committee said—for the past 30 years, we have not had a proud record in this area.
    We have one of the biggest problems in the world with illegal drug use, and nobody should be proud of Britain's record. The Conservative spokesman has an admirable ability utterly to ignore the facts at the Dispatch Box. To suggest that just a few years ago we were edging towards a solution and that everything is now going backwards is a complete travesty of the truth. Under the Conservative Government, crime doubled, and there is clear evidence that the steepest rise in problematic drug use took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s. How on earth the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) can say that the position was anything other than that is strange but, in its own way, admirable. We have seen him take a similar stance on many other issues on many other occasions.
    Paul Flynn: Does my hon. Friend recall that when the 10-year strategy was introduced in the House in 1998, it was supported, in every detail and target, by the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I am not surprised that my hon. Friend has raised that, as he has long-standing views on the issue. There was a wide consensus in favour of the 10-year drug strategy at the time. We should remind ourselves of the current position. Just because the ex-drugs tsar has made pronouncements for his own purposes in the past few years, we should not forget that, before 1998, there was no strategy at all. Somebody had to pull people together and point them in the right direction. There was no evidence base whatsoever—that was not the tsar's fault, but it can be blamed, if we want to be blatantly party political, on the party that had been in government for a generation. The targets set by the tsar were, I accept, pulled out of thin air and taken from other jurisdictions—they were described by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary as aspirational.
    Something has been achieved in the past four years, as we have at least started to build an evidence base and, with support, are pushing our policies in the right direction. It is only right, however, to review the strategy now, refocus it and learn lessons about what has not been working and what is not attainable. It would be irresponsible of us to do otherwise.
    John Mann: Nobody in my constituency wants vague targets instead of quantifiable evidence-based outcomes. In that context, will my hon. Friend look at the evidence from my inquiry on the quality and variety of teaching in secondary education? Best practice can affect whether or not young people can relate to a message delivered to them, and is fundamental to whether they hear the message at all.
    Mr. Ainsworth: I appreciate the depth of my hon. Friend's analysis of the problem in his constituency. He has made an important contribution to the debate that has opened up over the past year. I hope that he does not think that we have retreated from all the targets in the drugs strategy—we most certainly have not. Treatment is key to whether or not we succeed. If Opposition Members care to look at the strategy, they will see not only that treatment targets are still included, but that they are on course to be delivered and that we have strengthened them—there is now a requirement to look at the quality of the treatment provided and the number of people who successfully complete an entire course of treatment. We have strengthened some targets, but have also got rid of aspirational targets that did not help to motivate people working in this area. It is a case not of abandoning targets, but of refocusing the strategy on what is needed and what, we hope, will make a difference.
    Simon Hughes: The Minister will know that we share his view that it is far better to get rid of the huge number of targets that, to use the Home Secretary's words, appear to have been plucked out of thin air and were almost certainly unachievable, and to refocus on a small number of targets which, we hope, are achievable. Treatment issues are key, as we are considering a health issue. A two-week maximum waiting time from referral to receipt of treatment is proposed in the new Government strategy. The establishment of 2,000 more intensive care programmes is also proposed. Are the Government determined to set themselves a date by which at least minimum provision is available along
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    those lines in each part of the country, following the National Audit Commission's recommendation? As the Minister knows, one of the problems has been that people in some places can wait for months or years, while others receive much speedier treatment.
    Mr. Ainsworth: We need not only to increase massively the amount of treatment, but to ensure that it is provided in the places where it is needed. The targets are there and the National Treatment Agency has been established to try to ensure that they are met not broadly across the board, but in localities; that a work force are developed who will enable us to meet those targets and get people into treatment on the proposed time scales; and that good-quality treatment is provided. We believe that, by the end of the 10-year strategy, we will be in a position to have doubled the amount of treatment in this country and to have places to get 200,000 people a year into quality treatment—the overwhelming majority of problematic drug users on the basis of the problem as we currently measure it.
    I am surprised when Opposition Members talk about treatment, as they are currently suggesting that we pour almost the entire treatment budget into residential rehabilitation that would treat a fraction of problematic drug users. Such treatment would be wholly inappropriate for many of those people, and what would the rest of them be left to do? I do not know about the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, but I know that his right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary is not a supporter of increased public spending. Is he not one of the people who had to be hushed up during the previous election for proposing £20 billion of cuts? The Conservative party will need to explain the suggestion that we can spend the entire treatment budget on providing residential rehabilitation for a fraction of problematic drug users and either leave the rest to fend for themselves or spend more instead.
    Paul Flynn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I want to make some progress, but I shall try to give way to my hon. Friend a little later.
    There can be few more deserving cases than those of parents, carers and families. The distress and disruption that drug misuse causes to families cannot be imagined if it has not been experienced. More support will be provided for families and carers so that those affected can easily access advice, help, counselling and mutual support. We will be looking substantially to improve the support given to families locally.
    Young people will remain a key priority. We will focus on preventing young people from taking and misusing drugs through a major new education campaign to drive home the risks. There will be support for young people most at risk and increased outreach and community treatment and support. That will include referrals to treatment and care through the youth justice system, so that by 2006, we will be supporting 40,000 to 50,000 vulnerable young people a year.
    We will take on the dealers and protect the communities from the harmful flow of drugs on to the streets. That will include strengthening enforcement action at both street level and the middle market level.

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    We will disrupt supplies at all stages in the supply chain. The police need and deserve the full support of the other agencies and partners at a local level. We need coordinated activity by local partners to tackle drug supply at street level and build community resistance to dealers and their crimes.
    An awful lot has been said about Lambeth—a lot of factual stuff and also a lot of nonsense. In the past few years, we have managed to put together in Lambeth a coalition of the drug action team, the local authority and the police that has had considerable success against the open crack market that existed in the centre of Brixton. It has shut crack houses, arrested considerable numbers of dealers and pressured people into treatment in order to prevent them from going elsewhere and dispersing the problem to other boroughs. A lot of good work has been done in Lambeth in the past few months and it should be recognised.
    Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am surprised that he wants to give such a paean of praise to what has happened in south London. I do not think that the residents see it that way.
    I wanted to intervene with regard to what the Minister said about support for addicts. Am I correct in my understanding that part of what the Government are now proposing in their new strategy is that a licence will be issued to hundreds of GPs to prescribe heroin to anyone who is a heroin junky and whom the GP thinks might benefit? Is that the Government's position on heroin?
    Mr. Ainsworth: If the hon. Gentleman could shelve his petty prejudices for just a second and participate in a factual debate, we would all be better off, as would his party.
    Our policy on the injection of heroin is very clear. We believe that, for serious opium addiction, methadone will overwhelmingly remain at the centre of treatment. It is a drug that the profession is used to working with, and comfortable with. It is also the most appropriate drug in many instances. There is, however, a lack of confidence in parts of the medical profession in regard to the prescription of heroin. In some cases, certainly those in which people have failed to respond to any other treatments that have been offered, it is appropriate. We are working with the profession now, and we have consensus around some guidelines that may give GPs the confidence to use diamorphine when it is the most appropriate drug to prescribe. It would be very sad if the hon. Gentleman were against that. What he has said also seems to go against what the shadow Home Secretary appears to be advocating.
    Mr. Gwyn Prosser: Since the publication of the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on drugs, and of the Government's response, the son of a close friend of mine has died in circumstances that suggested that he had been injecting heroin, although that has not finally been determined. May I ask my hon. Friend whose door we should knock on when people with drug problems—and those who are actually
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    addicted—come into our surgeries and we cannot get them into detox centres or get them the treatment that they require?
    Mr. Ainsworth: We cannot grow these services to the level that is needed overnight. That simply is not possible. We need to grow the work force and the expertise, and we need to increase the quality of that work force. In the first instance, my hon. Friend needs to talk to his local drug action team. We need to provide the funding to his local DAT, so that it can grow the treatment to deal with the problems that exist in his community and many others. We have established the National Treatment Agency, which will help us to monitor the performance of his local DAT—and the others—so as to ensure it is hitting its waiting list targets, and that it has the most appropriate treatments in place to deal with the addicts in his community.
    There is no one-size-fits-all solution. That is what annoys me about the policy that is coming across the opposite Dispatch Box, which is that only residential rehabilitation amounts to treatment. In many circumstances, people do not need such rehabilitation, and it would be inappropriate to provide it. Sometimes a drug treatment may be appropriate, sometimes counselling. In the case of really chaotic drug users, it is a question, in the first instance, of getting hold of them, establishing contact and settling them down, so that we can start to deal with their problems. Dealing with addiction is a far more complex issue than the hon. Gentleman is prepared to acknowledge.
    Paul Flynn: Is my hon. Friend as puzzled as I was by one of the claims made by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins)? We were told, in the all-party group on drugs misuse a few weeks ago, that the estimate of the number of people who had problems with addiction was 320,000—a higher figure than we had ever heard before—and that the number of those receiving some form of treatment was 118,000, also a substantial figure. The hon. Gentleman says that he will increase the amount of people in treatment tenfold, to 1 million, which is three times the number of addicted people. Can the hon. Gentleman be treated seriously?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I thought that too when I first heard the hon. Member for Surrey Heath. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) has some figures that are a lot nearer to what the Conservatives are saying, which suggest that the number of people in treatment that they are planning to increase tenfold involves only a fraction of the total. I think that they are planning to increase tenfold 2,000 residential rehabilitation places for young people, which would give us about 20,000 places. I do not know what they intend to do with the rest of the problematic drug users, but those plans are a little different from what I first thought they were, and from what my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) thinks they are.
    John Mann: May I assist my hon. Friend with the figures, as I have them in front of me? The proposal involves 8,618 residential places, which would be available only to 11 to 19-year-olds. This is described as a tenfold increase precisely because it applies only to

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    that age range. That figure is taken from the Conservative party's home affairs implementation paper.
    Mr. Ainsworth: I am not sure that we should dwell on the Conservative party's policies any longer, because Conservative Front Benchers need to sort out exactly what they are so that they can tell us what they mean by getting addicts into treatment and what is their policy on reclassification. They are certainly not prepared to do so at the moment.
    Mr. Hawkins: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I shall give way again later if I can.
    The Government will also increase the amount of drug-related criminal assets that we recover as we work to make the UK the least desirable, most uncomfortable and most unprofitable place to deal drugs. We will make full use of the new powers introduced by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to maximise the recovery of profits from those convicted of drug supply offences. There is no room for the notion that having convicted and sentenced a drug dealer, it would be wrong to confiscate that person's ill-gotten gains. We must drive that idea out of every corner of our criminal justice and law enforcement system.
    We will continue to collaborate with other countries, including the Afghan Government, to achieve their opium production eradication targets. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, who has expressed considerable scepticism about that, that Afghanistan now has a Government who are committed to ridding the country of its drug problems. They have set themselves targets and those will be extremely difficult to achieve. I understand that.
    We will have to do a lot of nation building before we can eradicate poppy cultivation in that country, but it would be wholly wrong not to send the new Afghan Administration the message that we are prepared to do as much as we can not only to help them to rebuild civil society, but to eradicate narcotics and the terrorism that flows from them, which prevents them from getting a grip of their country and being able to help their own people.
    Mr. Hawkins: Some minutes ago, when I first tried to intervene, the Minister was responding to the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Prosser) and praising the work of drug action teams. Will he comment on a letter recently sent to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), the shadow Home Secretary, by the chief executive of a drug action team? He says:
    "Currently the proportion of time spent on planning, commissioning and monitoring provision is out of balance with the longevity of the funding streams and is thus highly inefficient and ineffective".
    That is the reality of the confused picture that the drug action teams, which can and do provide good work, are finding. Those remarks are from someone who is trying to run a DAT, and the Government are making his job much more difficult.
    Mr. Ainsworth: I have to say to the hon. Gentleman, never mind consistency of funding—DATs never
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    existed when his party was in power. We need to go down the road of pooled budgets and we need to give people long planning times as well as indications of their budgets. We fully intend to do exactly that.
    There will be a major expansion of services to refer people to treatment and support via the criminal justice system. We will use every opportunity from pre-arrest to court and sentencing to identify drug-misusing offenders, engage them in treatment and break the link between drugs and crime.
    We will focus on the 250,000 class A drug users who account for 99 per cent. of the costs of drug abuse in England and Wales and who do the most harm to themselves, their families and their communities. We will expand treatment and support services to ensure that people get the help they need when they need it. By 2008, we will have the capacity to treat 200,000 problematic drug users each year.
    The evidence that we have received from a number of police forces and treatment agencies suggests that crack cocaine use is steadily increasing throughout the UK. The problems are acute and they demand urgent action. There will be new initiatives to stem the flow of crack to the UK, police action in a number of key force areas to close local crack markets and specialist treatment programmes for crack users.
    Treatment and support services will be extended to include a new package of aftercare services to help those leaving prison to rejoin society. We will make significantly more money available to plug what I consider to be the biggest gap in the drugs strategy, and provide through-care and after-care for people leaving prison and ending treatment. If we do not do that we will send those people straight back on to the market—straight back into the clutches of the dealers and straight back into crime, if indeed they do not kill themselves with overdoses. We must plug the gap, and that is one of the most important changes that we are making.
    All this adds up to a radical and comprehensive package to tackle drug misuse at all levels. Over the past year debate on the issue has made great strides, with only a few exceptions. Since my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary asked for an adult debate a year ago and since the Home Affairs Select Committee's report on the Government's drugs strategy, we have managed to open up discussion. We have managed to introduce much more common sense into that discussion, and to make room for people to exchange views at every level—from the political level down to the local level. That means that teachers and local practitioners will be more confident about discussing such matters. Only by providing open debate of that kind and giving people that confidence will we be able to make the real difference that will he needed over the next few years if we are to reduce the problem of drug abuse.
    3.46 pm
    Simon Hughes: I pay tribute to the Minister, who, since taking his current position, has been entirely reasonable on this issue, as on others, and has been positive in trying to bring about the sort of constructive debate that is taking place now—with the odd exception. We need to engage in such debate if we are to meet the fundamental target that the Minister identified and reduce the amount of

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    drug use, abuse and addiction, and reduce all that flows from those things. I pay similar tribute to the Minister's colleagues. We welcome the new spirit that has accompanied the arrival of the second Labour Administration, who—I say this straightforwardly—are different from the spirit of the first.
    Let me also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and his colleagues from all parties on the Select Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) and the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron). I followed the Committee's deliberations from afar. It took evidence from people with personal experience of, for instance, family bereavement, who reached entirely different conclusions from each other, and who told the Committee dramatic and devastating things. I heard and read about those things. The Committee laboured hard to distil all the evidence and to ensure that it was up to date.
    The Committee has done us a service. I make only two exceptions in that regard. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I support nearly all the recommendations, but we disagreed with one recommendation on cannabis and we did not think that the Committee went far enough in respect of heroin prescribing. The report is very authoritative, and there is evidence of a huge amount of work. I want to thank the voluntary sector, in two contexts. The charity DrugScope is based in my constituency. It conducts evidence-based research, and in seeking to put its case on that evidence base it does us a great service—as do those parts of the voluntary sector mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, including faith groups and the youth service, which try to educate people about lifestyle choices that are better than those leading to addiction. It often does a brilliant job in protecting young people from the peer-group pressures from which they all suffer. In many cases it pulls them back after they have tested the water—as young people always do.
    Like the Select Committee, my colleagues have done a huge amount of work. My noble Friend Lady Walmsley chaired a policy committee for a year, which went around the country taking evidence and talking to people. She took the committee's conclusions to our conference in Manchester in the spring. We had a full morning's debate and reached conclusions that, although not everyone agreed with them, followed a democratic decision-making process based on the best evidence available.
    We are all trying to get the best answers and I salute the Government on their strategy, which I consider to be much more along the right lines than the last one, not least because they have dropped some of their absolutely unachievable, undeliverable targets and are focusing on the simple message that this is principally a health issue not a crime issue and that prevention and treatment are central to making sure that we break the back of what has become a nightmare in many communities, with addiction leading to crime, illness and sometimes death.
    Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman said that one or two members of his party might not share his view. Would they include, perhaps, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who recently chaired a superb conference in the House
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    of Lords at which my views about cannabis, which are shared by leading members of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, were advanced? It was attended by some of the most authoritative speakers from Sweden, who explained how they have created a national consensus.
    Simon Hughes: My noble Friend Lord Alton was a Liberal and a Liberal Democrat, but he left our party to become a Cross Bencher. I do not in any way undermine his view, but I was referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, who takes a different view from mine, as do some of my other hon. Friends. Our views do not follow a pre-ordained pattern. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge), who has worked in the health service, believes that we should legalise all drugs. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) who has had international business experience, takes a very different view.
    Mr. Cameron: They are Liberals—they do not have to agree with each other.
    Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is being unfair; he knows that there are different views in all parties. We must not dishonour the debate by pretending that party allegiance is its most important factor. We must welcome the debate, which should be based on evidence.
    In May this year my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) asked the Minister for some figures about the purchase cost of drugs, both now and over the past 10 years. The price of many addictive drugs has fallen considerably in the past 10 years. Between 1990 and 2002, the price of heroin fell from £90 to £63 per gram; cocaine fell from £87 to £60 per gram; amphetamine fell from £13.80 to £9 per gram; ecstasy fell from £18.80 to £7 a pill; LSD fell from £4.20 to £3.40 a tablet; and cannabis resin fell from £91.80 to £77 per ounce. The only price that has remained roughly similar over the past five years is that of crack cocaine. The concern is that, if we are not careful, illegal drugs will become cheaper and more easily accessible than alcohol. Certain drugs might become even more appealing for young people because they will be easier and cheaper to buy than a pint of lager. Drugs are easy to get hold of in normal life—young people do not have to go looking for them. That is why the issue goes beyond illegal drugs and includes alcohol, tobacco and so-called medicinal drugs that can also become addictive, such as amphetamines.
    The Minister referred to the UK's terrible record of failure. Over the past 30 years, we have had more addicts than almost any other European country. That is not just my opinion—in my constituency, drug addiction is such a regular issue that I wish I could say anything but that—but is backed up by independent surveys. The Minister will be aware of the recent report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Its summary refers to a significant increase in cocaine and ecstasy use in the UK. It also refers to 44 per cent. of 16 to 29-year-olds having consumed cannabis. Another point in the report is often made by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn)—that the average age of heroin users is going down, whereas in

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    other countries, such as the Netherlands, it is increasing. So we have a real problem, in that addicts are becoming younger.
    That is not mere theory. Almost every week, on going home after a late sitting of the House I see a daughter of a friend of mine—she is in her 20s—sitting outside a late-night supermarket, or standing on a petrol station forecourt. She has been waiting to get money to buy some more drugs. Sometimes, she knocks on my door in the early hours of the morning. Six years ago, that young woman was at home leading a drug-free life; now, she is a prostitute on drugs. People abuse her all the time, and almost all of her family relationships have broken down. That is a tragedy. We have all met such people in our surgeries. If she survives, it will be almost a miracle.
    A friend of mine who is in his 30s—he is a constituent who came to my surgery a year ago—went through 14 years of addiction to heroin and alcohol. He is now clean and doing well, so there are good news stories, but he went through a terrible period, and we should never underestimate how awful such experiences are. Another friend went through a period of going clubbing and taking ecstasy every weekend. I could see what was going on. Mondays and Tuesdays were bad, things improved a bit by Thursday, and he was ready to go clubbing again by Friday. There is, of course, a risk; every year, a few people die as a result of ecstasy use. Mercifully, in his case he grew out of it. It may have lasting effects, but the reality is that it does not pose the same addictive risk as serious drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine.
    These issues confront us all, which is why this debate is hugely important. Interestingly, it has moved from the side courts to the centre court. The last time that we had such a debate, it was held in Westminster Hall; today, it is being held here because it deserves to be. It concerns one of the central issues of health and crime in our society.
    Before I set out the key factors as I perceive them, I appeal to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath(Mr. Hawkins) to look at, and to respond to, the evidence rather more readily than he and his colleagues do at the moment. However, he and I are in agreement in at least one respect, in that I, too, believe that we must treat people who are in charge of vehicles and under the influence of drugs in the same way as we treat those who drive under the influence of drink. I think that I know of the family to whom he refers, and the daughter who gave evidence. Many people are injured or lose their lives because we do not yet treat this problem seriously. I ask the Minister to talk to his colleagues in the Department for Transport. We can do more to ensure that similar tests apply to both offences. For example, the old test of whether a person can walk a straight line could be used. It is really important that we send out the message that being under the influence of alcohol or of any other drug is equally unacceptable.
    Mr. Bob Ainsworth: As the hon. Gentleman knows, such tests are already carried out. However, we are conducting research that could support the use of a visible test, and we may have something to help the police to test addicts by next August.
    Simon Hughes: That is very encouraging news, and many families will be reassured by it. I know of
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    constituents—they have since become friends—who have lost relatives in collisions involving someone who was under the influence. They feel an enormous sense of injustice at the fact that the law has not treated them equally.
    Mr. Hawkins: As the hon. Gentleman was kind enough to point out, I have worked on this issue for a long time, and I am delighted that he agrees with me. Indeed, in the end there may be all-party agreement on it; I certainly hope so. We intend to introduce our own Bill during this Session to try to improve the opportunity to collect evidence and to try to give the police the additional testing powers that they need. I am prepared to discuss with him, and with the Minister, how we might take that forward. In other words, there may be no need to wait until August; if all parties agree, we could produce something in this Session.
    Simon Hughes: On all such issues, I am entirely happy to collaborate with the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, and with the Minister and his colleagues. None of us gains by taking a party political view on this matter. If we can get the right legislation soon we can change attitudes about drug use. Changed attitudes to drink driving and drinking at lunch time have rendered those activities less frequent. If the same thing happened with drugs, that would be very welcome.
    One great international point affects us all, and that is that we will not be able to control demand until we control supply. The Minister is right to say that countries such as Afghanistan and those in south America must be the focus of our attention. I know that Ministers in the Department for International Development, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and elsewhere understand that. However, unless we can change the agriculture in those countries and make sure that people do not make a living from exporting heroin and other drugs at high prices, we will not be able to deal with the problem. Traffickers come here from the drug-exporting countries, and we know what happens as a result.
    The Liberal Democrat party always seeks to respect international law, and the drugs problem is covered by international agreements and Geneva conventions. We are not allowed to legalise the use of narcotics, and my party accepts that constraint. However, the difference between us and the two other main parties is that we believe that the evidence in connection with cannabis, in particular, points to the clear conclusion that personal use and growing for personal use and social supply to another person should not be treated as criminal activities. We agree with DrugScope and other organizations—and by implication with the Home Affairs Committee—that the logic is that cannabis should be downgraded to a category C drug, as the Home Secretary intends. However, it is nonsense at the same time to make the possession of cannabis an arrestable offence for which a person can be imprisoned, as provided in the Criminal Justice Bill that had its Second Reading yesterday. That is a mixed message, if ever there was one. I have said as much to Home Office Ministers, and I repeat it this afternoon. We need the message to be clear. Some drugs, such as heroin and crack cocaine, are very dangerous, and other drugs, such as ecstasy, present an intermediate danger. I do not

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    argue that cannabis is not dangerous, or that it may not be proved to be more so, but the evidence shows that it is in a different league. The hundreds of thousands of people who use it every week should not risk arrest for personal possession of cannabis. Anything else is a nonsense.
    Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but I do not accept that the message is mixed. The hon. Gentleman should look at the provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill to facilitate an arrestable offence with regard to class C drugs, and at the guidance drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers, to which the police service has a real commitment. The provisions will limit how and when an arrestable offence is used. Such an offence should be used where a public order problem arises, and when there is blatant and continued use of cannabis. Police officers should not expect to have to face people who flatly refuse to comply with a request. That is the intention. Taken together, the ACPO guidance and the proposed new criminal justice framework do not transmit the mixed message that the hon. Gentleman fears.
    Simon Hughes: I absolutely understand what the Government are trying to do. I have looked at the ACPO guidance, but I still do not think that the approach will work. People who go around with cannabis are at risk of being arrested and even imprisoned, if only for a short period, as are people who might be thought to be committing a breach of public order offence by, say, winding up the police. To be honest, that represents a misdirection of resources.
    It must be better and clearer to say to people who smoke cannabis on their own that that remains a crime but that the policy is one of no arrest, no prosecution. The same applies to people who give cannabis to their mates for nothing, and to those who grow it in gardens or window boxes. However, people who start flogging cannabis on the streets are dealing, and can be prosecuted. People who stand outside school gates and deal cannabis will be clobbered with a severe sentence. Dealing is a commercial activity, and needs to be firmly dealt with.
    I know what the difficulty in countries such as the Netherlands has been. The Dutch policy of having legitimate entry by the front door of a cannabis café but illegitimate entry by the back door to the suppliers of the cannabis strikes me as hypocritical. Until the UN convention can allow country opt-out, for which I hope the European Union will push, the best course of action is to keep cannabis use as a crime but have a non-prosecution policy for personal use, not for dealing. I put cannabis into that category for all sorts of reasons: it is widely used, it is the least harmful and there is no evidence of it causing death.
    That is why we put ecstasy into the intermediate category and support the Home Affairs Committee's recommendations that it, too, be downgraded. The question that I am always asked is whether I would suggest downgrading ecstasy to the family of Leah Betts. I would and do suggest it to them, because although there are a handful of deaths from ecstasy
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    there are 10 times as many from amphetamines. Of course there is a risk, but the evidence-based conclusion is that ecstasy has nothing like the same risk or addiction as other drugs. I would be happy, as the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) said, to refer this question to the advisory committee so that it can give us its evidence-based view. If its members say that it should be downgraded, we should follow that recommendation. I would be much happier with that than with a party political view.
    I understand the media issues; I understand the personal grief and trauma that is involved. No one wants any other youngster to take ecstasy and risk dying, which is why the clubbing guide is welcome. However, ecstasy is not in the same league as heroin and crack cocaine. It is nonsense to keep it in the same category and it should be downgraded.
    Bob Russell: Although it is obvious that cannabis is not in the same league as heroin, does my hon. Friend accept that we should not send out the message that it is okay, especially when it is known that cannabis is considerably stronger now than it was 10 years ago?
    Simon Hughes: I absolutely agree with that. If we are to introduce evidence-based legislation, we need to be able to change the categories as the evidence changes and drugs because more or less pure or more or less strong. We have to be able to respond to what is happening in the real world where people are flogging drugs.
    If cannabis, ecstasy and heroin are put in one rolled-up category, more people will be pushed into the hands of the dealers. If people who use cannabis socially have to get their supplies from someone who wants them as a regular customer, the supplier will want them to buy something that costs more and makes them more dependent. It is obvious to me that addiction lies down that road.
    I am no expert on this subject, although, like the Minister, I read about it. I come to this as a lay person looking at the evidence. In its summary, Home Office research study No. 253, headed "The road to ruin? Sequences of initiation into drug use and offending by young people in Britain", says:
    "My interpretation of the results of this study is that true gateway effects"—
    that is, starting on cannabis and proceeding to other drugs—
    "are probably very small and that the association between soft and hard drugs found in survey data is largely the result of our inability to observe all the personal characteristics underlying individual drug use."
    The best evidence suggests that people do not go automatically from cannabis to other drugs unless the person who flogged them the cannabis tries to get them on to harder drugs. People are then prone to that happening and are likely to be caught.
    Angela Watkinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. Does he recognise that many clubbers who use ecstasy are polydrug users and that those who sell it to them are polydrug dealers? That is one reason why it would be so dangerous to separate ecstasy and downgrade it.
    Simon Hughes: I am with the hon. Lady half way on that. I think that, on the current evidence, cannabis is in

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    one category but that the use or possession of ecstasy should not be regarded as not criminal. It is therefore in that side of the park, beyond which is heroin and crack cocaine. I accept what the hon. Lady says. Cannabis is widely used—although I do not use it and I am sure that the hon. Lady does not—but if we can prevent it from being one of the drugs that the polydrug dealers want to sell and separate cannabis sellers from the people who want to flog ecstasy tablets, heroin and crack cocaine, whom we want to catch and lock up, we should do our constituents a better service.
    I agree with the Minister about the Lambeth experiment. I have talked to former Commander Brian Paddick and to acting Commander Brian Moore. They hold the same view on the issue: the experiment worked. I like and respect the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), but she is wrong about this matter. Many people have pretended things that are not true about Lambeth. I live next door to Lambeth and am often in the area. The evidence from Brian Paddick and Brian Moore is the same, although they are entirely different people, with entirely different perspectives on the issue: we did better by not chasing cannabis users and we caught more people dealing hard drugs. Lambeth was not a honeypot for people coming from elsewhere. The police monitored the people whom they picked up and they were not drug tourists. The same people were peddling drugs before the experiment began. During the experiment, the police were more able to catch them because they had more time. I hope we can lay the honeypot claim to rest. The evidence from people on the ground is that the Lambeth experiment worked.
    Yesterday, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) pointed out that a distinction might be made, which I hope Ministers will consider, as to whether or not people were carrying drugs for their personal use. There is merit in examining the substantial possession test—as a variant on the suggestion of the Home Affairs Committee—so that we can catch people who are clearly not carrying drugs for their own use because they have such huge quantities that, unless they were superhuman, they could never use them in a reasonable period.
    I hope that we are all united in wanting severe punishments for people who trade and traffic drugs and try to exploit people where they are vulnerable, especially outside schools and youth clubs. Such dealers should expect the harshest penalty.
    The Minister mentioned people who were leaving prison. Until recently, prison was one of the easiest places to become a drug addict. The Prison Service has worked hard, using sniffer dogs and other methods, to stop that. However, my view—although I took some persuading—which is shared by the majority of my colleagues, is that prison should never be the answer for those convicted only of possession of any drug. Our prisons are full to overcrowded and to lock people up because they use drugs is to criminalise people who should be receiving treatment for their addiction from the health service. I hope that we can get away from the idea of prison, even for people who constantly use heroin. If necessary, we can send them to prison for nicking from houses or cars because they want money for drugs—that is a different matter.
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    I hope that the Government will not forget about producing their alcohol strategy. On Friday nights, in streets in my area, such as the Old Kent road, more trouble is probably caused by alcohol than by drugs. I think that many of my colleagues have the same experience.
    Following the Cambridge Two case, I hope that the Government will accept the recommendation of the Select Committee and amend the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. People running hostels should not get clobbered when they do not knowingly preside over drug taking and are trying to look after people and help them. We need to ensure that such places work well.
    The exercise is not cost free. We are debating public expenditure estimates—the public budget. We are talking not about small sums but about billions of pounds. Will Ministers make it clear that the balance should continue to be tilted towards prevention and treatment rather than towards dealing with people only after they have been caught? I am advised that in the next financial year the proportion of money to be spent on treatment is less than a third of the total allocation. We can sort out the problems only if we spend much more on the prevention and treatment of addiction and much less on enforcement.
    The debate is important. We are all united in our objectives. The Government are moving in the right direction and we welcome that. They get seven out of 10 for going the right way, but we hope that they will think again about things such as cannabis and ecstasy: please, no more muddled messages.
    4.14 pm
    Paul Flynn: It is a delight to speak in this debate. Having spoken in every debate about drugs in this House since 1987, I know that there is a change today. In every one of those debates, until recent years, there was unanimity in the House that the only way of solving the problems was to introduce more tough policies—and every year it was clear that the policies were not working.
    Before 1971 we had a British way of dealing with heroin addicts. There were fewer than 1,000 addicts, there was virtually no drug crime and deaths were extremely rare. That is the system to which we should return. There has been criticism by one of the newspapers suggesting that at that time there was leakage from the system—and occasionally there was, including a case involving two doctors. Because of that, politicians behaved as we often do: babies cry, dogs bark and politicians legislate. We put on the statute book the most damaging piece of legislation on drugs that has been introduced in Europe—the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. According to the National Treatment Centre, we now have not 1,000 addicts but 320,000, and we have 40 per cent. of all the drug deaths in our continent of Europe.
    I have had the job of acting as the Council of Europe's rapporteur on drugs for its health committee. I have visited many other countries to see what is going on, and I beg the House to look at what has occurred in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal and Germany; throughout our continent there is a change of view, which has come through to this House.
    It is a pleasure to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the other Ministers now responsible for drugs policy, who are the most

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    reasonable that we have had in my time in Parliament. I can remember a debate in the early 1990s when the then Conservative spokesman, Mr. Mellor, said that there was one thing of which he could be absolutely certain—that heroin use had peaked in Britain.
    I recall another occasion when the two Front-Bench spokesmen had to leave the Chamber during a debate to go out for a fix because they were both addicted to cigarettes, which are far more damaging than any of the drugs about which they were talking. There is a contrast between the drugs of choice of my generation and those of young people.
    It was a shame that we had to suffer the vacuous speech of the Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins). It was the usual mix of prejudice and ignorance that we have come to expect from him. I appeal to the Conservatives—including the shadow Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), who made a distinguished contribution in the Select Committee—to get one of their able and intelligent Members to act as their spokesman if the official Opposition are not to he left behind in the debate.
    A tongue-in-cheek award of parliamentarian of the year was made to the leader of my party, who deserves many awards, but perhaps not that one. The person who gave the award suggested that it was given in order to foment trouble between the Prime Minister and his next-door neighbour. However, the award of parliamentarian's parliamentarian of the year should be given to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I did not attend quite as many meetings of the Committee as he did, but I found those that I did attend an elevating experience because of the quality of cross-examination and the variety of witnesses.
    I shall never forget one witness, Fulton Gillespie, who spoke about something of which we all have experience in our constituencies: mothers—it usually is mothers—ringing up to say that their young people are on drugs, asking what they should do, and wondering whether they should buy drugs or find a safe supply for them. I have a case of a mother with two daughters who are prostituting themselves; one has just had a baby who is also addicted to drugs. We feel hopeless in these cases, and I feel especially hopeless when I receive a letter such as the one I received on 28 October from the Gwent healthcare trust, informing me that the average waiting time for treatment is 11 months and the longest waiting time, for the specialist substance misuse service, is 17 months.
    This is not a party matter, and people should not reduce it to one. We have had 30 years of monumental failure by all parties, united in error year after year. We are now escaping from it by having, for the first time, a policy of reducing the status of cannabis in law and a policy on the medical prescription of pharmaceutical heroin. That worked well until 1971. Lots of heroin users were veterans of the first world war who became addicted on the battlefield. There was the famous case of the author of "National Velvet"—a distinguished English lady living the life of a country gentlewoman, who took vast amounts of heroin every day in the form of pharmaceutical diamorphine. It killed her eventually:
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    she took more heroin than most people take on the streets, but she eventually died a serene death at the age of 91. That is the alternative.
    Fulton Gillespie talked about his son in very affectionate terms. He said what a nice chap he was, and how he loved him. He said that his son was more sensitive than his other four children and got upset about cruelty to animals, the cost of war and the Falklands war. He was not making excuses for his son, who had treatment. I shall explain how his death occurred. He went into prison on remand because he was stealing to feed his habit, but no heroin was available on remand. If he had been put into the normal prison, heroin would have been freely available, as it is in most of our prisons. When he came out of prison he went on to the streets to get his heroin. He took the same strength of heroin as before, but it was contaminated and it killed him. He was killed not by heroin, but by prohibition. He was killed by the fact that the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 brought in strict prohibition.
    We should not dismiss those people as junkies, as the Opposition spokesman did. That can happen to any family, and they are not some subspecies; they are part of our families and our constituencies, and they deserve the same compassionate treatment as anyone else.
    Mr. Fulton Gillespie rightly said that the only answer is legalisation of all drugs. That does not mean a free-for-all, or that we want to encourage anyone to use drugs. DrugScope said in its submission that in all the cases in which there has been a policy of changing the regime on drugs, particularly cannabis, doing so has not led to an increase. That can be backed up by cases from all over the world, from Australia to the Netherlands and Switzerland.
    We must make it clear that after 30 years of the harshest prohibition in Europe, Britain has by far the greatest use of cannabis in Europe and by far the greatest number of drug deaths. Yet after 25 years of regulated licensed criminalization—this is not theoretical; it has happened—Holland has split the two markets. It has lower heroin use than this country, one tenth of our heroin deaths and a lower use of cannabis in all sections of society. The main reason why that has happened is the division between the soft drugs market and the hard drugs market. Young people who want to experiment, as they do in this country and other parts of Europe, can do so without being exposed to the pushers of hard drugs.
    I disagree with my hon. Friend the Minister about the idea that there are other fixes. We have to look at what has happened elsewhere and imitate the successes. We certainly should not go down the same road as the United States. We are now in the extraordinary position of having 130 per 100,000 of our citizens in jail. That is nearly the highest figure in Europe, and it is double the average. America, with its harsh drug policies, has 700 people in jail per 100,000.
    If we want to find a record of failure, which we must not repeat in Afghanistan, we need only look at Colombia. It has been said that we can eliminate drug use in Afghanistan and that we support a Government who will reduce poppy growing there. In fact there was a Government who were reducing poppy growing—they were called the Taliban—but the Northern Alliance was increasing poppy growing. That policy will not work.

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    The result of trying the same policy in Colombia is chaos and continual warfare between three armies, two of which are funded entirely by drug use.
    The great danger is that heroin production will not be eliminated by persuasion, bribery or whatever other means without providing alternative crops, because the money incentive is too strong. If it were eliminated in Afghanistan, the drugs would then be grown in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Burma. We are now told that they are grown in North Korea. We cannot stop that supply, and the drugs are being sucked in through this country. We have heard about the drop in price, but drug production and exports to this country are completely out of control.
    When we know that there are a huge number of people who become unable to work because they must enter a cycle of getting their drug, committing crimes to pay for it, sleeping it off and going through the same cycle again, do we say to those young people who are blighted by drugs that the only market available to them is a market run by criminals? Is not the only sensible way of dealing with the situation to collapse the evil, irresponsible black market in drugs by replacing it with a market that can be legalised, policed, licensed and controlled? That has happened in the Netherlands, and is happening now in Portugal. The Select Committee gave great attention to the drug users rooms that I have visited in a number of continental countries, which have an immediate beneficial effect. They immediately reduce crime, as they did in Switzerland, and have an immediate beneficial effect on the health of users—
    Pete Wishart: The hon. Gentleman is experienced enough in these affairs to know that the regime in Portugal and Holland is decriminalisation not legalisation. Will he make that distinction? Why does he think that legalisation is much more appropriate than what we see in those two countries?
    Paul Flynn: I want to make that my final point about what we can do.
    The problem at the moment is the 1961 UN convention, which binds most countries in Europe and limits the things that we can do. In Holland it has led to the front door and back door problem in relation to the supplier, which is illogical and causes concern there. We are told by DrugScope that we can do a great deal more than we are doing now within the terms of the UN convention. The important thing is that that convention will come up for reconsideration in 2003, and it is up to us to make sure that we alter it to allow the practical experiments that have been proved to be beneficial elsewhere to be tried throughout Europe. Every country in Europe is struggling with the UN convention.
    The explanation of how we got into this position dates back to the 1920s, when America had a Government almost as right-wing as the Government that it has now. That Government were religious-based and believed in prohibition. They introduced prohibition of alcohol and drugs, which spread throughout the world. That was the main cause of the problems that we have now. There was no recreational use of cannabis in Britain until it was prohibited. The argument is that perversely, prohibition increases use, because it creates profits for a group of people, as it did in America, where an empire of crime was established—and illegal drugs have done the same thing.
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    To return to the system that worked effectively here—as the Government are doing, slowly, tentatively and correctly—and to allow doctors to prescribe heroin will be a major step forward. I commend the Government for taking on the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard and The Daily Telegraph, which for the past two years, before the Government took their decision, had been calling for an intelligent debate on drugs, and pragmatic policies. Three early-day motions were tabled in the last Session describing the encouraging things that they had said about a change of policy. As soon as the Government had the courage to change policy, however, they condemned the Government in terms similar to those used by the Opposition spokesman tonight.
    We must congratulate the Select Committee and the Government and acknowledge that we have at least changed directions. For 30 years all Governments have treated each successive increase in drug use with more of the policies that helped to create that increase, with tougher policies and longer prison sentences. For once, we have a policy that should be described not as tough but as what it is: intelligent.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Before I call the next speaker, I remind the House, if it needs reminding, that Mr. Speaker has put a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.
    4.29 pm
    Mr. Peter Lilley: Like others, I welcome the report of the Home Affairs Committee and the introductory speech that we heard from its Chairman. I also welcome the many aspects in the Government's drugs strategy that have cross-party support.
    Since I became involved in considering these issues and, in particular, since I published a pamphlet entitled "Common Sense on Cannabis", I have been struck by how the debates tend to be bedevilled by a threefold confusion. First, there is the confusion between soft and hard drugs. Secondly, there is the confusion between the use and abuse of drugs and, thirdly, there is the confusion between what is immoral and what is and should be illegal. I shall say a few words about each of those sources of confusion.
    On the confusion between soft and hard drugs, immense harm has been done by the attempt to demonise cannabis and to present it as if it is as bad as and on a par with heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs. Claiming that cannabis is as bad as hard drugs discredits what we say about hard drugs. Therefore, it is sensible in principle to reclassify cannabis in accordance with its true nature. I am predisposed to accepting the Committee's recommendation that it is also sensible to reclassify ecstasy.
    The argument that reclassification sends the wrong signals ignores the fact that maintaining an absurd classification also sends a false and misleading message. It sends the message that heroin and crack cocaine are no worse than cannabis and ecstasy. Heroin and cocaine are seriously worse, and we do not want people who discover that using cannabis in moderation has little ill effect on their health to think that, because it is classified in a similar category to more damaging drugs, those drugs will not damage them.

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    Even greater damage is done by the attempt to confuse the two groups by claiming that soft drugs, while not in themselves as damaging as hard drugs, lead ineluctably to the use of hard drugs—the so-called gateway theory. It is not a valid theory. The fact that most heroin users previously used cannabis is not proof that they were caused to use heroin by their prior use of cannabis. In fact, most cannabis users previously used tobacco, but the simple fact is that most tobacco users do not go on to use cannabis and even fewer cannabis users go on to use heroin. There is certainly no chemical predisposition in the use of cannabis leading one to the use of heroin or cocaine.
    If the gateway theory were true and people who used cannabis were led on to hard drugs, there would be a strong case for maintaining the toughest possible sanctions on cannabis to stop people moving down that slippery slope. If it is not true, the effect of keeping cannabis as an illegal drug creates a gateway effect of its own. Cannabis is available only from the same illegal sources that push hard drugs. We are saying to people that, if they wish to use cannabis, they must pass through the supply gateway and bring themselves into contact with the people who may push upon them hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
    I fear that the Government are risking getting the worst of all worlds. They are simply reclassifying and reducing the criminal penalties, but are not going the logical step further that is essential if we are to break the link between soft and hard drugs. They are not providing through licensing committees legal outlets for cannabis in each area so that the people who insist on buying this boring and unattractive drug can do so legally without coming into contact with the people and gangs who will push the hard drugs. That would take the supply of the drug out of the hands of the gangs and thereby reduce their empire and wealth.
    The second confusion is between the use and abuse of drugs. In "Common Sense on Cannabis", published by the Social Market Foundation at £5 or available free from my website www.peterlilley.co.uk, I argued that cannabis is relatively safe if it is not abused. I quoted The Lancet study of all the medical evidence available which said:
    "On the medical evidence available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill effect on health, and that decisions to ban or legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations."
    I emphasise "moderate" and "little". I am not saying that it has no effect or that heavy and sustained use are not harmful. Indeed, I specifically stated that, although moderate and occasional cannabis use has few ill effects on health, it can be harmful if used heavily and continuously.
    Several recent studies have been reported in ways which suggest that that picture has changed. If it has, we ought to accept the evidence. I am an old-fashioned person, perhaps because of my training as a scientist. I think it was Keynes who said, "If the evidence changes, I change my mind. What do you do?" Let us consider the recent evidence. There are number of studies. They all have one thing in common: if there is an ill effect that is causal, it is primarily the consequence of heavy and sustained use, and there is little, or much less, effect from occasional use.
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    The first study, published by the British Lung Foundation, said that cannabis is more carcinogenic than tobacco. That is not a new idea. The study was simply a review of past studies, most of which were available to The Lancet report when it reviewed the evidence. I quoted The Lancet report as saying:
    "There is some evidence that cannabis smoking may be even more likely than tobacco to generate bronchial ailments and to cause cancers especially if smoked in conjunction with tobacco."
    There is no reason for us to change our minds on that because we all know and accept that there is a carcinogenic risk. It would therefore be much better to have legal supplies of the substance, which are obliged to carry a health warning explaining that risk and others, as tobacco products do.
    The British Lung Foundation also made the point, which has been mentioned, that modern cannabis supplies may contain much higher concentrations of its active element tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC. It implies that cannabis smoking is much more dangerous than it used to be and that although surveys have not found severe ill effects, they will in future. Whisky is much stronger than beer, but few people order it by the pint. I have not tried the stuff, and have no intention of doing so, but I understand that when people have stronger supplies of cannabis, they smoke less of it to get the same effect. So there is also no reason to change our mind on that.
    The three other studies were more substantial. An Australian study said that there are risks of depression from heavy and sustained use of cannabis, especially if one starts young and if one is a woman. If I am not misinterpreting the figures, it seems to suggest that sustained use of cannabis reduces the risk of depression in young men. However, it certainly seems to show an increased risk of depression among the relatively small number of heavy female users.
    The New Zealand study covers schizophrenia and depression. By contrast, it finds no link between depression and cannabis use, thereby undermining the Australian study. However, it finds a link between schizophrenic-type problems and the heavy and sustained use of cannabis.
    The third major study is a reworking of the famous Swedish study of 50,000 people who were conscripted in 1969 and have been followed since. That reinforces previous evidence that suggests a link between cannabis use and schizophrenic symptoms. The Lancet report referred to the earlier reports of the Swedish study and agreed that cannabis could perhaps precipitate and exacerbate schizophrenic symptoms, but it concluded that cannabis is unlikely to have caused cases of schizophrenia that would not otherwise have occurred.
    In the light of the latest reworking of the Swedish data, we cannot be quite so certain. Swedish researchers think that there may be some net addition to schizophrenic symptoms caused by cannabis smoking. However, we cannot yet accept that until there is some explanation. If that is the case, why has there not been a rise in the incidence of schizophrenia in the general population in western countries with the increased use of cannabis in recent decades? Unless and until we can explain that absence, we cannot suggest that the incidence will increase. Either way, however, we should discourage those who are susceptible to schizophrenia from taking cannabis, and discourage anybody from abusing it and using it excessively.

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    There is confusion between what is immoral and what is illegal. There are many who feel instinctively that even if cannabis had no risks to health and was in no danger of acting as a gateway to hard drugs, indulgence in it—and certainly excessive indulgence—would be morally wrong. However, in our modern world there is no greater sin than to moralise. Instead of voicing their moral disapproval of the abuse of cannabis, or explaining why they believe it to be immoral, people express their disapproval by exaggerating the health risks, by reading every conceivable study suggesting that there may be serious health risks, and by fostering the two previous confusions to which I have referred, that between soft drugs and hard drugs and between use and abuse.
    I am an old-fashioned moralist. I accept that abuse of any drug to the point of intoxication is morally wrong, whether it be alcohol or anything else. It is degrading to get drunk out of one's mind. It undermines the conscience, and therefore for traditional Christian reasons it is wrong because it opens up the individual to committing far worse sins and evils. I believe that people would be better off explaining those moral consequences rather than exaggerating health and other risks.
    In any event, many things are immoral or contrary to the prevailing moral code but are not crimes. Most people consider adultery to be wrong, but we do not fine or jail adulterers. It is bizarre to let people get drunk on alcohol, which is far more likely than cannabis to lead to violence, but to criminalise them for smoking one relaxing joint. A society with better understanding of the moral law and which was more willing to express its moral concerns would he less inclined to resort to the criminal law to solve social problems.
    It is a sign of moral decadence to look to the state to uphold, to preach and to enforce what is morally right rather than to look to the individual conscience, to teachers and parents and others with moral standing to advise us on what is right and wrong. If we expect everything that is wrong to be made illegal, we shall find ourselves living in a very unpleasant society. I believe that the greater the freedoms we possess and the more responsibility we are allowed, in general the more responsibly people will behave.
    I return to my original argument that both to break the—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has had his time.
    4.44 pm
    Mrs. Janet Dean: I am pleased to have the opportunity to take part in today's debate. When the Select Committee on Home Affairs decided to undertake an inquiry, we knew that we were treading on dangerous ground. At the end of those eight months, we understood even more the difficulty and complexity of the drugs issue.
    As the Chairman of the Select Committee said, we heard from many different organisations and individuals, and heard many different arguments. I believe that our report was balanced, but of course such a report upsets people on both sides of the argument. Members have said today that they would like cannabis in particular to be decriminalised. The Select Committee
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    looked at whether decriminalisation would send a message to young people who do not take the drug because it is illegal, and encourage them to take it. As has been said, there are possible long-term health problems associated with taking a drug such as cannabis so, if that message is sent, more people may suffer from medical conditions in future. I suspect, for example, that we would not legalise tobacco today.
    I am pleased that the Government have accepted most of the Select Committee's recommendations, and welcome their commitment to increase funding for treatment, both inside and outside the criminal justice system. It is important that treatment should be available when people are in prison or when courts impose drug treatment and testing orders, but there should not be a perverse incentive for addicts to enter the criminal justice system to receive treatment. We should make sure that treatment is available for people when they want it. Many young people are addicted to heroin, and we see their parents at our surgeries. Not until those young people are willing to undergo treatment can their problems be addressed satisfactorily. They should receive such treatment there and then—they should not have to wait for months.
    Drug addiction is one of the evils of modern society. We all know that every community in our constituencies is affected by it, although it obviously has a greater impact in areas of deprivation. However, addiction is also a problem in market towns and villages—we can see it everywhere—and it brings distress to those communities. It degrades users and makes parents desperate. As I said, those parents come to our surgeries, and it is difficult to know how to advise them. We can give the clear advice that the Minister gave earlier and refer them to a drug addiction team to get help for their children, but they are torn between the desire to protect them and getting them to face reality. They see their once-perfect children, who were growing up as caring individuals, become deceitful and fall into criminal activity to feed their habit including, very often, stealing from their own family. Parents are faced with a choice between keeping their children in the family home and trying to protect them—but suffering that thieving—and trying to reject them, getting them to face up to their problems and seek treatment. There is no easy answer for those parents but, as I have said, it is important that treatment is available when required and that there is support for families trying to cope with that situation.
    We must aim at prevention in the first instance and our overall message must he that all drugs are harmful. However, we must be realistic, which is why I support the Committee's recommendations on downgrading cannabis and ecstasy. I know that the ecstasy issue is a difficult one, as deaths are caused by them. The overall message must be that there is a danger in taking ecstasy. That must be the fundamental message that we send out, but we must also recognise that ecstasy is not comparable to heroin, crack and cocaine—it is in a different league. We must send out a realistic message to young people, but we will not do so if we do not grade the risks properly.
    The overall message must be that all drugs are harmful. Even in relation to cannabis, we have heard hon. Members speaking about the dangers of driving or contracting cancer and possibly suffering brain damage. We have also heard it said that the Government have

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    sent the wrong message over the past year or so. Sometimes, however, it is the media that send the wrong message; it will not necessarily be the Government who do so.
    Above all, the worst thing about drugs is addiction to heroin and cocaine. I welcome the Government's initiative to introduce innovative advertising and more measures to tackle crack cocaine, which is one of the neglected drugs in terms of treatment. I welcome the acceptance that we should tailor treatment services to the individual, including harm minimisation, needle exchange, methadone treatment and abstinence treatment where appropriate. I also welcome what my hon. Friend the Minister said about prison-to-home services, which are vital. I know of constituents who have died on getting home from prison and returning to the dose that they were taking previously.
    We must tackle drug production and dealing. There is a difference between those who supply their friends with drugs of whatever sort and the big boys who probably never take them, but cripple our communities by dealing in all sorts of drugs. We must also tackle deprivation and the lack of hope among young people. That is where the Government's policy of tackling crime and the causes of crime is important. If young people are given hope, they will be less likely to fall into the habit in the first place.
    I welcome the Government's acceptance of most of the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee. We have a long way to go and the problem will never be easy to address, but we have to tackle it in different ways.
    4.52 pm
    Mr. David Cameron: I am delighted to take part in this debate.
    Helping to produce the report, and serving on the Select Committee on Home Affairs discussing and debating it, has been by far the most interesting thing that I have done in the year and a half I have been in Parliament. Everyone on the Committee genuinely tried to empty their heads of preconceptions and to look at the evidence and think about it. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who introduced the debate. He chairs the Committee admirably and tries very hard to ensure that we reach unanimity, even if we cannot always do so.
    I strongly believe that the report is the right one at the right time. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South spoke about the utter failure of drugs policy in this country over a long period. In the 1970s, there were 2,000 heroin addicts; today, there are 250,000. Cannabis use has consistently increased and 50 per cent. of young people now admit to having tried it. Last year, 3,500 of our fellow countrymen died through drug abuse—a 20 per cent. increase on a decade ago. Another health problem that is not often looked at is the fact that 300,000 people in this country have contracted hepatitis C through drug use, and one third of them are likely to die prematurely.
    Before dealing with the recommendations, let me say that I feel extremely strongly about this subject and desperately want to see a reduction in drug abuse and
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    better paths to enable people to get out of it. If one takes a slightly progressive—or, as I like to think of it, thoughtful—view, one can sometimes be accused of being soft. I reject that utterly. Friends and people close to me have had their lives ruined by drug abuse and I want us to tackle the problem properly. That is what the report is all about.
    When we boil this report down and look at it closely, we see that its central point is that we must focus on the 250,000 problematic drug users. If we can get them into treatment, there will be a huge prize for this country. First, it would cut crime. The report estimates that 30 per cent. of property crime is committed by drug abusers, although the police in Oxford and many other towns and cities say that that is a massive underestimate. The report talks about each addict needing to steal £16,000 worth of products a year to fund their habit. I think that that, too, is a massive underestimate. If they are stealing from shops, they will often sell the products at a knock-down price. The value of the products that they need to steal is probably nearer to £40,000. Secondly, getting those people into treatment would save us a great deal of money. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said that it was pointless to send heroin users to prison, and I wholly agree with him. It is a waste of money. We must get them into treatment.
    As I said in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), I am pleased that some of what we have said has already been accepted on both sides of the House. The Government are placing a renewed emphasis on treatment, and some of the wilder targets of the drugs tsar have been cancelled. The tsar has not yet had the full Russian treatment—he has not been taken out and shot—but I sometimes think that Members on the Treasury Bench might like to lock him up, in true Russian fashion. On our side, policy has been changed—rightly—to give real emphasis to treatment. The proposals on mandatory treatment and trying to find ways of getting young people into treatment put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and the Front-Bench team have been hugely positive.
    I would like to talk about two of the report's most contentious recommendations. The first involves the prescribing of heroin—diamorphine—and the second relates to the use of safe injecting rooms. Both those recommendations have the same end in mind, which is to get people into treatment and to make that happen quickly. We have to realise that every day that an addict spends out on the streets funding their habit is a time of crime, of ill health and, possibly, of death. Many people estimate the percentage of property crime committed by drug abusers to be nearer 50 per cent. than 30 per cent., which would mean that every other time someone's house was burgled or their car broken into, it would be drug-related. This provision will be of interest to all our constituents, if we can get it right.
    I understand from the conversations that I have had with drug addicts and drugs workers that there is no single method of treatment that always works. We need to have a variety of methods. I plead with the Minister to acknowledge that the voluntary sector is terribly important in providing these services. In the old days, when all that was available was a few detox beds and a psychiatrist or a few junkie doctors, it was actually the

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    voluntary sector organizations—such as Kaleidoscope in south London—that started to provide methadone scripts. Instead of handing out great big doses, they were handing out daily doses. They were socialising the people concerned, and talking to them to make sure that they were in contact with treatment provision. We must do that now.
    The person to whom I spoke at Kaleidoscope made the point that there is nothing magic about illegal drugs. We have to try to make treatment attractive. She said that, when we talk to someone who has tried to give up smoking or has been on a diet, they will always say that the way they did it was the best way. It is the same with drug addicts. Someone who has had a residential placement will say how powerful it was, and how they rebuilt their life through the steps process. A similar thing happens when we talk to people on methadone replacement. We need to "let a thousand flowers bloom", if I can put it like that. We must make treatment attractive. Think of all the money that the Government spend on getting people to give up smoking. We have to try to draw people into treatment.
    Why prescribe heroin? It has worked overseas; the evidence that the Committee heard on that was compelling. The average age of heroin addicts in this country is, tragically, still going down. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey mentioned that in other countries, such as Holland, it is going up. Furthermore, methadone is not suitable for everyone. Some very chaotic drug users need to be stabilised, and perhaps heroin is the answer for them. The proposal might also help to cut the number of drug-related deaths. The fact that 3,500 people died last year from drug overdoses shames us. Most importantly, whatever treatment is chosen—including heroin prescribing for the hardest cases—at least the people concerned are getting into treatment and making contact with the agencies and the people who can help them. This is a difficult decision for the Government, but I hope that they will make it and persevere with it, because I believe that it is the right one.
    When I first heard about the concept of safe injecting rooms, I hated it. I thought the concept of the state providing a room for someone to inject something into their veins awful, but I listened to the arguments and, in particular, to Members such as the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice), who is in her place, and the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), who has just spoken.
    People who live in inner-city areas whose children have to step over drug paraphernalia in the streets and on housing estates deserve a break from heroin use in their communities. That takes me back to the point that safe injecting rooms at least get heroin users to a place where they can be contacted by the treatment agencies so that the work of trying to get them off drugs can start.
    The point about contact is hugely important. Everyone says that drugs are not just a crime problem. They are not just a health problem or just a problem of poverty either. They are a social problem in the true meaning of the phrase. If Members talk to anyone who has or has had a heroin addiction problem, they will find that there is always something else wrong with such people's lives. That is where the voluntary sector in particular can help to pick them up and turn them round.
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    I hope that the Government will be brave. We are seeing some progress, although they are, I am afraid, sometimes fond of using tough language on subjects such as crime and asylum. This is not a time for tough language; they must just get it right. The Home Secretary called for an adult debate and I welcome that, but I did not welcome his response to the report, as he immediately ruled out one or two recommendations. We had spent hours thinking, debating, arguing and considering the evidence, but he seemed to dismiss those recommendations in a matter of minutes. Rather than rejecting them so hastily, it would have been better to spend time reflecting on them.
    I shall make a number of suggestions based on my constituency experience of talking to people who have to deal with the problems of drugs. The first is on the system of DATs, or rather DAATs, as Oxfordshire has a drug and alcohol action team, which is headed by Bill Holman. He made the point to me that the Oxford coroner does not record drug-related deaths properly, so I would be grateful if the Minister looked into that; otherwise, we shall have no baseline for the target and no way to measure it.
    The next point is on the structure of DATs. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) made a good speech in Westminster Hall about that, which I read as, sadly, I could not be present. There is a bit of confusion here. DATs are non-statutory bodies and in many cases most of the employees work for different agencies. In Oxfordshire, some are employed by the youth service, some by social services and some by the primary care trust. Although I am always against creating vast new bureaucracies, DATs need more clarity in how they are set up.
    We should consider DAT funding streams: something comes from the Department for Education and Skills, something from the youth offending team and something from the Department of Health. On the whole, we should give those bodies the money and let them get on with the job. Social services rather than the DAT tends to commission residential care places. If we are to give DATs more power and more influence, we need to let them get on with it and commission a full service of education, prevention and treatment.
    My next constituency point is on education. I would recommend to all Members that they sit at the back of a secondary school class when a drugs education programme is being conducted. I did so when a group of former addicts called Energy and Vision, which is part of the voluntary sector, was involved. It does education programmes across Oxfordshire, which are incredibly powerful. They are information based and nonjudgmental, and they provide proper information for the students, who were gripped by what they were told. That, however, was not namby-pamby or soft.
    The ex-addicts described how their experimentation with drugs had led them down a dreadful path to losing their homes and friends, breaking up from their families, prison and the collapse of their lives. They had credibility and their programme had power, as they were not the men in suits referred to by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South.
    We must be frank about education. Of course we want it to reduce drug use, but reducing drug abuse is key and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin

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    and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) made that point with great power. We know the figures—50 per cent. of young people try certain drugs—and it is most important that they understand the real risks of their experimentation and the risks of getting into drug abuse.
    I want to make a point on policing. I met the police in Oxford, who are responsible for an active drug treatment and testing order programme and trying to get addicts into treatment. They included assistant chief constable Steve Love and Jim Trottman, who is in charge of policing in Oxford city. A point was made to me then that I consider important: I hope that the Minister will take it on board. Apparently, the police and the probation service do not always follow the same track. The police want to target the most prolific offenders and ensure that they are the subject of DTTOs, while the probation service is rewarded on the basis of the number who go through the system.
    We must also consider the speed of the process. We all know about delays in the court system. The trouble with DTTOs is the need to wait until an offender who has carried out burglaries or car crimes, but is also involved with drugs, goes to court. Could treatment, or at least being referred for treatment, be a condition of police bail? If the arrested person rejected that condition, there would be an even faster track to court.
    Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The updated strategy contains a proposal to pilot refusal of bail to those who are not prepared to accept treatment. We will consider early interventions of the kind that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
    Mr. Cameron: I am pleased to hear it, and I look forward to seeing whether the system works.
    A common theme features in what has been said to me by those involved in education, by the police and by the DAAT. When things go wrong, treatment services must be available. They must be attractive, access to them must be quick, and we must ensure that they work. As others have said today, that means that there must be more places. Although residential places are not the only answer, there are not nearly enough. According to a written answer given to me, there are only 1,900 in the country, and I support the proposal of my Front-Bench team to increase the number, while retaining all the existing treatment options.
    Let me end with a plea to the Minister. This is an incredibly difficult subject. It is impossible to control from Whitehall the number of drugs that will be taken, what new drugs will appear and what will happen to the figures. If the figures do not do the right thing, I ask the Government not to return to retribution and war on drugs. That has been tried, and we all know that it does not work.
    I think we are making progress. Of course, anyone who takes part in a debate like this is in danger of being called soft. Following the report's publication I was introduced in this way by a local radio station: "Now we will hear from a Conservative MP who thinks that heroin addicts should be given prescriptions for ecstasy". That was a tough one; it was difficult for me to explain my way out of it.
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    I think, though, that if we get this right we will have a chance to cut crime, save money, improve the health of the country and even save lives. That is definitely worth a brickbat or two.
    5.7 pm
    Ms Bridget Prentice: I am pleased to be able to contribute, and I will try to be brief.
    Let me make a confession to my colleagues on the Select Committee, and to the Chairman in particular. I was a relatively new member when the Committee decided to look at the Government's drug policy. In fact, I was an entirely new member: it was at the first sitting that we drew up the topics that we wanted to investigate.
    I remember the occasion well. When a colleague suggested that we investigate drugs, my immediate reaction—which I did not share with the Committee—was "Why? Do we not all know where we stand? Drugs are a bad thing; we are all against them: people who take them are stupid or inadequate or easily led, and we know that those who sell them are horrible criminals who ought to be banged up for as long as possible". At any rate, my views were close to that. I was not looking forward to an investigation that seemed to have no real purpose. I had already made up my mind: I took a very hard line, and no one was going to make me deviate from it.
    After a thorough and at times difficult series of evidence sessions, I was forced to reconsider. I still think all drugs are bad and I still think drug pushers should be given the heaviest of sentences, but I no longer believe that we have been tackling the scourge of drugs in our society in the best way possible. So I would say to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), who has just left the Chamber, that I do not mind being called radical, but I draw the line at being called liberal, for a variety of reasons.
    Simon Hughes: Not related to this debate.
    Ms Prentice: Indeed.

    The most obvious failure in the Government's drugs policy is that young people, who are the customers of the drug dealers, do not believe in the current strictures. That is not to say that they do not believe that drugs are bad for them or that they are wrong; they simply do not believe the message as we present it. They have seen their friends take cannabis and survive; they have even heard the arguments about the beneficial aspects of some drugs and they do not consider it to be such a big deal. They also know about the downside of alcohol and tobacco, so they think that those of us wearing suits are just a tad hypocritical when we go over the top about cannabis. Indeed, had we known earlier what we know now about tobacco we might have banned it. I believe that the Government's change of tack on cannabis is right. It should remain illegal, but it should not be such a serious offence as it was, and it should not be classified the same as harder drugs. That change is logical and understandable and is much more likely to be accepted and understood. If a law is consistently flouted, it becomes useless.
    We also felt that a similar change should be made in respect of ecstasy. I heard my hon. Friend the Minister say why he believes that cannot happen. We thought

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    long and hard, but we felt that the evidence from parents and others persuaded us that ecstasy should be reclassified. The Government have set out guidelines for clubbing, so they clearly realise that ecstasy is different from heroin and cocaine.
    Heroin and crack cocaine gave rise to the most frightening problem, which was examined in probably the most difficult and stressful Select Committee sittings: namely, whether those giving evidence were users or whether their families had suffered. Initially, the families suffer most. They have goods stolen from their homes; they have to face the shame and the blame in their local communities when the addict steals from others to pay for his habit; they experience the despair and degradation of witnessing the drug take control of their son, daughter, brother or sister; and, finally, they suffer the sorrow and pain when a son or brother dies from an overdose or from using impure drugs. We would all agree that, for parents, watching a child die a painful and horrible death that they can do nothing to prevent must be a most harrowing experience. The parents who have been mentioned today, Tina Williams and Fulton Gillespie, helped me understand why we had to change the policy. I believe that it is right for the Government to concentrate their resources on the 250,000 or so chaotic drug users and at the same time bring down the full force of the law on those who traffic drugs and prey on those drug abusers.
    I read the report by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on heroin use. It is a brave report and I understand many of the pleas that he makes. I was particularly concerned by his constituents' negative response to the National Treatment Agency. I hope that that is not typical around the country.
    An even greater concern is that there are simply not enough agencies around, which is why it is right to concentrate on prevention and treatment. Some GPs have little understanding of or sympathy with drug users and need training to ensure that they approach the problem more positively and help young people. That is why drug abusers are often alienated from their GPs. They are very reluctant to come before certain professionals because they do not believe that they will get an appropriate response. I therefore hope that the Government's changes in respect of prevention and treatment will make a big difference.
    In telling us about the lack of available treatment, Tina Williams described her son, who is a heroin addict:
    "He has no veins left in his body; all his neck veins went; all his groin veins went. However, it did not make any difference, there was still a five month waiting list. There is no such thing as an emergency."
    I do hope that the philosophy that now underpins the Government's strategy will ensure that Tina Williams' experience will not be repeated.
    I want to underline the plea from the Chairman of the Select Committee for at least a pilot on injecting rooms. The hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) described the situation in inner cities, parks and open spaces, and on the landings of tower blocks. Finding needles is not the way for young people to learn that drugs are a bad thing, and I hope that the Government will look again at the issue.
    The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said that the original strategy was too ambitious, but in my view it was simply wrong, and the drugs tsar has to
    1130
    take some responsibility for that. The Government should probably be commended for recognising that they were wrong, and for changing course. No one is ignoring the dangers of drugs; it is those dangers that have led the Committee to reach its conclusions. I did not expect the Government to agree with every one of its recommendations—much as I would have liked them to—but I hope that the new strategy will be simply the first update, and that they will return to this issue periodically. In doing so, I hope that they will continue to use our report as a reference point.
    I shall finish by briefly quoting Tina Williams again, because it is the families of drug users who really feel the brunt of the problems that arise:
    "If you speak to the family, everybody is affected; my grandson is affected as are his brothers and sisters. There have been no holidays for five years. The home has just really stood there, it has stood still because time has stood still for me. Just like any parent, if you have a child and that child is sick, you drop everything to try and pick that child up. That is why I feel so sad for people who have lost their children and for people who are still dying. In this country, three people die a day from addiction"—
    drug addiction—
    "and I think it can all be avoided. If the services were in place, then death could be avoided."
    I hope that the Government's updated drug strategy will give Ms Williams hope, and bring about fulfilment of it.
    5.18 pm
    Mr. Jonathan Djanogly: The failure of the Government's drugs strategy to date means that our country still faces a very significant problem that affects the whole of our society—the wealthiest, the poorest, and everyone in between. Indeed, I think it highly unlikely that anyone of my generation does not know of someone who has succumbed to the horrors of drug addiction.
    This is not just an urban problem. Now, our towns and villages have almost instant access to heroin, cannabis and—increasingly—crack cocaine. That is certainly the case in my own constituency, where there are almost weekly reports in the local papers of drug-related incidents, be it cannabis smoking underneath the skateboard ramps in Godmanchester, or heroin raids in Huntingdon. Indeed, almost every local youngster whom I speak to on the topic knows pretty much instantly where they can purchase drugs, whether or not they use them personally.
    While it is clear that the Government have failed to meet almost every one of their targets for controlling illegal drugs, we need to look forward. However, I do not see enough in the new proposals to suggest that we are tackling the root of the problem, which, to my mind, is ultimately a question of addressing cultural values. However, I appreciate the fact that we are having this debate, and I welcome the Select Committee's proactive stance. I freely admit that I am no expert on drugs. However, I recognise that the issue is one of the most important social matters in my constituency. It is essential that hon. Members make it their business to educate themselves about drugs. In that way, we will be able to deal with the enforcement and medical-related factors, and understand the cultural implications.
    For most drug takers, drug use is very much bound up with the concept of glamour. They want to be part of a clandestine counter culture, and to be alternative.

    1131
    Education, awareness and, above all, open debate are vital. Discussing the implications of drug use in a wider context would go some way towards breaking down drugs' attractive, private-club aspect and, therefore, their so-called glamour.
    Describing crack cocaine and heroin as glamorous is repulsive to me, but the word provides an accurate description of the way many young people approach them. Many people will remember the advertisement that used the image of a young woman crouched dead on the floor with a needle in her arm. Some will have found that shocking, but most young people have been hardened by screen violence, and seduced by heroin chic in the fashion world and films such as "Trainspotting".
    I should note that I do not want to denigrate that film, which portrayed reality and showed how heroin can cause people to die sad and lonely deaths choking on their own vomit. However, it also showed how some young people—living on sink council estates or bored in some idyllic country village—can see heroin as a glamorous escape from their everyday environments.
    The advertisement to which I have referred failed because it concentrated on the damage that drugs can cause the people who use them, and ignored the wider implications for society, dependants and families. The truly unacceptable aspect of addiction is the destruction of families, and the way in which the houses of family members and neighbours are looted for drugs money.
    We should aim to remove the glamour from drugs. We should explain the personal impact that they have on users, but it is also vital that we make children aware at a very early age of the impact that addicts have on the people around them. We must make children aware of their responsibilities towards other people. Instead of showing children pictures of overdosing addicts, I think that they should be exposed to pictures of the victims of drug-fuelled crime, of grieving parents and HIV-infected babies, and of old people on hospital trolleys waiting for a teenager to have his stomach pumped.
    The Government's proposal to reclassify cannabis from class B to class C is a mistake. Leaving the technicalities aside, what message is being given to young people? Is it that the Government will take responsibility, and say that using cannabis is wrong and will be punished? No. Is it that the Government will take responsibility and say that cannabis is acceptable, that they will identify dosages and protect people from spiked dosages? No, I do not get that message either.
    I believe that the message from the Government is that they want to make no comment on cannabis use. As long as people do not sell cannabis, their use of the drug has nothing to do with the Government. That is the worst of both worlds. As the experience on Lambeth shows, it will lead to a massive increase in the drug's use, and in effect hand control of the situation over to drug dealers.
    Paul Flynn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Djanogly: I should love to, but I am severely restricted for time, and other hon. Members wish to speak.
    1132
    The position is the same for hard drugs. A few weeks ago, I sat in on a prison drugs rehabilitation group run by the excellent organisation RAPt. I learned a lot from the young men in the group. Normally, heroin addicts are treated by being given methadone. Most of the men in the group had been on 10 or more methadone courses. They all said that the courses had done absolutely nothing for them.
    With respect to those hon. Members who have spoken in support of the alternative, those young men did not talk about swapping methadone for prescription drugs or about having access to legal shooting galleries. They all said that the only effective treatment was rehabilitation.
    Mr. Cameron: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Djanogly: I would love to, but I cannot.
    Rehabilitation is slower, more intensive and more expensive, but it works. The experience made me realise that the policy advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), of increasing rehabilitation tenfold—we can argue about exactly what tenfold means—and giving young people a clear choice between rehabilitation or prison is the right one. I urge the Government to go down that road.
    More than 60 per cent. of prisoners in many of our jails take heroin. Drug testing is, if anything, making matters worse—prisoners are switching from cannabis to heroin, which stays in the body for a shorter period. A generation of prisoners is leaving our jails with huge drug debts that force them to reoffend immediately to pay off their debts and feed their habit. In the prison that I visited, only 5 per cent. of inmates had access to rehab, and how grateful they were for being given a new chance in life. That figure must be increased.
    Likewise, although excellent work is being carried out in my constituency by groups such as DASH—Drug and Alcohol Service Huntingdon—and DIAL Druglink to tackle drug-related crime, provide counselling, develop employment opportunities and educate children, there are not enough available funds for them. Huntingdonshire primary care trust, with a population of 148,000, provides 1,600 structured counselling sessions a year. However, it calculates that it needs four times that number of consultant sessions to be effective. It is also concerned at the lack of Government understanding of the practicalities for local areas in implementing the Government's compulsory 200-page long treatment notes, given the inadequate space and resources to operate it. It is all very well to come out with new strategies and 200-page guidance notes, but the Government must appreciate that they need paying for, and that is not happening at present.
    Finally, I note that not enough is being said here today or generally about alcohol abuse. Several hon. Members have mentioned the connection between drugs, driving and alcohol. There is a lack of clarity surrounding the Government's policy on how drugs and alcohol policy combine. My local PCT has been told that drugs funding is only to be used for drugs misuse, although many drug addicts also have alcohol problems. The two cannot be detached. I ask the Government to look at the issue again.
    If this debate is the start of a new mindset for the Government in acting on the massive implications of drugs in our society, it has my full support and I

    1133
    welcome it. However, I do not feel that what I have heard in the Government's proposals so far will be adequate to solve the problem.
    5.27 pm
    Mr. Adrian Bailey: I welcome this report and the amount of money that the Government have invested in it. I have always felt that public money invested in an anti-drugs strategy, providing that it is effective, is one of the most cost-effective ways of using such money.
    Inevitably, following the report of the Select Committee, the debate has been dominated by the issues involving the appropriate level of criminality of various classes of drugs and rehabilitation. In the short time available to me, I want to focus on effectively breaking into the drugs distribution network. Labour Members agree that all drugs are dangerous, whatever their criminal classification, and that they are promoted and marketed by a network of criminals who are ruthlessly efficient and very effective. There is a real danger that however effective our rehabilitation programmes, this criminal operation will continue to recruit new people to drug-taking, irrespective of our propaganda initiatives.
    The Assets Recovery Agency is mentioned in the report. Unfortunately, I feel that its potential in combating drugs use is being underplayed. When the Minister commented on the confiscation of criminal assets, he did not mention that the ARA, set up under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, can target people with a criminal lifestyle, such as drug dealers, even though there is not sufficient proof to prosecute them in a criminal court. Currently, that procedure is under-used.
    After all, a drug dealer is fairly obvious. Such people tend to drive flash cars and wear gold chains and designer suits. They are certainly not renowned for squirreling their money away in a stakeholder pension. They like to cut a dash in their local, criminal, youth-oriented community, where they act as negative role models for marginalised young people who want to get in on the act.
    It is essential that we tackle the drug dealers. By identifying them and confiscating their assets, the ARA could remove one of the strongest incentives for taking up that activity. The agency could knock out a link of the chain that spreads drugs and the misery associated with them.
    I realise that many members of the Home Affairs Select Committee have spoken in the debate. I am a member of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. We visited Dublin and talked to members of the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau, which does a job similar to that of the ARA. Ireland has a population of only 3 million and the drugs market is much more rudimentary, yet the CAB has achieved remarkable success. Over the past six years, it has obtained £72 million in confiscated assets from criminals in Ireland—a not inconsiderable sum.
    In this country, previous legislation on such matters has not worked effectively. A report from the Cabinet Office performance and innovation unit, published before the establishment of the ARA, stated:
    "Specially tasked law enforcement officers struggle to investigate the financial aspects of crime to support this effort, but their effectiveness is limited by their numbers and … training."
    1134
    If the legislation is to be effective, we need to increase considerably the number of officers engaged in asset recovery.
    Mr. Bob Ainsworth: I agree with my hon. Friend, but if he feels that we have not yet made a hit of the ARA that is because the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 only became law in the summer, so it is not yet fully established. We have trained 86 extra financial investigators for individual police forces and set up a centre of excellence—so watch this space. We fully intend to use all the powers in the Act.
    Mr. Bailey: I welcome my hon. Friend's comments. To a certain extent, they pre-empt my next few points. However, when we interviewed the officials who were setting up the ARA, they said that the estimated number of staff was 100. That compares with 44 in the CAB so, if we bear in mind the fact that the population of Eire is 3 million while that of the UK is 60 million, the evidence that we took in April this year suggests that there is no great appreciation of the potential importance of the role of the agency, despite my hon. Friend's reassuring words.
    I hope that the Home Office will take this seriously because it is a way in which we can make a significant impact. We will emerge with a social and financial virtuous circle. As half the money will be put into a recovered assets fund that can be recycled to deal with drug dealing, the more successful we are, the more money we earn to invest in the very processes that have been successful in the first place. There is a financial benefit and there are social benefits that accrue from tackling drugs.
    In my constituency, there is a communities against drugs scheme, and I want to emphasise its success. There have been mutterings—I say no more than that—that if local authorities have not spent the money allocated to them in this financial year, they will have it reclaimed. My constituency was slow to get going, but there is now a range of initiatives that are proving effective, including four effectively targeted police operations in which 45 people were arrested, £50,000 was confiscated and £12,000 worth of drugs was obtained. There is a drugs information line that has had 100 calls, as well as parents support groups and school initiatives. I plead with the Minister not to be precipitate in removing any money from such local initiatives because my local authority has ideas, is working on them and will use the money effectively.
    5.36 pm
    Angela Watkinson: I was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee when it investigated drugs policy. Two weeks before the investigation began, the Home Secretary informed the Committee of his intention to downgrade cannabis from class B to class C. At that moment, I knew that whatever proved to be the outcome of the Committee's deliberations, cannabis would indeed be downgraded to class C; a serious misjudgment, in my view.
    I pay tribute to the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) for his great patience in dealing with the many amendments that I tabled to the Select Committee report. He will

    1135
    know that I felt unable to add my name to those of the rest of the Committee on the final report. The Committee's investigations, spanning several months, polarised the debate into two schools of thought; the relative importance of harm reduction versus prevention.
    Important though harm reduction undoubtedly is, it cannot stand alone as a policy and is doomed to failure without stringent prevention measures, backed up by enforcement. The notion that treatment can be provided to any existing drug addict who either wants it or is prescribed it as part of a criminal sentence, plus unlimited provision for the constant stream of new addicts, is a fantasy and is unaffordable. That is why I contend that of all the strategies available for reducing drug abuse in this country, prevention is by far the most important.
    We must prevent the young people of today from becoming the drug addicts of tomorrow and swelling the ranks of those already addicted if the amount of treatment needed is ever to become manageable.
    There are many who would say that drug use should be a matter of individual freedom and choice and, indeed, if people were able to take drugs in isolation and without harming anyone but themselves, there might be an argument for that. The tragic fact is that it is not just the individual who suffers. It is also their family, friends, work colleagues and the wider community in terms of drug-related crime and benefit dependency. This is a freedom too far, where the freedom of the individual impinges on the freedom of too many others.
    The metropolitan trendy elite might find it amusing to take drugs socially, but they can afford to check in to an equally trendy and elite clinic for treatment whenever they need it. How unlike the residents of council estates who are no longer able to hold down a job because their drug dependence has robbed them of the ability to observe the normal disciplines of everyday life; the motivation to get out of bed in the morning, to arrive on time at work, to carry out the duties of their job and to interact with other people in a socially acceptable way. They so often also lose their moral fibre and turn to crime in the overwhelming need to meet the cost of their drug habits. However, it is not a fair or complete picture that paints drug addicts as simply victims and places all the blame on the dealers.
    People who have disregarded all the available education and advice on the results of drug taking must, to varying degrees and depending on circumstances such as their age, take their share of responsibility for that decision, alongside the dealers. The market is demand led. That is why prevention is so important. Proper prevention, linked to proper education in schools and colleges, would reduce demand at one end of the market, while harm reduction reduces it at the other.
    The main focus of new drugs policies is on the treatment of existing users of heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine. Those hard drugs do serious damage to the physical and emotional health of the user. However, there is overwhelming evidence—both medical and from the police—that the majority of hard drug users start on cannabis. That is not the same as saying that all cannabis users progress—I suppose that "regress"
    1136
    would be the more appropriate word—to heroin and cocaine, but it is fair to say that most hard drug users arrive there via the cannabis route. That is why downgrading cannabis is wrong. It gives out entirely the wrong message, especially to young people, that cannabis is harmless, legal or both.
    Paul Flynn: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Angela Watkinson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I will not because of the lack of time.
    The mind-altering qualities of cannabis are so complex that, despite momentous medical advances, doctors still do not fully understand them. Some 75 per cent. of young people who suffer psychotic illness have a history of cannabis abuse. Even people in robust mental health suffer negative effects from the odd joint. Those effects may include a short-term lack of resolve, a lesser ability to work, drive a car or operate machinery and an unwillingness to make a physical or mental effort.
    Beyond that, there is an unknown percentage with a mental or chemical predisposition for psychotic illness, and cannabis can trigger altered moods, confusion, delusions or even hallucinations in those people. Some ethic communities in which cannabis use is endemic suffer hugely increased levels of psychosis—up to 20 times greater than the general population.
    Reducing the number of cannabis users would, in turn, reduce the numbers of new heroin and cocaine addicts, thereby reducing demand. Any relaxation of the law that makes drugs more accessible or reduces penalties will result, inevitably, in increased use and marketing, and be counter-productive to a national policy of reducing drug abuse.
    The Government publication "Safer Clubbing" contains guidelines on the safer use of ecstasy in nightclubs. The formal acceptance of drug taking as an integral part of a night out is a classic example of the prevention versus harm reduction argument. Such harm reduction includes the provision of chill-out rooms and making drinking water available, giving the impression that ecstasy will be safe if water is drunk. In fact, drinking too much water can be just as harmful as not drinking enough.
    The role of the police is now reduced to minimising use and co-ordinating with harm reduction policies. What does that mean in practice? In effect, it means noninterference and acceptance. To prevent more fatalities, we should aim for co-operation between police, nightclub owners and local licensing authorities in working towards drug-free clubs. What we have instead is capitulation on the grounds that offenders are too numerous to deal with under current police resources. If the same policy were suggested for burglary, for example, which is equally prolific, there would be a public outcry.
    A drugs policy focused on harm reduction for hard-drug users is destined to fail because of the ever-increasing demand for expensive treatment, which has to compete for national health service funding with the whole spectrum of health issues.
    Mr. Bob Ainsworth rose—
    Angela Watkinson: I am sorry; I am short of time, and I am reading as fast as I can.

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    The national drug strategy, published on Tuesday, seems to interpret harm reduction as meaning making it easier for people to take drugs and considering making them free of charge and freely available. That will be an extraordinary policy for any Government to introduce. It involves a removal of sanction or any deterrent and would amount to an acceptance of drug habits and effortless access. What message do the Government think that that would send out? It is like saying, "Don't worry, if you choose to take illegal drugs and develop a habit that ruins your health and your finances, the taxpayer will look after you without so much as a slap on the wrist." It amounts to a total removal of accountability and personal responsibility, and it will do nothing to reduce the number of drug addicts.
    The Government must put much greater emphasis on prevention. The first essential in prevention policy is proper drugs education. Some of the literature that is currently in use, which passes for education, is information of the most undesirable kind. Lifeline, a Manchester-based charity, in a booklet about cannabis, shows how a joint is rolled. The first piece of advice in a section entitled
    "How to survive your parents discovering you're a Drug User"
    is,
    "Don't get caught in the first place."
    Other Lifeline publications are full of four-letter words, shockingly graphic illustrations or instructions on how to inject. One of the favourite phrases is "informed choice". Anyone advocating "informed choice" for other widespread illegal activities, such as speeding or shoplifting, would be severely censured. Why should it be different with drugs? Even if they were properly informed about drugs, and most are not, there should be no choice. Drugs are illegal. Anyway, children are not mature enough to choose. They are not miniature adults. They should never be put in the position of making critical life decisions. In 2000, DrugScope, our largest drug charity, distributed a booklet on cannabis in its "What and Why" series. One of the illustrations shows a young man in the midst of a crop of cannabis plants, wearing a cap that says, "Have fun, Take care". What sort of message does that send to our children?
    Harm reduction education does not tackle drugs; it accommodates them. Ofsted inspections must start to address that problem. The majority of teenagers do not use any illegal drugs, and never have done. The biggest weapon that we have in prevention is normalisation and helping those under pressure to see the truth: that their abstention from illegal drugs and tobacco is the norm at any age of childhood, adolescence or adulthood.
    The problem is vast in scope, and is a great challenge to the Government, but in making hard drug taking easier and downgrading cannabis—the drug that so often leads to a hard drug habit—the national drug strategy is defeatist and counterproductive. The additional funding allocated to tackling the problem will be as effective as trying to fill a bath without putting in the plug. Prevention is that plug, and it must be given much higher priority. The war on drugs has not been lost; it has never been waged.
    5.47 pm
    Dr. Brian Iddon: If somebody had told me in 1997, when I came to the House, that we would have such a debate just five years hence, I would
    1138
    not have believed them. Only one or two people in the House at that stage were willing to put their heads above the parapet and suggest some of the ideas that have been accepted by the Government recently. We were regarded, if you will pardon the expression, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as crackpots.
    I am therefore very pleased to take part in the debate today, and I congratulate the Government on the radical steps that they are prepared to take. Clearly, the current policies were not working, radical thinking was necessary, and development of the policy was essential. That is what we have seen in the last few months. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee and all the members of that Committee on their hard work in taking evidence and producing an excellent report, which came on top of the report by the Police Foundation, whose committee was chaired by Lady Runciman.
    Not a great deal of time remains, so I shall concentrate on a matter that has not been mentioned in today's debate. Many organisations have written to me in my capacity as chairman of the all-party group on drugs misuse, and I shall start by addressing the question of the guidance notes in a recent consultation on an amendment by section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 to section 8(d) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Following the Wintercomfort case in Cambridge, I raised the possible consequences in a debate in this place on 9 November last year. Since then, guidance notes have been circulated for consultation and section 8(d) is just about to be amended. In fact, the consultation period ended on 8 November this year.
    Several organisations are concerned about some of the proposals. Previously, it was illegal for organisations to allow cannabis and prepared opium to be used on their premises. The pattern of drugs misuse since 1971 has moved on and it is admitted that future legislation needs to cover heroin, cocaine and crack, amphetamines, LSD, ecstasy and so on. The reason stated for the change in the regulations is that the police need powers to deal with the closed drug markets, mainly the crack houses and, in particular, the crack houses in London.
    Section 8(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 already applies to the supply of all controlled drugs on premises, and it has been used. Indeed, a number of authorities in London—for example, Camden, Lambeth and Hackney—have developed policies to deal with crack houses quite efficiently.
    Unlike heroin, which is a depressant and for which substitute drugs are available, cocaine either as the salt or the base, which is otherwise known as crack, is a serious stimulant that can make its users extremely aggressive, and no substitute drug is available. Cocaine is the biggest difficulty that we now face in the drug market.
    Outside London, cocaine was not a great problem until recently, but concern is growing in large cities, such as Manchester, and even in places such as Bolton, which is part of greater Manchester. The supply of cocaine in the north is being accelerated by the fact that flights from the Caribbean rim now come into Manchester airport. Swallowers or mules—call them what we will—now come into Manchester airport in the same way as they come into Schiphol airport.

    1139
    I was at Schiphol a few weeks ago, watching the treatment of drugs swallowers. Fifteen drug offenders are arrested each day at the airport and the authorities admit that they miss many more. Forty people came in on a flight from the Caribbean rim recently and they were all carrying up to a kilogram of cocaine in their gastro-intestinal tract.
    Organisations working in drug treatment and those working with the homeless, in particular, feel that the proposed changes to the law will be unworkable if they are enacted and will be detrimental to drugs users, voluntary organisations and the public at large. It is feared that the changes will result in an increased number of homeless people on the streets, and nearly all of them will have serious drug problems. They will be unable to access accommodation for a long time and support services will not be readily available to them.
    The guidance notes require those who know that drugs are being used on premises to contact the police as soon as possible. I submit to my hon. Friend the Minister that that alone might result in a lack of trust between the homeless people with serious drug problems and the organisations trying to help them. Organisations also fear that police forces will apply the law inconsistently across the country, although there is the backstop of the Crown Prosecution Service.
    Agencies whose aim is to get drug users off the streets and stabilised before treatment is possible are particularly concerned by the new regulations, although the Government admit that special measures will have to be made available for the people who welcome in serious drug addicts. However, the proposed consultation document contains no mention of the paraphernalia that drug users use to inject themselves or of the sharps bins that will be required on the premises. Some clarification of that aspect is necessary.
    Surely we should welcome it if all serious drug users who live on the streets come inside and at least stabilise themselves, even if they do not offer themselves up for the treatments that will be made available much wider than hitherto. It must be recognised that the only chance of survival for a small but growing cohort of very chaotic drug users is long-term maintenance on heroin or diamorphine. So I am pleased that the Government are to extend the prescribing of clinically pure heroin.
    Although the draft guidance notes enable police to take into account harm reduction factors when deciding whether to prosecute, it will remain illegal to allow substance misuse on premises, whatever the motivation. A decision to act illegally would have serious consequences on the charitable status of many organisations.
    The organisations are also concerned that if they are caught in the act of helping someone with a serious drug problem and are prosecuted under the regulations, they will lose their insurance. So organisations that help homeless people with serious drug problems face the risk of going out of business.
    There are curious anomalies, too, which I hope the Minister will consider. Although allowing the use of cannabis on premises will carry the maximum penalty of five years imprisonment once it is reclassified, the user's
    1140
    offence will carry a maximum penalty of only two years. Who would want to report a drug overdose on their premises if the police are likely to prosecute under the amended regulations? That might encourage people whose friends have overdosed on the premises to remove the body to avoid prosecution.
    If enacted in full, the amended regulations might affect parents who buy their offspring heroin so that they can treat them at home. Registered social landlords, such as housing associations, and even private landlords are fearful of the new regulations and may not let drug users take tenancies with them. I urge the Secretary of State and the Minister to consider the proposals in the light of all the comments that organisations have made.
    5.57 pm
    Pete Wishart: I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing debate on what is probably the most intractable social issue confronting our society. Many hon. Members have said that drugs are a massive problem, and there is great concern and anxiety in every community the length and breadth of the UK about them. If we asked the public to name the social issues that most concern them, any survey would put drugs in the top five. The public are desperate for solutions and desperate to make progress.
    The public have also heard it all before. There are a few significant differences in the report, but I have a sense of déjà vu. I am a new Member, but I have heard all the arguments before. That might have something to do with the fact that before I came to the House, I served as a director of a drugs charity that considered drugs issues. I was also in the Scotland Against Drugs campaign team. I have, perhaps, overdosed on drugs strategies in the past few years. Although there have been countless strategies, approaches and fresh starts, I am desperately trying to think of one that has made any significant progress on dealing with the drugs menace in our society.
    We have set targets that have never been met. We have employed drugs tsars who go off in a huff after achieving absolutely nothing. We have set out new approaches that have been met by a tidal wave of new and emerging problems. What has underpinned successive strategies in the past three decades, as the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) said, is our unshattering belief in prohibition—that by keeping drugs illegal we will keep people off drugs. If we look at the history of those strategies, we must come to the desperate conclusion that they have been less than successful. Drug use has spiralled almost out of control under prohibition. Drug taking among young people is routine. A black economy has emerged, with associated gangsterism and petty crime, which creates havoc in many of our hard-pressed communities. If prohibition has underpinned so many of our strategies, the drugs war has been its popular cause.
    The drugs war is the Vietnam of our social issues because there are so many correlations between them. The drugs war is fought on uncertain terrain, with limited intelligence against an elusive and determined adversary. Like the Vietnam war, the drugs war is well and truly lost. The only people who would go over the top in the drugs war are the Conservative Front Bench and a few of their fellow travellers on the Conservative Benches.

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    We have continued to overlook the central relationship between drugs and young people. Recognition of that has been lacking during the debate. We still do not understand why young people take drugs. We have had drugs within our society for about 30 or 40 years. As a society, we are relatively experienced in dealing with drugs issues. However, we have learned little from that experience. After 30 or 40 years, we do not know why certain groups of young people take certain drugs. Why is that? The answer is that we have never bothered to ask them in a proper scientific and rational way.
    Surely it would be the most obvious thing in the world to ask people why they take drugs and what benefits they think that they get from their consumption. Instead of engaging young people in a proper and constructive debate about their drug use, we bombard them with propaganda. We tell them that essentially drugs are bad for them, that we must educate them off drugs and that they must say no. We try to frighten them off drugs.
    Some of the education initiatives probably have had success. I believe that they have probably saved quite a few people from pursuing a career in drugs. However, such propaganda has acted also as a macabre recruiting sergeant for drugs. The propaganda bombardment makes drugs seem dangerous and exciting and they then relate to the morbidity that especially young and middle teenagers experience. We tend to deploy the present strategy because in our adult debate about drugs we like a prescriptive solution. We like targets and strategies. However, that is a million miles away from the debate that young people have about drugs. Young people do not start to engage with our debate and they do not understand it, as we do not understand their debate. All that young people want is to have a good time and to get high.
    As well as young people not understanding our debate about drugs, they could not care a whit about the legal status of drugs. If that legal status had any effect or any impact, we would see that in terms of ecstasy, which is a class A drug. If someone is caught in possession of ecstasy, or worse still caught dealing in it, he or she could face a lengthy prison sentence. He or she could face a considerable fine. The result would be a criminal record. However, on any given Saturday evening, about a quarter of a million ecstasy tablets are consumed. So much for the possibility of securing a lengthy prison sentence or a massive fine as a means to depress demand. Legal sanctions are nothing but a passing nuisance for most young people and a source of part of the buzz for others. Such was the fear of the law that even prospective Conservative Front-Benchers smoked their joints without fear of possible repercussions.
    Prohibition has been less than a success, but I say to those who advocate legalisation or decriminalisation that those approaches would probably be even worse. Prohibition has not worked and has not underpinned our strategies, but there is no reason to suggest that legalisation would fare any better. We need to focus on the greatest killer of all drugs, the drug that causes us the greater number of problems and poses the greatest associated health risk, and that is alcohol. We know that alcohol has almost a monopoly on the legal drugs market. It is a good example of what would happen if drugs became legal. New products would be developed. Manufacturers of alcoholic drinks compete with one
    1142
    another to try to secure new markets to try to entice new customers. In the past decade, the industry has been especially successful in attracting new customers. We have seen the coming of alcopops for new entrants.
    Paul Flynn: I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman's speech enormously. Does he recall that during the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, the form of alcohol concerned was distilled spirit, the most concentrated and deadly form of alcohol that killed many people because they could not control the alcohol content? Illegal drugs are in the hands of criminals and they are being sold in their most dangerous form. If there is a system of licensed regulation, the likelihood is that much weaker forms of the drugs would be available.
    Pete Wishart: I am making the point that if we introduce illegal drugs to a legal market, we may see legal drugs competing for that youth market. Manufacturers will try to develop new products to entice young entrants to the marketplace. As well as having alcopops, we might have cannabis candies or ecstasy allsorts. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that that would be a health disaster. Prohibition has not been a success, but legalisation would make matters 10 times worse.
    Hon. Members have looked at third ways to solve other problems, so I propose a third way to tackle illegal drugs. To their credit, the Government are crawling towards that, however ham-fisted their approach. We need reclassification to be realistic and credible, especially for young people. It is nonsense to include ecstasy in the same category as heroin and cocaine—that exaggerates the danger of ecstasy but diminishes the danger of heroin and cocaine—but it does not make sense to include it in the same category as amphetamines and barbiturates, as that has the reverse effect. What is wrong with broadening the classifications? Why can we not have more drugs categories, which would make more sense than current classifications?
    I said that the Government's approach to drugs is ham-fisted because I still do not know what they want to achieve. Throughout the UK, there is confusion about the Government's strategy. In the Criminal Justice Bill, a great hokey-cokey is going on—one foot is in on the reclassification of cannabis, but one foot is out, as the Government want increased tariffs for class C offences. No wonder no one knows what is going on. It is almost possible to believe that the Government will lead us to the top of the hill on decriminalisation only to take us all the way down again. It is incumbent on them to tell us what on earth is going on.
    If there is confusion in England, there is even more in Scotland. Drug laws remain reserved to Westminster, but no consideration is given to the fact that we have our own legal system in Scotland, as well as our own policing arrangements. As for changing drugs laws, the Scottish Police Federation has said that the downgrading of cannabis to class C would make little practical difference. We do not have a system of cautions in Scotland, so people who are found in possession of small quantities of cannabis will still be reported to the procurator fiscal. The change in the law makes no sense to Scotland. I am disappointed that not one Labour Back Bencher from Scotland is in the Chamber tonight. Are they not interested at all in drug laws? It is a disgrace that not one of those 56 Members are here tonight.

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    In conclusion, I congratulate the Government on attempting to unravel the whole drugs package. There is not one drug problem, just as there is not one solution, and they are beginning to realise that. I welcome reclassification—as early as 1997, the Scottish National party suggested that route. Anyone looking at the issue of drugs will agree that the available resources should be targeted on the drugs that cause the most harm—heroin and cocaine. Harm reduction is the sensible approach, but for goodness' sake, the Government must ensure that they achieve clarity in their approach or the strategy will go the same way as the many others before it—forgotten and irrelevant.
    6.7 pm
    Ms Dari Taylor: I warmly welcome the updated drugs strategy, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and his Committee on their report. It is a robust and valuable contribution, and has opened up the debate.
    My office, too, has been looking at the problems faced by drug addicts—we have been talking to them and doing some research which, frankly, has been distressing. The average age of the addicts we spoke to was 22. Ninety per cent. of them had no educational qualifications and 80 per cent. left school before completing their education; 60 per cent. had suffered a family breakdown or serious family bereavement. All of them had been on soft drugs, which they had used before going on to heroin. Most were addicted to more than one drug, not just heroin. Several of them were using crack cocaine and emphatically told my researcher, Declan McHugh, and me that after using crack they used heroin to bring them down. Their situation is therefore extremely distressing.
    More than 60 per cent. of those addicts admitted to committing a crime to feed their habit, and more than 50 per cent. said that they had lost their job as a consequence. All of them were unemployed. More than 30 per cent. had been in a state care home. They were tragic cases, feeling that no one wanted them then and that no one wants them now—that was a desperate thing to come to terms with. Many of them said that they no longer got a buzz from heroin and that that had gone a long time ago. They said that they simply needed heroin and that without a fix, they began to rattle and could not survive. Our research told us clearly that young people use this stuff out of desperation. Sometimes they start because it is a bit of fun or because their friends are doing it, but they soon become controlled by it and desperate to get away from it.
    If the policy is to be effective—I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has been very warm to my constituents who have spoken to him about the issue on a number of occasions—it has to start with what we know about the problem of use of drugs. If we do not understand that, we simply will not get it right. When we did our research, people constantly said that they needed heroin to block out their lives. They told us that it eclipsed their minds, that it was the only substance available to them and that there was nothing else that could block out reality. It was a desperate experience to listen to them. One or two of the younger ones were in
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    such terrible turmoil when they spoke to us about their habit that they found it impossible to continue and left the room. We were very uncomfortable and depressed about opening a door by encouraging them to tell us their life histories without necessarily being able to close it with effective treatment.
    I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that this is a matter of urgency and a serious issue for us to get our heads around. Hon. Members have suggested that we must get real. When the people involved are young, vulnerable, very poor, coping with tragedy and are often without families, and are living rough, in care homes or on deprived estates, that is getting very real. That is the reality in my constituency. When we put money in for regeneration, we must see that our aims will not be achieved if we do not reduce drug dependency, as both issues are tied together so closely. The matter is not exclusively one for the Home Office or the Department of Health; it is also a matter of employment and most definitely relates to local government and housing. All those issues are impacting on the lives of the young people involved. Building on that knowledge and acknowledging that the needs of individuals are different in every case tells us that, if the policy is to be effective, we need not only to build on our knowledge about the problem of use of drugs, but to accept that the policy must be flexible to need and respond to the needs of individuals. The more we do that, the more we will have a chance of achieving success.
    I am very pleased that there is a robust determination to help people to cut the dealer out of their lives. Our taking that stance is long overdue. The young people who spoke to us said that the dealers were like crows on their shoulders wherever they went. They said that if they had money in their pockets, the dealers were there and wanted to sell to them. We must cut the dealer out of their lives. The prescription of heroin in supervised conditions with careful treatments that are part of the overall process is very valuable. I interviewed people in their mid-30s and early 40s who will be permanently on heroin. We must come to terms with that fact. I do not want such people permanently to be dependent on heroin and committing crimes to feed their habit. We must allow them to control their habit and we must provide support, and prescription gives us the opportunity to do so.
    I am very pleased that we are focusing our attention on the problematic drug user. Such a person will be devastating his or her family's lives and the community in which he or she lives. The policy is beginning to resonate and to show that it is one that we can deliver.
    I should like to persuade my hon. Friend the Minister that the updated drugs policy needs to widen opportunities and increase services, which must be available 24/7 if they are to be effective. Inevitably, there will be a problem with having enough professionals quickly enough to allow us to respond now to the needs of our communities.
    I would also like to persuade my hon. Friend to look at an example in my constituency. We have a group of parents called Parents Against Narcotics in the Community—PANIC. They have coped with these problems and enabled their children to survive heroin and crack cocaine dependency. They have expert knowledge second to none, and they can tell us all. They do not need to read the book; they have lived the

    1145
    experience. They are delivering a service to a group of people in my constituency and I recommend them as a model for others. If we cannot train enough professionals or get the supply of support and services in place quickly enough, let us use the network of support that is already there.
    I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice) talk about Tina Williams, a first-class female who has coped robustly with her own family and is now determinedly coping with the problem on a much wider scale. It is a joy to hear the young people speak of this female. She gives them hope and a hot meal, and their only opportunity to have a wash and brush-up and to feel decent and human. She makes them feel human. This woman needs all the commendations that we can give her. I am delighted that she is in my constituency and that she is running PANIC for the people of Stockton. They say that, without her, they would be desperate. So, let us use the resources that are there for us. Parents and grandparents want to help; they are there. Ex-addicts want to help; it makes them feel that they are giving something back when so much has been given to them.
    I also want to ask the Minister to consider the question of employment. Drug addicts need to feel wanted, for the sake of their self-esteem. They need to know that their talents and skills are recognised. Progress to work is excellent, but I want to persuade my hon. Friend to look at the Asian experience. There, employment is central to all treatment for drug addicts, and the success rate in getting addicts clean, involving employment, has been staggering. If they can do that in India, we can do it here.
    The updated drugs strategy is first class. Individual treatment and support are crucial, and the prescription of heroin will cut out those disgraceful, disgusting dealers who are earning £8 billion a year in Great Britain selling the stuff to our youngsters. Cutting them out is long overdue. Well done!
    6.17 pm
    Mr. Andrew Rosindell: Listening to the first two hours of this debate, one might be forgiven for believing that there was consensus in the Chamber. The last few speakers, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) and for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly), proved that that is not the case, however, and I believe that their views are far more representative of the British people at large, as are those of my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins). I make no apologies for adding my views to the arguments that they have put forward.
    It is time for hon. Members to speak up for the vast majority of decent, law-abiding people who will never have any desire to take part in this sick culture in our society. In my experience, the perception is that the war on drugs is not being lost, but purposely undermined by continual talk of decriminalisation, legalisation and reclassification. The Home Affairs Committee report has, sadly, added to that perception. In fact, the situation seems so bad in new Labour's Britain that I
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    would not be surprised if a drug dealer were to be arrested for selling the substances in ounces, rather than simply for selling the substances.
    Mr. Mullin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rosindell: No, there is very little time, so I intend to make as much progress as I can.
    From the outset, I want to make clear my opposition to every strand of thinking that tries to make excuses for those who take or deal in drugs, whatever the so-called classification of the drug, or the amount involved. If the Government are to have any credibility on this issue, and if anything at all is to be achieved, there must be a clear line: drugs are simply wrong. They kill our children, destroy the fabric of our society and have much wider effects in terms of financing international terrorism.
    Two weeks ago, I spent my Saturday night accompanying the police officers of Romford's crime and disorder unit around the town centre. Among the horrendous sights of that evening, we encountered a man who had been using cocaine. He was unable to control his actions and posed a clear danger to himself and members of the public. There is no justification in our society for peddlers of that evil drug to be free to walk the streets of my constituency, and those of other Members, and supply substances of that sort. We need the police to be given the resources to stamp such behaviour out completely.
    Equally, there is no excuse for tolerating those who take such substances. To those who argue that drug taking is an issue of freedom, my response is simple: I believe in freedom too. I believe in the people of this country being able to do as they wish, but that freedom comes with responsibility—the responsibility not to behave in a manner that is detrimental to others and that of playing their part in ensuring that the fabric of society is not ripped apart.
    Mr. John MacDougall: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rosindell: As I have said, I want to make progress as there is little time left.
    The taking of drugs breaks that responsibility. That was best put by the Honourable Asa Hutchinson, the administrator of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration in a recent lecture to the Heritage Foundation:
    "Drug abusers become slaves to their habits. They are no longer able to contribute to the community. They do not have healthy relationships with their families. They are no longer able to use their full potential to create ideas or to energetically contribute to society, which is the genius of democracy. They are weakened by the mind-numbing effects of drugs. The entire soul of our society is weakened and our democracy is diminished by drug use."
    On that night in my constituency, that man found that he was exercising his freedom. He was also participating in the slow destruction of our society, not to mention the devastation that he must be causing, not only to himself, but to his family and friends.
    Drugs do not just harm the health of the drug user. They also lead to many related crimes, particularly in terms of violence, theft and, of course, road accidents.

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    Drugs are a sickening culture in our society. Despite the domination of the debate by the liberal class, on cannabis I appeal to the good judgment of every Member of the House not to be taken in by the nonsensical and easily discredited arguments of those who support reclassification.
    The Christian Institute's May 2000 pamphlet, a copy of which I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), is entitled "Going Soft on Cannabis". It outlines the counter-arguments to those often given for reclassifying that drug. I shall not go into detail, but for those who are interested the full document can he found on the Christian Institute website at www.christian.org.uk.
    Drug culture apologists often claim that cannabis is not a gateway drug to harder and more dangerous substances such as heroin or crack cocaine. However, the Christian Institute points to a series of studies that revealed that most abusers of hard drugs started their drug abuse career by smoking cannabis: 90 per cent. of those who had used it more than 1,000 times had used other illicit drugs, but only 6 per cent. of those who had never used cannabis had used hard drugs. Children between the ages of 12 and 17 who had smoked cannabis were 85 times more likely to end up using cocaine than their non-cannabis-smoking peers.
    Others try to claim that cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol. In 1995, an American study discovered a frightening statistic: 30 per cent. of a group of convicted murderers who were high on cannabis at the time of the homicides said that the crime had occurred because they were on cannabis.
    Another argument that is often advanced is that the current laws are not working. Why bother keeping them, those people ask. In fact it is not the laws that are wrong, but the soft approach taken by the Crown Prosecution Service, the police and the Government. They seem to have given up on the idea of prosecuting cannabis users, and now let them off with a caution. The proportion of cases dealt with by caution rose from 3 per cent. in 1982 to 55 per cent. in 1998. No wonder the law is not working, if no effort is put into maintaining it.
    The arguments for going soft on cannabis are all so easily defeated. I urge the Government to reconsider before giving the green light to thousands, if not millions, of young people to destroy their lives. I call on the Government and indeed the whole House, to reflect on the words of Nancy Reagan, which are etched on the wall of the Drug Enforcement Administration museum in America:
    "Drugs steal so much. Every time a drug goes into a child, something else is forced out, like love, and hope, and trust, and confidence. For the sake of our children, I implore each of you to be unyielding and inflexible in your opposition to drugs."
    I agree with Nancy Reagan. We cannot be flexible in our approach to drugs. The Government of this country must be resolute and firm.
    Drugs are simply wrong. They are killing our nation's children. They are funding those who wish to attack and take away our freedom. They are breaking down our society. We must act now with a comprehensive zero tolerance strategy. I fear that otherwise we will let down future generations and our nation, and will bitterly regret it in years to come.
    6.27 pm
    John Mann: I fear that Nancy Reagan did not bring up her own children well enough for them to avoid drugs.
    I have much to say about the general issues, but no time in which to say them. I commend the Government's excellent document, the basis of which I wholeheartedly endorse, but I would waste more time by simply repeating what it says. I therefore intend, in the few minutes available to me, to make some points about what I would describe as the war on drugs that I think should be considered.
    Another good document was published last February—"Changing Habits", produced by the Audit Commission. In its conclusions it referred to one of the key problems that I encountered in my drugs inquiry. As I told the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), it is mentioned on my website, johnmannmp.co.uk. It involves 150 case studies. I have spoken, in great depth, to heroin addicts and their parents, and I agree with many of the Audit Commission's findings.
    A critical issue, which the Government should address, is that of unco-ordinated assessment in relation to treatment. There are multiple referral routes, which is a core problem. The Audit Commission says that
    "current assessment practices often do little to secure either rapid access or appropriate treatment".
    There are "limited treatment options", as I was able to demonstrate effectively in my constituency. The commission also says that the
    "type of support offered by community drug services reflected staff mix"
    and that
    "areas heavily reliant on specialist support frequently struggled to meet demand".
    Those problems all occur in my area, but the inconsistency of approach across the country has to be tackled. The ethos within the drugs treatment service has led to something of a Cinderella service. As the example of cancer and Macmillan nurses shows, there needs to be a point of reference to direct people into treatment. Hon. Members have made comparisons with the rest of Europe, but the statistical base—ours and theirs—is not particularly reliable, so the fact that there are 118,000 drug addicts in treatment is not a meaningful statistic when it is extrapolated down to my area. We need to quantify what is working and what is not. I have taken the trouble to write to the Minister and I shall publish my 20 specific questions on what needs to be quantified and how that should be done. It is at the core of the issue. In regard to ministerial and Government responsibility, and given the ethos in the National Treatment Agency, there is an urgent need to hold those responsible to account by quantifying successes and the failures and doing so honestly.
    I hope that in the coming months the Minister will challenge the notion of addicts having to present themselves for treatment. I find that a strange notion, but it runs through all UK drugs services and it is one reason for the confusion over what is treatment and who is in treatment and who is not. In my opinion, the notion of presenting needs to be knocked on the head, and I have many case studies—collected over a year, not a few

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    weeks—to back that up. Some of them are cited anonymously and are ongoing. What does that mean in terms of people getting treatment when they want it and the availability of different forms of treatment. Thankfully, Opposition Front Benchers are now backing down, but when I challenged the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), at column 652 on 20 November, to quantify his evidence in relation to residential rehabilitation, he said that a considerable number should be going. We now have only a very small number. The right hon. Gentleman cited the Netherlands and he may well have visited the Parnassia Institute, where only 3 per cent. of clients are in residential rehabilitation.
    "Changing Habits" goes into great detail about the different options that are available. I would like a proper menu of treatments to be available in my constituency and I am sure that other hon. Members share my view.
    Another issue that needs to be examined is what I would describe as the incestuous nature of treatment services. For example, the very good chief executive of my local drug action team is also a non-executive director of the National Treatment Agency and the eight reference groups. The fact that one organisation presents the statistics is also part of the problem. That needs to be knocked on the head. The statistics need independent validation. The absurdity of joint commissioning in my area is that the patient care trust, which has to deal with the biggest problems of heroin addiction and drug addiction, is not represented on the joint commissioning group. I am glad that that is now being challenged, and if there are further problems I shall draw them to the Minister's attention. However, it demonstrates the mish-mash that has continued for many years in the UK. European comparisons are not particularly relevant. I would suggest that most countries are behind us rather than ahead of us in terms of treatment.
    I now turn to another problem. In The Guardian this week there are job adverts for drug treatment workers. The Prison Service is giving people permanent, well-paid jobs in drug treatment. The Stapleford Centre is recruiting a nurse practitioner on a salary of £33,000 to £36,000 and a medical officer on £65,000 to £77,000. Conversely, Turning Point in Sheffield employs drugs workers on one or two-year contracts and pays them £16,000 to £19,000 a year. Those are the extremes, but there are problems in relation to the lack of continuity and the inability to get the best-qualified people in areas where they are most needed. This may be controversial, but I would put it to the House that the best drugs workers should be working not in prison, but in the community. I would like the sentiment and some of the detail in the report to be taken to its logical conclusion. Young heroin addicts in my constituency are committing crimes; I have met only one who is not. I want them to be offered the option of being treated at the point at which they are arrested and enter the criminal justice system, rather than their simply going through the system and ending up in prison. Let us save the legal aid bill for defence costs, which, as the Audit Commission has shown, is the same as that for treatment. Let us recycle that money by treating young addicts at an early stage. That would make a fundamental difference.
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    I have two final suggestions, the first of which is the integration of police files and health files. The Parnassia Institute took that incredibly important step seven years ago, so it can be done. My own chief constable is keen to follow suit. In analysing criminal activity, he cannot tell who the heroin addicts are. Similarly, the drugs services do not know who the criminals are. The two systems need to be merged. The Derbyshire drugs market project is a good example of how the effective collation of such information can be used to disrupt the drugs market and to get those people out of crime and into treatment, where such services exist.
    My final suggestion consists of a plea to the Minister and the Government. The Home Secretary said that
    "starting from next year in the highest crime areas with the worst drugs problems the Government will roll out a comprehensive end to end approach."
    In quantifying the areas with the worst drug problems, I hope that the artificial boundaries that have dissipated the problem throughout my area will not be used. East Bassetlaw does not differ greatly from the Nottinghamshire county average. It is the same as any other rural area, but in the area of west Bassetlaw, Worksop and the mining villages, the problem is very significant; in fact, it is ten times as bad. We want to be one of the pilots, and I trust that the Minister will give that suggestion proper consideration.
    6.36 pm
    Mr. Bill Wiggin: I want to talk about two of my constituents, Mick and Pauline Holcroft, of Ledbury, who have allowed pictures of their daughter, Rachel Whitear—Mick Holcroft is Rachel's step-father—to be used in an anti-drugs video for secondary schools. They say that they want to "make people think" about the dangers of heroin, and to challenge stereotypes of drug abusers, because if it can happen to Rachel, it can happen to anyone.
    Rachel's mother and step-father believe that she first took heroin when she was 18, after being introduced to it by an older boyfriend who was an addict. At first, she kept her habit under control and was accepted by five universities. However, her addiction continued and her parents noticed that her personality had changed from fun-loving and outgoing to unhappy, insecure and unreliable. She died of an overdose in rented rooms in May 2000, aged 21, just days after phoning her parents to say that she was leaving her boyfriend and coming home. Her body lay undiscovered for three days. The police photographs show Rachel's body keeled over on the floor, with a hypodermic syringe in her hand. The photographs of Rachel after her death are pretty harrowing.
    If one were trying to put together an ideal background for a young person to grow up in, and in which to be happy and successful, the Holcroft family would be it, but even in that environment it was possible for this tragedy to happen. Mrs. Holcroft said:
    "I think Rachel really hated what had happened to her. But you can't take heroin one day and suddenly decide to stop."
    Rachel's step-father, Mr. Holcroft, said:
    "There'll be a point in a child's life when someone says 'try that'. They'll be put into a circle where they are encouraged to try things and experiment."

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    I think that I speak for the whole House when I say that we would all like that temptation to be made as difficult to encounter as possible. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
    I sought the view of the Police Federation, which is the representative body of all police officers in England and Wales below the rank of superintendent. According to it, a large majority of such officers believe that cannabis should not be legalised or decriminalised. The role of the police is to enforce drug laws effectively. As we move further into the performance culture, their ability effectively to police the misuse of drugs will increasingly depend on working with other agencies. Those agencies will need to have complementary objectives and targets.
    Widespread concern has been voiced about the unavailability of appropriate treatment for drug users. The current position is unacceptable. More than 70 per cent. of crime is believed to be drug related. Between 70 per cent. and 80 per cent. of criminals in prison have drug problems, yet they leave prison without receiving treatment. It is unacceptable that the police should be held accountable for crime levels when treatment that could have a real impact on the commission of crime is not provided.
    The advocates of legalisation or decriminalisation present the apparent failure of the criminal law to prevent increased use of illegal drugs as a powerful argument for their cause. The same argument could be used to justify decriminalising burglary and assault and sweeping away all road traffic laws, but it is not. In recent times, a number of criminal offences, such as attempted suicide and homosexual acts between consenting adults, have been abolished. That was done because it was believed to be inappropriate to treat such acts as criminal, not because the criminal law had failed to prevent their occurrence.
    Legal prohibitions on tobacco and alcohol have not prevented young people below the statutory ages from smoking or drinking, but there is no responsible body of opinion that would justify decriminalising those offences. We do not believe that there is an overwhelming body of public opinion that favours the major relaxation of current anti-drug laws.
    I do not believe that we need a change in the law or in drug classification to change police priorities. Police officers use their discretion daily. The so-called Lambeth experiment was nothing new: police officers prioritise their work every day.
    There is no real contradiction under current legislation between a lenient police attitude towards possession for personal use and the continued targeting of criminals who import and distribute the drug. Advocates of the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis choose to ignore the fact that the drug's THC content—the active ingredient that encourages physical and psychological dependence on cannabis, and which is highly abusable—has risen from less than 1 per cent. in the 1960s to as high as 30 per cent. today.
    There is evidence from other countries—in particular from south Australia—that a more liberal approach to drug legislation results in an increase in petty theft and
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    petty crime. The liberalisation lobby also claims that legalising drugs would end the black market and the activities of organised gangs. That assumes that the powerful international drug cartels would simply fade away into the night. The more likely scenario is that they would fight to maintain their lucrative street trade.
    The advocates of change do not say how they would control drug manufacture and supply. Presumably, the enormous cost of legalising the drug trade would be offset by tariffs and taxation. Once they were introduced, smuggling would follow and the illegal traders would be back in business.
    Some argue that the decriminalisation of drugs would destroy the criminal empires of those who currently make fortunes out of drugs. They often cite the end of alcohol prohibition in the US, and suggest that that ended the era in which criminal gangs exploited prohibition. The historical facts are different: gang crime in America soon recovered, as the criminals concentrated on other racketeering.
    The Government are right to reject the calls of those who urge the legalisation or decriminalisation of so-called soft drugs. There is no evidence that that would lead to a decrease in the numbers of people using drugs. Worrying as the overall increase in the numbers of young people who have taken drugs may be, those numbers would be even higher if the criminal sanctions were removed.
    The siren calls for decriminalisation and legalisation are not cries for reality. They are the voices of surrender and despair. I hope that the House will bear in mind the bravery displayed by Rachel Whitear's parents, and especially by her mother, Pauline Holcroft. If we can learn anything from that tragedy, it is that the fight against the evil of drugs in our society must continue unabated.
    6.44 pm
    Mr. Paul Stinchcombe: I listened to the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) with great interest because I too am a dad. If I were asked what I wanted for my three children, I would not answer that I wanted them to grow up to have fantastic careers, or even stable happy family lives. I would say that I wanted them to grow up to avoid hard drugs. If they do that, everything else becomes possible for them, according to their talents and efforts. By contrast, if they do not avoid hard drugs, it is much more likely that their lives will be ruined.
    Yet if we are truly to tackle addiction and the crime to which it leads, we have to understand three critical truths, two of which have been understood by the Home Affairs Committee. First, all drugs are harmful but some drugs are much more harmful than others. Secondly, addicts are ill and need treatment, not punishment. Thirdly, prohibition does not always work. I believe that by their recent announcements, the Government have indicated that they have also understood at least the first two of those truths.
    All drugs are not equally harmful. Heroin and crack cocaine are desperately addictive and extremely dangerous, but other drugs are less so. Indeed, some prohibited drugs are less harmful than drugs that are legal. Alcohol is addictive, leads to violence, is damaging to health, and kills between 5,000 and 40,000

    1153
    people every year in England and Wales—yet it is lawful to buy, lawful to sell and lawful to use, subject only to constraints on age and access.
    Tobacco is lawful too, even though it is addictive, causes cancer and kills 120,000 people every year in the UK. We do not like it, we cannot advertise it, we say that tobacco companies cannot sponsor sports—yet we cannot stop people using it. In the year 2000, only 11 death certificates in England and Wales even mentioned the word "cannabis".
    If we tell our children that cannabis is as harmful as crack and heroin, they simply will not believe us. Why should they? If they do not believe that, why do we expect them to believe us about crack and heroin? We should downgrade cannabis, because the message that that carries is not simply that cannabis is less harmful than crack and heroin, but that crack and heroin are killers and desperately dangerous.
    There is a second reason why we should downgrade cannabis: the simple fact that we want to be tough on crime. When the police are not chasing people who are smoking a relatively harmless recreational drug, they can start targeting the crack and heroin dealers in death. We should all applaud that.
    The second truth is that addiction to hard drugs is a sickness and, like all sick people, addicts need treatment, not punishment. At present, however, the treatment they get is all too often woeful. It takes my constituents months to get on to a rehab programme, which is why, like everyone else in the Chamber, I welcome the millions more to be spent on rehabilitation. It is why I also welcome, alongside the extended methadone treatments, the schemes for prescribing heroin.
    It is stupid to refuse to prescribe heroin to long-term addicts who need it, and who otherwise will rob others to feed their habit. I have been to a clinic in London; I have seen a doctor prescribe to addicts. One was a middle-aged mother, happily married for many years. Why on earth should we force her into the arms of a dealer when she can attend a clinic instead? Another was the wife of a man in his sixties who had injected opiates for 30 years. Do we really believe that he will ever stop injecting opiates? He did not even stop when he could no longer inject into his veins. He simply injected into his muscles instead.
    We have to change our approach to prescribing. Too often, treatment is restrained by moral judgmentalism when it should be dictated by medical expertise. As I understand it, the current advice from the Government is not to maintain the patient but to reduce his or her dependency by prescribing ever-decreasing amounts. As a result, because addicts cannot get enough methadone from their clinic, they top up by buying street heroin from their dealer. In what other medical discipline would a doctor determine how much of a drug someone needed and then deliberately prescribe less? I do not believe that that is good medical practice—I believe that it is medical cruelty.
    I accept that there is a risk of abuse if higher amounts are prescribed. I know that, and so do doctors. They are well aware that there will be those who seek more than they need so that they can sell the excess. However, we can monitor the doctors and the doctors can monitor their prescriptions and their patients to ensure that the risk is minimised. They can see for themselves whether
    1154
    a patient is capable of injecting safely. They can test patients to see exactly what their tolerance is. They can test their hair samples to see exactly what they have taken and whether they are topping up or selling the excess on the street.
    That is not to say that we should never try to reduce dependency on drugs. Of course we should, but we should seek cleverer ways of doing so than simply prescribing less of the drugs that people need. My hon. Friend the Minister knows that there is a drug available—Naltrexone—that blocks the effects of heroin altogether. That means that there is no point in people mugging an old lady for 30 quid to buy a fix, because they will not get a buzz from the fix.
    The trouble with Naltrexone is that it is principally available in tablet form. Addicts will not take it in that form, because taking the tablet takes away what is often their only pleasure in life. There is a solution: implants that can wean the addict off for weeks are available, yet they are not licensed on the NHS nor routinely used in our prisons. That is absurd.
    Why do we not make better use of Naltrexone implants? Why do we not make wide use of them in the judicial system? Why do we not urge courts to offer drug-addicted criminals an implant, as part of—or even instead of—imprisonment? Why do we not offer them to prisoners before they are released? I understand that at present prisons offer Naltrexone only in tablet form—and only in a third of men's prisons and not at all in women's prisons, even though heroin addiction is rife in all of them.
    We reduce a prisoner's dependency and then we kick them out into the street—the same street that they used to live in, next door to the same dealer from whom they used to buy. By then their tolerance is lower, so when they buy from that same dealer, they overdose and die. What is the alternative to Naltrexone? Is it to detox addicts in prison and then retox them ready for release? That is absurd.
    There is a third truth—unpalatable to many—but it arises from everything that I have said: prohibition does not work. It did not work when it was applied to booze in the USA; it merely handed the trade to the mafia. It is not working at present in respect of drugs worldwide. The global trade is worth up to $1,000 billion a year; it is worth £8 billion in this country—little wonder that drug-related crime is up.
    Things do not have to be like that. We can encourage heroin addicts into the arms of doctors instead of the arms of dealers. If we were brave enough, we could take the trade in cannabis away from criminals, license it, regulate it, tax it and make it safe. Of course there would still be some street trading, but there would be less. Furthermore, there would be no mixed messages for the police, because anyone dealing with drugs on the street would be a criminal.
    If we want to drive down street crime, we have to do more than police aggressively in areas where it is endemic. We need to do more than sentence punitively our most serious and recidivist offenders. We must also focus our minds on the causes of crime when a more liberal touch may be more effective.
    6.52 pm
    Mr. Mullin: The debate has been excellent. We have heard many original and thoughtful speeches from Members on both sides of the House. I thank especially colleagues on the Select Committee for their contributions both today and during the course of the inquiry. One of the great strengths of the Select Committee system is that it is possible to hold a mature discussion on issues that cannot always be discussed maturely in other parts of the political process—let alone in the media.
    I was disappointed with the contribution of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), the Conservative spokesman. I felt that it did not quite rise to the occasion. I was especially disappointed by his abuse of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn). We might not necessarily agree with him, but we must recognise that he is one of the few Members of the House—with the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley)—who were prepared to discuss this subject when nobody else would. My hon. Friend was prepared to challenge deeply ingrained prejudices, and although I do not necessarily agree with him about everything, we should acknowledge that.
    I agree with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath on one point: it is important to take the damage done by people who drive under the influence of drugs as seriously as that done by people who drive under the influence of drink.
    As I listened to some of the later contributions to the debate, I had to pinch myself occasionally to remind myself that, as I made clear in my opening remarks, the Select Committee actually came out against decriminalisation and legalisation. We emphasised from the outset that all drugs are harmful, as I think we all agree—but that the degree of harm varies.
    Although the Committee had a number of things to say about the classification of cannabis and ecstasy, we should not get too distracted by the arguments over that. Yes, both of them are bad for people. Any sensible person would acknowledge that. However, the key issue is that they are not the main cause of the problem. Most people who take ecstasy or cannabis grow out of it fairly quickly and go on to lead useful and productive lives.
    Those drugs are not, on the whole, addictive. It is true that people die from taking them; I would not wish to be misunderstood. We all understand that all drugs are harmful. It is just that some are more harmful than others. Once we have worked that out, we come very quickly to the idea that the cause of almost all the drug-related chaos in society arises from the abuse of heroin and crack cocaine. About 99 per cent. of drug-related damage comes from those two drugs.
    Once that essential point is grasped, one or two other things become obvious. One is that we must try to persuade the 200,000 or so chaotic users of heroin—who are responsible for about 50 per cent. of acquisitive crime and who damage not only their own lives but those of their communities and families; we have heard harrowing examples of that today—to seek help to stabilise their lives. Until we do that, we cannot even begin to address the problems that they are causing. It is true that some are well beyond the point at which their lives can be changed; they will not change and become
    1156
    clean and good citizens. However, we can stabilise their lives and stop them mugging, burgling and doing more damage to themselves and the people around them.
    That brings us inevitably to the fact that we need the controlled prescription of heroin and diamorphine. I am glad that the Government are facing up to that issue. This is not rocket science, and it has been done with great success in countries such as Switzerland and the Netherlands. We heard from experts from those countries who told us how it was working. One caution; there has to be tight control of the system because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe) said, we do not want leakage on to the streets, which just exacerbates the problem. That was one of the reasons why the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 was brought in. The system must be strictly controlled.
    One of the problems that became apparent during the inquiry was the disappointing lack of interest from members of the medical profession. One can understand that a GP will not want his surgery clogged up with addicts, but we have had great difficulty in extracting from the British Medical Association any evidence at all on the issue. When we insisted that it make some sort of contribution, it consisted of less than a page, two thirds of which was about what the BMA stood for and did. That was a problem.
    One doctor who gave evidence said that only half an hour out of seven years of medical training had involved dealing with people on drugs. We are getting better at this and I know that there are many dedicated members of the medical profession who are engaged in dealing with drug addiction—
    Dr. Howard Stoate: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Mullin: We have one not too far from me. However, the medical profession could do more in encouraging and training its members in this regard.
    Finally, I repeat what I said in my opening remarks. There is no "one true path" in this matter. I am envious of the certainty of the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell), but—if I might say so, with respect—people who have given more thought to this matter than he has have worked out that there is no perfect solution to a problem that is serious and out of control. We are on a learning curve and feeling our way forward, but there is a certain amount of experience in the world. One can look abroad; foreigners can make a contribution to the way in which we deal with our problems, on which we can build.
    The way forward is clear for the foreseeable future. It is along the road of prevention, treatment and harm reduction. That is way that we are going. The path is set for the foreseeable future, but it is not set in stone.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I compliment the hon. Gentleman on his timing.
    It being Seven o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded to put forthwith the Questions relating to Estimates which he was directed to put at that hour, pursuant to Standing Order No.54 (Consideration of estimates, &c.).
    Resolved,
    That resources, not exceeding £4.651,171,000, be authorised, on account, for use during the year ending on 31st March 2004, and that a sum, not exceeding £4,597,261,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, on account, for the year ending on 31st March 2004, for expenditure by the Home Office.
    It being after Seven o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded to put forthwith the Questions relating to Estimates which he was directed to put at that hour, pursuant to Standing Order No.55 (Questions on voting of estimates, &c.).

  SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 2002–03
  Resolved,
  That further resources, not exceeding £7,400,007,000, be authorised for use for defence and civil services for the year ending on 31st March 2003, and that a further sum, not exceeding £8,995,029,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs of defence and civil services for the year ending on 31st March 2003, as set out in HC 43.

  ESTIMATES, 2003–04 (VOTE ON ACCOUNT)
  Resolved,
  That resources, not exceeding £151,331,461,000, be authorised, on account, for use for defence and civil services for the year ending on 31st March 2004, and that a sum, not exceeding £126,882,161,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, on account, to meet the costs of defence and civil services for the year ending on 31st March 2004, as set out in HC 39, 40, 41 and 42.
  Ordered,
  That a Bill be brought in upon the foregoing resolutions: And that the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Paul Boateng, Dawn Primarolo, Ruth Kelly and John Healey do prepare and bring it in.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL
  Ruth Kelly accordingly presented a Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending 31st March 2003 and 2004 and to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31st March 2003 and 2004: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Monday next and to be printed [Bill 14].

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With permission, I shall put together the Questions on motions 5, 6 and 7.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
    COMPANIES
    That the Companies (Fees) (Amendment No.2) Regulations 2002 (S.I., 2002, No. 2894), dated 21st November, a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st November, be approved.
    That the draft Harbours (Northern Ireland) Order 2002, which was laid before this House on 21st November, be approved.

    SOCIAL SECURITY
    That the draft Jobseeker's Allowance (Amendment) Regulations 2002, which were laid before this House on 20th November, be approved.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
    Question agreed to.

  PETITION

    Consumers for Health Choice
    7.2 pm
    Mr. Bob Blizzard: I wish to present a petition from 365 of my constituents who are customers of the Oregano health food shop in Lowestoft. They are very concerned that the European food supplements directive and the proposed European directive on traditional herbal medicinal products could severely restrict their choice of safe, natural health products, which they have used successfully for a long time.
    The petition states:
    The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons requires that the Secretary of State for Health does all in his power to protect the rights of UK consumers by ensuring that such European legislation does not unnecessarily and unacceptably restrict the availability of natural health products.
    And the petitioners remain etc.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Future of Mater and Whiteabbey Hospitals
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
  7.3 pm
  Mr. Nigel Dodds: I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise a matter of considerable importance to my constituents. The debate surrounding the future of the two hospitals in my constituency and the range of services that they provide arises from the document, "Developing Better Services: Modernising Hospitals and Reforming Structures", which was published by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety earlier this year. That document contains the proposals of the previous Minister responsible for health in Northern Ireland on hospital services and the reform of organisational structures for health and personal social services in the Province.
  I want to deal particularly with the proposal outlined in paragraph 4.19 of the report that Whiteabbey and Mater hospitals will be developed as local hospitals. Previously, the constituency of north Belfast, with its various needs, difficulties and challenges, had two hospitals providing a range of services. They provided acute services and addressed severe health and social and economic needs. This proposal means that we will be left without any such provision. I acknowledge that there is clearly a need for decisions to be made in this area, and that the Minister, in a speech yesterday in the Province, said that he would announce decisions and address those issues. That does need to happen. Decisions need to be made about the location of hospitals and the administrative and management structures for health and personal social services.
  Change in itself is not a problem. The problem comes when change does not meet the health needs of the local community, does not lead to efficiencies and greater effectiveness and ignores what is happening and what is needed on the ground. One of my concerns, which is shared by many of my constituents, is that the report, particularly in relation to the Mater, appears to focus more on the needs of professional standards, training and practice and less on the patients, the community and people's needs. It is essential that what happens in relation to the Mater and Whiteabbey be in the best interests of the people and communities of north Belfast, and in the best interests of addressing social care needs and the health of the community. No other agenda should drive the proposals.
  There is no doubt that the proposals, as set out by the previous Minister, will have a severe impact on the local community. They will lead to the loss of a range of key acute and emergency services and the loss of many local job opportunities in an area of severe unemployment. They will dent morale considerably at a time when it is recognised that north Belfast requires attention at the highest level of Government, not least by the setting up of the community action unit, as a result of the community action project, which addresses a range of issues in north Belfast. To remove the Mater hospital with its acute and emergency provisions and a wide range of other services would denude the constituency of a major facility that is supported across the political spectrum and across the community. That would leave a gaping hole in north Belfast.
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  I want to set out the positive context of some of the things that are happening in health and personal social services in north Belfast. On Monday, I had the great honour and privilege of attending the launch of three new healthy living centres in Duncairn gardens, in which cross-community groups and people from a wide spectrum across the community divide are coming together to provide £2 million worth of investment in north Belfast. The north and west Belfast health action zone has been established. Proposals are coming forward from the North and West Belfast Health and Social Services Trust on new health and well-being centres.
  All that will be undermined if the Government say that they will downgrade the Mater and Whiteabbey to the status of local hospitals. The proposals are not logical, they follow no previous consistent argument, and the proposals in relation to the Mater hospital were a bolt out of the blue. No Government proposal or document had indicated that that was the thinking, and it did not follow from the conclusion of the Hayes report. The acute hospital review group suggested no such way forward; indeed, it suggested the retention of acute and emergency services at the Mater and a partnership with Whiteabbey hospital.
  Seventeen out of the 20 wards in north Belfast are among the 25 per cent. most health-deprived wards in Northern Ireland. The Mater hospital is situated in Crumlin, the most socially and economically deprived ward in the whole of Northern Ireland. Ten out of the 20 north Belfast wards are in the 25 per cent. of wards in Northern Ireland with the highest ratio for cancer. There is clear evidence to suggest that that is linked to the high level and incidence of social and economic deprivation. We have a major problem with suicide rates, particularly among men. Mental health is another severe problem and we have some of the worst levels of drug and substance abuse anywhere in the Province or, indeed, in the United Kingdom. When we take all that into account, it is unthinkable that the Government should continue with the proposals set out in the document "Developing Better Services". I urge the Minister to examine those proposals and to reject them and, instead, to decide to retain the Mater and Whiteabbey hospitals in their current form.
  It should also be noted that the Mater is the biggest single employer in Northern Ireland, with 1,000 employees, many of whom live in north Belfast, an area that does not have many major employers. The civil disturbances, the trouble and the violence have had disproportionate effect on the greater Shankhill and north Belfast area and the Mater hospital has throughout provided a dedicated and magnificent service to the people there. The accident and emergency ward is one of the busiest and biggest in Northern Ireland and it has demonstrated that it is meeting a terrible need in that part of the city.
  In my previous role as the Northern Ireland Minister for Social Development, I played a part in setting up the community action unit. I know that the Minister has taken over responsibility for that, and is dedicated to it. It has targeted social need, which means concentrating Government resources on the areas of greatest need, and is carrying out the key objective set out in the document "Investing in Health".

  1161
  Given all the problems in north Belfast, to suggest that workers could simply relocate to other hospitals does not take into account the problems that people have with access. People in north Belfast do not have as much access to private transport as people do in other areas, and there are also problems in getting through parts of north Belfast. As we know, there are severe community segregation problems. It is not an answer to say that people can go elsewhere. People from all communities and backgrounds feel safe in the Mater. I urge the Minister not to deprive the people of Belfast of that facility.
  I referred earlier to the cross-community and all-party support for the views hat I am expressing. Belfast city council has unanimously supported the same view and in the last debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly before suspension all parties across the board unanimously supported the retention of these services. The support did not come just from the representatives from north Belfast but from those from elsewhere.
  A strong and vigorous local community campaign has been under way. Tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered, and the campaign has actively engaged the community. From greater Shankhill through to all the other parts of north Belfast, the response has been magnificent. It has come from the trade unions, professional bodies and the North Belfast Partnership Board, which is representative of nationalist and Unionist communities. They have all thrown their full weight behind the campaign for the retention of the Mater and of acute and emergency services throughout Northern Ireland. People are appalled at the suggestion that the proud traditions of the Mater could be lost and that services could be taken from the people of north Belfast.
  I recently toured the hospital and looked at the magnificent facilities in the new McAuley building. It was built at a cost of £17 million, and not a penny of it came from public money. To think that that investment could be set aside arid that the hospital could be downgraded would involve a terrible misuse of the money that went to provide the people of the area with the services to which they are entitled.
  In terms of financial targets, activity and capacity, the Mater has met its targets, is increasing its capacity and its service performance compares well with any hospital of a similar nature anywhere in the Province. The Minister has been grappling with the problem of waiting lists in Northern Ireland. It is incredible to think that such a proposal will not have an adverse effect on Belfast waiting lists. He will have seen some of the evidence adduced by the Mater Hospital Trust, which shows that waiting lists would increase.
  Some people have suggested that it might be a good idea to turn the hospital into a local hospital, but given the services that will be lost, the word "local" needs to be explained. Let us consider what will happen if the proposals are implemented. We will lose accident and emergency services, intensive care, intensive general medicine, the in-patient cardiology and coronary care unit, in-patient diabetic services, in-patient respiratory medicine, in-patient general surgery, in-patient gynaecology and the laboratory and anaesthetic services. Other services will also go. That is not acceptable.
  1162
  The report suggests ways to develop better services, such as the hospital taking on rehabilitation beds, intermediate care and step-down beds. I cannot understand how those services could be provided if all the other services have gone. Who on earth will provide the back-up in an emergency or when someone needs intensive care if there are no doctors, medical staff or beds? It has also been suggested that maternity services can stay, but if everything that is needed to have a maternity unit in situ is removed, then the report is simply paying lip service to that idea.
  For many decades, the Mater hospital has provided an environment for the training and teaching of nurses and medical staff. That proud tradition will go if the proposals are implemented. Paragraph 4.35 of the report says that the Mater
  "will be ideally placed to play an even more significant role in contributing to the training of doctors, nurses and other health professionals of the future",
  but that is not feasible if the range of services that I outline disappear.
  It is clear that the proposals run counter to the suggestions of Dr. Hayes's acute hospital review group. He suggested a partnership between Whiteabbey and the Mater. That idea has disappeared. He suggested that acute services be retained for the foreseeable future. Indeed, he opposes the idea of a transitional phase that leads to the establishment of a local hospital. He referred to a regional service located in the Mater. That idea seems to have disappeared too.
  The health and social care needs of the local community must be a priority. The people of north Belfast and the Newtonabbey area, which are served by Whiteabbey hospital, deserve better. I accept that there are issues that the Minister must address for Northern Ireland, but the proposals run counter to the general thrust of Government policy on north Belfast given the amount of attention, resources and efforts that are focused there to deal with deep underlying social, economic and political problems.
  It is wrong to rip from the heart of a community a hospital that has served everyone. It has the support of the entire community—nationalist and Unionist, Protestant and Catholic. Indeed, nationalists, Unionists, Protestants and Catholics all work in it. The idea that it should be run down and that the investment and years of proud tradition should be cast aside without a consistent argument to support the proposition up to now cannot be allowed to stand. I know that the Minister has taken the trouble to speak to people about the proposal and that he is interested in the issue. I urge him to reconsider and to discard the proposals in the report.
  7.20 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Desmond Browne): First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) on securing the debate. I am grateful to him for his comments, which have allowed me to hear the concerns for the future of hospital services in his constituency. I stress that I have made no decisions in relation to the proposals for acute hospital services set out in "Developing Better Services: Modernising Hospitals and Reforming Structures", but I am mindful

  1163
  of the real deprivation in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and in other constituencies in Northern Ireland, and I will want to reflect carefully on his comments. I know that the issue of the future of the Mater hospital was the subject of an Adjournment debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly—it was the last debate before suspension—which drew strong cross-party support for the retention of acute services at the hospital. I am aware also of Belfast city council's position on the issue.
  The proposals for modernising hospitals set out in "Developing Better Services" are a recognition that the complexities of hospital services, and what they can deliver, have changed enormously over the past 30 years. However, the fact is that in Northern Ireland the necessary investment has not been made to keep up with the pace of change. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain services in some hospitals and the service is facing critical and mounting problems. Far too many people are waiting too long for hospital treatment, with pressures growing annually on hospital beds. What were once considered winter pressures have become an all-year-round occurrence.
  The fabric of many hospitals is in disrepair and staff are trying to cope with outdated equipment and facilities. That is not acceptable and cannot be allowed to continue. It will require radical and sustained change in the operation and delivery of hospital services if we are to achieve the sort of modern dynamic hospital service that is capable of delivering the very highest standards of care, to meet the health care needs of the 21st century.
  Some of the pressures facing our hospital system are inescapable. People are living longer and in their later years they are more likely to suffer from chronic illness such as heart disease, diabetes or arthritis. Consequently, they require more care by a wide range of staff in hospitals, the allied health professions and by those in the community. At the other end of the spectrum, many more children and young people are suffering chronic health problems such as asthma and diabetes. Many conditions require long-term care, often with complex hospital-based treatments throughout their lives.
  At the same time, as perhaps never before, we are seeing significant developments in health care, with new medicines available to treat and relieve the symptoms of both chronic and acute conditions, such as malignant disease, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. There are also advances in surgical techniques, with less invasive forms of surgery requiring shorter hospital stays, with many procedures now being carried out as an out-patient or day procedure, which previously would have required a long hospital stay.
  Perhaps one of the most significant changes in the past 20 years has been the advance of medical engineering technology, such as medical imaging using CT, MRI and recently, PET scanners. Advances also in information and communications technology are
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  beginning to transform how information is used and shared in and between hospitals. Telemedicine in particular, which allows images to be transmitted from a GP surgery to a consultant for advice, perhaps many miles away, is already making an impact on the way in which care is being provided.
  We cannot expect doctors and other hospital staff to become expert in every new method of working. Instead, many are now focusing their interests on particular specialties or sub-specialties, bringing with them increased expertise and even greater advances in treatment and care. It also means that the era of the medical generalist trained to provide a wide range of clinical services is coming to an end.

  We must also embrace the much more stringent requirements covering the degree of supervision and the specific nature of the work that is being undertaken by medical trainees. Increasingly the jobs available to junior doctors and other professional staff do not provide the opportunity to develop the sort of skills and experience that are necessary for modern practice.
  Improving the standard of hospital care and the environment in which care is provided must be a major priority. The requirement for trusts to provide quality care will soon become a statutory responsibility, and accountability for the delivery of services will be strengthened by robust clinical and social care governance arrangements. The proposals in "Developing Better Services" recognise those inescapable drivers for change, and set out a pattern of hospital care which aims to concentrate regional and specialist acute care in an acute hospital network which can foster and develop the range of specialist skills required to deliver modern high-quality acute care. But the proposals also recognise that advances in medical treatment and technology mean that many procedures which currently require attendance at an acute hospital no longer need to be provided in that setting. The majority of out-patient and day procedures can now be completed safely outside an acute hospital setting, and so too can high-quality diagnostics, linking to the acute network through telemedicine or linked digital imaging systems. Those are not advances of tomorrow, but opportunities for today, and I agree with the underlying logic of the proposals.
  "Developing Better Services" has proposed that the present pattern of 15 acute hospitals should be reconfigured to nine, with the remaining hospitals providing a wide range of local services, such as a minor injuries unit, out-patient and day procedures, high-quality diagnostic services and a number of step-down beds for people who have received treatment in an acute hospital, but no longer need to be there for the remainder of their hospital convalescence, thus freeing up much needed beds for others. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is proposed that the Mater and Whiteabbey hospitals be reconfigured to provide a range of local services, such as those that I have outlined, and operate as local hospitals linked to the acute hospital network.
  I am aware that the proposals for the Mater hospital in particular have engendered widespread concern, not only within the Mater Hospital Trust and its staff, but

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  also across the community in north Belfast, as well as among elected representatives across the political spectrum, who have united with the Mater to support the retention of its acute services. The Mater hospital has a special place in the hearts of the community in north Belfast, fostered through the worst of the civil conflict in Northern Ireland over the past 30 years, and has provided a neutral haven of care for north Belfast, an area which has some of the worst deprivation in Northern Ireland, as we have heard. To date, some 35,000 letters and petitions have been received by the Department in support of retaining acute services at the Mater, as well as a number of detailed submissions which are being carefully considered as part of the post-consultation process.
  No decisions have been taken on any of the proposals in "Developing Better Services", and before coming to a final decision, I will want to satisfy myself about the proposals to remove acute services from the Mater and whether the hospital, networking with the Royal group of hospitals and Belfast city hospital, could meet the longer-term needs of the north Belfast community. No one can be in any doubt of the significant effect of years of community strife on the community in north Belfast, which has suffered some of the worst sectarian violence of the past 30 years. Nor are such days behind us, alas. The legacy of sectarian strife will remain with the community, particularly the young people of the area, for many years to come, manifesting itself in mental health problems and drug and alcohol abuse. I pay tribute to the work of the many cross-community groups in north Belfast that are working tirelessly to lift north Belfast out of the legacy of the past and give new hope to the rising generation.
  It is well recognised that areas of high deprivation such as north Belfast bring with them a range of chronic health care problems. I know that, for many, the Mater has become a lifeline for the diagnosis, treatment and care of chronic condilions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is associated with emphysema and smoking. One of the other manifestations of deprivation is unemployment—the Mater hospital is a significant employer in north Belfast—and the proposals for change have brought with them a very real fear for job losses in the hospital. I would be extremely concerned if the net effect of the proposals were to mean job losses in north Belfast, and I want to look very carefully at that aspect of the proposals before coming to any final decision.
  The Mater has given north Belfast long and distinguished service since it was established in 1883, and up until the deed of arrangement in 1971 was funded entirely by the Young Philanthropists, mostly by small donations invested in trust funds for the future. Many people in north Belfast have a very real sense of ownership of the Mater, and I understand why the proposals have generated such strong feeling in the community. Some £17 million has been raised entirely by the Mater Trust and the community to develop new facilities such the McAuley wing in the hospital, which has some of the most modern facilities of any hospital in
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  Northern Ireland. I have not yet had the privilege of seeing those facilities, but in view of the number of responses and the concerns expressed about the proposals in "Developing Better Services", I hope to visit the Mater to see the McAuley wing for myself, as well as to take the opportunity to talk to staff and members of the wider community. I want to do that before reaching decisions at the end of January.
  However, I know that both the acute hospitals review group and "Developing Better Services" proposed that acute services should continue at the Mater for some years to come. I would certainly agree with that. It has not been lost on me that, in an area so divided by sectarian strife in recent times, the Mater issue has united the entire community. Therefore, I can say now that for a considerable period ahead, the Mater will continue to provide a full range of acute services to the north Belfast area. My hope is that in declaring that intention now, I can significantly reduce the concerns of the very large numbers of people who have campaigned for the retention of acute services at the Mater ahead of final decisions.
  Having said that, I also referred to the enormous changes that have taken place in hospital services in recent years and to the drivers for further significant change. It will be essential to regularly review the profile and configuration of hospital services, and it will equally be essential that the Mater develops close working relationships with the Royal Victoria and the Belfast city hospitals so that it becomes an integral part of a Belfast teaching hospitals clinical network.
  Whiteabbey hospital provides a limited range of acute services and "Developing Better Services" proposed that it should become a local hospital providing a range of local services as I outlined, linked to the acute hospital network. Whiteabbey is situated between Antrim hospital and the acute hospital network in Belfast. I know that the acute hospitals review group report suggested that Whiteabbey should network with the Mater to provide hospital services. "Developing Better Services" did not address that recommendation, but it is worth considering such a network. If the Mater were to continue to provide a full range of acute services, there would be merit in developing Whiteabbey as a modern local hospital delivering a wide range of local services and networking both with Antrim hospital and the Mater, since I understand that many people in the Whiteabbey and Newtownabbey areas look to Belfast rather than Antrim for acute hospital services.
  Once again, I want to reflect on the responses to the consultation and consider the long-term viability of the acute services that are currently delivered at Whiteabbey and the opportunities that a local hospital might bring to the wider Whiteabbey community. I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the consultative process and I realise that I cannot give the hon. Member for Belfast, North all the assurances that he requires. However, I am very much alive to the concerns of the people in his constituency and have sympathy with them. My

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  overriding aim is to get the best possible outcome from the proposals in "Developing Better Services" that will address the compelling need for change in hospital care.
  I can, however, give the hon. Gentleman an assurance
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  that, in common with all the proposals in "Developing Better Services", I will not come lightly to any decisions that will set the future direction of hospital services in Northern Ireland for many years to come.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Eight o'clock.

Preamble
[SIR MICHAEL LORD in the Chair]

Climate Change and Sustainable Development
[Relevant documents: Third Report from the International Development Committee, Session 2001–02 HC 519-I, and the Government's response thereto, HC 1270.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Caplin.]
2.30 pm
Tony Baldry: I welcome this opportunity to debate the Select Committee on International Development report on global climate change and sustainable development. A significant number of Committee members are present today, including the hon. Members for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty), for Putney (Mr. Colman), for City of York (Hugh Bayley) and for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington) I am sure that all hon. Members, in their own way, will base their contributions on the impressions that they drew from a fairly extensive inquiry that lasted a number of months. Some hon. Members may not have had the opportunity to read the evidence, but I hope that the report will stand the test of time as being worthwhile
The United Nations world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg two months ago was the first summit of its kind for 10 years. A number of Committee members were fortunate enough to be able to attend. Frustratingly and somewhat disappointingly, and despite the attendance at the summit of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Secretary of State for International Development, no ministerial statement was made on the subject when the House returned shortly afterwards, which would have put what happened there into perspective. Today's debate is the first opportunity that we have had to consider what happened at Johannesburg.
Perspective and scale are imperative when considering climate change. One of the things that struck me while listening to the evidence of witnesses during the Select Committee inquiry was that such a dramatic scale of change should have taken place in so a short time. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its third assessment report published in 2001, observed that the concentrations of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere had risen, that carbon dioxide was at its highest concentration for the past 42,000 years, and that the rate at which its concentration was increasing was unprecedented in the past 20,000 years.
Those are dramatic figures. A number of witnesses, including the Hadley centre for climate change, observed that during the next 100 years temperatures around the world are likely to be higher than in millions of years past. We are in a period of considerable and
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dramatic change. I wonder whether the Department for International Development is sufficiently forward thinking on the matter.
I note that in paragraph 12.2 of their response, on the Select Committee's encouragement of enhanced funding of the global environment facility, the Government state:
"We are not in favour of any prior allocation of funds within the GEF overall budget".
That is unfortunate, given that the global environment facility is one of the central mechanisms to ensure that environmental objectives are reflected within development projects—and, moreover, to identify climate risks such as famine sooner rather than later.
DFID does not seem to mainstream our concerns on climate change through its development policies. The Secretary of State's evidence to the Committee was, as always, robust and welcome, but it does not seem that DFID has a coherent policy on climate change. I believe that that is inadequate. The result is that policies in developing countries, including poverty reduction strategy papers and national strategies for sustainable development, often contain little to address climate risk. Unless DFID helps poorer countries to develop policies to deal with that risk, climate change will continue to undermine development.
The Select Committee heard the Secretary of State talk at length, although understandably, about "northern greens" during her evidence sessions, but I believe that that sometimes misses the point. Conclusions 5 and 6 of the report help us to put the world summit on sustainable development into some perspective. Conclusion 5 states:
"Developing countries have a different view of climate change to developed countries. They see it not as a problem of pollution or of how to sustain economic growth but as a problem of human welfare that threatens survival itself".
That might be a different perception, but it should make DFID put the wider implications of climate change into perspective.
The World Bank said that the WSSD should have focused on Africa, and I agree. Asia and south America contain developing countries, but most of Africa contains only poor countries. The fact is that the effects of climate change will not be spread evenly across the globe but will be felt disproportionately by the poor. Poor people are likely to be the most vulnerable because they are unable to withstand even the slightest shock to their livelihood.
Since 1997, DFID has pursued a sustainable livelihoods approach to development. It was encapsulated in the 1997 White Paper and has been the backbone of much of DFID's policy. The most widely accepted definition of sustainable livelihoods was proposed by an academic, Carney, in 1995:
"A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base."
One point that I hope to make this afternoon is that millions of families in Africa are so beset by food shortages, drought and HIV/AIDS that they can no longer cope with or easily recover from stresses and

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shocks. I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for focusing a little on the plight of two regions of Africa. I and many other members of the Select Committee have just returned from visits to Malawi and/or the horn of Africa, and those examples may best illustrate the approach that DFID should adopt to climate change.
It is estimated that as many as 14 million people in southern Africa and another 14 million in Ethiopia and the horn of Africa are at risk of starvation. That means that nearly 30 million people are suffering almost silent starvation, because the media are only intermittently interested. Understandably, overseas coverage in the broadsheets these days deals almost exclusively with Iraq. Some people suggest that we are not dealing with the Ethiopia of 1985. I have been to Ethiopia, and that may not yet be the case. Film crews looking for tents full of skeletal children will be disappointed, but this is no less a holocaust of hunger. In that respect, the media cannot be guaranteed to act as an early warning system. An article from the current edition of the Institute of Development Studies' journal asserts:
"The case of Malawi in 2002 reveals the limitations of this argument. The media is a late indicator of distress, not an early warning. Journalists and television crews arrived in Malawi like spectators at a car crash: to observe the tragedy, not to prevent it."
Africans starve, journalists come, food aid dribbles forth, the journalists go and the Africans still starve.
If the media do not fully recognise the scale of Africa's plight, do Governments? I am sure that they do, but I want the House to consider two statements from the past fortnight on the prospects of African famine. Statement No. 1 reads:
"From my latest assessments in the field for southern Africa, certainly the peak period for assistance will begin in December and it is about 14.4 million people. In Ethiopia they have assessments in the field now and the 14 million, I think, was the worst case looking at all factors".
Statement No. 2 reads:
"A total of 427,000 tonnes of food aid was requested to help meet the needs of some 5.9 million people who were at risk. That followed the generally good harvests of 2001."—[Official Report,3 December 2002; Vol. 395, c. 885.]
I believe that hon. Members would agree that those two statements are somewhat at loggerheads. The first statement was made by Judith Lewis, the World Food Programme regional director in southern Africa, in evidence to the Select Committee two weeks ago. The second statement was made by the Minister in an Adjournment debate in the House the day before yesterday. There is a huge difference between 14 million and 6 million. The response of DFID to the African crisis appears to be based not on the requests of UN agencies in the field, but on its judgment of what scale the crisis should be. Before the Minister rises to say that the World Food Programme always overestimates, there is no cogent argument to suggest that the WFP has miscalculated need by a factor of three.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Ms Sally Keeble): I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would read the rest of my quote, in which I think I gave best-case and worst-case scenarios. I think that he will find that my worst-
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case scenario agreed pretty much with that of the WFP. Otherwise, I will see whether the Department can check the figures.
Tony Baldry: I was in the Chamber and took careful note of what the Minister said because I was anxious not to misrepresent her. If she cares to re-read what she said in Hansard, I think that she will find that she referred to the figure of 5.9 million and said that the Government were waiting for further reports from the field about what is happening. Either DFID agrees with the World Food Programme or it does not, and I shall refer later to other examples of how it seems to me that the Secretary of State and the WFP are not speaking in a similar way.
I suggest that Ministers read an analysis of the 1985 Ethiopian famine recently published by IDS, which observes how
"the early warning system adequately picked up the problem, but failed to mobilise the kind of response needed to avert a disaster, in short, because donor agencies were sceptical about the needs figures."
Why are Ministers now being sceptical? On whom does DFID rely in order to feel confident that fewer than 6 million people are threatened by famine? Why is DFID failing to recognise in its country assistance plan for Ethiopia the WFP's estimates for the African crisis?
My concern is that I am not confident that DFID fully grasps the colossal scale of the famine facing much of Africa. Judith Lewis made it clear that her calculations account for all factors. DFID does not. However, it is not only Judith Lewis from whom the Select Committee has heard recently. James Morris, the executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, recently met members of the Select Committee. I kept a careful note of what he said. He observed that there is
"a disaster unfolding, with 14 million people in the Horn of Africa, and 14 million in Southern Africa needing food aid. This could not he sustained by the World Food Programme."
In a press release issued on the same day, 28 October—just a few weeks ago—James Morris said:
"These figures are large and dramatic and the international community should take notice…unless we come to grips with this problem very soon, we face the real possibility of facing a devastating wave of human suffering and death early next year."
He went on to comment that
"while modern society is not prepared to tolerate the face of mass hunger, agencies like the World Food Programme—as well as hundreds of highly effective NGOs—are finding it increasingly difficult to find the resources to respond adequately to the growing number of emergencies.
Dependent on voluntary contributions WFP and NGOs are caught between the rising needs of millions of hungry people and government budgets that are already stretched and contending with a global economic slowdown."
James Morris concluded, somewhat alarmingly:
"The sad truth is that as things stand the humanitarian system faces the prospect of being completely overwhelmed. It is clear that business as usual is insufficient to address the rising humanitarian crisis we confront."
Nothing that I have heard from the Government or that has been reflected in the media seems to tackle adequately the concern of UN agencies such as the World Food Programme, which is that
"the humanitarian system faces the prospect of being completely overwhelmed."

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Is DFID's estimate of those at risk of starvation lower because it believes that many people are dying of HIV/AIDS rather than food shortages? The two are interlocked: hunger helps to beget HIV/AIDS, and HIV/AIDS helps to beget hunger. The WFP believes that the first fight against HIV/AIDS is about food and, likewise, it wants to distribute food to HIV sufferers foremost.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman: Did my hon. Friend hear the Secretary of State's interview on the "Today" programme? She compared the estimates of those at risk of famine in southern Africa and Ethiopia, and suggested that the threat was worse in southern Africa because of the enfeeblement of the population by HIV and AIDS. I have carefully looked at the Hansard report of the debate on Ethiopia a couple of days ago, and cannot find maximum and minimum figures. However, the Minister stated:
"We expect to have the first estimates from surveys of the present situation within the next few days".—[Official Report, 3 December 2002; Vol. 395, c. 885.]
It would seem that the assessment in the media was given before the correct information was available to the Department.
Tony Baldry: The World Food Programme, which is there on the ground, seems to be clear about the scale of the need. Like my hon. Friend, I was surprised by the Secretary of State's interview on "Today". As members of the Select Committee know, I am generally not slow to compliment the Secretary of State and DFID on their achievements. I was surprised when she was reported as saying that talk of the threat of famine in Ethiopia was irresponsible.
When the Minister replies to the debate, perhaps she will tell us which of the comments made by the WFP's executive director is irresponsible. Is it his suggestion' that there is
"a disaster unfolding, with 14 million people in the Horn of Africa, and 14 million in Southern Africa needing food aid. This could not be sustained by the World Food Programme"?
Is it the statement:
"These figures are large and dramatic and the international community should take notice…unless we come to grips with this problem very soon, we face the real possibility of facing a devastating wave of human suffering and death early next year"?
Is it the suggestion that the World Food Programme is
"finding it increasingly difficult to find the resources to respond adequately to the growing number of emergencies…The sad truth is that as things stand the humanitarian system faces the prospect of being completely overwhelmed"?
Do the Government agree with that assessment by James Morris, or do they think that the WFP has in some way got things wrong? I do not think that it is irresponsible for the Ethiopian Prime Minister to seek more food aid while the UN's World Food Programme estimates that 14 million of his country's people will soon be under threat of starvation.
Thus far, the WFP's emergency appeals for both regions have not received the response from donors for which one would hope. In southern Africa, that has meant that only about 13 per cent. of food aid has been delivered to those who need it.
Dr. Jenny Tonge: At last, the hon. Gentleman is coming to the nub of the problem. There is
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not much difference between the Government's position and that of the World Food Programme. The WFP has put out an appeal, but unfortunately only 56 per cent. of the amount of donations needed has been received. That is not the problem in any case. The real question is why the WFP has not had the response that it had for previous impending famines. The reason should be in this debate. We are talking about climate change and decreases in world food supplies. Will the hon. Gentleman address those subjects a little?
Tony Baldry: I am sorry if the hon. Lady has missed the first of the serious points that I am making: that we all need to understand the scale of what is happening in Africa. It is unprecedented, in relation to climatic as well as other factors—it is, for example, the first time ever that both rains have failed in Ethopia. However, James Morris was telling the Select Committee that we are nearing the stage at which so many people in Africa need food aid that, even if we could get the food into the pipeline, the pipeline could not cope.
I shall in a moment say something about how increasing endemic poverty increases the difficulty.
Mr. Tony Colman: It may be important for those of us who also attended the relevant meeting to recognise that the World Food Programme representatives talked of last year's very good harvest in Ethiopia and explained the need for long-term reform. They said that the World Food Programme was placing strong emphasis on dealing with long-term agricultural needs. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would reflect on his recollection of that meeting, and agree that James Morris and his cohorts made those suggestions.
Tony Baldry: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I wanted to make it clear that a long-term food security programme is among the things that are needed. One of my concerns is that, in Ethiopia, in years when there has been no drought, the number of food-insecure people has been growing. People who have exhausted their coping mechanisms in difficult years cannot recover, even in years of good harvest. However, the quotations that I have given the Committee are fair and accurate reflections of what was said at the meeting.
In Ethiopia the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission estimates that something like 250,000 tonnes of grain will be needed between now and the end of the year. That takes no account of the exacerbation of the situation that both the relevant regions will face next year because of what is happening this year. The Minister said in the Adjournment debate:
"Those positive developments include the effectiveness of early warning systems, and the willingness of the Government and the international community to work together."—[Official Report, 3 December 2001; Vol. 395, c. 885.]
She listed the comparatively high level of food aid so far donated by the United Kingdom. I do not think that anyone would dispute that the UK has responded or that the Department for International Development was among the first to respond. However, whatever the early warning systems are telling the UK Government, an average of one in three people are still hungry because they are not getting enough food aid.
I do not dispute that DFID is working multilaterally. I should not expect anything less from it. However, that does not alter the fact that the UK is responding to a

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level of crisis completely different, in many people's view, from the one that the World Food Programme is witnessing. My concern is that there is too little recognition of the scale of the crisis. Until it is recognised, Africa's suffering cannot be stemmed. I echo what has been said by the hon. Members for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) and for Putney (Mr. Colman) about the need for a long-term solution as well as a short-term one.
That brings me to the second recommendation in the Select Committee report, at paragraph 6 in the list of conclusions and recommendations, which is, I believe, crucial in the context of famine prevention and climate change. It states:
"Given their relative contribution, the burden of finding a solution to the problems posed by climate change should fall mainly on developed countries".
One of the problems posed by climate change is food shortage. The one is exacerbated by the other. They are symbiotic. If food aid is not donated now, there will come a point at which the food pipeline will be overwhelmed. There is not sufficient physical capacity. I do not think that the problem of physical capacity is being fully recognised by DFID. I suspect that what we are now witnessing in Ethiopia and southern Africa is the longer-term impact of a food pipeline unable to cope with the volumes of food aid now needed. Africa is stuck in a cycle of grinding poverty and vulnerability. When I visited Ethiopia and Malawi I saw that in many parts of those countries people are so incredibly poor that the merest breeze of adverse conditions blows them over. No capacity means no coping mechanism.
Every year, almost irrespective of whether there is a drought, more and more Ethiopians appear to be becoming food-dependent. That is a reflection of the deepening poverty and destitution of those living in rural areas. Unless the trend is reversed it will not be many years before we see something like 20 million people being food-dependent, which would clearly be impossible to cope with by way of food aid. A long-term food security strategy is needed. I quote briefly from the country assistance plan drawn up by DFID for long-term assistance to Ethiopia, which was published at the beginning of last month:
"Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, ill-equipped to cope with the current droughts to which it is prone…Ethiopia like other countries in the Horn of Africa is subject to highly variable and erratic climatic conditions. Drought is a recurrent problem. Most parts of the country 'normally' have at least two rainy seasons in a year but one or often both of these frequently fail. When this happens, harvests are poor and livestock may die. During prolonged droughts many households exhaust their own food supplies and have to sell what assets they have to buy more. When their assets run out, they become dependent on Food Aid and if this does not reach them, death from starvation results. Unless action is taken to control the spread of HIV/AIDS, then the effect of drought on populations affected by the pandemic can be devastating. The combination of HIV/AIDS and frequent drought is therefore a significant risk to poverty reduction."
Food insecurity is identified as a major contributor to poverty and poverty is a major contributor to food insecurity. The report continues:
"Extreme poverty has led to land degradation, associated problems of deforestation, over-grazing, loss of soil fertility and disruption of the water cycle."
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Perhaps one of the most disturbing features of erratic weather and recurring droughts is that when people sell their assets during a drought, they are rarely able to rebuild their families' coping mechanisms. Perhaps one of the greatest concerns about countries such as Ethiopia is that, irrespective of whether there is a drought, the number of food-insecure people grows year by year. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Putney, when I was in Addis Ababa, I went to see the European Union's team. They gave me a paper written by the food security adviser to the European Commission's office in Addis Ababa, which makes the point that many
"households are slowly falling into destitution over the years as a result of asset sales during ever more frequent crises. As a consequence, coping mechanisms have lost their effectiveness and even small downturns in production translate into major shocks for large numbers of rural livelihoods."
The paper goes on to make an extremely important point, which has been overlooked in recent reporting of what is happening in Ethiopia and elsewhere:
"Once more we are back into emergency appeals and the scramble for metric tonnes."
As has often been repeated, but perhaps not often enough, food aid fulfils only one of its three objectives, saving lives—the other two being saving assets and improving nutrition—and it does not do that well. Furthermore, emergency food aid is of limited use in addressing the structural problems at the basis of the current crisis in Ethiopia.
" Asset depletion over the long term continues unabated and under the current scheme of things, donors will be facing a caseload of 20 million food insecure people by 2015, a clearly unsustainable situation."
Those are not my figures. That is the European Union's food security adviser, on the ground in Addis, saying that unless something dramatic changes, all that will happen will be that year on year there will be more food-insecure people in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa, and predicting a potential 20 million people starving in Ethiopia alone. The EU paper rightly concludes:
"The main challenge is to reverse the 'one step forward, two steps back' tendency in the Food Security policy dialogue."
In order to do that, we have to be forceful in our message that crisis reinforces rather than supersedes the need for a long-term structural approach to food security. For that reason, we need to give longer-term support to agriculture extension programmes, supporting farmer training with a broader range of agricultural technologies made available to farmers, help with road building to enable them to get goods to markets more easily, improve market information and develop organisations that can advance credit to farmers. The eventual elimination of food insecurity and dependence on food aid must be an objective. However, that point should not disguise the poverty of so many countries in the world. To help them we need to tackle their poverty.
When I met Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, he made it clear that he considered it imperative that his Government should have a longer-term food security strategy. He recognises that Ethiopia cannot go on, year after year, depending on financial and food handouts from the donor community. I hope that DFID will pursue a longer-term approach. Everyone needs to be clear that climate change and poverty are interlinked. Everyone seems to recognise that they must be tackled together.

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Meeting the UN's millennium development goals, therefore, requires policies that both address climate change and ensure sustainable development. However, Africa is not meeting the millennium development goals. DFID's last annual report contains, I think, 14 graphs on each continent's progress towards the millennium development goals. Not one shows Africa going forward. Most show it going backwards. Of the six countries in the southern African crisis, five are still at the very bottom of the human development index. They are the poorest of the poor: they have the highest malnutrition rates in the world, the highest chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest rates of wasting and stunting in the world. Why? Because of food insecurity.
Food insecurity is caused primarily by drought and HIV/AIDS. Those are the two ugly sisters blighting Africa. How can they be combated? Broadly speaking, aid is imperative to control HIV/AIDS, and trade is important to combat drought. To take Ethiopia on trade, for example, a longer-term food security strategy will mean getting more people in rural areas out of destitution. Famine and food shortages in Ethiopia are not simply weather-related but poverty-related issues Some 85 per cent. of Ethiopians depend on agriculture for their income. They have been hardest hit by the fall in international coffee prices, which has not only affected the income of individual farmers and their families but substantially depleted the Ethiopian Government's finances.
Mr. Mike Hancock: Order. Mr. Baldry, a Member is trying to catch your eye, but you have not looked round the Room, and it might be that you go past the point at which he wants to intervene on you.
Tony Baldry: Mr. Hancock, it is usual for hon. Members to say, "Will the hon. Member give way?" I apologise—I was keen to say a lot, and I do not want to take up too much of the debate.
Mr. John Battle: The hon. Gentleman brings a passion and concern to the debate, insisting that we do not become complacent about the scale of the problems in Africa. I think that we all appreciate that in his leadership in our Committee.
I know Malawi rather better than Ethiopia—I was there recently. I have checked the weather reports, and it is raining in Malawi now. That is important, because the rain season has started. The problem is not that there was not a rain season last year, but that it was intermittent and missed. Apart from AIDS, which is hollowing out the society and Malawi's capacity, the biggest problem when we were there was the lack of seed and fertiliser. To be fair to DFID, it was doing its best to distribute seed and fertiliser packs to jump-start in the medium term the possibilities of a harvest next year. However, when we asked the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, they did not seem to realise that part of building for the future is ensuring that people have seeds to plant to catch the rain now; otherwise, we shall be discussing food shortages and food aid again this time next year.
Tony Baldry: I do not disagree with any of that. I think that there tends to be broad agreement on the
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Select Committee. I do not believe for a moment that the World Food Programme is the repository of all knowledge. In quoting the World Food Programme, I am concerned that there be a wider understanding of the scale of what is happening. Whether we visited Malawi or Ethiopia, we are all concerned about the failure of the FAO to provide help to encourage agriculture. There is a hole there. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that, notwithstanding the terrible problem of HIV/AIDS, unless people in Malawi can grow more food, the situation there will become increasingly difficult.
I shall briefly return to the problems of Ethiopia. Its main export is coffee, but coffee prices are at their lowest in 16 years. Ironically, Ethiopia's poverty may be of benefit to the country: because it is so poor, fertilisers or pesticides are not used, so Ethiopian coffee is genuinely organic. One way forward would be to brand its produce as Ethiopian coffee and promote it as a niche organic product.
I appreciate that DFID has been very much involved with a supermarkets initiative, but the labyrinthine procedures of the European Commission make it difficult to get coffee certified as organic. I hope that officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in Brussels can offer some help, particularly by ensuring that the Commission and others do not make wholly unrealistic demands of Ethiopian farmers to prove that they have never used pesticides or fertilisers; otherwise, Ethiopia will be dependent for any improvement in incomes on greater access to other markets, whether regional—such as Saudi Arabia and the middle east—or European.
The position is even more difficult in Malawi. The country may have a democratic Government, but I doubt whether it has the political leadership: even building a Bailey bridge on an ordinary road never seems to happen. We all recognise that countries such as Ethiopia and Malawi face HIV/AIDS as well as drought. Sadly, Africa is poor because it is sick and sick because it is poor.
The scale and perspective of famines have changed. Poverty and climate change have exacerbated them and sustainable development in Africa is now a far bigger challenge. Earlier this week, the Select Committee took evidence from its special adviser, Dr. Stephen Devereux. Members who heard his evidence—he is an expert on famine and has written extensively about it—will know that he views current developments as of a different order from those of the past, requiring new thinking. We have too often considered how past famines were dealt with by early warning systems and other mechanisms without realising that those mechanisms are inadequate to deal with Stephen Devereux's new "seismic factor".
Finally, because the scale of famine has changed, the amount of food aid that the World Food Programme needs to obtain gets greater each year. However, the World Food Programme never knows when it will receive the money from donors, so it has to go cap in hand to secure pledges, which have to be turned into commitments, which have to be turned into money, which sometimes arrives too late. We need a new system to avoid one humanitarian crisis giving way to another. UN donor countries and aid recipients now need a continually supported emergency budget to be distributed as humanitarian crises—sadly, likely to be frequent—happen. Many Governments of developed

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countries are sometimes reluctant to give aid to developing countries. As the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, all too often it takes all too long for requests to be honoured.
In the long term, more needs to be done to deal with the following famine equation: drought plus HIV/AIDS minus fair trade equals famine. Otherwise, Africa will have 30 million people dependent on food aid, and for Africa alone, the 2015 targets will become the 2030 millennium goals as Africa continues to starve silently.
Mr. David Chaytor: Given that the hon. Gentleman is talking about the long term, will he accept that, in the long term, the solution lies as much with the Department of Trade and Industry and energy policy as with the practical support that DFID can give to relieve famine? Does he agree that it might have been useful had his report made a recommendation to the DTI, or a submission to the current energy review, stressing the absolute importance of reducing CO2 emissions, not only to our current commitment of 20 per cent., but to 60 per cent., as the royal commission on environmental pollution recommended?
Mr. Mike Hancock: Order. This is getting close to a speech, Mr. Chaytor.
Mr. Chaytor: I shall be brief, Mr. Hancock.
Recommendations 9 and 30 in the report are about the link between climate change and equity, and suggest that the Government should pursue a policy of contraction and convergence in their approach to CO2 emissions.
Tony Baldry: I am sure that every hon. Member will make their own speech. In fairness, the report, which was written and published before the Johannesburg summit, makes considerable recommendations on climate change and energy policy. I have not gone through all those recommendations this afternoon because hon. Members can read the report.
Since the report's publication, the Select Committee has been to Malawi, and others of us have been to Ethiopia and Malawi. We have seen, and are seeing, a disaster emerging in Africa, so it seemed appropriate to concentrate my remarks on that. The hon. Gentleman takes an active role in GLOBE—the Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment—which I and many other Opposition Members also support. I am sure that he will focus on the issue that he has raised. I have chosen not to this afternoon, although not because I think that it is unimportant. Colleagues on the Committee and in the House may disagree with my view and think that I have got things out of proportion, but I think that, collectively, we must understand the scale of what is taking place in Africa.
What is happening now is different from what happened in 1985, and requires a different response. It requires long-term food security policies and the improvement of the mechanisms for supporting the WFP. It is not fair to accuse people who raise those issues of being irresponsible. I am sure that we can get them in proper and rational proportion. They are
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important issues that need to be addressed if huge numbers of people in Africa are not to starve.
3.12 pm
Tony Worthington: I shall follow on from some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), the Chairman of the Select Committee, and pick up the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), so that the Department responsible for energy policy is mentioned almost obsessively in the debate.
One of the best features of the Government's policies is that they have moved some of the biggest issues facing humanity closer to centre stage instead of allowing them to be peripheral. DFID has been an enormous success. With the backing of my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, international development has moved from the sidelines to the centre of affairs, so that more Members are able, and willing, to talk about debt, trade and so on.
However, we need to go much further on many issues, some of which are covered in the report. Some of the most important issues facing mankind hardly ever feature in the House. It is difficult for those of us with young grandchildren, who we hope will live comfortably towards the next century, to be cheerful about the prospects for them and billions of fellow human beings if we continue with our present behaviour. We could do much more to improve their lives. On issues such as climate change, the consequences of the damaging behaviour that we do not stop now are unlikely to be reversible in future.
We criticise others for short-termism, but there are very few long-termist politicians. Looking back at the report, I think that we were not political enough. It is a fascinating report in an academic sense, but we do not say clearly enough what will be the political consequences if we do not act. Climate change is one of those developing features. It is easy to be unconcerned about what seem to be tiny reported increases in temperature. However, not only are those small increases much more significant than we think, but they have a huge impact when they interact with other changes.
It is staggering to know that the 15 warmest years since record keeping started have occurred since 1980. If this year finishes as it began, it will be the hottest year ever. The consequences can be seen in extremes of weather such as more storms, withering heat and damaging floods. This year, peak flood levels in India were almost incomprehensible in their scale. As the hon. Member for Banbury said, climate change affects food security and water.
It is when climate change interacts with other things that its effect is huge. The distinguished American environmentalist, Lester Brown, demonstrates that by highlighting the links between rising population, climate change, falling water tables and falling grain supplies. I use his work extensively in my speech. The World Bank published a report showing that a rise of lm in the sea level would inundate half of Bangladesh's rice land, and that Bangladesh's population will increase from 133 million to 209 million by 2050. That is the scale of change that we are confronting. Every 1° C rise in temperature above the optimum for germination leads to a 10 per cent. fall in the germination rate of seeds.

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In 2000–01, world grain yields were lower than expected, which links to what the hon. Member for Banbury was saying. That has various causes, but a major factor is falling water tables in key food-producing areas such as the north China plain, the Punjab and the southern great plains of the United States. We are now seriously over-pumping water, by which I mean that water that is pumped out is not replaced. Some 480 million of the world's 6 billion people are being fed with grain produced by the unsustainable use of water. China has some of the greatest problems. Beijing stands more than 1 km above water. Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, stands 2 km above water, which lies in a basin.
China will soon be going to the world's grain markets, with serious consequences. It will be able to pay for its food, but what will that do to the people of Africa who cannot afford to pay for their food? Incredibly, it takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce 1 tonne of grain. The most efficient way for water-deficient countries to import water is to buy grain from elsewhere. I invite hon. Members to think about the African context: as the hon. Member for Banbury said, it is clear that, with all the food programmes of southern Africa, the challenges for the World Food Programme are far greater than ever before. The problems used to relate to donors, resources and logistics. Now the question is whether there is enough food
Water shortages are becoming more and more prevalent, so that desertification is advancing in many parts of the world. In five years, the Gobi desert expanded by 20,000 sq km. Last week, newspapers published the story of an incredible Chinese plan to channel water from the Yangtse over thousands of miles to the plains in north China. Lester Brown says that no country has ever faced an ecological disaster like the one that is developing in China. The water problems that China faces are not unique; all north Africa and the middle east have huge problems too. I will return to the problems faced by the middle east.
Another part of the equation is the rising world population, which increases by 80 million per year in the poorest regions of the world. The biggest increases in population occur where food scarcity, desertification and poverty are worst. Those increases do not occur by choice, but because the wealthiest countries in the world fail to give the poorest countries access to one of the cheapest technologies in the world—the condom—the price of which is 2p, and which the poor would use if they had the choice. The price cannot be the excuse, but the will is.
Some of the poorest countries with the highest fertility rates, such as Afghanistan, Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi and Liberia have seven children per family. We know that families in those poor countries would not have as many children if they had a choice. Some 350 million women a year do not have access to family planning.
In helping to produce the report I learned about the degree of interaction of environmental and climactic factors. We wrote on page 16 that people tend to operate in their tiny, narrow worlds so that climate change has tended to be
"the preserve of climate scientists and environmental groups."
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Returning to what I said at the beginning of my speech, I am glad that development has moved much closer to the centre of political concerns. We have proved in this country that debt and international development can be forced on to the international agenda, and that the World Bank and G8 countries can be moved. The millennium development goals now exist as a sort of ten commandments, but we also need a different kind of foreign and environmental policy that includes energy. It must be about the future of the planet and its citizens.
I shall give some examples of what foreign policy should be about. My first example may seem strange at first—it sounds minor but I believe it to be important. At the beginning of this year, President Bush refused to pay any money to the United Nations Population Fund because it had programmes in China. Congress was willing to support it, but Bush refused. That sounds like a minor story, but it is not.
Why did Bush refuse US funding to the UNFPA—not the UNFPA in China, but the UNFPA as a whole? In hock to the religious right in the United States, he asserted that the presence of the UNFPA gave support to China's one-child policy and forced abortions. That was contradicted by his own investigation team, and also by MPs from this House—I am delighted to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty) is here. They showed that the UNFPA was not associated with abortion, that it was having a positive effect in weaning China away from the undesirable one-child policy, and that the abortion rate was falling in the countries where the UNFPA was working. The withdrawal of funds by Bush would actually increase the number of unsafe abortions in China.
Bush's action in withdrawing services from the whole world because of China received almost no attention. It had the effect of withdrawing condoms from Africa, which is ravaged by AIDS. The UN calculated the consequences of his actions. It estimated that for every $1 million not spent on condoms there are 360,000 unwanted pregnancies, 150,000 abortions, 800 maternal deaths and 25,000 deaths of children under five. I call that a weapon of mass destruction. We do not, however, take it seriously.
The world's poorest countries need 8 billion to 10 billion condoms per year to help stem the spread of AIDS, which infects 14,000 new people and kills 6,000 every day, but those countries receive only 1 billion condoms. We could save thousands of lives and infections at a fraction of the cost of the expenditure on the war on Iraq.
Dr. Tonge: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am sure he knows that I agree with everything that he has said. Does he not think that a lot of blame lies with the Roman Catholic Church, which absolutely refuses to condone the use of condoms in the third world? With the AIDS epidemic raging, however, that would be a pro-life measure.
Tony Worthington: The hon. Lady can make her own speech and be sent to hell with me.
Mr. Mike Hancock: Do not wish it on her!
Tony Worthington: My central point is that we do not take the issue seriously enough in foreign policy, even

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though it will cause far more damage than anything that Saddam Hussein might do. A growing population and a lack of choice about family planning leads to thousands of deaths, unsafe abortions and increased poverty in the world's poorest countries. Far more people are killed in that way than by armies.
On sustainable development, my other main example is Iraq. Why did no one talk about oil in our debate on Iraq last week? We and the Americans are in a conspiracy of silence about oil. The Russians, the French and the Chinese know that Iraq is about oil, because they have deals with Saddam which they fear will collapse. The Arab nations also know very well that Iraq is about oil. In a superb article in yesterday's Financial Times, Martin Wolf, who is not a Socialist Worker conspiracist, said:
"Many critics of US policy towards the region complain that it is largely about oil. One would certainly hope so. There are other reasons for concern, notably weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. But oil is the starting-point in consideration of the region."
Our fossil fuel consumption is a major cause of global warming. Like many people, I believe that America's determination to secure oil reserves for itself is a major reason why it selected Iraq as its next target. It will be monstrous if American companies gain control of Iraqi oil as a consequence of the invasion. The people of Iraq should be the beneficiaries of that oil. Efforts to deal with the invasion's aftermath must come solely under the control of the United Nations. In going to war, we have gone to a lot of trouble to bring matters under UN control, but not a word has been said about UN control of those efforts.
Look at what happened in Afghanistan. American companies failed to negotiate access to the Caspian reserves with the Taliban, who provided succour to alQaeda and subsequently became the Antichrist. However, they did negotiate access within weeks of America winning the war. A pipeline now runs, under American control, from the Caspian sea, through Afghanistan and to the coast. We should not be surprised.
I urge people to look at the new American national security strategy, which I meant to bring with me. Under the heading "Enhance energy security", it states:
"We will work to strengthen our own energy security and the shared prosperity of the global economy by working with our allies, trading partners, and energy producers to expand the sources and types of global energy supply, especially in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Central Asia, and the Caspian region."
That is foreign policy. Within about a year, the Americans will probably have gained unfettered access to the Caspian and Iraqi reserves.
Mr. Colman: Would my hon. Friend accept that three Members of the House went to the United Nations three weeks ago and met representatives of the Iraq oil-for-food programme, which is otherwise known as the Iraq programme? It is under the auspices of the UN, which ensures that the benefit of all Iraqi oil exports—with small deductions to pay for Kuwaiti reparations and for the search for weapons of mass destruction—is given back to the Iraqi people in the form of food, housing and
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health systems, and in many other ways. Planning is going on at the UN to ensure that the system continues in the event of military action so that oil taken out of Iraq under UN auspices is used for the Iraqi people. That is the way forward.
Tony Worthington: Well, we shall see. It will console me if the young children of Iraq do not die in the same numbers, do not have the diseases that they have at the moment and if their health recovers. That is the first time that I have heard it said—I have not heard it announced by the Americans or by ourselves—that, after a war, Iraq will be under the control of the United Nations. That is an important statement.
Mr. Colman rose—
Mr. Mike Hancock: To be fair, we should continue.
Tony Worthington: Basically, that means that the biggest consequence of the Iraq war will be that the Americans will continue to produce at least 24 per cent. of greenhouse gas emissions and the people of Iraq will remain poor. The United States would not join in at Kyoto and is safeguarding its supply from abroad now that it has consumed its indigenous reserves. The United States Department of Energy calculates that there will be a 54 per cent. increase in oil production by 2020, mainly in the Gulf, and the Americans intend it to be under their control. If we are concerned about climate change and the resulting problems, we should not continue to ignore the consequences of that policy.
In the middle east and in north Africa, many people are currently being fed with grain produced by the unsustainable use of water. That is a serious problem. In Iraq, the population will increase from 13 million in 1980 to 32 million in 2015, and we should remember that one in two Iraqis is a child. Environmental changes are, therefore, intertwined with political concerns, but I have not heard them raised with those concerns in discussions on Iraq.
Our collective response to some of the biggest problems in the world, such as water shortage, HIV/AIDS, population growth and climate change, is hopelessly inadequate. We shall still spend billions on war, and it will not surprise me in the least if expenditure on the Iraq war is greater than the aid given to developing countries around the world—and we will then need to start rebuilding. We need to think differently about those issues. Easily the biggest problem about Iraq is that millions of poor people, especially children, are suffering. Their relief should be our priority, yet the United States and ourselves are willing to contemplate killing those children to depose a loader whom neither they nor their parents chose. When we win, will the survivors be any better off? I do not think so.
Foreign policy is in a time warp, obsessed with the rights of nation states and their often appalling rulers, rather than those in need. We need a different framework. I came across a glimmer of that recently in Canada, where a multinational working party was recently set up under the joint chairmanship of Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Secretary of Australia, and

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the distinguished international diplomat, Mohamed Sahnoun of Algeria, with other distinguished participants, such as Cyril Ramaphosa and Fidel Ramos.
That became the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. It produced a report called "The Responsibility to Protect", which is now being considered by the UN General Assembly. I am sure that people such as Kofi Annan think that the way we deal with the world's problems is antiquated anti hopelessly inefficient. I cannot do justice to that document, but if we used it as a driving force behind foreign policy, it would transform the way that we look at things. It illuminates the difficult concept of humanitarian intervention and justifies the circumstances in which we intervene in countries.
Security is crucial, but its meaning has become very broad. The traditional concept of security leaves out the most elementary and legitimate security concerns of people in their own lives, such as hunger, disease, inadequate shelter and unemployment. The traditional language of the nation state seems inappropriate in a globalised arena with big problems such as hunger and water shortages.
As the hon. Member for Banbury said, 28 million people in Africa are on the cusp of starvation, and our response gives them no hope. Those people are often more in danger from their Governments than from any other factor, but we seem to be prevented from intervening. It is difficult to find out what action is being taken, other than the overwhelmed humanitarian response of the World Food Programme. Our current investigations show that there is no food plan for Africa, despite all the UN organisations, Governments, think tanks and so on. There is no glimmer as to what Africa will do in its current situation.
As parliamentarians, many of us are frustrated by our peripheral nature to big issues of the day such as world poverty, climate change, AIDS health and so on. It is a privilege to serve on our Committee, because we can consider those issues whereas other parliamentarians cannot. However, one idea that comes out of the report is that hon. Members should urge DFID and other parts of the Government to take further what that Department has started. They should consider again what is meant by foreign policy and our priorities on it.
3.36 pm
Sir Sydney Chapman: I am grateful to be called to speak in such an important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and the members of the International Development Committee on producing a magnificent, profound and comprehensive report on some of the vital issues that face Mother Earth.
I have the privilege, if that is the right word, to be chairman of the 44-nation Council of Europe sustainable development committee. As such, I went to Johannesburg and there met several colleagues who are now in this Chamber. I pay tribute to the Government for ensuring that 76 people attended that important conference.
The global issue is that we are relentlessly and deliberately destroying the world's ecosystem. Our climate is changing. I agree with the main conclusions of the Select Committee's third report, which are:
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"Irreversible changes are occurring in our climate … Environmental issues and poverty are closely linked. They have to be tackled together".
and:
"A lack of policy integration has undermined action."
It is understandably difficult to get agreement among all the countries of the world, and we must have that if we are to save its ecosystem.
Our air and atmosphere are increasingly polluted. I do not want to drown hon. Members with statistics. I shall mention a few but keep off them as much as I can. Our seas, waters and rivers are becoming dirtier. For example, the Black sea—the name may be appropriate—reaches depths of 6,000 ft and is dead from 300 ft down. We are depleting our fish stocks.
Our land is becoming more contaminated. Our deserts are expanding. The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington) mentioned the Gobi desert. The Sahara expands by several miles every year. Our urban areas grow remorselessly, which means that less land is available to grow food. Our rain forests are shrinking rapidly. So far, we have lost 70 per cent. of the world's forests. In the past 20 years we have chopped up 2.6 million sq km of rain forest. That is a meaningless statistic, so I shall explain it: it is the equivalent of 11 United Kingdoms. That process cannot go on; if it does, the world will be irreparably damaged. All is not doom and gloom, however. We have managed to stem the shrinking of temperate forest and, indeed, modestly increase its area, mainly in the northern hemisphere, of course, by about 170,000 square miles.
All that is happening at a time when, as the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie said, the world's population is escalating. It is interesting that it took until 1830 for the world's population to reach 1 billion. Then it took only 100 years for it to reach 2 billion. It has increased in the past 70 years from 2 billion to 6 billion and, as the hon. Gentleman said, it is expected to be 10 billion by 2060. Population growth, with reference to the poorest countries, is not only a question of whether they are provided with birth control mechanisms. People living in a country where death from disease or starvation is likely tend to have more children, to ensure that some will survive. I am sorry to put it in such stark terms, but it is true.
Even today, with 6 billion people in the world, while a quarter of the world's population is over-nourished, the other three quarters are anything from under-nourished to starving. Those are the statistics of the madhouse in which we are living.
Dr. Tonge: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would be interested in one more statistic for his armoury. On asking what effect on world population the AIDS pandemic would have, I was told that if all the millions of people with AIDS died tomorrow it would take only 20 weeks to replace them.
Sir Sydney Chapman: That is an interesting statistic that I confess I had not heard before. I hope that copyright on that is only a couple of miles around Richmond Park and not further.
We had, effectively, the first Earth summit in Stockholm 30 years ago and I am old enough to have attended a conference that was held adjacent to it. I felt

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when I attended the Johannesburg conference that the wheel had come full circle. Ten years ago the Rio summit was held, and five years ago at the Kyoto summit the protocol on climate change to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions was brought into being. I hope that that will be ratified shortly. It is necessary for 55 countries, accounting for 55 per cent. or more of emissions, to do so. One country, with 5 per cent. of the world's population, is responsible for 25 per cent. of harmful emissions, and it is a bitter disappointment that the United States does not at present feel that it can ratify the protocol. I am delighted that China, India and Brazil recently agreed—I may be out of date in my information—to ratify the protocol. I hope that it will become a reality.
When we talk about sustainable development we all have one thing in common—we all represent the cleverest and most distinguished constituents. However, I wonder how many of our constituents know exactly what we mean when we talk about sustainable development. As the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty) will recall, while we were in Johannesburg, I suggested that we should have a competition to see who could define sustainable development in the simplest terms and in as few words as possible, so that everyone could understand it. This answer was not the winner, but I would define it as conserving the world's finite resources for future generations. That is only eight words, and it may not be a good definition, but it makes a serious point, which is that if we want to get the people on our side, we must ensure that they know what we are talking about.
Many people were disappointed with the relative paucity of specific commitments at the Johannesburg world summit on sustainable development, even though it was long on aspiration. However, certain specific commitments were given, and I want to speak for a couple of minutes about a few of them.
Hugh Bayley: There was a lot of adverse press coverage on the paucity of new commitments emanating from the conference. However, does the hon. Gentleman share my view that, after Rio and a lot of other UN conferences on poverty and international development, a stack of commitments—hundreds of them—remain unfulfilled? Surely, the priority at Johannesburg should have been to work out how to start fulfilling some of those commitments rather than adding yet more to the wish list.
Sir Sydney Chapman: I agree, except on one point: some specific commitments still have to be made. One, which I welcome, is to reduce by 800 million, or by more than half, the number of people who lack proper sanitation. Such a commitment is necessary. The question is: why not 100 per cent. by such and such a date? I do not want to get into any tautology, but such an essential, specific commitment must be necessary when we have to live with the obscenity of 6,000 children dying every day through water-borne diseases.
I welcome the commitment to increase aid to the third world by an extra $12 billion, half of which is to go to the countries of Africa. However, that money must be
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seen in the context of the $55 billion of aid that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries collectively provide each year to the developing countries. Moreover, that $55 billion is only one seventh of the money that developed countries use to subsidise their own agricultural industries. It seems that we live in a haywire world where the total amount of aid going to developing countries can be only one seventh of what relatively rich countries give themselves—perhaps as an insurance against the developing countries being able to export their food products to the rest of the world. Again, that is an obscenity.
I welcome the specific commitment to end gender discrimination by 2012. In many African countries, girls are not valued as much as boys. Another commitment was that primary education should be available to children throughout the world by 2015. I welcome all that, but most commitments are aspirational. For example, the only commitment made on agriculture was a call to end subsidies. No country has agreed on a path to achieve it. We must make greater use of renewable resources.
I had hoped that we could build on Kyoto and make more specific commitments. Fish stocks have been mentioned, as has marine pollution protection by 2012. I do not demean the aspirations that have been agreed. However, we should have a greater sense of urgency about making further commitments if we are to save Mother Earth.
One of the good things about the Johannesburg summit was the parliamentary input. A lot of politicians were there from the 15 countries of the European Union and the 44 of the Council of Europe. Many others were represented by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. We have a role to play. I commend the actions of the previous Government and the current one in this regard, but there is an urgent need for parliamentarians in other countries to understand that their Governments should he encouraged in their aspirations, and that the commitments that they made in Johannesburg should be monitored and met. Together, as parliamentarians, we can ensure that they do so. The issue far transcends parochial political party games. The Johannesburg world summit on sustainable development was a very successful summit. If nothing else, it was the environmental wake-up call for the world.
3.51 pm
Chris McCafferty: We have heard a great deal from the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington) about the future of the planet. None of us can predict the future, but I was struck by the latest projections from the scientists who gave evidence to the Select Committee, which suggested that the average global temperature in the 21st century could rise by between 1.4 and 5.8° C.
Ten years ago, global warming was a matter of conjecture. Now we see it affecting peoples all around the world. The Inuit of north America see it in the disappearing ice cap, the starving polar bears and unusual whale migrations. That is threatening their unique way of life and putting their survival at risk. The people of shanty towns from Latin America to south-

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east Asia see it in lethal hurricanes, landslides and flood waters. We Europeans see it in vanishing alpine glaciers, Mediterranean droughts and freak storms. Researchers see it in absolutely everything—tree rings, lake sediments and bubbles trapped in ice cores. The world has not been warmer for a millennium, and it has probably never been warmer than in the past 25 years. I f my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie is to be believed, the last five years have been warmer than ever before.
With the physics of the greenhouse effect a matter of scientific fact, it is hard to disagree with the overwhelming evidence of climatologists, who say that what we are seeing is man-made change. Wet areas are becoming wetter, dry areas are becoming drier, El Niño and the Asian monsoon are becoming more extreme and more unpredictable. Inevitably, areas already affected by famine will grow less food, while many rich lands, which do not need it, will grow more. Sea level rise threatens hundreds of millions of people from the Nile delta to the islands of the Indian ocean and the south Pacific. Many continental coastlines are also at risk, and they contain much larger populations: such regions are already home to half the world's population, and they have population growth rates that are double the global average.
The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) said that the global human population has doubled since 1960, to 6.1 billion, with growth mostly in poorer countries. Consumption expenditure has more than doubled since 1970, with increases mostly in richer countries. During that time, we seem to have created wealth on an unimaginable scale, yet half the world still exists on less than $2 a day. We have learned how to extract resources for our own use, but not how to deal with the resulting waste.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) referred to CO2 emissions. I understand that they increased twelvefold between 1900 and 2000. In the process, the world's climate changed. The human and ecological impact has included rising oceans, increased flooding, coastal erosion, and loss of coastal cropland, wetlands and living space. The intensity and frequency of hurricanes and other hazardous weather appear to be increasing. The growing population that lives in coastal areas is endangered.
I think that the great question for our new century is not whether the activities of the 20th century have set us on a collision course with the environment, but how we are going to deal with it—what are going to do about it? Human ingenuity has got us this far. We need to apply it to the future. How are we going to ensure the wellbeing of human populations, and still protect the natural world? Everywhere we face critical decisions. How can we protect and promote fundamental values, such as the rights to health and human dignity? We also need to think carefully, but urgently, about the choices. We should extend the time in which to understand the implications of those choices.
Today, every part of the natural and human world is linked to every other part, and local decisions have a global impact. Global policy, or the lack of it, affects local communities and the conditions in which they live. Humans have always changed and been changed by the natural world. However, the prospects for human development now depend on our wisdom in managing
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that relationship. I think that one of the key factors will be population. On that issue, most countries in the world, except for the US, the Vatican and a few right-wing Islamic states, agree on action to broaden choice.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie mentioned President Bush's withdrawal of funds from the United Nations Population Fund on very spurious grounds indeed. I wonder if hon. Members are aware of President Bush's most recent statement, that he is withdrawing the United States' commitment to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change programme of action. I believe that that is an absolute disgrace. It is a very serious blow for women's health, human rights and the sustainability of the planet.
In 1998 I was in Yemen, which is one of the world's poorest countries. I met the Minister of Health, who said that Yemen only had enough water resources to last for the next 10 years, if the population remained stable. Yemen still has one of the highest fertility rates in the world. As far as I am aware, it has three family planning clinics and one specialist women's doctor, courtesy of Marie Stopes International. The Americans have recently considered bombing Yemen. They need not bother—all they have to do is wait, and the Yemenis will eventually die of thirst. A lot of questions arise when we can consider bombing a country as poor as Yemen, which needs as much help to limit its population and feed its starving.
Population and the environment are closely related, but the links between them are complex and varied, and depend on specific circumstances. Generalisations about the negative effects of population growth on the environment are often misleading, and population scientists abandoned such an approach years ago. As the human population increases and globalisation proceeds, the key questions must be how to use available resources of land and water to produce food for all; how to promote economic development and end poverty so that everyone can afford to eat; and how to address the human and environmental consequences of industrialisation and the loss of biological diversity.
Understanding how population and environment are linked means examining how affluence, consumption, technology and population growth interrelate, and considering previously ignored social concerns such as gender roles and relations, political structures and governance at all levels. The relationship between environment, population and social development is now better understood.
There is broad agreement on the means and the ends. Women's empowerment is a development end in itself, and removing the obstacles to women's exercise of economic and political power is one of the means to end poverty. Reproductive health is part of an essential package of health care and education. It is a means to achieve the goal of women's empowerment, but is also a human right that includes the right to choose the size of the family and the spacing of children. If all the donor countries lived up to their commitments, everyone who wanted access to reproductive health services would have it. It would save the lives of 500,000 women, half of whom are in Africa, who die in childbirth or of pregnancy-related disease every year, and it would limit the spread of HIV and AIDS.

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Achieving equal status between men and women, guaranteeing the right to reproductive health and ensuring that individuals and couples can make their own choice about family size will also help to slow population growth rates and reduce the future size of the world's population. Among other things, slower population growth in developing countries will contribute measurably towards relieving environmental stress.
Changes in the size, rate of growth and distribution of human populations has an enormous impact on the environment and on development prospects. People and human activity are altering the planet on an unprecedented scale. More people are using more resources more intensely, and they are leaving larger footprints on the Earth than ever before. I therefore welcome the long-overdue decisions taken at the Johannesburg summit, especially those on water sanitation, renewable energy and reproductive health.
I regret that the United States insisted on goals rather than targets, especially for renewable energy. Goals are merely aspirational, but targets are more concrete, and it is sad that a country that is as rich and has as high a standard of living as the United States did not feel able to set such targets for those in the developing world.
As other hon. Members have said, what is important is implementation. We need to ensure that decisions taken in Johannesburg are implemented, and I hope that the Minister will be able to tell hon. Members what projects the United Kingdom Government are undertaking to aid that implementation. With the Rio summit statement in mind, I also hope that those projects will put human beings at the centre of sustainable development.
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Mr. John Battle: What strikes me in this welcome debate is how much has moved on since our report was published. We have had the conference in Johannesburg, and we are discussing international crises, and this will prove to be an interim rather than a final report. I welcome the Government's response.
Some 10 years ago, the Earth summit—the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development—brought the two huge areas of environment and development together for the first time. Some of us were environmental specialists, others were development specialists, and never the twain shall meet. The two groups even conflicted, so that some people argued that it was better to save the forest than to save people, rather than seeing that saving the forest and the people went together.
I especially welcome a couple of statements in the Government's response. Paragraph 9.1 says:
"We agree with the Committee's conclusion that climate change has social and humanitarian impacts, in addition to environmental and economic dimensions".
The big words are there, but the problem is carrying them through.
Paragraph 7.1 appears under the wonderful heading, "Mainstreaming climate change into national development strategies". I sometimes wonder what this
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cliché "mainstreaming" actually means in practice. It is the same with another familiar phrase, "joined-up government": we use it, but does it ever happen? I suggest that mainstreaming means not only bringing together the big words "environment" and "development", but linking together north and south and recognising that the policies and practices of the north interact with the south. That is a crucial element of the environment debate's contribution to the study and analysis of development.
If pollution molecules teach us anything, it is that molecules do not accept but transcend politically drawn national boundaries. They demonstrate that our world is a small, fragile and interconnected place. Too often in the past we have used the word "mainstreaming" without realising that our energy policies in the north are polluting strategies for the south. Our trade strategies also directly affect the south.
I am not and never have been a Malthusian, to put it in old historical terms. I do not believe that the number of people is the cause of the problem or that we have a shortage of resources—food, water or energy—on the globe. The northern world is overwhelmed with the production of food. We could argue, as Shakespeare said, that it is a matter of distribution and undoing the excess. Getting the food and water into the places where it is needed is required to tackle poverty, thus linking north and south.
One of the biggest issues, which is perhaps not taken seriously enough by the Select Committee—though our analysis of trade is getting close to it—is dumping. We need to put a question mark over dumping food. The Americans have drifted into the debate with the controversial, sometimes deeply misunderstood, issue of genetically modified foods. Food is being turned away because it is GM and not milled in Africa. We have to face up to the debate and ask whether that amounts to dumping rather than sustainability, which we are still a long way from achieving.
I welcome the fact that we now debate climate change rather than global warming. I never believed—perhaps it was just a dream—that as a result of global warming, my city of Leeds would become a warmer place, allowing people to grow oranges in their back gardens. If the Gulf stream current were switched off, the climate of the north of England would be more like Nova Scotia in winter than the south of Spain. The impact of climate change has not yet been properly analysed and understood. It is a danger that needs further study by the experts. I welcomed the experts who gave evidence to our Committee, but we need to continue to study the problem, not assume that we already know the trends and their likely impact.
I read an article in a newspaper in London last night, saying that some of the city's stores had already begun their winter sales because of the milder autumn: people have not started wearing their winter woollies. That will affect sales figures in the shops and begin to affect the economy more widely. If we are already feeling the effect of a warmer autumn, imagine the massive impact of climate change on poor countries.

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I was recently in northern Nigeria with other members of the Select Committee. Our Chairman, the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), used the phrase
"the shocks that hit the poor even harder".
I witnessed desertification, to use another big word, when the sands swept into northern Nigeria over previously harvested land. The people have no chance of clawing it back again. I saw rivers of old that had completely dried out and would never be rivers again because the rains have moved south and the northern deserts are moving into sub-Saharan areas. That means fewer possibilities for inland irrigation and the crops that used to grow there. The impact of climate change on developing countries can be viewed as incremental, but compared with the shocks that we get on climate change, it is massive.
As we have brought together the development of people and environmental concerns, I shall refer back to pollution. We tend to think that pollution is a northern problem, and that if we address it here, we may, as a sort of trickle over, affect the south. China and India, the two most populous countries in the world, will have massive problems with fossil fuel burning in future. We must address that in a more holistic, global fashion now. If we can address the pollution problems here, particularly carbon dioxide generation and fossil fuel burning, we will set the patterns of trade and accessibility for the rest of the world, because the technologies in renewable energies that we can develop will then be cheaper for developing countries to use. We must move faster down that road.
It has been said that 1 billion people are without safe water to drink. Twice that number lack sanitation. Management of water resources means transcending boundaries and working out subtler political strategies between countries that share resources. That will be a challenge to the politics of the future in Africa, the former Soviet Union countries, Europe and elsewhere. How should we manage rivers that transcend national borders? The templates that we draw up for that in Europe will help other countries, including those in Africa.
Two billion people do not have access to modern energy services. Let us focus for a moment on wood burning, which is linked to illegal logging. If people strip the land to stay alive, because they have no other means of cooking, what alternatives have they? To be more positive, in Ghana, which the Committee has also visited, some of the forestry management by local people brings together their knowledge with environmental sensitivities to achieve sustainability and conservation. There should be positive local strategies, rather than outsiders moving in on a huge scale with no sensitivity to the local people. That must be the way forward.
The reports from the Johannesburg summit lacked practical examples of small-scale practices that could be amplified elsewhere. Even the House of Commons Library research paper on sustainable development and the summit gave a bleak summary, saying that it was widely considered to have made little progress. In a way, we all know that, but to be repeatedly told it leads on to the incredibly ugly and quite dangerous expression "compassion fatigue", describing those who have heard
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it all before and have no energy left to do anything. We must not run out of energy for this agenda, but keep driving it forward.
I should like to affirm a few of the things that happened at the summit. As the research paper states, it
"reaffirmed sustainable development as a central element of the international agenda and gave new impetus to global action to fight poverty and protect the environment."
At the very least, the summit insisted that that theme should be up there on the agenda at every G8 summit, international debate and debate in our national Parliaments. The paper continues:
"The understanding of sustainable development was broadened and strengthened as a result of the Summit, particularly the important linkages between poverty, the environment and the use of natural resources."
Even the parts on water were welcomed as moving the debate on a little further. Five years ago, we talked about global warming; now we talk about climate change.
The language and the subtleties of understanding are also changing. An article on the summit website states:
"The summit resulted in major government commitments to expand access to safe water, proper sanitation and modern, clean energy services, as well as to reverse the decline of ecosystems by restoring fisheries, curtailing illegal logging and limiting the harm caused by toxic chemicals. In addition to those commitments, many voluntary partnerships were launched in Johannesburg by governments, NGOs and businesses to tackle specific projects."
We need more information and more action on those projects to draw out what can be done, to give us a beacon of hope, rather than simply to say that the scale of the problem is too large.
The article also pointed out that countries had committed themselves to expanding access to those without access to modern energy resources. It emphasised that although countries might not agree on targets for phasing in renewable energy, at least there were commitments to greener energy. We should address the question of subsidies for the sorts of energy that are not consistent with sustainable development. We should examine energy subsidies in the same way in which we will examine agricultural subsidies in the north, Europe and the United States, which damage trade for Africa. The continued burning of fossil fuel must not become the template.
An article in The Observer on 8 September 2002 stated that voters believed that the Earth summit had done nothing to help the planet. Many people did believe that. I quote, however, from the journal Science of 13 September 2002:
"'There's something to build upon, but it's more like a statement of intentions,' says economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of Columbia University's Earth Institute. Like others, Sachs was disappointed by the dearth of concrete plans that emerged, including the lack of support for the 'coalition of the willing' on renewable energy or his own suggestion to triple the budget of the world's global network of agricultural research. 'But there's at least a fighting chance of making this a real plan of action,' he says."
We must remain focused on some of the particularities that were in the commitments, and look for projects to carry them forward.
One example is renewable energy. There must be an understanding of the stronger links between accelerating what could be called market development

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of renewable energy projects in the developed world, and in the technology cost reductions that will enable those projects to be carried forward. If wind, water and solar power were suggested as the way forward in renewable energies, most of the world could not afford the technology to introduce or use it. There is not even an order of scale, because it has not been introduced in Britain.
Yet, at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, I saw the equivalent of a freezer box of the sort that is used for picnics, the lid of which had a solar panel on it. That product is cheap to make, and has been sent to Africa. It will be useful for transporting vaccines to help tackle the need for health care drugs and medicines in areas where there is no electricity supply. The focus should be on smaller scale projects that get the technology into an appropriate form to undermine the dependency on fossil fuels.
There is much work to do in Britain. We must examine the export credit guarantee system to see whether it supports renewable energies rather than huge fossil fuel projects.
Mr. Colman: Does my hon. Friend welcome the announcement made in Johannesburg by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that £50 million in cover by the Export Credits Guarantee Department would be available for renewable exports from the UK?
Mr. Battle: Yes, but we must ensure that the market strategies and developments in the UK are complementing that, so that British organisations are in a position to establish that trade link, and their products are exportable and usable at the other end.
We could move in the direction of some proper joined-up government by reviewing the subsidies and policies that act as a support to environmentally harmful energy sources in Britain. We should have the confidence and courage to say that what we are subsidising is undermining the development of sustainable potential for developing countries, as we are saying on questions such as the common agricultural policy. We must shift the debate in that direction, particularly in relation to energy and water.
I have taken more than enough time to make my point. I believe that it was the great environmentalist Schumacher who taught us the slogan, "Think global, act local". At the time, I thought that it meant that if I tried to understand the world better, and got an allotment in Leeds and grew my own potatoes and cabbages, I would be okay and doing my bit to save the planet. I now believe that that slogan does not mean, "think global and act local", but, "think and act locally and globally at the same time." What we do in the UK profoundly affects whether we impoverish those in Africa, rather than them simply being subject to the vicissitudes and changes of climate that are beyond their control.
4.19 pm
Hugh Bayley: My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) may not know what joined-up government is, but he understands joined-up thinking.
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I agree with the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) that some important commitments were made at the Johannesburg summit on sanitation, energy issues and making Africa a greater priority. I welcome those commitments. I am glad that he welcomed my point that we must move beyond adding items to the shopping list and move to an agenda concerned with implementation. We must move from the shopping list to making a few purchases: to buy some condoms for people suffering from HIV/AIDS; to buy some irrigation schemes to pump water back into the two thirds of dry land in Malawi, which surrounds a freshwater lake. We should spend some money in Europe on agricultural imports from Africa, so that its people do not have to come to us cap in hand but can earn their way towards sustainable development.
One of the starkest statistics mentioned during the Select Committee's inquiry was quoted by Professor Martin Parry of the university of East Anglia. His team estimates that, by the middle of this century, hundreds of millions of people will be at risk as a result of climate change, due to water shortages, hunger, coastal flooding and increased disease. Those risks are concentrated almost wholly in the poorest countries of the world. For example, of those several hundred million, 50 million will be newly at risk of hunger as a result of climate change, and almost all of them will be in Africa.
Some people talk about climate change as if it were something that will happen in the future, but it is happening now. It is one of the causes of the flooding that took place in my constituency two years ago, the flooding in Prague earlier this year and the flooding in Mozambique. It is also one of the causes of drought in many parts of Africa. However, there is a difference between its impact on countries in the prosperous northern half of the world and its impact on countries in the south. Erratic rainfall affects many more people in Africa because they are much poorer, more vulnerable and unable to absorb the shock of climate change.
In the run-up to the Johannesburg summit, there was something of a war of words between environmentalists in northern developed countries, who wanted developing countries to commit to changing their lifestyles to make more sustainable use of natural resources, such as carbon fuels, and some leaders in developing countries, who thought that it was a bit of a cheek for people in the north to try to impose limits on heir development when we applied no such limits to our industrial revolution.
Sir Sydney Chapman: That is absolutely right. The point was eloquently made by a distinguished South African politician, who said, "We must remember that we are talking about sustainable development. We need to develop. You must help us ensure that we do it in a sustainable way. We are not in this business to agree not to develop our countries."
Hugh Bayley: I agree, and I am glad that that consensus has been built. Before the Johannesburg summit, the Secretary of State for International Development told the Select Committee, in her characteristically forthright way, that she saw the summit as an opportunity for the very northern-dominated green agenda, which is almost anti-development, to evolve into one of concern for the

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environment and sustainable development, as the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet suggested was necessary. He and the Secretary of State are right; the two things cannot be separated. The combination of poverty and environmental shocks leads to humanitarian disasters. The poverty means that people cannot cope with those shocks.
As we have heard, 14 million people are at risk of famine in southern Africa. Poor and erratic rain may have been the trigger for that famine, but it is the underlying vulnerability of the people there that has put so many lives at risk. In Malawi, the vulnerability comes about for several reasons, such as population growth, over-utilisation of land, mono-cropping of white maize instead of crop rotation, and lack of irrigation. Another factor is lack of diversification, not only of agriculture but of the economy as a whole. People do not spend some time farming a smallholding and some time working in a local factory, because there is no local factory.
That lack of diversity in the economy comes about because of lack of infrastructure. Also, unfair terms of trade mean that no one with money—us in the rich world—would buy any products that those people could produce. Problems to do with people in government in developing countries and in our countries, as well as the problems of international agencies, play their part. The sale of the strategic grain reserve in Malawi was badly handled by the Government there, but stemmed from poor advice by the World Bank and development specialists here in the north.
Above all, the vulnerability in southern Africa is the result of a population weakened by a range of tropical diseases, especially the HIV/AIDS epidemic. That has cut agricultural output, because people are too weak to till the land. It has cut the productivity of the rest of the economy, because key workers of working age are dying off. It undermines the human capital that Governments have at their disposal to respond to the crisis. When combined with malnourishment, HIV means that more people than would otherwise be the case die from opportunistic infections.
When the Select Committee took evidence for our report, it was clear that there were two contrasting responses to global climate change. In the north, the response was mitigation. The answer was seen as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that have contributed and continue to contribute to climate change. In the south, that did not seem relevant. That is not surprising, as virtually none of those emissions comes from the poorest countries of the world; they come from the rich north. Instead, the strategy of the south was to adapt. The people there did not want or create global climate change, but they have to live with it. The only way in which they can survive is by adapting, which explains why there was such disagreement—a war of words—between northern environmentalists and some development campaigners.
There is no dichotomy between the two responses. To deal with the problem, we need to act on both of them. Greenhouse gas emissions have come from the north. We need to do whatever we can to reduce them to slow down the rate of increase of climate change. It will carry on increasing whatever we do, but if we reduce the emissions we will slow the rate of increase.
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We also need to tackle the changes. Professor Parry warned the Select Committee that hundreds of millions of people were at risk because of climate change. His team estimated that to halve the number of people affected by 2050 would require a 10 times greater reduction of greenhouse gas emissions than envisaged by the Kyoto treaty. To cut the number of victims from hundreds of millions to tens of millions would require twice that reduction in greenhouse gas emissions—20 times the reduction that the Kyoto treaty requires of rich northern countries. I want all rich countries on both sides of the Atlantic to make greater progress but it is clear that they will not make a large enough reduction to reduce the risk to those millions of people. We must therefore address the adaptation agenda, too.
Both the mitigation agenda on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the north, and the adaptation agenda have cost implications for us in the rich world. Only we can address them, and there will be serious consequences if we do not. One consequence will be that millions of people will die over the coming decades.
The link between poverty, disease and famine is not new. The population of our country boomed during the 12th and 13th centuries, and by the end of the 13th century, it was about 6 million. By the end of the 14th century, a mixture of food shortages and disease had devastated it and it had declined to about 2 million. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet was right that there has been a generally exponential trend in global population growth, but there have been peaks and troughs in particular countries. Those have come about for reasons such as the mass famine that we now face in Africa. The problems remain very similar and are caused by the same inability to move food to populations that are experiencing a food shortage.
Serious famines continued in England until the 17th century, but they were not national famines: they occurred far from the capital, in more isolated areas that were largely in the north and where transport links were poor. Those are exactly the kinds of places where famine is to be found in Africa—isolated areas far from the main urban centres and with poor transport links.
In the 1980s, people throughout the world were shocked by the consequences of the famine in the horn of Africa. It is perhaps not surprising that an Irish rock star, not an English rock star, responded to the situation and galvanised public attention through the Live Aid concert and the activity that flowed from it. Ireland is probably the last country in western Europe to have suffered a devastating famine. Between 1845 and 1850, 1 million people died in the potato famine, and another 1 million emigrated.
Ireland blamed, and still blames, Great Britain for failing to respond. It is right to do so, because the catastrophe of the potato famine was not simply a matter of adverse environmental conditions, although those certainly played a part. The problem was that trading laws made it impossible to get affordable food to those who were suffering a food shortage because their crops had failed. The corn laws, which were introduced at the beginning of the 19th century, artificially inflated the price of corn so that British producers and landowners got a good price. They meant that corn could not be imported into Britain until a shortage had caused the price to rise to 80 shillings a quarter.

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There is an uncanny parallel between the corn laws and the common agricultural policy, which sets barriers to prevent imports of cheaper grain from outside the Community and artificially inflates prices for the benefit of farmers. The potato famine did persuade the country to change policy and to abolish the corn laws, but we did it too late. We did not do it until 1846, by which time the potato famine had devastated the population.
Mr. Mike Hancock (in the Chair): Order. May I point out that at least two more colleagues want to speak, and the Minister and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson will start winding up at 5 pm. Trying to fit everyone in means that we will have to drift back to the issue rather than stay with the history lesson.
Hugh Bayley: I take your advice, Mr. Hancock.
We need a modern Anti-Corn Law League to work across Europe to secure the change in our current protectionist agriculture and food price policies, and we need to inspire north America to change the US Farm Act. Famine in Africa is not just an aberration, nor it is due to back luck or bad weather. It may be triggered by bad weather, but the underlying reason is a combination of population growth, HIV/AIDS, poverty and underdevelopment. As a result, people in southern Africa are unable to cope with the shock of a bad harvest.
As well as changing the terms of trade to enable Africa to make its way in the world by selling goods, particularly agricultural products, to the rich world, we must increase development spending. That is necessary in order to deal with the causes of that fundamental vulnerability—to tackle HIV/AIDS and other diseases, to provide irrigation, to improve governance, to reform agriculture, and to put in the transport infrastructure and the education that southern Africa needs.
The Zedillo report produced for the financing for development summit estimated that an additional $50 billion a year would be needed if the millennium development goals were to be met in the poorest countries of Africa by 2015. The conference pledged $12 billion. In order to avert the sort of consequences that we are seeing in Africa, especially famine, we need greatly to increase our aid. I would like the Government to continue what they are doing and to increase the proportion of the national wealth spent on aid, moving as quickly as possible towards that 0.7 per cent. goal.
I congratulate the Government on showing the rest of Europe the way, and on getting a commitment that the rest of Europe will move to the European average of 0.39 per cent. However, that alone will not be enough. We need to go further. If we do not, famine—this year's will happen over the next few months—will be a recurring problem. The underlying reasons will not have been dealt with. That will make Africans as angry with Europeans for generations to come as the Irish potato famine made the people of Ireland angry with our country.
4.38 pm
Dr. Jenny Tonge: My being called now is somewhat unexpected; I thought I had more of a graveyard slot. I thought that the hon. Member for
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Banbury (Tony Baldry), the Chairman of the Select Committee, was right to draw attention to the impending famine in southern Africa and Ethiopia—it should be topmost in our minds. Other hon. Members gave a selection of brilliant speeches, and I have enjoyed listening to the debate on the Government's response to an excellent report. I am glad that the Select Committee is still keeping up its standards even though I am no longer a member.
Although we heard some wonderful speeches, sadly they are only speeches. Several hon. Members said that we need action. We concentrate on symptoms and short-term cures instead of looking at the root causes of the scourge of famine. The Chairman of the Select Committee asked whether the Department for International Development was forward-thinking enough. That was a good question. Is anyone in the world forward-thinking enough about the issue?
I share the admiration of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington) for Lester Brown and his very good book, "The Earth Policy Reader". The hon. Gentleman managed to read all of it. I read only half—I left mine on a plane—so I was interested to hear the rest of what he had said. In essence, his message is that if we care about our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, we have to do something about this world. The planet is in a terrible state.
A key statistic for me was that a 1* rise in temperature due to climate change and global warming means a 10 per cent. drop in yield of the world's food harvest. That is terrifying when one thinks of all the other factors. In the long term, it means fewer crops, over-worked land, erosion and a drop in the water tables. Lester Brown puts that very well. Global warming means more precipitation and flooding—water in the wrong place. All those effects take place in the world's ecosystem. We cannot lose the water or the soil. It all goes somewhere. It does not drop off the earth into the solar system; it stays with us. The trouble is that it is moving around; deserts are expanding while other bits of the world are submerged. That will mean—not many hon. Members have mentioned this—huge movements of populations over the next century as people try to escape the desert and the floods and to leave the famine in one area to move to areas where there is more food. It means more instability in the world, more refugees, more economic migrants. The Government are rather dismissive in their response to the report, which was very good on the issue. They spend a lot of time arguing about whether people should be called refugees, while the world faces a serious problem.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) talked about language. His word was "mainstreaming". I cannot resist giving another example. I asked a parliamentary question in May of this year about the progress of national strategies for sustainable development, of which DFID is very fond, and which countries had them in place. The answer came back that it was not easy to quantify how many were in place because they were identified as characteristic of poverty reduction strategy programmes. Therefore, I asked which poverty reduction strategy programmes displayed those characteristics. The reply was—with apologies to the civil servants who are present:

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"There is no internationally-agreed system for monitoring the extent to which poverty reduction strategy programmes exhibit characteristics of strategic processes for sustainability. The 'characteristics' of strategic processes for sustainability are broadly the same as the agreed 'principles' of strategic processes of sustainability. The challenge is to ensure that strategies adhere to these principles."—[0fficial Report, 4 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 542W.]
So that is all right, then. Is that clear? What is the point of trying to work out what it means? It is all words; it is gobbledegook and does not contain much action.
Climate change is the problem and we must look, as some hon. Members have done, to see who the culprits are. Of course, it is us in the north. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman), who made a fascinating speech, pointed out that, with a population of 287.5 million, the United States has the highest emissions of carbon dioxide in the world. India has the third highest, with a population of slightly more than 1 billion. The United States, however, produces five times as much CO2 as India does, yet it has only a quarter of the population. That is a frightening statistic.
A few years ago, I went to India with the Select Committee. I remember talking very patronisingly about sustainable development and how we must not pollute the atmosphere. A gentleman to whom I was talking laid into me, saying, "You come here and tell us to engage in sustainable development and not to pollute the atmosphere. All through the 19th century, when your countries in the north were getting rich, you were polluting the atmosphere, bringing about climate change, cutting down forests and sending children down mines and up chimneys. No one came and told you to stop, so how dare you criticise what we do?" We should bear that in mind, because developing countries need energy and development as much as we did in the 19th century. Although we can use export credit guarantees and all sorts of other measures to encourage renewable sources of energy, we in the north must lead. We must cut our energy programmes and start using renewables. We cannot just preach to the developing countries to do so.
Hon. Members mentioned the United States. It really endears itself to the rest of the world, does it not, by pulling out of the Kyoto treaty among a dozen other treaties? We heard from two hon. Members, who were also in Ottawa, about the United States pulling out of the reproductive rights programmes. What that country is doing is astounding. It is pulling out of international treaties all over the place. Does it really believe that that is the way to fight the terror?
We must understand that developing countries need energy as much as we do. The only way for them to get the things that they need so that they can have enough food to feed their population and we can stabilise the world is for us to understand their plight and start using less energy.
In conclusion, the Government responses to the report were encouraging but lacked concrete proposals. This is a huge problem, which can only be tackled globally. I am so disappointed that the Department for International Development—my favourite Department after five years of working alongside it—did not see fit to tackle the problem of the United States' noncompliance with international treaties. That country across the pond is becoming a very greedy monster indeed.
4.47 pm
Mr. Tony Colman: At this late hour, I have discarded some 90 per cent. of my speech, so I hope that my colleagues will forgive me if it sounds somewhat disjointed.
We had our first briefing from the Hadley centre and the Tyndall centre when we discussed the environment and development in January. We were all astounded by the significance of what we were hearing. I hope that Members of both Houses will understand the significance of the matter, which this debate has reflected.
The introduction to the world summit on sustainable development that was given by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) gave us some insight into how some 60,000 people came together there. Not only Governments and non-governmental organisations, but parliamentarians and businesses attended the summit. I especially congratulate the Government on not giving in to the media campaign to reduce the size of the delegation, and was pleased to be one of the members representing the Select Committee on International Development. The work by parliamentarians, Global Action, the IPU and GLOBE significantly affected outcomes.
I listened to what the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) said, but two of the most impressive people in Johannesburg were Representative Jim Greenwood, who chairs GLOBE World, and Representative Chris Shays, who chairs GLOBE USA. Both are members of the House of Representatives of the US Congress and fight their corner well. It is important to recognise that, last year, the US Senate voted unanimously in favour of re-engaging with the Kyoto protocol, which is often overlooked. It is a great shame that those factors have not yet impinged on presidential decisions. In many respects, the United States is far ahead of us. It was very beneficial to be in Johannesburg to listen to parliamentarians from the United States, as well as from other countries.
Johannesburg was the summit where business came of age. A vast number of partnerships was proposed by multinational corporations from this country and abroad, but particularly from the UK. In that connection, I congratulate Business in the Community, which celebrates its 20th anniversary today, on the tremendous work that it has done on social responsibility. I hope that it would condemn, as I do, an article in today's Financial Times, which that says that the London stock exchange hopes to take business from the New York stock exchange on the basis that it has lower listing standards than New York, as the Advisory Committee for Business and Environment has been pointing out since 1993. I hope that the Minister can explain how the Financial Services Authority will approach that, given that it took over responsibility for listing particulars in December 2001 but has so far made no moves on the issue.
The outcome of Johannesburg that I want to emphasise is the Prime Minister's announcement that £50 million a year will be earmarked for facilitating renewable energy exports through the Export Credits Guarantee Department. I particularly commend the hard work of GLOBE UK in lobbying the Government on that leverage mechanism. Although £50 million does

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not seem an enormous sum when one considers that since 1997 the ECGD has spent more than £1 billion underwriting the export of coal-fired power stations, it will act as a leverage mechanism.
Technologies for renewable energy production have to deal with new, and therefore uncertain, markets. The money has great potential to reduce commercial risk for UK companies that are innovative enough to move into the renewables sector and ambitious enough to export to developing countries. Assuming the funds are used, the option will remain open for the ECGD to recommend an increase on the initial £50 million. I understand that that is the view of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I hope that the UK will soon lead the way in the innovation and sale of renewable energy technologies. However, there is a risk that if the £50 million is not taken up in the first year the funding will be cut. Can the Minister tell me whether any funds have been allocated to the DTI or the ECGD specifically to promote and advertise the funds and how smaller companies can apply for them?
Welcome as the additional funding is, it is important that the ECGD now accelerates the implementation of its business principles and applies sustainable development criteria across all the projects that it underwrites. Thus, any further fossil fuel-related projects should centre on high-efficiency technology, or combined heat and power units. Likewise, the feasibility of auditing the efficiency of all the energy projects that are currently running or being set up with ECGD backing should be considered, as proposed by the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development. One of the partnerships involving the UK that emerged from the world summit is the renewable energy and energy efficiency partnership, otherwise known as REEEP. The crux of that initiative is to facilitate the transfer of renewable energy technologies, as well as energy-efficient technologies. One of the Johannesburg initiatives that I welcomed was the agreement that that could go forward with Parliamentarians for Global Action, bringing parliamentarians from other countries to the UK to see what we are doing on renewable energy.
It is too early to say how much of an impact the partnership will have on the rate at which renewable technology is diffused across national borders, given that it is not yet due to go active. I have had problems finding out when that will happen—perhaps the Minister can comment. The partnership is to focus on grid-connected and distributed renewable energy applications and improvements in energy efficiency in developed, middle income and rapidly industrialising countries. I am concerned that Africa may again find itself marginalised from wider global developments, given that it will be worst affected by climate change and large swathes of its population live without access to modern energy, reinforcing the energy-poverty nexus. I emphasise to the Minister the importance of integrating Africa into clean and affordable energy programmes.
I ask the Minister to concentrate on two core issues. First, we must face up to our responsibilities as one of the core contributors to global warming by radically reducing domestic greenhouse gas emissions, which I would have discussed given more time. Secondly, we
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must concentrate renewable and energy-efficient technologies on improving access to energy for the poorest countries and people.
Sir Crispin Tickell, who advised the previous Prime Minister and who is still, I think, a member of the Sustainable Development Commission, has pointed out that the biggest concern is greenhouse emissions from animals. He is concerned about the growth in meat eating across the world and how we should deal with it. I read in The New York Times three weeks ago—it was not an April fool's joke—that researchers have found a bacterium in kangaroos that explains why they produce very low levels of greenhouse emissions. Researchers are now seeking to find out whether that could be used in animal feed across the world. The Minister may want to follow that up. Non-governmental organisations may think that it is a beneficial way forward in dealing with greenhouse gases.
Mr. Mike Hancock: I am grateful for your co-operation, Mr. Colman.
4.55 pm
Dr. Alan Whitehead: I, too, shall be brief on a problem that, as hon. Members have said, is of truly enormous proportions. I congratulate the Select Committee, of which I am not a member, on producing a report worthy of the proportions of the issue that it tackled. The temptation would be to write: "Paragraph 1: Ah. Paragraph 2: Too difficult. Paragraph 3: Er, that's it." The fact that the issue was tackled in the Select Committee report is admirable.
To tackle climate change and sustainable development is truly ambitious. Climate change is taking place not only because of development in the north but because of development of a particular kind—that driven by mined and stored resources. That is the essential point about climate change. Therefore, I would perhaps think slightly differently about a definition of sustainable development. When I think of how we have carried out development so far, I am reminded of the Marx brothers' film "Go West", in which the brothers are on a train going across a prairie and are running up and down smashing up the carriages to fuel the engine, in order to get the entire passenger train to its destination—a somewhat illogical act.
The point about sustainable development is not to leave finite resources for future generations; increasingly, it is about leaving finite resources where they are. If we used all our finite resources in order to bring about development, the planet simply could not cope with the consequences. Therefore, we must encourage development in future—energy is the key—by riding with what energy the planet produces, that is, the sun, the wind, and the tides, rather than continuing to mine the stored energy that the planet wisely put under the ground for many millions of years.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) mentioned that developing countries might say, "Well, you've despoiled the planet." They might not exactly add, "It's our turn now," but they might ask, understandably, why we are preaching to them. Sustainable development is now imperative across the world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) said, we have a responsibility to ensure that

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sustainable development energy technology is exportable to and usable in the developing world, and to support that strongly in any way that we can.
In that context, I was particularly interested in the emergence of the clean development mechanism at Kyoto and the extent to which progress has been made on that. Having said that, I am concerned about the extent to which the mechanism seems to export technology to assist the almost-developing world at the expense of the developing world. I noted the concerns—they appeared in both the report and the Government's response to it—that certain third world countries, especially African countries, simply would not attract such projects because of the low emissions there. The report suggests that 80 per cent. of the projects will go to India, China, Brazil and a few other countries.
The Government's response to the report suggests that they want to use a fast-track mechanism to lower the transaction costs, which are fairly constant regardless of the size of the particular clean development mechanism project. I urge the Government to fast-track the fast track. It seems essential that those mechanisms go to the countries least able to afford the sustainable energy that has to drive their technology in future. At present, the danger is that those countries are most open to what might be a trend of energy dumping in the third world. Borders might not be closed to companies that offered to develop energy. The countries might be afraid that they would not get such development at all if they placed requirements on it. Then they would develop dirty energy in a way that was unsustainable for us all.
We must support the export of renewable energy in a sustainable way, so as to assist development. Energy is the key to third world countries that at present are least able to afford it.
Mr. Mike Hancock: Thank you very much for your co-operation, Alan Whitehead.
5 pm
Mrs. Caroline Spelman: I thank hon. Members who have spoken concisely, especially towards the end of the debate, to make it possible for the Opposition to have a fair crack of the whip on this wide-ranging subject. I welcome the opportunity to debate sustainable development and climate change. That was accurately described as an ambitious combination, but it is the right one. The focus of the debate is the Select Committee's characteristically well researched and informed report on the subject, and I commend all its members for their work. We are lucky to have benefited from it and to be able to use it today.
The Chairman of the Committee pointed out that this is the first opportunity to have a proper debate on sustainable development since the world summit in Johannesburg. Although Parliament was in recess at the time of the summit, many hon. Members would have appreciated a statement when Parliament returned. It is several months since the subject was top of the media agenda and, as parliamentarians, it is now much harder to lever to maximum effect the opportunity that the summit created.
In answer to a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman), the Leader of the House said today that there would be
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an opportunity to raise the subject of the world summit under Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs business shortly. It is good that there will be an opportunity on the Floor of the House for that important summit to be further debated.
I hope that hon. Members feel, as I did, that the media coverage of the world summit in Johannesburg was deplorable. The focus was on trivia. It detracted completely from the seriousness of the subject, which made it difficult for us as parliamentarians to get any serious points into the media coverage. The coverage showed gross irresponsibility on the part of British journalists, both those who attended and those who commented from afar. It was a missed opportunity.
One of the difficulties of the subject of sustainable development is that it often feels far removed from the lives of ordinary people. Part of our duty is to bring home to the electors of this country how directly relevant it is to their lives, and what a direct and disproportionately negative impact there is on people living in less fortunate countries than our own. The disconnection between the reality of ordinary living and the implications of the subject provide a real challenge.
I want to put on record in the presence of the Minister my view that one of the means that the Government have chosen to adopt—the introduction of a climate change levy—contrilbutes not one iota to the realisation by our constituents as individuals that the lack of sustainable development and climate change will affect them. It has had a dramatic and disproportionate effect on business in this country. In the west midlands, businesses were already suffering from the decline of manufacturing and the levy actually took some companies down. It was the last straw, an ill-chosen tool with which to make the nation aware of the seriousness of climate change and its impact on ordinary lives. I encourage the Government to think of other ways of achieving that. Other countries have made their citizens aware of the seriousness of climate change through completely different means. A particularly high tax regime on non-renewable fuels is one of this country's difficulties, and it has left the Government with little room for manoeuvre to make ordinary citizens aware of this crucial issue. The climate change levy was a poor choice.
We all struggle to produce an easy definition of what we mean by sustainable development. My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet managed to reduce it to eight simple words, but I view the focus on our responsibility for future generations as the most important aspect. Most of us, after all, have children, perhaps even grandchildren, so we should think of the clock speeding up. We gain a sense of it during our own lifetimes: as a child, one's birthdays seem to take for ever to come round and one longs for them; as one gets older, they seem to come round too fast. In microcosm, that is the problem with the lack of sustainability. If we examine the use of finite fossil resources, the peak is only a second in the history of our planet, yet we continue to use non-renewables with apparently little care for the legacy bequeathed to future generations. That is one of the most important issues underlying today's debate.
It is hard to get away from the fact that the Select Committee's deliberations produced some fairly strong criticism of the work of the Department for

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International Development in certain respects, so it is fair to cite some of the report and to ask the Minister to respond. Paragraph 96 states:
"DFID, along with most other donors, has paid too little attention to global climate change. DFID's evidence made it clear that to them climate change was just one of the many environmental issues threatening development. We disagree. By grouping climate change with environmental degradation or mismanagement of natural resources the long-term nature of climate risks will be overlooked as DFID's policies react to short-term concerns."
The force of that comment has been strengthened today by one hon. Member after another saying—sometimes philosophically, but no less forcefully—that the impact of climate change on the developing world is disproportionately hard.
To paraphrase, we in the developed world have generated the problem, and we have landed the developing world with a problem that it is clearly ill placed to tackle. It is the disproportionality that makes it so important for DFID to raise the salience of climate change and sustainable development within its work. When it comes to tackling the consequences of climate change, there is no level playing field. It is disproportionately our responsibility in the developed world to deal with the problem that we have caused and to help those who suffer the consequences. I think that that imperative came out clearly today.
I make no excuse for returning to the example of Ethiopia. I believe that it should be uppermost in our minds, not only because its problems are urgent, but because it is an apt case study for the particular difficulties facing Africa. The Secretary of State said that Africa is not one or two failed states: it is a failing continent. That is a rather depressing description, but one that should shake us all into action.
Mr. Colman: Does the hon. Lady agree that, regrettably, Ethiopia is a good example of a country whose priority has been spending on armaments rather than development?
Mrs. Spelman: There is no question but that the aid agencies that are calling for much more substantial help to be given to Ethiopia now would also point to the decisions of the Ethiopian Government that have perhaps not helped. Nations that supply Ethiopia with things that use up money that could be spent differently also have some responsibility.
The urgency of the matter cannot be understated. Aid agencies with early warning systems on the ground have warned of famine on such a large scale that as many as 14 million people may be affected. Getting food aid from India to the port of Djibouti to tackle that famine takes two months. Bringing the aid from Britain takes three months, and bringing it from America takes four months; yet the famine is due to bite from February onwards. Time is not on our side.
I return to the value of considering Ethiopia in bringing home some practical realities. I flag up a few facts. Ethiopia is not short of water. The blue Nile, for example, crosses its plateau, and other sources of water from rivers are available. However, only 5 per cent. of the irrigable land is irrigated. Ethiopia suffers
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disproportionately from poor water management, as, I suspect, do many sub-Saharan countries. That problem was recognised at the time of the last major drought in the mid-1980s. One must ask why, while there has been knowledge that, cyclically, Ethiopia was likely to suffer another drought, development assistance since 1984 has not focused on tackling poor water management.
Mr. David Drew: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Spelman: I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, because I have only three minutes left.
Do not hon. Members think that there is something seriously wrong about the situation whereby our bilateral aid to Ethiopia has totalled £12.3 million in the past 12 months, yet Ethiopia owes us £15.4 million in debt repayments? Ethiopia is not alone in that respect, its debt being 150 per cent. of its GDP. Malawi is another example of a heavily indebted country. Its world development report shows that Malawi's debt still amounts to 29 per cent. of its GDP. We cannot get away from the fact that sustainability and the question of how money should be spent to deal with climate change problems are inextricably linked with the problem of how to solve the situation of the heavily indebted poor countries. That is notwithstanding the Chancellor's admission in the pre-Budget report that the heavily indebted poor countries initiative is failing.
As other hon. Members have mentioned, we have a responsibility for the failure to reform trade rules that work against the ability of developing nations to put themselves on a sustainable footing. Ethiopia's main export income comes from coffee, the prices of which have slumped by 77 per cent. over the past four years. The European Union's and the United States' unwillingness to overhaul our heavily protectionist agricultural systems damages the capacity of countries such as Ethiopia to achieve some sustainability.
We cannot shy away from the scale of the crisis emerging in Ethiopia. The problems facing that country are directly relevant to the problems of climate change and sustainable development. James Morris told the UN Security Council that the crisis in Africa is part of a worrying new global phenomenon of shifting weather patterns that have led to unparalleled natural disasters. Drought has ravaged not only the horn and huge swathes of southern Africa and the western Sahel, but central America, Afghanistan and Cambodia. If we are to meet the millennium development goals—perhaps more accurately called targets—tackling global climate change must be a priority.
5.15 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Ms Sally Keelble): I pay tribute to the Committee's Chairman and members for their excellent report and for their work to bring together the environment and development agendas. A far-reaching and comprehensive inquiry has come to an end in today's debate. However, I am sure that the interest that it has stimulated will stand us all in good stead as we take matters forward.

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I shall deal with some of the general issues in the report before responding to the points made in what has been a wide-ranging debate. If I cannot answer all those points in detail today—time is rather short—I shall write to hon. Members.
As the report shows, scientific proof shows beyond reasonable doubt that climate change has happened. The question is not so much whether we should accept the arguments, but what we should do. That has been repeated this afternoon. It is not simply that climate change will have an impact on us all, but that it will impact particularly hard on the poorest countries. Although we want to avert catastrophe, we must accept that some climate change has already happened and that we must therefore live with the consequences. In particular, we must protect the poor of the world.
DFID wants to deal with the need to mitigate the impact and to assist the poor to adapt to the problems and challenges that they face. We choose to do that particularly through the mainstreaming approach. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) asked whether that means that we do not take it seriously. I argue that it shows that we take it particularly seriously. We are saying that the impact of climate change and the resulting environmental issues should run through all our work; it should not be regarded as a separate issue that gets tacked on every now and again. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend that we take the matter seriously and are not sidelining it by mainstreaming it. The reverse is the case.
Mr. Battle: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Ms Keeble: I will give way this once, but no more, as I have only 12 minutes in which to deal with a huge range of issues.
Mr. Battle: In the light of her answer on mainstreaming, do the Minister or her ministerial colleagues have meetings with the Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the impact of energy on developing countries?
Ms Keeble: We have a wide range of meetings, including with the DTI and DEFRA, on a range of issues, and a number of those will be environmental, so can give my hon. Friend that reassurance.
The hon. Members for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) raised a number of points. I would not disagree with much of the hon. Gentleman's analysis, and certainly not with the figures. The only reason why I did not read out the same figures on Ethiopia is that he had already done so; there was no point. There is no dispute about the maximum and minimum figures. What we do about it is more important.
Of course, we could always do with more action, more money, more of everything but this Government have put international development, and in particular Africa, at the top of the international agenda; no other Government have. Our job is not only to provide the aid but to lead the world so that it takes the same type of action as us. The whole Government—the Treasury, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for International Development—constantly chivvy the rest of the world
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to match us on contributions, to change the difficult international institutional arrangements of the EU and the World Trade Organisation, and to get the US on board. There is a need for political coherence, which the Government provide. I challenge the hon. Member for Banbury to speak as strongly and as eloquently about CAP reform and our green taxes, including the climate change levy and the landfill tax, as he does about the starving of Africa, because that is where much of the work must he done.
Tony Baldry: I commend to the Minister my letter on CAP reform in The Times a couple of weeks ago.
Ms Keeble: I am delighted to hear about that. There is a real need for reform. As many hon. Members have shown this afternoon, tackling such policies will do a great deal to deal with the issues about which the hon. Gentleman has expressed concern. In respect of direct spending, we have identified £24 million specifically for climate change, although we will spend money in many other sectors.
The hon. Member for Banbury was wrong about the global environment facility. I attended the last annual meeting in Beijing and announced that we are providing £118 million in contributions, which makes us the fourth largest donor.
With regard to the World Food Programme, I, too, met James Morris. Everybody was impressed by the strength of his commitment and concern. The Government have urged the international community to increase donations, and the Department has taken substantial action, which includes re-engaging with long-term assistance and dealing with the type of problems that the hon. Member for Meriden identified.
We must understand the difference between what is happening in Ethiopia and southern Africa. For example, people with HIV/AIDS have different nutritional needs. Different areas have different climates and farming conditions. They also have different political climates, a fact that has been particularly significant in southern Africa. We need to tackle not just the short-term but the long-term needs of Africa, and to ensure that it has food security. DFID has been particularly good at dealing with those issues.
The hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) and for Banbury and my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) mentioned the millennium development goals. We have made no secret of the difficulty of meeting those in sub-Saharan Africa. The goals are not just aspirations; some of them are being met elsewhere. Overall, the poverty and the universal primary education goals will be met, but there are problems with the others. They nevertheless drive our work forward, and we are committed to their achievement.
Several hon. Members, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington), raised the problem of achieving a number of the millennium development goals because of the action taken to row back from international commitments, such as access to reproductive services and rights, and funding the United Nations Population Fund. It is particularly important to reverse that action to achieve maternal and infant mortality goals and to

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stem the tide of HIV/AIDS. With the delegation from DFID, I shall go to next week's conference in Bangkok. Obviously, our aim will be to ensure that we achieve improvements on that to reverse some of the setbacks that we have seen.
There has been some discussion of the lack of an Africa strategy. In addition to putting Africa at the top of the agenda, we have urged Governments around the world to support the new partnership for Africa's development and we have been drivers in the G8 action plan for Africa, recognising the particular difficulties that it faces.
Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, asked whether the world summit on sustainable development was good or bad, and whether sufficient commitments were made. One of the greatest achievements of that summit was to bring together the environment and development agendas. That was also achieved by the Select Committee in its excellent report. The commitment on water and sanitation is extremely important and will make a dramatic difference to the lives of many poor people throughout the world. As my hon. Friends the Members for City of York and for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) said, there is a need to focus on delivering targets, rather than merely to think up more of them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty) linked climate change with people's lives, especially with the impact on the lives of the poorest people. She emphasised the difficulties caused by population growth and the need for better reproductive services. She also referred to the Americans' policy. There has recently been some confusion about that, which we hope to clarify at Bangkok.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) raised the issue of mainstreaming, which I hope I have dealt with. He also set out all the big challenges that we must deal with, including water supply, river management, forestry management and fuel policy. I have long notes that I could read out on fuel policy, but there is not time. However, I will ensure that my hon.
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Friend receives copies of the various relevant documents, as well as information about the excellent work on forestry carried out by DFID officials.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of York and the hon. Member for Meriden highlighted the need to make plain to the public the importance of the environment and climate change. My hon. Friend's constituency has been flooded, as has Northampton, so there is substantial awareness of the flooding issue. Through development education in schools, there is increasing awareness of a range of issues. I encourage hon. Members to support development education programmes in their local schools because it can make an extraordinary contribution to education and to international understanding, as well as to academic standards.
My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman), who has played an important role in emphasising the issues of sustainable development and renewable energy, asked some detailed questions. Rather than give off-the-cuff answers, I will make sure that he receives properly joined-up answers in writing. I had to laugh when he mentioned kangaroos. I am, perhaps, the only hon. Member who has kept a kangaroo as a pet. I knew that they had excellent qualities, but I did not realise that their lack of harmful emissions was one of them.
I reiterate some of the main points of the Government's approach to climate change. We recognise that climate change presents a major challenge to eradicating poverty and meeting the agreed millennium development goals. In responding to that challenge, our primary focus must be on increasing the ability of poor countries and poor people to cope with the impact of climate change, recognising that they have more difficulty withstanding the shocks. I congratulate the Select Committee on highlighting the importance of the issue and hope that this debate will act as a spur not only to thoughts and talks but to action.
Mr. Mike Hancock: Thank you all for your co-operation. I am delighted that everyone managed to contribute to the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Five o'clock.

CABINET OFFICE

  Advisory Committees
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office who is on the(a) advisory committees on justices of the peace in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside, (b) Better Regulation Task Force and (c) Civil Service Appeals Board. [85055]

  Mr. Alexander
  Including sub-committees, there are 17 advisory Committees on justices of the peace in total in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Copies of membership have been placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Details of the current membership of the Better Regulation Task Force (BRTF) is listed:

  David Arculus (Chair)

  Michael Gibbons

  Kevin Hawkins

  Sukhvinder Stubbs

  Tim Sweeney

  Rex Symons CBE

  Barbara Thomas

  Matti Alderson

  Stephen Falder

  Teresa Graham OBE

  Deirdre Hutton CBE

  Simon Petch

  Dr. Ian Peters

  Dr. Penelope Rowlatt

  Janet Russell

  Simon Ward

  Details of the membership of the Civil Service Appeals Board (CSAB) as at 31 March this year are set out as follows and can be found in the CSAB's Annual Report.

  The members of the Civil Service Appeals Board (CSAB) are:

  Chairman

  J. H. Davies

  Deputies

  M. E. G Fogden CB (ES) (OS)

  J. Sheldon (PCS) (SS)

  Official Side Members

  G. Bertram CB (DSS)

  Ms S. Brown (DTI)

  J. F. Carling (IR)

  P. S. Draper CB (PSA)

  E. McGivern CB (IR)

  D. W. Rayson (HMT)

  G. L. Reid CB (DfEE)

  922W

  A. Turner CBE (MOD)

  J. Turner CB (ES)

  I. Ward (Prison Service)

  Trade Union Side Members

  Mrs. C. Alderson (PCS)

  A. J. Audley (IPMS)

  Mrs. L. J. Clare (FDA)

  Mrs. P. Cryer (PTC)

  D. Evans (POA)

  Mrs. D. Hall (NUCPS)

  P. J. Kelly (PCS)

  T. Thomson (PCS)

  F. Winrow (IRSF)

  Departmental Budgets
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the total budgets are of(a) the Social Inclusion Unit, (b) the Charter Mark and Beacon Unit, (c) Office of Public Services Reform, (d) Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, (e) Public Service Team, (f) Performance and Innovation Unit, (g) Centre for Performance and Management Studies, (h) No. 10 Policy Directorate, (i) Government Information and Communication Service, (j) Economic and Domestic Secretariat, (k) Intelligence and Security Secretariat, (l) Civil Contingencies Secretariat, (m) Ceremonial Secretariat, (n) Central Secretariat, (o) Chief Scientific Adviser, (p) European Secretariat, (q) Defence and Overseas Secretariat, (r) Regulatory Impact Unit, (s) Central Policy Group, (t) Communication Group, (u) Corporate Services, (v) Women and Equality Unit and (w) Equality Secretariat, for (i) 2002–03, (ii) 2003–04 and (iii) 2004–05; and if he will make a statement. [84150]

  Mr. Alexander
  2002–03 Resource Budgets for the units shown above are as follows:

  Unit

  Resource budget (£ million)

  Office of Public Services Reform (including the Charter Mark and Beacon Scheme)

  5.2

  Prime Minister's Delivery Unit

  3.8

  Strategy Unit (formerly the Performance and Innovation Unit)

  6.5

  No. 10 Policy Directorate

  2.0

  Government Information and Communication Service

  4.0

  Economic and Domestic Secretariat

  1.3

  Intelligence and Security Secretariat

  6.0

  Civil Contingencies Secretariat

  6.8

  Ceremonial Secretariat

  0.4

  Central Secretariat

  3.4

  Defence and Overseas Secretariat

  2.1

  Regulatory Impact Unit

  3.1

  Communication Group

  2.3

  Corporate Services Group

  47.8

  Centre for Management and Policy Studies

  2.3

  Notes:

  1. The Social Exclusion Unit, Central Policy Group, Women and Equality Unit and Equality Secretariat are now part of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

  2. The Public Service Team and Chief Scientific Adviser are not part of the Cabinet Office.

  3. Budgets for 2003–04 and 2004–05 will be finalised following completion of the Cabinet Office's business planning round which is being carried out between now and March 2003.

  E-Envoy
  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the(a) remuneration package and (b) grade is of (i) the e-Envoy and (ii) his deputy. [85064]

  Mr. Alexander
  The e-Envoy, Mr. Andrew Pinder, is employed in SCS Pay Band 3, for which the current salary range is £87,125 to £184,500; he is eligible to receive non-consolidated bonus awards based on performance throughout the year. He is also a member of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme to which the employer and employee both contribute.

  His deputy, the Chief Operating Officer of the Office of the e-Envoy, Mr. Christopher Parker, is employed in SCS Pay Band 2, for which the current salary range is £70,725 to £148,625; he is eligible to receive non-consolidated bonus awards based on performance throughout the year. He is also a member of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme to which the employer and employee both contribute.

  Sir David Omand
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office to whom Sir David Omand reports. [85422]

  Mr. Alexander
  Sir David Omand reports to the Prime Minister through the Secretary of the Cabinet. As Security and Intelligence Co-Ordinator he is the senior official responsible for the co-ordination of activity across Government in relation to counter-terrorism and civil contingency preparations on which he directly supports the Home Secretary as chair of the relevant Cabinet Committees. As Accounting Officer for the Cabinet Office, Sir David supports the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many officials, and at what levels and for what proportion of their time are working to Sir David Omand. [85423]

  Year

  Board of inquiry (air accident)

  Boards of inquiry (equipment)

  Boards of inquiry (property)

  Boards of inquiry (opps efficiency)

  Unit inquiry (equipment)

  Unit inquiry (property)

  Unit inquiry (opp eff)

  1998

  6

  2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1999

  12

  1

  0

  0

  2

  0

  0

  2000

  3

  1

  0

  0

  3

  3

  1

  2001

  5

  0

  0

  1

  14

  3

  3

  2002

  5

  0

  0

  1

  7

  1

  0

  Total

  31

  4

  0

  2

  26

  7

  4

  Total boards of inquiry

  37

  Total unit inquiry

  37

  Information concerning numbers of inquiries into accidents involving Royal Navy, Army and DLO property or equipment is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Challenger 2 Tanks
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the Army's(a) requirement, (b) total number and
  924W
  Mr. Alexander
  As at 2 December 2002, there were 37 Senior Civil Servants and 724 other staff working in Cabinet Office units that report directly to Sir David Omand. All figures are rounded to full time equivalents.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Museums, Libraries and Archives
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what assessment she has made of the performance of the national strategic body for museums, libraries and archives; and if she will make a statement. [83759]

  Dr. Howells
  Since its establishment in April 2000, Resource, The Council for Museums, Libraries and Archives has developed closer links between each of the sectors through the creation of regional agencies, and has published a vision for regional museums which has attracted £70 million central Government funding. It has managed the implementation of the People's Network ICT infrastructure in public libraries, which attracted £120 million Lottery funding. It has worked closely with my Department to develop a strategy for the public library service to be published soon and has set up an archives task force.

DEFENCE

  Accident Inquiries
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his answer of 25 November 2002,Official Report, column 1W, on accident inquiries, how many (a) boards of inquiry, (b) unit inquiries, (c) ship inquiries and (d) station inquiries have been convened in relation to accidents that have resulted in significant damage to buildings or equipment, or affected operational capability, in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [85366]

  Dr. Moonie
  The number of RAF inquiries into accidents involving property or equipment between 1998 and 2002 is detailed in the table:

  (c) actual operating number is of (i) Challenger 2 tanks, (ii) AS90 and (iii) Lynx helicopters; and if he will make a statement. [85354]

  Mr. Ingram
  The requirement for the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank is for six armoured regiments, each with a war establishment of 58 tanks, giving a total of 348 tanks. Further tanks are required for training and to maintain repair loops. The total number of
  925W
  Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks is 386, with holdings split between units, the British Army Training Unit Suffield, the Army Training and Recruiting Agency, trials and development, in-depth repair and storage. Units do not normally hold all 58 tanks for which they are established on a day to day basis. More typically the six armoured regiments would hold 44 tanks each.

  The requirement for AS90 is for six regiments, giving a total of 126 guns. Further guns are required for training and to maintain repair loops. The total number of AS90 guns is 179, with holdings split between units, the British Army Training Unit Suffield, the Army Training and Recruiting Agency, trials and development, in-depth repair and storage. Typical unit holdings are either 24 or 18 guns, but, for operations, holdings would be reorganised to allow regiments of 32 guns to be deployed.

  The requirement for Lynx helicopters is for 117, of which 17 will be undergoing maintenance at any one time, giving an operating fleet of 100 helicopters deployed across the United Kingdom and overseas.

  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list(a) the modifications that have been made to Challenger 2 tanks and how much these modifications cost, (b) the modifications are being made to Challenger 2 tanks and how much these modifications will cost, (c) further modifications to Challenger 2 tanks that his Department plans to make and how much he estimates these will cost and (d) when he expects modifications to be complete; and if he will make a statement. [85362]

  Mr. Hoon
  In line with the practice for all major items of equipment. Post Design Service enabling arrangements have been placed with the Design Authority (DA) (now Alvis Vickers Ltd.) since Challenger 2 entered service. In addition to maintaining the design standard, these agreements allow modifications, ranging from minor adjustments of detailed build standard to significant changes to operational capability, to be considered. This enables specific contracts to be placed to undertake any necessary modification work. In line with this approach, a number of contracts have been placed recently in respect of modifications to Challenger 2 to improve its operation in desert conditions.

  I am withholding the specific details, cost and timescale of the modification work under Exemption 1 (Defence, security and international relations) of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Civilian Ships
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what contingency plans his Department has in place for taking control of civilian ships should they be required in a war effort; and if he will make a statement. [85352]

  Mr. Ingram
  In order to meet our shipping needs in any future emergency, we would plan to charter civil shipping on the world-wide market to augment the capacity that our own ships give us. Where this is not possible, we would seek to use, where appropriate, either alternative types of ships or transport resources of allied or friendly nations or, as a last resort and in 926W
  specific circumstances, we would requisition British shipping. Our assessment now is that there are currently enough military-useful British flagged merchant ships and United Kingdom seafarers to meet our defence needs. In concert with the Department of Transport, we continue to keep the situation under close scrutiny.

  Communications Systems
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the Bowman communications system will be replaced; and if he will make a statement on the Personal Role Radio. [84851]

  Dr. Moonie
  Bowman will provide a tactical, secure, voice and data communications system for all three Services in support of land and littoral operations from 2004, in place of the Clansman family of radios. Bowman is expected to continue in service for over 20 years.

  The Personal Role Radio was formally accepted into service in January 2002, two months earlier than forecast and within planned cost. This is a good example of Smart Acquisition and, as reported by the National Audit Office, the Royal Marines who used it on Exercise Saif Sareea II were delighted with its performance. It has also been used successfully in Afghanistan.

  Dyn Corp
  Mr. Kevan Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the employment policies of Dyn Corp in relation to its tendering for an MOD contract. [84625]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Ministry of Defence does not routinely scrutinise the employment practices of companies tendering for MOD contracts, unless the transfer of public sector, or ex-public sector, employees out of the public sector under the Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) Regulations is likely to be involved. In these cases, the MOD will consider contractors' track records on previous TUPE transfers and employment relations issues as part of the general evaluation of proposals for managing staff issues, and within the framework of existing EU regulations.

  Eurofighter
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the forecast in-service date for the Eurofighter was on 1 December(a) 1998, (b) 1999, (c) 2000, (d) 2001 and (e) 2002; and if he will make a statement. [84832]

  Dr. Moonie
  The forecast in-service dates for the Eurofighter (now Typhoon), as published in the National Audit Office's report on the MOD's Major Projects, were as follows:

  (a) June 2002; (b) June 2002; (c) June 2002; (d) June 2002. The forecast in-service date on 1 December 2002 was June 2003.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the forecast total cost of the Eurofighter project was on 1st December(a) 1998, (b) 1999, (c) 2000, (d) 2001 and (e) 2002; and if he will make a statement. [84833]
  927W
  Dr. Moonie
  The forecast total cost of the Eurofighter (now Typhoon), as published in the National Audit Office's report on the Ministry of Defence's Major Projects, is as follows:

  £ million

  (a)

  14,649

  (b)

  14,727

  (c)

  18,832

  (d)

  18,896

  (e)

  18,663

  These figures exclude support costs and reflect, from 2000, the conversion of the Department's accounts from a cash to a resource basis, introducing new cost elements such as interest on capital and depreciation.

  Harrier
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what air defences the Royal Navy will have when the RN Sea Harrier is withdrawn from service; [84840]

  (2) how much it will cost to upgrade the RAF Harrier to take over the role of the Sea Harrier when it is withdrawn from service; and what the capability shortfall is. [84839]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers I gave on 21 May 2002 Official Report, columns 164–65W and 26 September 2002, Official Report, column 328W. In addition, I can confirm that the upgraded Sea King airborne early warning aircraft has now entered service with the Royal Navy.

  Hercules
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what it would cost to move the Hercules C13J simulators from Lyneham to Brize Norton. [85287]

  Mr. Ingram
  I am withholding the information requested in accordance with Exemption 7 of the Code of Access to Government Information. The information is commercially sensitive.

  Legal Services
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his answer of 25 November 2002,Official Report, column 6W, on legal services, on how many occasions in each of the past 10 years the Ministry of Defence has paid for the defence of an individual charged with a criminal offence when the offence arose as a result of actions undertaken in the course of employment; and if he will make a statement. [85368]

  Mr. Ingram
  There has been no reason to collect these data therefore the information requested is not available.

  Merlin Helicopters
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the Government is on target to deliver the remainder of the 44 Royal Navy Merlin helicopters that are due for delivery by December 2002; what the in-service date is of 928W
  those remaining aircraft; if he will outline the overall cost of the Merlin Helicopter Programme; and if he will make a statement. [85358]

  Dr. Moonie
  All 44 of the Royal Navy Merlin Mk1 helicopters have been delivered. The final aircraft was delivered on 2 December 2002.

  The overall cost of the Merlin Mk1 Helicopter programme is £4.183 billion.

  Military Bases (Legal Officers)
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of UK military bases have an independent legal officer on site; and if he will make a statement. [85367]

  Dr. Moonie
  Independent legal officers are not provided on military sites. Personnel may make use of a range of welfare and support services separate from the chain of command or they may raise complaints, to the Defence Council if necessary. They may also obtain legal advice privately if they wish.

  Naval Operating Fleet
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list, by ship type, the Royal Navy's(a) required operating fleet, (b) total departmental fleet and (c) actual operating fleet, of ships owned or leased by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [85353]

  Mr. Ingram
  As of 4 December 2002, the details of Royal Navy ships, including ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, are as follows:

  Type

  Required operating fleet

  Total dept. fleet

  Actual operating fleet

  Aircraft Carriers

  3

  3

  1

  Destroyers/Frigates

  31

  31

  26

  AMPHIBIOUS

  3

  11

  20

  Submarines (Trident)

  4

  4

  3

  Submarine (Fleet)

  12

  12

  6

  RFA

  21

  21

  20

  Minehunters

  22

  22

  17

  PATROL VESSELS

  5

  34

  5

  Patrol Craft

  16

  16

  16

  ANTARCTIC PATROL SHIP

  1

  1

  1

  SURVEY VESSELS

  4

  2

  2

  1Two in build.

  2HMS Ocean is expected to return to Fleet Time in mid December.

  3One in build.

  Naval Vessels
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the Royal Navy vessels that are unfit for active duty; and if he will make a statement. [85357]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr. Lewis) on 27 November 2002,Official Report, columns 334–35W. This provides a list of the Royal Navy vessels currently in refit or undergoing repairs, and which are thus unavailable for active duty. In addition, HMS Nottingham will shortly arrive in the

  929W
  United Kingdom for repair and HMS Talent is along side awaiting the start of a planned refit in 1st quarter 2003.

  Overseas Deployments
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many troops are deployed overseas; and how many were overseas on 25 December in each of the last three years. [83468]

  Mr. Ingrain
  The figures for the average number of personnel from each Service deployed on Military Tasks overseas for the quarter ending 30 September 2002, the most recent figures available, are shown in the following table. Please note that the figures do not include personnel either preparing for or recovering from deployments on Military Tasks.

  Second quarter 2002–03 (July to September 2002)

  Number

  Percentages of trained strength

  Navy (including Royal Marines)

  3,888

  10.4

  Army

  8,783

  8.6

  Air Force

  3,841

  7.9

  The figures for personnel deployed overseas on 25 December in each of the last three years is not available in the required timescale. I will write to the hon. Member with the requested information and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

  RAF Aircraft
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) Tornado GR1/GR1A/GR1B/GR4/ GR4A/F3, (b) Harrier GR7/T10, (c) Jaguar GIB/ GR3/T2A, (d) Sentry, (e) Canberra, (f) Nimrod MR2/ R1, (g) C-17A Globemaster, (h) Hercules C1/C3/C4/ C5, (i) Tristar C2/K1/KC1, (j) Chinook HC2, (k) Puma, (l) Merlin, (m) Sea King, and (n) Wessex aircraft were (i) allocated to front-line units, (ii) fully serviceable, (iii) unserviceable 1 st line, (iv) unserviceable 2nd line, (v) unserviceable 3rd or 4th line, (vi) on trials, (vii) held in reserve use and (viii) undergoing upgrade on 25th November; what percentage of the fleet size this represents for each category; and if he will make a statement. [84834]

  Mr. Ingram
  The information requested is not held centrally and will take some time to gather, collate and verify. I will write to the hon Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

  RGSR Respirator
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progess is being made in the production of the RGSR respirator for the Army; when it will be in service; what advantages it offers over other respirators; and if he will make a statement. [84852]

  Dr. Moonie
  A decision on the award of the Assessment Phase contract for the Replacement General Service Respirator (RGSR) programme is planned for early 2003. On current plans, the equipment will enter service in the latter half of the decade. The RGSR will deliver enhanced protection levels, offer a930W
  reduced physiological burden for the user and afford improved integration with existing and future weapon systems.

  Russia
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on NATO's future relations with Russia. [85052]

  Mr. Hoon
  NATO and Russia have for some time sought to enhance their relationship, in recognition of their mutual security interests. The establishment of the NATO-Russia Council at the Rome Summit on 28 May 2002 saw an historic transformation of that relationship, with the 19 NATO allies now working closely together with Russia as equal partners in 20 areas of common interest, such as combating terrorism, civil emergency planning and defence reform. Encouraging progress has already been made in its first six months and it is hoped that NATO and Russia can improve and expand this level of co-operation in 2003.

  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he last met the Russian Minister of Defence. [85053]

  Mr. Hoon
  I last met Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, on 16 July in St. Petersburg.

  Sea King
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans there are for the ASW Sea King Mk6 when it is taken out of service; and if he will make a statement. [85359]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Sea King Mark 6 Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft are being replaced progressively by the Westland/Agusta EH101 Merlin Mkl aircraft. Of the original fleet of 48 Sea King Mk 6, 13 are still in active service with the Royal Navy and as yet no decision has been made about their future, 22 have been re-designated as Ground Instructional Aircraft, six are undergoing conversion to MK6c to supplement the Sea King Helicopter Commando Mk4 fleet and seven are awaiting disposal.

  Sonar 2087
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what legal advice has been given(a) in each environmental impact assessment prepared in relation to the Sonar 2087 project and (b) in the independent legal review conducted into the global environmental impact assessment prepared in relation to the Sonar 2087 project; and if he will make a statement. [85355]

  Dr. Moonie
  The global Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) conducted in 2000 was the first EIA of Sonar 2087. It was carried out as part of the Assessment Phase of that project. It took account of legal advice provided by a lawyer who is an internationally recognised authority on the Law of the Sea. We also commissioned an independent review of the EIA, the legal aspects of which were conducted by a second distinguished independent legal authority. Both processes concluded that the intended operation of S2087 will comply with the relevant legislation at national, European and international level.
  931W
  To date, as part of the demonstration work, a single sea trial of S2087 using prototype equipment has taken place in the Bay of Biscay. The EIA for this trial recommended procedures specific to the area and concluded that these would meet the duties and obligations highlighted in the applicable environmental laws and policies.

  In accordance with Ministry of Defence policy we plan to keep legal and environmental aspects of the programme under review.

  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much has been spent on the Sonar 2087 project; and if he will make a statement. [85356]

  Dr. Moonie
  Some £100 million has been spent on this project up to the end of November, covering the Assessment Phase and the Demonstration, Manufacture and Support Phase to that date.

  Strategic Sealift Programme
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the quarterly cost of the strategic sealift programme is; and if he will make a statement. [83469]

  Dr. Moonie
  The cost of strategic sealift varies according to the operational, overseas maintenance and exercise commitments of the Ministry of Defence. In the last full financial year 2001–02, the quarterly costs were approximately: £5.5 million, £10.8 million, £11.6 million and £6.2 million.

  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what services have been provided under the strategic sealift (Ro-Ro) programme; what compensation arrangements exist for breaches in the PFI contract; and if he will make a statement. [83470]

  Dr. Moonie
  The purpose of the strategic sealift programme is to provide the Ministry of Defence with roll-on roll-off (Ro-Ro) ferries for the transportation of military equipment. The PFI contract is with AWSR Shipping Ltd. The first ship, M.V. Hurst Point, has been delivered to AWSR and came into use in August.

  In the event of a breach, the PFI contract provides for MOD to be compensated by way of reduced payments or liquidated damages. Were there to be fundamental default, other arrangements would apply up to and including contract termination.

  Thermobaric Weapons
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what thermobaric weapons the British Army uses; what assessment has been made of their capability; and if he will make a statement on the extension of the technology. [84849]

  Dr. Moonie
  There are no thermobaric weapons in service with the British Army and we have no plans to procure any. However, in view of the threat such weapons pose to our own forces (particularly when fighting in built-up areas or in caves), we are examining with industry the scope for technological advances in the area of enhanced blast explosives.
  932W
  An Anti Structures Munition programme, based on enhanced blast explosives technology, has been established, which seeks to offer a precision capability designed to minimise casualties, and will be fully in accordance with our obligations under international humanitarian law. Such a weapon is consistent with the conclusions reached in the SDR New Chapter White Paper, which called for increased emphasis on the need for precision in the face of force.

  Warships
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the warship building industry in the UK; and what is being done to encourage competition. [84837]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Ministry of Defence is undertaking the largest programme of new warship building for many years. This programme will create or secure several thousand jobs in United Kingdom shipyards and ancillary industries throughout the country. The MOD recognises the considerable challenge for UK shipbuilders to maintain capacity and develop the skills required for the future warship building programme, against the background of a short term dip in the volume of work and an ageing workforce. The MOD will continue to work closely with the industry but it is primarily for the shipbuilders themselves to manage any short term workload gap. The MOD order book alone cannot be expected to sustain the industry.

  Competition remains the bedrock of the MOD's procurement policy and has been the keystone of our strategy for warship procurement. The present competition for the future aircraft carrier is an example of this. Maintaining acompetitive environment should also be helped by the decision to share work on the Type 45 destroyer between BAE Systems Marine and Vosper Thorny croft, which has the advantage of keeping both shipbuilders involved in the Type 45 programme and potentially available to compete for future MOD and export programmes.

  The MOD, together with industry, will continue to review ways of making UK warship building more competitive and innovative, with the aim of enabling the shipbuilders to widen their customer base and identify other opportunities, for warship export orders in particular.

  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the location is of(a) HMS Ark Royal, (b) HMS Illustrious, (c) HMS Invincible and (d) HMS Ocean; and if he will make a statement. [85360]

  Mr. Ingram
  The information is as follows:HMS Ark Royal is the current Fleet Flagship and is alongside in Portsmouth undergoing routine maintenance prior to her next deployment in February 2003.
  HMS Illustrious is in Rosyth undertaking a refit which is due to complete in early 2005.
  HMS Invincible is in Rosyth undertaking a refit which is due to complete in late spring 2003.
  HMS Ocean is in Devonport undertaking repairs following her Docking period in Portsmouth. She is expected to return to Fleet time this month.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Affordable Housing
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether he plans to alter the affordability rules to enable authorities in areas of high housing costs to build more affordable homes. [84428]

  Mr. McNulty
  There are no specific rules that apply to the costs of new affordable homes built by local authorities. Where an authority decides to fund additional affordable housing it will generally provide better value for money to do this through a housing association.

  Council Tax
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the maximum amount is that the abolition of 50 per cent, discount council tax on(a) second and (b) empty homes will raise; what proportion (i) billing and (ii) precepting authorities will be able to retain; how a distinction between empty and abandoned homes will be made; and what the estimated compliance costs are of these changes. [844141]

  Mr. McNulty
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) announced on 19 November 2002 that the Government intend to allow English local authorities discretion to reduce council tax discounts on second homes from 50 per cent. to a minimum of 10 per cent. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has decided not to remove the discount completely because owners need an incentive to inform the local authority that properties are second homes. Without such information, it would not be possible to identify the extra revenue which could be raised from changing the discount. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister also announced that we intend to allow English local authorities to reduce or remove completely the current 50 per cent, council tax discounts on long-term empty dwellings. In either case, the billing authority may determine to change the discount in all or part of its area.

  Authorities where the second homes discount has been reduced will benefit from any additional council tax raised: we do not propose to reduce their revenue support grant to take account of their greater tax raising ability. If all authorities reduced the second home discounts to 10 per cent., this could potentially raise around £65 million. If all authorities removed the empty home discounts completely, this could raise a further £160 million.

  The benefit of the additional revenue resulting from a reduction in the second homes discount would be shared with the major precepting authorities. The proportions which would go to billing authorities and to major precepting authorities will vary from location to location, depending on the proportion of the council tax bill in an area which goes to major precepting authorities, and different authorities' decisions about how the discount should be applied. The compliance costs will depend on how individual billing authorities decide to change the discounts.
  934W

  Devolution
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much the Government spent on start-up costs for the(a) National Assembly for Wales and (b) Scottish Parliament; and if he will make a statement. [83792]

  Mr. Leslie
  Expenditure by the former Welsh Office on preparations for the National Assembly for Wales was £2.7 million. This includes the costs of the current interim Assembly building, the new building and the costs of staff directly attributed to the preparations for the Assembly. There were additional staff costs across the Welsh Office associated with the preparations for the Assembly but these are not separately identifiable.

  Expenditure by the former Scottish Office on preparations for the Scottish Parliament was £13.4 million. These figures relate to costs for the current interim Parliament building, the new building (including purchase of the site) and those staff costs that can be directly attributed to preparations for the Scottish Parliament. There were other staff costs associated with preparations for the Parliament or on devolution generally involving staff working across most areas of the Scottish Office, but this expenditure was not recorded separately.

  Disabled Facilities Grants
  Helen Jackson
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) what the projected expenditure is for each of the next five years on disabled facilities grants; and what has been spent to date in this financial year in disabled facilities grants; [84565]

  (2) what plans he has for legislation to simplify the way in which grant aid for disabled adaptations are managed; [84566]

  (3) what has been spent on disabled facilities grants in each of the last 10 years; [84564]

  (4) what the average waiting time between assessment and completion in each local authority has been in 2001–02 for householders requesting disabled adaptations in their homes; [84563]

  (5) how many households are waiting for adaptation grants to meet their disability needs in each local authority. [84562]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Government meets 60 per cent, of the total cost of local authority expenditure on Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs), with the remaining 40 per cent, being met from elsewhere in local authorities budgets. The Government has, as of 15 November 2002, paid local housing authorities £66.5 million in the financial year 2002–03 in respect of their expenditure on DFGs. My right hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister, is currently considering the allocation of funding for the three years to 2005–06, and the Government's contribution towards projected local authority expenditure on DFGs will be announced at the turn of the year.

  The Government has no plans to further amend the legislation on the provision of housing adaptations for the disabled. The Regulatory Reform (Housing Assistance) (England & Wales) Order 2002 came into force on 18 July 2002, and provides English and Welsh

  935W
  local housing authorities with wide discretionary powers to provide assistance for the repair, improvement or adaptations of housing. This power can be used to provide additional financial help to a disabled person over and above any mandatory entitlement to a DFG.

  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Department of Health are jointly preparing comprehensive guidance to local authorities on best practice in the organisation and delivery of a housing adaptations service for disabled people. This guidance will be issued in draft for consultation very shortly.

  Total Disabled Facilities Grants payments made by English local authorities over the last 10 years are:

  Year

  £ million

  1992–93

  64.96

  1993–94

  74.91

  1994–95

  90.53

  1995–96

  97.53

  1996–97

  99.75

  1997–98

  100.41

  1998–99

  107.10

  1999–2000

  116.42

  2000–01

  130.70

  2001–02

  145.10

  The Government does not collect data either on the average waiting time for DFG, or the number of households waiting for such a grant.

  Empty Properties
  Adam Price
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many unoccupied domestic properties there are in the UK; and how many are in the ownership of local authorities. [82725]

  Mr. McNulty
  The total number of vacant dwellings in England at 1 April 2001 (latest available data) was 755,100. Of those vacant dwellings, 80,300 were in the ownership of local authorities.

  Many of these vacant dwellings are transitional vacants (eg they may be in the process of being bought or sold). The breakdown below shows numbers of vacant dwellings by tenure and the number of dwellings that have been vacant for more than six months at 1 April 2001.

  Total dwellings vacant at 1 April 2001

  of which: vacant for more than six months

  Local authority

  80,300

  31,500

  Registered Social Landlord

  41,300

  14,900

  'Other' public sector

  10,900

  1—

  'Other' private sector

  622,600

  310,200

  Total

  755,100

  1—

  1Not collected.

  Note:

  All figures rounded to the nearest 100.

  Sources:

  All data from ODPM Housing Investment Programme (HIP) returns except for data on RSLs obtained from the Housing Corporation's 2001 Regulatory and Statistical Return (RSR)
  936W
  For information about other parts of the UK I refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friends the Members for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), for Neath (Peter Hain) and for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell).

  Homes (Key Workers)
  Mr. Horam
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many(a) teachers and (b) further education college lecturers have benefited from the starter home initiative for key workers; and if he will make a statement on policy towards further education lecturers. [85428]

  Mr. McNulty
  The funding available to assist teachers into home ownership under the Starter Home Initiative is targeted at teachers in schools ie the Secondary School sector. To date over 700 teachers have purchased homes under the Initiative that they would otherwise have been unable to afford.

  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister recognises that other key workers, including further education lecturers, need to be able to find affordable homes within a reasonable distance of their work place. Our wider housing policies to increase the supply of affordable homes in areas where demand is high will benefit other groups of key workers. In addition the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will be looking at ways to extend our existing programmes for affordable housing through greater partnership with employers and with public and private sector landlords.

  Early in the new year my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister will set out in his Communities Plan a long term programme of action for housing and sustainable communities. This will address affordable housing issues, including key worker housing.

  Homes for Life
  Helen Jackson
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what plans he has for designing bathrooms with level access showers as part of the Homes for Life programme. [84561]

  Mr. Leslie
  Part M of the Building Regulations was amended in 1999 to require reasonable provision for access for disabled people to visit friends and family in new homes. All new homes built in England and Wales on the basis of building control applications submitted after 25 October 1999 have had to comply with the new requirements. Currently, these do not require the installation of showers with level access. The various Parts of the Building Regulations are however kept under review.

  Some social housing funding authorities require, in addition, compliance with the Lifetime Homes standards promoted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which is a charitable organisation. The Lifetime Homes programme aims to produce homes that are suitable for fully independent living by disabled people, and principally by wheelchair users. The Lifetime Homes Standard however only calls for drainage provision to enable a shower to be fitted in the future.

  Index of Multiple Deprivation
  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he expects to publish his Department's review of the Index of Multiple Deprivation; and if he will make a statement. [85680]

  Mrs. Roche
  The project to update the Indices of Deprivation 2000 is being conducted in three stages. The Stage One Consultation Report has recently been published. Stage Two will result in a blueprint setting out detailed proposals for updating the indicators and domains while Stage Three will result in the updated Index. It is expected that the final updated index would be published in summer 2003.

  Local Authority Expenditure
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will estimate the amount of spending per head by each all-purpose local authority in the current financial year. [85624]

  Mr. Leslie
  The spending per head for each all-purpose local authority in the year 2002–03 has been set out in a table and placed in the Library of the House.

  New Towns
  Mr. Colin Pickthall
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) what research has been undertaken to examine the effects of clawback on the sale of assets in the new towns; [85243]

  (2) what research has been undertaken to examine the extra costs of housing renewal and regeneration in new towns subject to simultaneous ageing; [85242]

  (3) what research has been undertaken to ascertain the extra costs falling upon local authorities from new towns designed on the Radburn principle. [85241]

  Mr. McNulty
  In its response to the recent Select Committee report on New Towns, the Government undertook that, subject to Office of the Deputy Prime Minister funding, a review would be undertaken. This would examine a number of aspects of the New Towns, which would include all the issues mentioned by my hon. Friend. The review would involve consultation with the relevant local authorities.

  Planning
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many planning appeals for developments with densities greater than the local planning authority considered reasonable have been allowed in each of the last three years. [84465]

  Mr. McNulty
  Information on planning appeals in the form requested is not available. The table sets out for the last three years the number of allowed appeals for residential development where 'over-development' was recorded as an issue. Over-development encompasses a number of amenity concerns arising from the proposed layout.
  938W

  Period

  Number decided

  Number allowed

  Number allowed where over development was an issue

  1999–2000

  4,134

  1,197

  82

  2000–01

  4,715

  1,419

  113

  2001–02

  4,803

  1,429

  102

  Planning System Documents
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) whether he requires the documents By Design and By Design: Better Places to Live to be material considerations in the planning system; [85187]

  (2) what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the guidance in (a) By Design and (b) By Design: Better Places to Live is reflected in local authority plan-making. [85192]

  Mr. McNulty
  By Design and By Design: Better Places to Live are guides to better practice supporting Government policy on urban design and housing set out in Planning Policy Guidance Notes 1 and 3. They should be taken into account in preparing development plans and planning applications and may also be material to decisions on individual planning applications and appeals. My right, hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister is a statutory consultee in the preparation of development plans and can make objections when there are conflicts with national guidance which do not appear to be justified by local circumstances. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister also has powers of intervention to direct that plan proposals should be modified before adoption.

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Pickles
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many special advisers were employed in his Department in(a) May and (b) November. [83419]

  Mr. Leslie
  At the end of May 2002 when the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was created, the Office employed three full-time equivalent special advisers. In November 2002 the Office employed 2.8 full-time equivalent special advisers.

  Standard Spending Assessment Grant
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much has been paid to Charnwood borough council in SSA grant to compensate for student houses in multi- occupancy in the present financial year. [85027]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The present SSA formula for Environmental, Protective and Cultural Services contains three housing deprivation indicators but none relates specifically to students. In addition, local authorities are compensated through revenue support grant for council tax income lost from properties that are exempt from council tax because they are occupied only by students.
  939W

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  Beacon Schools
  Mr. Hoban
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the effectiveness of Beacon schools in raising school standards; what guidance he gives on the circumstances in which it is appropriate to close a beacon school and whom the authorities should consult; and how many beacon schools have been closed. [85551]

  Mr. Miliband
  By building partnerships, Beacon schools have been supporting other schools to raise overall standards of pupil attainment and to close the gap between the best and lower performing schools. Independent evaluation has shown benefits of Beacon activity in terms of improved practice and raised standards through professional development. In the case of Beacon schools, as with all schools, the Department takes the view that closure is a matter for local public consultation and decision-making. The Department does not have a role in this process. So far, three Beacon schools have been closed as a result of local reorganisations.

  Disabled Students
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to provide assistance to schools to help them ensure that their course materials are accessible to disabled students in the next year. [84294]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 2 December 2002]: Schools and local education authorities are required to plan strategically to increase progressively over time the accessibility of schools to disabled pupils. This includes increasing access to schools premises and facilities, to the curriculum and to written information in alternative formats—including Braille and audio-tape. The first accessibility plans must be in place by April 2003 and will run for a period of three years.

  Funding is available to local education authorities through the Schools Access Initiative to make schools more accessible to children with disabilities and special educational needs. £70 million is available this year. This will increase to £100 million a year for the next financial years 2003–04 to 2005–06.

  Improving access to schools for disabled pupils is an integral part of local education authority planning and asset management and funds for improving school access are part of a much larger block of funds for capital expenditure of some £8.5 billion, which we are making available over the period 2001–02 to 2003–04.

  Free School Meals
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the schools in the top 10 per cent, of those with the greatest number of children who receive free school meals. [84567]

  Mr. Miliband
  [holding answer 2 December 2002]: The information requested cannot be provided as it is the Department's current policy not to publish figures about individual schools without their prior agreement.

  Mixed-age Teaching
  Mr. Hoban
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what research he has done on the effects of mixed-age teaching in primary schools. [85556]

  Mr. Miliband
  The Department is not currently undertaking research on this subject. Previous research has shown that there are a number of positive benefits for primary school pupils in mixed-age classes. These include the opportunity to form wider friendships and for younger pupils to learn from their contemporaries, more individualised teaching, and the opportunity for pupils with differing ability to provide intellectual stimulation for each other. The research does not find positive effects for attainment. However, there appears to be no negative impact on pupil attainment of what is known as vertical grouping. Teachers tend to be more negative about mixed-age classes, believing them to create more work and complicate classroom management.

  NVQs
  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many students have received free tuition to study national vocational qualifications in(a) plumbing, (b) bricklaying, (c) bridge to construction (or intermediate construction award), (d) painting and decorating and (e) wood occupations, in each year since the establishment of the courses. [83766]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The question asks about free tuition on NVQ courses. The information available does not discriminate between those who get full and partial fee remission. The following figures therefore include both.

  In 2000–01 in further education sector colleges in England, tuition fees were waived (fully or partially) for:

  (a) 1,704 learners on NVQs in plumbing.

  (b) 1,155 learners on NVQs in bricklaying.

  (c) there are no qualifications entitled "bridge to construction" or "intermediate construction" in the NVQ framework.

  (d) 690 learners on NVQs in painting and decorating.

  (e) 3,168 learners on NVQs in wood related occupations.

  In 1999–2000 in further education sector colleges in England, tuition fees were waived (fully or partially) for:

  (a) 1,376 learners on NVQs in plumbing.

  (b) 989 learners on NVQs in bricklaying.

  (c) there are no qualifications entitled "bridge to construction" or "intermediate construction" in the NVQ framework.

  (d) 602 learners on NVQs in painting and decorating.

  (e) 2,414 learners on NVQs in wood related occupations.

  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many tutors were employed in further education colleges teaching national vocational qualifications in(a) plumbing, (b) bricklaying, (c) bridge to construction (or intermediate construction award), (d) painting and decorating and (e) wood occupations, in each year since the establishment of the courses; [83767]

  (2) how many tutors were recruited to teach national vocational qualifications in (a) plumbing, (b) bricklaying, (c) bridge to construction (or

  941W
  intermediate construction award), (d) painting and decorating and (e) wood occupations, in each year since the establishment of the courses; how many tutors in each category left their posts; and what average length of time served by further education tutors in each category was, in each year. [83769]

  Margaret Hodge
  Information on tutors in FE teaching national vocational qualifications is available only for broad subject levels.

  In 2000–01 there were 3,623 tutors teaching construction in FE colleges in England.

  Information on the recruitment of tutors in FE, their retention and average length of time in employment is not available.

  Prison Education Courses
  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how much was available in each prison for education courses in each year since 1995 at current prices; and what the percentage increase was in each year; [84554]

  (2) what percentage of the prison population were engaged in education courses in each prison in each year since 1995; and how much funding has been provided per head of population of each prison for education courses in each year since 1995. [84555]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 2 December 2002]: The information available has been provided in the form of a table, copies of which have been placed in the Libraries.

  School Closures
  Mr. Hoban
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what representations he has received concerning the closure of schools in South Shields; and if he will place these in the Library. [85553]

  Mr. Miliband
  The Secretary of State and his Department have received 16 letters from Headteachers, School Governors, parents and members of the public about South Tyneside local education authority's proposals for the reorganisation of primary education.

  Truancy
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of children who truanted from school in 2001–02 gained one or more GCSEs. [85348]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 4 December 2002]: The only available source of data on the GCSE attainment of young people who truanted from school is the Youth Cohort Study (YCS).

  The latest data available from the YCS are for people who took their GCSEs in the summer of 1999. This shows that of those who occasionally truanted during year 11,95 per cent, reported gaining at least one GCSE, of those who persistently truanted during year 11, 79 per cent, reported gaining at least one GCSE.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Furazolidone
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the nitrofuran antibiotic furazolidone is banned for use in the UK; and if he will make a statement. [85005]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 3 December 2002]: Furazolidone is included in Annex IV of Council Directive 2377/90EC, so its administration to food-producing animals is banned, both in the UK, and in the European Community. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) run two surveillance schemes for residues of veterinary medicines and banned substances in UK-produced and imported produce. These are overseen by the independent Veterinary Residues Committee (VRC).

  In 2001, the VMD analysed 453 samples of bovine, pig and sheep kidney; and 58 samples of eggs for furazolidone under their statutory surveillance programme for UK produce. A further 86 samples of animal feed were analysed for nitrofurans. All samples were free of detectable residues of these compounds.

  Auction Marts
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the role of auction marts in increased bio-security. [84167]

  Mr. Morley
  Livestock auction markets have an important role in the marketing of farm animals between the various stages of production. However, markets do pose a risk of disease spread through mixing and dispersal of animals during market operations. The Department has sought to mitigate this risk through rules on bio-security at markets, and controls over the movement of animals to and from market premises.

  Bovine TB
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what evaluation is being relied upon by her Department in respect of the possible link between badgers and the spread of bovine tuberculosis; and if she will make a statement. [84239]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 3 December 2002]: A badger culling field trial is being carried out as part of DEFRA's extensive bovine tuberculosis (TB) research programme. The trial was designed by the Independent Scientific Group for Cattle TB (ISG) to evaluate what role, if any, badgers play in the transmission of bovine TB to cattle and whether badger culling is an effective or sustainable bovine TB control mechanism. It will provide epidemiological data on the occurrence and prevalence of TB in badgers, its relationship to population density and social group size and the spatial relationship between TB-infected badgers and TB breakdowns in cattle herds.

  The ISG advise that it is too early for a full analysis of results. It is a basic rule for scientific trials that results are not published prematurely. It has however been

  943W
  possible to complete a preliminary analysis of the risk factors associated with cattle TB, and this is set out in the ISG's Third Report, available in the House Library.

  Climate Change
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what discussions she has held with her EU counterparts on proposals to introduce legislation concerning climate change; and if she will make a statement. [84646]

  Mr. Meacher
  I have regular discussions with my EU counterparts on climate change issues.

  Last year we agreed Council conclusions on the European Commission's communication on the European Climate Change Programme. More recently we have discussed the European Commission's proposal for a Directive to establish a Community greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme. I will be discussing this again at the Environment Council on 9 and 10 December.

  We are also discussing with the commission the preparation of legislation on reducing emissions of fluorinated gases (hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride) that also fall under the Kyoto Protocol.

  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the(a) schemes and (b) bodies her Department contributes funding to which are concerned with climate change. [85484]

  Mr. Meacher
  The main schemes for which my Department provides funding are the UK Emissions Trading Scheme the New Home Energy Efficiency scheme (or Warm Front) and the Community Energy Programme. The main bodies for which my Department provides funding are the Carbon Trust, the Energy Saving Trust, the Hadley Centre, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (core budget and trust funds), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Greentie and the OECD Annex 1 expert group.

  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which of the sector associations party to a Climate Change Levy umbrella agreement have supplied her with information specified in Schedule 3 of those agreements; what the dates were of each supply; and which of those sector associations have supplied her with information specified in Part 2 of Schedule 3 of those agreements. [82871]

  Mr. Meacher
  Under clause 6.5 of the umbrella agreements, sector associations are not required to submit information specified in either Part 1 or Part 2 of Schedule 3 for the first target period until 31 January 2003, extended by agreement to 17 February. No such information has yet been supplied by sector associations, though data has been received for the single company agreement under paragraph 47 of Schedule 6 to the Finance Act 2000.

  Coffee Market
  Ms Drown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she is taking to support the working of the international market in coffee. [83627]

  Mr. Morley
  The UK is a member, through the EU, of the International Coffee Organisation (ICO), a United Nations body established to, among other things, "achieve a reasonable balance between world supply and demand on a basis which will assure adequate supplies of coffee at fair prices to consumers and markets for coffee at remunerative prices to producers … to facilitate the expansion and transparency of international trade in coffee".

  A major plank of the organisation's current activity is a Coffee Quality Improvement Programme. Introduced on 1 October 2002, it requires exports of unprocessed coffee from member countries to comply with minimum quality standards. This should have a positive effect upon supply and demand and, in turn, producer prices. Discussions are also under way within the organisation about how exports of processed coffee should be dealt with.

  The Government are also helping coffee growers to diversify, through our development programme, and promoting foreign investment and good regulatory frameworks in coffee-growing countries.

  In a wider context, on the WTO front, we are committed to further liberalisation of markets, including significant improvements in market access and special and differential treatment for developing countries. This should also benefit coffee growers.

  We are seeking to expand the trade opportunities of commodity-dependent countries through, for example, cutting import tariffs to reduce the negative impact of the Common Agricultural Policy.

  Energy Efficiency
  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what corrections to energy efficiency targets resulting from correction to baseline data she has discussed with sector associations; if she will specify the provisions of the umbrella agreements and underlying agreements under which such corrections are permitted; and what discussions or correspondence she has had with such associations concerning failure to meet such targets. [82869]

  Mr. Meacher
  The Secretary of State has discussed several variations to energy efficiency targets resulting from corrections to baseline data with sector associations. Further to my answer of 7 November, the agreements are to be varied to provide for corrections to targets resulting from corrections to baseline data. The text of the variation has not yet been agreed. The Secretary of State has yet to receive information from the sector associations about the performance of the facilities covered by the agreements during the first target period. Accordingly the Secretary of State is not yet in a position to ascertain whether there has been any failure to meet such targets.

  Enriched Laying Cages
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the cost to egg producers of a ban on the use of enriched laying cages in England; what plans she has to provide financial assistance to egg producers in the event of such a ban; and if she will make a statement. [84513]

  Mr. Morley
  A partial regulatory impact assessment was included in the public consultation about a possible ban on enriched cages and is being considered again in the light of responses received. The CAP regime for this sector is a light one and no grants are currently available.

  Average farm size in hectares by region and farm type—England 2001

  Region

  Farm type Cereals

  General cropping

  Horticulture

  Specialist pigs

  Specialist poultry

  North East

  154.8

  217.7

  8.5

  14.5

  45.2

  North West

  101.6

  75.7

  5.7

  10.2

  22.0

  Merseyside

  63.4

  86.0

  6.7

  9.0

  1.2

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  103.0

  159.9

  6.7

  21.0

  11.9

  East Midlands

  138.1

  150.8

  7.6

  12.9

  8.0

  West Midlands

  103.0

  140.0

  12.4

  13.4

  11.3

  East of England

  129.8

  153.1

  8.8

  14.2

  9.5

  Greater London

  99.9

  81.2

  5.5

  24.4

  13.8

  South East

  174.5

  152.1

  16.7

  25.2

  11.1

  South West

  135.5

  100.1

  9.2

  15.4

  11.9

  England

  131.9

  145.3

  10.5

  16.6

  13.2

  Mixed pigs and poultry

  Dairy—LFA

  Dairy—Lowland

  Specialist sheep—SDA

  Specialist beef—SDA

  North East

  20.6

  70.1

  81.9

  213.3

  67.4

  North West

  12.2

  82.7

  76.6

  108.2

  37.7

  Merseyside

  0.0

  0.0

  105.1

  0.0

  0.0

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  22.6

  84.1

  72.0

  115.2

  35.4

  East Midlands

  37.8

  77.4

  79.5

  126.8

  45.4

  West Midlands

  3.7

  57.0

  78.5

  39.7

  33.6

  East of England

  15.4

  0.0

  75.6

  0.0

  0.0

  Greater London

  0.0

  0.0

  117.5

  0.0

  0.0

  South East

  3.5

  0.0

  109.0

  0.0

  0.0

  South West

  8.1

  75.2

  88.9

  60.1

  60.2

  England

  15.2

  77.0

  84.4

  116.7

  44.1

  Mixed cattle and sheep—SDA

  Cattle and sheep—DA

  Cattle and sheep (Lowland)

  Mixed

  Other types

  North East

  198.1

  74.5

  56.2

  165.7

  17.5

  North West

  109.1

  40.5

  28.3

  55.7

  18.0

  Merseyside

  0.0

  0.0

  40.1

  57.7

  8.3

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  109.9

  50.3

  24.7

  83.4

  9.7

  East Midlands

  72.8

  42.9

  28.4

  109.9

  6.5

  West Midlands

  86.7

  26.1

  28.2

  98.0

  7.4

  East of England

  0.0

  0.0

  26.6

  102.0

  8.8

  Greater London

  0.0

  0.0

  30.5

  81.1

  13.6

  South East

  0.0

  0 0

  33.4

  140.7

  11.4

  South West

  120.2

  43.9

  33.2

  101.9

  8.5

  England

  125.6

  42.1

  31.0

  105.1

  10.3

  Notes:

  1. The "other types" category includes some holdings which are not currently undertaking any agricultural activity.

  2. Farm type is designated by the predominant activity on the holding. This is calculated using the Standard Gross Margin (SGM). The total SGM for each farm is calculated by multiplying its crop areas and livestock numbers by the appropriate SGM coefficients and then summing the result for all enterprises on the farm. For example, if more than two thirds of a holding's total SGM is derived from cereals and other crops generally found in cereal rotations (eg oilseeds, peas and beans harvested dry and land set-aside) the holding will be put in the cereals farm type category.

  Source:

  June Agricultural and Horticultural Census
  946W
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received on a proposed ban on the use of enriched egg laying cages in England. [84508]

  Mr. Morley
  The Department has received over 1,000 responses to the public consultation from the general public, industry and animal welfare organisations.

  Farm Holdings
  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the average size of farm is, broken down by(a) category and (b) region. [81146]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 20 November 2002]: The information given is shown in the table:

  Fisheries
  Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what United Kingdom legislation will restrict the number of days at sea for fishing vessels capturing and landing cod from 1 January 2003; whether amendments to legislation are necessary to achieve Government objectives; and if she will make a statement. [85508]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 4 December 2002]: No decision has been made as to the means by which any limit on days at sea required by EU legislation would be implemented in the UK.

  Foot and Mouth
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many qualified valuers were paid(a) per day and (b) per valuation during the foot and mouth outbreak. [84165]

  Mr. Morley
  During the foot and mouth outbreak, qualified valuers were paid on a per day basis, not on a per valuation basis. Therefore, the Department does not have a record of the number of valuers broken down into these two categories. There are a number of legal disputes with valuers who are claiming on a per valuation basis.

  Herbal Medicines
  Mr. Lyons
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the Government are doing to control the sale of endangered animal parts for eastern herbal medicines. [85386]

  Mr. Morley
  The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which regulates trade in endangered species of animals and plants, is strictly implemented in the UK under both European and National legislation. Medicines derived from species listed in the Appendices to the Convention need an import permit issued by my Department before they can enter the country. Permits will not normally be issued for products containing the most endangered species, which are listed on the Convention's Appendix I. As a result any products that are derived from, or even claim to be derived from, Appendix I specimens taken from the wild will not normally be allowed on sale in the UK.

  CITES is actively enforced in the UK by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and the Police who work together with my Department, other Government Departments and certain non-governmental organisations in the Government's Partnership for Action against Wildlife Crime. My Department produces general guidance on the Convention and maintains a dedicated website on CITES implementation in the UK. We have also worked with the enforcement agencies to produce specialist material including leaflets, posters and videos aimed directly at Britain's Chinese speaking community. We are also currently funding, with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), research into the use of alternatives to replace certain endangered species contained in traditional medicines.

  Horticulture Research International
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will end the moratorium imposed on Horticulture Research International regarding scientific staff; and if she will make a statement. [84136]

  Mr. Morley
  Horticulture Research International (HRI) is in a loss-making situation. Following discussions with Defra, HRI agreed to introduce a moratorium on staff recruitment to help contain its operating costs. HRI will fill vacant posts by external recruitment only where such posts are essential to its business and where it has been unable to fill them through internal redeployment.

  The Department considers that this is a financially responsible course of action. The moratorium will be reviewed in due course in the light of HRI's financial situation and the decisions which the Department expects to take shortly about the future of the organisation.

  Livestock Sales
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what her assessment is of the relative number of(a) beef, (b) dairy and (c) sheep sales being concluded (i) through a registered auction mart and (ii) by private farm-to-farm sale in each of the last three years. [84166]

  Mr. Morley
  The available data are shown in the table. Livestock markets were disrupted by the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001, and the last three years for which data are available are 1998–2000. They include livestock sold for slaughter and farm-to-farm sales through markets. No data are available within my Department for Northern Ireland, for the split between beef and dairy cattle, or for private farm-to-farm sales.

  Throughput through livestock auction markets in Great Britain

  1998

  1999

  2000

  Cattle (including dairy)

  2,455

  2,483

  2,422

  Calves

  523

  454

  436

  Sheep

  17,060

  17,564

  17,596

  Total

  20,038

  20,501

  20,454

  Source:

  The Livestock Auctioneers' Association.

  Meat Imports (South Africa)
  Mr. Wiggin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs why the Government did not ban meat imports from South Africa between September 2000 and January 2001. [83895]

  Mr. Morley
  On 21 September 2000 the European Commission was notified of limited outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in sixteen provinces of Kwa-Zulu Natal. The South African authorities took effective action by imposing their own export ban on meat from the infected areas. At the time the Government was content with this situation as meat from the area could not be exported.

  On 17 November the Commission amended Community legislation to formally prohibit the import of fresh meat from the affected areas. This reflected the

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  self-imposed South African ban. Prior to this the Commission had not taken any action. Records show that after 21 September 2000 there were no imports of meat from South Africa into the United Kingdom.

  On 20 December 2000 the Commission reported that there had been no change in the disease situation. In view of this we reviewed our action and issued a Declaration under Regulation 35 of the Products of Animal Origin (Importer and Export) Regulations 1996 on 5 January 2001 prohibiting all fresh meat of FMD susceptible species from the whole of South Africa unless it was produced before 15 September 2000. A note explaining the situation was sent to trade interests on 8 January, as was a letter to all Border Inspection Posts at ports and airports. Scotland and Northern Ireland took similar action shortly afterwards.

  Since then the Government has followed a policy of issuing such a Declaration whenever a suspension of imports is necessary, even in advance of Community action.

  Official Travel
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the total expenditure of(a) her Department and (b) its agencies was on official travel in 2001–02. [84800]

  Alun Michael
  Since 1999 the Government has published an annual list of all visits overseas undertaken by Cabinet Ministers costing £500 or more during each financial year. The Government has also published on an annual basis the cost of all Ministers' visits overseas. Details of travel undertaken during the period 1 April 2001 to 31 March 2002 was published on 24 July 2002 Official Report 1374 75W. The cost of Ministers' visits overseas for 2002–03 will be published as soon as possible after the end of the current financial year. Copies of the lists are available in the Libraries of the House.

  All travel is undertaken fully in accordance with the rules set out in the Ministerial Code and Travel by Ministers, copies of which are available in the Libraries of the House.

  Parrett Catchment Project
  Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the total remuneration is of the Chairman of the Parrett Catchment Project. [84648]

  Mr. Morley
  The Parrett Catchment Project is an independent body. As advised in my reply to the Member's previous question, no salary is paid by the project to the Chairman. I understand that he is currently entitled to a fee of £150 per day for his work on the project.

  Up to June 2001, I am advised that the Chairman received no fees or expenses from the Project.

  From June 2001 to the end of June 2002, I understand that he was paid £3,000 in fees, a £1,000 honorarium for extra-contractual work on the successful Intereg 3 bid for EU funds, and £724 in expenses.
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  He has received no payments for fees or expenses since the 1 of July 2002.

  Pigswill
  Mr Hague
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the impact upon business of the ban on pigswill; and what compensation her Department is providing to pigswill producers to compensate them for losses brought about by the ban. [85082]

  Mr. Morley
  In March 2001 during the Foot and Mouth outbreak, the proposal to ban swill feeding was the subject of a full public consultation and Regulatory Impact Assessment. A copy of the Regulatory Impact Assessment which accompanied the Animal By Products (Amendment) Order 2002 (S.I. 2001 No. 1704) is available in the Library of the House.

  The Government does not intend to compensate pig farmers for changes to the feed material available for their livestock following the introduction of the ban on swill feeding. However the Government is providing free business advice to those affected by the ban.

  Animal Movement Restrictions
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received concerning the application of the 20-day standstill period where the designated 20 days are exceeded relating to farm to farm sales; and if she will make a statement. [84510]

  Mr. Morley
  We receive many varied representations about different aspects of the 20-day standstill rule. The current movement rules, including the standstill, apply to animals sold from farm to farm as well as to other types of movements.

  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received concerning the practicality of the exemption to the 20-day standstill rule granted to farmers in the form of a DEFRA licence for specialised calf rearing units; and if she will make a statement. [84509]

  Mr. Morley
  We receive many varied representations on all aspects of the 20-day standstill rule. The movement of calves under 30-days-old with full passports does not trigger a 20-day standstill on specialist calf rearing units which have been approved by the Divisional Veterinary Manager. Specialist calf rearing units do not require a licence.

  Veterinary Practices
  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to her answer of 21 November 2002,Official Report, column 300W, what measures she is taking to (a) identify veterinary practices and surgeries operating without being registered by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and (b) ensure that (i) non-registered veterinary practices and surgeons and (ii) others are not involved in working with animals. [84821]
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  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 4 December 2002]: The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) is obliged under the Veterinary Surgeons and Veterinary Practitioners Registration Regulations to maintain and publish a register of all veterinary surgeons eligible to practise in the UK. However, under the Regulations, the RCVS only have jurisdiction over individual registered veterinary surgeons. Should the RCVS be informed of, or identify, individuals practising while unregistered it is a matter for the police or local trading standards agencies to prosecute under Section 19 of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966.

  The regulations do not require or give the RCVS powers to compel members to provide practice details, although many do so on a voluntary basis. This information is maintained on a database and is published on the RCVS website under 'Find-a-Vet'. This is annually printed as a publication, "the Directory of Veterinary Practices" and is available to the public. The Directory and 'Find-a-Vet' link individual veterinary surgeons to practices and provide comprehensive information on the species they treat and any specialist services they offer.

  The RCVS continually monitors various advertising and other information media to identify practices not listed in the Directory. Once identified they are contacted and asked if they wish to be listed.

  It is the responsibility of practices to check that prospective employees possess relevant qualifications and in the case of veterinarians that they are registered with the RCVS.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Africa
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made towards the formulation of a universal set of standards for use by the African Union for the peer review mechanism of the New Partnership for Africa's Development. [84629]

  Mr. Rammell
  The NEPAD Steering Committee has tasked its Secretariat to develop detailed criteria and indicators for measuring performance on political and economic governance. These will be considered at the next meeting of the NEPAD Implementation Committee in February 2003. We understand that the process of the peer review mechanism will draw on expertise from both UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union, but the NEPAD Secretariat will have the key role in making sure the process gets started.

  Pending the ultimate integration of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) with the African Union, the Implementation Committee has recommended that the specialist commission, units or organs of the AU responsible for democracy, political and human rights, be tasked to conduct technical assessments for the APRM.
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  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether G8 funding for the New Partnership for Africa's Development is conditional on the inclusion of the peer review mechanism. [84630]

  Mr. Rammell
  The G8 response to the NEPAD initiative is set out in the G8 Action Plan for Africa, which was placed in the House Libraries on 1 July this year.

  As NEPAD is a political agreement between African leaders, not a funding mechanism, G8 countries will not be funding NEPAD directly. The G8 is committed to establishing enhanced partnerships with African countries whose performance reflects the NEPAD commitments. The peer review mechanism will inform our considerations of eligibility for enhanced partnerships. Each G8 member will make their own assessments. The bulk of UK bilateral assistance to Africa will flow to enhanced partnership countries, providing sustained and predictable levels of support to those countries best able to use it. Poor performers and those in conflict, will not be neglected, but the nature of the engagement will differ.

  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the status of the peer review mechanism within the New Partnership for Africa's Development. [84644]

  Mr. Rammell
  There has been welcome progress on NEPAD's African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an African-owned and led initiative. At the 3 November NEPAD Implementation Committee meeting in Abuja, African leaders developed an agreement on a comprehensive, voluntary, peer review mechanism covering political, economic and corporate governance. We welcome the decision of 12 members of the Implementation Committee plus Uganda to sign a Declaration of Intent to submit to the peer review process.

  The NEPAD Secretariat has been tasked with finalising the accession process (by January) and developing the indicators for measuring performance in time for the next Implementation Committee meeting in February. Review of the first countries should start in April 2003.

  Avient Air
  Norman Lamb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to his answer of 19 November 2002,Official Report, columns 44–50W, whether discussions have taken place in the last two years between British Government officials and (a) Andrew Smith and (b) other representatives of Avient Air in Zimbabwe on matters other than the sale of military equipment. [82998]

  Mr. Rammell
  [holding answer 25 November 2002]: Further investigation has revealed that there have been a number of discussions in the last two years between Andrew Smith and British Government officials in London and Freetown concerning Mr. Smith's interest in a civil aviation contract in Sierra Leone. Mr. Smith has also made representations to officials following the publication of the UN Panel Report on the DRC.
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  In addition, further investigation has revealed that the previous Political Counsellor at the British High Commission in Harare met Mr. Smith on a number of occasions in the last two years, and that our Defence Attaché in Zimbabwe had a meeting with Mr. Smith in October 2001. The Defence Attaché also met him informally at several social events in that year.

  I have instructed officials to continue investigations into contacts between Mr. Smith and Government officials and I will write if I have any further information.

  Norman Lamb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions took place in(a) 1998, (b) 1999 and (c) 2000 between British Government officials and (i) Mr. Andrew Smith and (ii) other representatives of Avient Air in (A) Zimbabwe and (B)the UK with regard to (1) sales of military equipment, (2) military operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and (3) other matters. [83034]

  Mr. Rammell
  [holding answer 25 November 2002]: British High Commission officials in Zimbabwe had contact with Mr. Smith on a number of occasions between 1998 and 2000, including at social events. British officials did not at any time encourage, support or promote Mr. Smith's activities in the DRC.

  I have instructed officials to continue investigations into contacts between Mr. Smith and Government officials and I will write if I have any further information.

  Bonn Conference (Afghanistan)
  Joan Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the outcome was of the Bonn conference he attended on 2 December with regard to progress in Afghanistan, with particular reference to(a) extending the ISAF effort outside of Kabul and (b) the progress of the restoration of women's rights; and if he will make a statement. [85623]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The participants at the Bonn conference reviewed the achievements of the past year; agreed on the text of a communiqué highlighting areas where further progress is needed; welcomed the intention of Afghanistan and neighbouring states to meet in Kabul on 22 December to decide on a declaration of good neighbourly relations; and welcomed the signing, by President Karzai, of a decree on principles governing the establishment of the Afghan National Army (ANA). The participants discussed the importance of pressing ahead with ANA reform and demobilisation in accordance with the agreed principles in order to improve the security situation throughout the country.

  The participants agreed that the strengthening of the national independent Human Rights Commission's capacity for the monitoring of human rights implementation and investigations into human rights violations was fundamental. The participants also noted the importance of the development of a new constitution and the preparation for free and fair elections to select a broad-based, gender-sensitive, multi-ethnic and fully representative government. The UK will continue to work closely with the Afghan Transitional Administration and the rest of the international
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  community to ensure women's full and active participation in civil, political, economic, social and cultural life throughout Afghanistan.

  Child Protection
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions have taken place with European colleagues on financial assistance to states to assist them in implementing programmes to protect minors against cruelty and exploitation. [83241]

  Mr. MacShane
  The issue arises frequently in discussions among European colleagues.

  The EU has been actively engaged in the development of a comprehensive policy to fight violence against and the sexual exploitation of children, including child pornography and child sex tourism. The EU Daphne Programme, now with a budget of €20 million, has allowed for the implementation of around 100 projects dealing with the protection of children from all forms of violence: trafficking, child pornography and the internet, commercial sexual exploitation, and missing children.

  The STOP II Programme was adopted in 2001 giving special attention to efforts to assist victims and to prevent trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. This programme focuses on candidate countries and also provides for co-operation with third countries and international organisations.

  Diamonds
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the impact which the EC regulations implementing the Kimberley Process of diamond certification will have on conflict diamond trading in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [84631]

  Mr. Rammell
  The DRC is a participant in the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. When that scheme comes into effect in January 2003, all exports of rough diamonds from the DRC will have to be accompanied by the appropriate Kimberley Process certificate. The EU regulation prohibits imports into the Community of rough diamonds not accompanied by a certificate.

  Our expectation is that the implementation of this scheme will curb the circulation of so-called 'conflict diamonds' in legitimate markets.

  The Government of the DRC is making positive steps to put in place legislative and administrative procedures to implement the scheme. The EU and some of the other participants in the Kimberley Process are prepared to assist the DRC with their implementation plans.

  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what(a) sunset and (b) territoriality provisions are contained within the EC regulations implementing the Kimberley Process of diamond certification. [84632]

  Mr. Rammell
  The draft EC regulation on implementing the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme contains a review clause requiring the
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  Commission to report to the Council on the implementation of the regulation and on its possible repeal in the event that the Kimberley Process Scheme comes to an end.

  The scope of the regulation covers Community territory, including airspace and aircraft, and vessels under a member state's jurisdiction. Outside the Community territory, it also applies to any national of a member state and to any legal person, entity or body, which is incorporated or constituted under the law of a member state.

  Ethiopia
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Government's decision to increase military assistance to Ethiopia. [84981]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Ethiopian Government has asked the United Kingdom to provide training for the police and security forces to assist in the democratisation process and in promoting respect for human rights. There will be a UK joint Ministry of Defence/DFID/ Foreign and Commonwealth Office scoping mission to Ethiopia in early 2003 to examine with the Government

  Recipient

  Financial year

  Cost (£)

  Description

  Afghanistan

  FY 2002–03

  1.412 million

  Hard and soft top jeeps, trucks, communication

  Afghan National Army, and ISAF/Afghan Police and Military controls at Kabul entry points

  (to date)

  equipment, security equipment including spotlights, radio, metal detectors

  Nepal

  FY 2001–02

  285,818

  Land Rovers spares and maintenance training, communications equipment

  Royal Nepalese Army

  FY 2002–03

  3,099,347

  Communications equipment, binoculars, compasses, Swiftscopes, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) equipment, two transport helicopters

  Belize

  FY 2001–02

  169,555

  Aircraft parts and freight costs, Land Rovers and spares, radio equipment

  Belize Defence Force

  FY 2002–03

  127,259

  Uniforms, mess kits, tents, hammocks, radio equipment

  Macedonia

  FY 2001–02

  282,500

  EOD equipment, body armour, global positioning system, mine detector sets, flares

  Macedonian authorities

  75,000

  Four fork-lift trucks

  Uruguay

  FY 2001–02

  27,014

  Three NERA satellite phones and airtime

  Ian Stillman
  Jane Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations he has made to the Indian authorities on the case of Ian Stillman. [85169]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has raised Mr. Stillman's case with the Government of India on six occasions this year. Recently he raised it with the Indian Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, on 21 August 2002 and the Indian Foreign Minister on 31 October 2002. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister, and the Deputy Prime Minister, and I, have also raised Mr. Stillman's case with the Indian Government. Most recently the Prime Minister wrote to Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee on 4 November expressing the hope that Mr. Stillman would be released soon.
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  the best ways we can provide support and address human rights violations through effective training of the police and security forces.

  Global Conflict Prevention Pool
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what military equipment has been purchased with funds from the Global Conflict Prevention Pool in each year since the programme's inception, indicating in each case the amount spent and the end uses. [82241]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Global Conflict Prevention Pool began operating in FY 2001–02. Its purpose is to improve the effectiveness of the UK's contribution to conflict prevention in areas other than sub-Saharan Africa, which is covered by the Africa Conflict Prevention Pool. The Global Pool covers the direct conflict prevention activities of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department for International Development and Ministry of Defence, where a joint approach adds value.

  Its programme budget for FY 2001–02 was £
  60 million and for FY 2002–03 it was £100 million.

  Details of military equipment purchased with Global Pool programme funding since its inception are as follows:

  The Indian Government have offered to consider a clemency plea from Mr. Stillman sympathetically. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary met members of Mr. Stillman's family to discuss next steps in the case on 19 November 2002.

  India
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he plans to open the visa centre in Jallander, Punjab, India. [84901]

  Mr. Rammell
  We hope to open a visa application centre in Jallander early in 2003. We also hope to open a network of such centres across India to bring UK visa services nearer to our customers.

  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many Ministers have visited India since 1 January 2001; and which Department they were from. [84902]
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  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The following Ministers have visited India since 1 January 2001:January 2001—Right hon. Baroness Blackstone, Minister of State for Education and Employment, Department for Education and Skills;
  January 2001—Right hon. Stephen Byers, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Department of Trade and Industry;
  January 2001—Right hon. Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, Department for International Development;
  February 2001—Right hon. Baroness Symons, Minister for Defence Procurement, Ministry of Defence;
  July 2001—Right hon. John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister;
  October 2001—Right hon. Tony Blair, Prime Minister;
  October/November 2001—Douglas Alexander, Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness, Department of Trade and Industry;
  November 2001—Right hon. GeotfHoon, Defence Secretary, Ministry of Defence;
  January 2002—Right hon. Tony Blair, Prime Minister;
  February 2002—Nigel Griffiths, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Small Business, Department of Trade and Industry;
  February 2002—Right hon. Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs;
  February 2002—Ben Bradshaw, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office;
  February 2002—Right hon. Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office;
  May 2002—Right hon. Geoffery Hoon, Defence Secretary, Ministry of Defence;
  May 2002—Right hon. Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office;
  July 2002—Right hon. Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office;
  September 2002—Right hon. John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister;
  October/November 2002—Right hon. Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs;
  October 2002—Right hon. Michael Meacher, Minister of State (Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs;
  October 2002—Mike O'Brien, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office;
  October 2002—Stephen Timms, Minister of State for School Standards, Department for Education and Skills;
  November 2002—Right hon. Paul Boateng, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Her Majesty's Treasury;
  December 2002—Right hon. Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, Department for International Development.

  Iraq
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports his Department has received concerning the Anfal campaigns in Iraq in 1987–88. [85626]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The Anfal campaigns have been well documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Tens of thousands of Kurds disappeared and hundreds of Kurdish villages were destroyed. The campaign included the use of chemical weapons where a single attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja killed up to 5,000 civilians and injured some 10,000 more.
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  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the evidential basis is for his statement on page 7 of the unnumbered document Saddam Hussein: Crimes and Human Rights Abuses of the allegation relating to caning of members of the national football team on the feet. [85560]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  In our document "Saddam Hussein: crimes and human rights abuses" we report the allegation that Udayy Hussein ordered the national football team to be caned on the soles of their feet after losing a World Cup qualifying match. The Foreign Office has had direct confirmation from Abbas al-Janabi, Press Secretary to Udayy Hussein at the time of the atrocity, that the incident occurred. An Iraqi national footballer, Sharar Haydar Mohamad al Hadithi, not involved in this match, is reported as saying that the caning did take place. Al Hadithi is also reported to have said that he was repeatedly caned on the soles of the feet, dragged through a pit of gravel and ordered to jump into a sewage pit to ensure the wounds were infected after having lost a match in 1994. These incidents conform with other stories suggesting a pattern of abusive behaviour by Udayy towards Iraqi sports people, for example the account of an Iraqi wrestler, Amra Haliff, in a Channel Four Despatches programme, broadcast on 17 November.

  In 1997 FIFA sent officials to Iraq to investigate these allegations. Although Iraq was cleared, individuals who later fled Iraq, such as those mentioned above, confirmed that the allegations were true.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to his statement on page 5 of his document, Saddam Hussein: Crimes and Human Rights Abuse, if he will name those who have had their ears cut off in Iraq. [85627]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The decree in 1994 called for the amputation of the outer part of the ear for those deserting the army of failing to join military service. The Iraqi regime itself acknowledges that it has pursued a policy of amputating ears. The Justice Minister, Shabib al-Maliki, said in an interview with Reuters on 18 January 1996 that a few criminals had had their ears amputated. The law was repealed at about that time. We do not have specific names. I will write to my hon. Friend further on this issue.

  Kashmir
  Stephen Hesford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the incidence of cross-border incursions and terrorist attacks across the Line of Control in India. [84863]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  There are some differences of view in India on the extent of any reduction on terrorist activity but on 27 November, India Defence Minister George Fernandes said "Some of the terrorist organisations in Pakistan were closed, some terrorist camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir were closed, their accounts frozen and leaders arrested. Moreover, the infiltration this year has come down considerably compared to the figures of the corresponding period of the previous year". Despite this, terrorist attacks continue in Jammu and Kashmir, most recently the
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  attack on the Raghunath Hindu Temple on 24 November which left over 50 injured. We unreservedly condemn such attacks. The Pakistan Government have assured us that President Musharraf's pledge that there will be no movement across the Line of Control stands, and that the Pakistani Army is doing all it can to stop infiltration. A permanent end to cross-border infiltration and terrorism in Kashmir is critical to a sustained and substantive dialogue leading towards a lasting settlement of the Kashmir issue.

  Liberia
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the compliance of the Guinean Government with the UN arms embargo on Liberia. [84986]

  Mr. Rammell
  Guinea has supported maintenance of the arms embargo on Liberia, including as a member of the Security Council.

  President Charles Taylor of Liberia alleges that Guinea is supplying the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) in breach of the arms embargo. The UN Security Council reaffirmed in a statement on 26 November, that the arms embargo applies to any recipient in Liberia, including non-state actors.

  The UN Panel of Experts Report on Liberia of 7 October 2002 states that ammunition captured from LURD rebels in Liberia had been part of a shipment from the United Arab Emirates to Guinea. This shipment was reported to have been destroyed by fire. It is unclear how the ammunition could have come into the possession of the LURD.

  We call on all countries, without exception, to respect the arms embargo on Liberia.

  Prisons (Tanzania)
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what evidence has been received by his Department on the adherence to basic human rights within prisons in Tanzania. [84992]

  Mr. Rammell
  We have no evidence of systematic violation of human rights within prisons in Tanzania. However, lack of institutional, financial and physical capacity in the prison service results in chronic overcrowding in Tanzania's prisons. This means that observance of international standards is not always achieved.

  Visas
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many visas were issued at(a) New Delhi, (b) Mumbai, (c) Calcutta, (d) Dhaka, (e) Sylhet, (f) Islamabad, (g) Karachi, (h) Washington and (i) New York in 2001. [84904]

  Mr. Rammell
  UK visas changed to collecting statistics on a financial year basis from the beginning of financial year 2001–02. The Joint Management Board supervising the operations of UK visas requested this 960W
  change to bring statistical data into line with other data collected by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office.

  The total number of visas issued in New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Dhaka, Islamabad, Karachi, Washington and New York from April 2001 to March 2002 was as follows:

  New Delhi—64,343

  Mumbai—66,108

  Kolkuta (Calcutta)—9,907

  Dhaka—19,896

  Islamabad—56,182

  Karachi—28,634

  Washington—11,414

  New York—31,779

  Sylhet is not a visa issuing post, applications are taken in and sent to Dhaka for processing

HEALTH

  Botox Injections
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the risk from Botox injections [83849]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 28 November 2002]:Botox was subject to stringent testing for safety, quality and effectiveness before a marketing authorisation for medicinal use was granted. As with all authorised medicines, the safety of Botox is continually monitored by the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) and the Committee on Safety of Medicines, an expert advisory committee. The MCA monitors the safety of drugs using all available sources and reviews any in light of any new evidence which emerges.

  CBRN Incidents
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what arrangements have been made to deal with the disposal of corpses contaminated by a CBRN attack [82584]

  Mr. Blunkett
  [holding answer 25 November 2002]: I have been asked to reply.

  I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on 27 November 2002,Official Report,column 366W.

  Delayed Discharges
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what estimate he has made of the costs to local authorities of the proposed fines for delayed discharge [83851]

  (2) what formula he will use to distribute the £100 million from the NHS to social services to recompense for delayed discharge [85235]

  (3) which organisations he consulted on the policy of the extra £100 million for social services budgets for tackling delayed discharge that will come from within the NHS budget; [85233]
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  (4) how he arrived at the figure of £100 million for the annual cost to social services departments in England for delayed discharge; and if he will publish the calculations and data used to arrive at his estimate [85230]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answers 28 November and 4 December 2002]: The maximum cost that social services would face in payments to hospitals under the Community Care (Delayed Discharges, etc) Bill would be £100 million in any one year. That is on the assumption that councils make no progress at all beyond the targets they have already set themselves to reduce the levels of delayed discharges from hospitals by March 2003. It pre-supposes that social services do not use the annual increase in resources to put in place new services to help reduce delayed discharges from hospitals still further and that none of the £1 billion—most of which is earmarked—for elderly care services actually gets spent on building up capacity in elderly care services. Given these assumptions, the Government does not believe that social services will have to pay £100 million to the health service.

  Nevertheless, for each of the next three full years, an extra £100 million—on top of the resources already made available—will be transferred from the national health service budget to social services for each full year in which the scheme operates. This will provide a positive incentive to make the system work. This will enable individual councils to gain from the system, provided that they make available the community services needed to reduce delayed discharges from hospitals. The fundamental objection to the Bill, particularly from local government interests during consultation, was that social services were being given a new responsibility without adequate resources. These resources address that.

  The formula for allocating this to councils is still being considered.

  EU Directives (Food Supplements)
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what representations he is making to the European Commission about the proposed directives on nutritional supplements and herbal remedies; and what changes to the directives he is proposing; [83840]

  (2) what his policy is on support for each of the amendments passed by the European Parliament to the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive when next the Council of Ministers considers the Directive [84212]

  Ms Blears
  Directive 2002/46/EC on Food Supplements came into force on 12 July 2002. The Food Standards Agency is not proposing any amendments to the Directive.

  In the ongoing negotiations on the proposed Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products our priorities will be to press for greater scope to take account of valid evidence of traditional use from outside the European Union, for national flexibility to extend simplified registration to at least some categories of non herbal traditional medicines and for the Directive to cover traditional herbal remedies with added nutrients.
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  The latter point might be covered by either specific amendment or through reasonable interpretation of the current text.

  We support the principle of amendments which would: reduce the required period of usage within the European Union, permit the inclusion of nutrients with traditional herbal remedies; strengthen the role of the proposed Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products; set a deadline of three years after the Directive coming into force for the completion of the proposed review of the Directive.

  We intend to oppose the principle of automatic recognition of registrations or authorisations previously granted to a product in other member states since we believe this could serve to reduce flexibility available to member states; also, historical differences in the way member states have regulated similar products would be likely to create difficulties for a member state seeking to follow a consistent interpretation of the distinction between well established use, for the purposes of a marketing authorisation, and traditional use. We will oppose, on public health grounds, the principle of allowing new combinations of active medicinal ingredients without evidence of traditional use of that combination, although we will continue to look for ways during negotiations of maximising the possibilities for demonstrating traditional use of herbal combinations.

  We will oppose the principle of restricting the Directive to ingredients for which there is well documented experimental and clinical evidence of efficacy, as this would run counter to the principle of accepting evidence of traditional usage in place of the normal requirement to demonstrate the efficacy of medicines and could erect an additional regulatory hurdle.

  We will consider further the specific proposal to amend the definition of herbal medicinal product in relation to the extent of pharmacological activity. As drafted this could rule out a number of products from achieving registration, in particular where medicines are regarded as medicinal by virtue of their presentation. Also we have doubts about the advisability of amending the definition of a medicinal product in relation to herbal medicines only, when issues relating to levels of pharmacological activity also affect other categories of medicine. However, this regulatory area is a complex one and we will continue to be open to dialogue on this issue, whether in domestic discussions with the herbal sector or European negotiations.

  We will consider further the principle of removing the labelling and advertising requirement to indicate that efficacy of traditional use product is not clinically proven. The potential advantages of a more positive presentation of products registered under the proposed traditional use scheme need to be weighed against the possible risk of weakening the incentive for companies to research the efficacy of herbal medicines

  Frictional Discharge
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his definition is of frictional discharge; and what the level of frictional discharge was in the last 12 months. [84805]
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  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 3 December 2002]:The system of financial incentives that the Community Care (Delayed Discharges, etc) Bill will put in place means that there is no longer a need for a national level of "frictional" delays. These will vary from locality to locality and the financial incentives will ensure that the level of delayed transfers of care is at a minimal level by 2006

  Furazolidone
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to label turkeys imported from Brazil that have been treated with nitrofuran antibiotic furazolidone drug [85004]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 3 December 2002]: Following the discovery of illegal residues of nitrofuran drugs in poultry by the United Kingdom and other member states, the European Union Commission has put in place measures to protect consumer safety. All imports of Brazilian poultry, including turkeys, are held by border inspection posts and released into the food supply only if these illegal residues are not detected. This action offers greater consumer protection than a labelling initiative

  Hepatitis C
  John Mann
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will initiate a large scale screening programme for hepatitis C [85040]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 4 December 2002]: Our consultation paper, "Hepatitis C Strategy for England", which was published on 14 August 2002, proposes that individuals at increased risk of infection or with otherwise unexplained liver disease should be offered testing for hepatitis C.

  We will be issuing guidance to the national health service on hepatitis C testing as part of implementation of the strategy.

  John Mann
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of new infections of hepatitis C there will be in(a) 2003 and (b) 2004. [85041]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 4 December 2002]:New cases of hepatitis C infection usually occur without causing symptoms. Therefore it is not possible to identify new infections or make reliable estimates of future trends.

  The Public Health Laboratory Service receives reports of laboratory diagnoses of antibody to hepatitis C. These diagnoses are not able to distinguish between new and previous infections and most often identify individuals with chronic hepatitis C infection. As proposed in our consultation paper, "Hepatitis C Strategy for England", it is expected that there will be an increase in the diagnosis of chronic hepatitis C infection over the next few years, as individuals who have carried the virus for some time are identified through wider testing of groups who have been at risk.

  John Mann
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his assessment is of the proportion of moderate to severe sufferers of hepatitis C who receive the mandated treatment specified by NICE. [85044]
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  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 4 December 2002]: The Department of Health does not hold information centrally about the number of patients receiving treatment for hepatitis C.

  Herbal Medicines
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will review the suitability of the Medicines Control Agency as the regulatory body for herbal remedies. [84182]

  Ms Blears
  Many medicines contain plant ingredients or have been derived from plant sources. The Medicines Control Agency and its predecessor within the Department has regulated plant based medicines for many years. The MCA is internationally recognised for its regulatory expertise and we are satisfied that the Agency should continue to regulate herbal medicines. We also take the view that regulatory efficiency and effectiveness would be impaired if responsibility for the regulation of medicines were to be split between different regulatory bodies, depending on whether or not a medicine was plant based.

  Medical Devices Agency
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to speed clinical implementation of recommendations by the Medical Devices Agency. [82923]

  Ms Blears
  The Medical Devices Agency (MDA) has instituted a system in acute trusts for monitoring the advice contained in device hazard notices and device alerts to ensure timely distribution and implementation.

  The MDA is also working closely with the National Patient Safety Agency and colleagues in the Department to introduce a new system to record and monitor the implementation of all safety warnings and to see that these are embedded within each trust's risk management and controls assurance processes.

  Medicines Control Agency
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the costs arising to manufacturers from(a) Medicines Control Agency fees, (b) the costs of document preparation, (c) the storage of batches for testing, (d) analysis cost and (e) annual licence fees for (i) a simple herbal product with one ingredient and (ii) a complex herbal product containing several ingredients, in connection with the submission of applications for registration under the provisions of the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive. [84210]

  Ms Blears
  The proposed Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products is under negotiation and at this stage it is not yet possible to identify detailed costs. However, under the current proposals it should not be necessary for companies to demonstrate the efficacy of the product and where products comply with the proposed European positive list, it will not be necessary to provide evidence of safety or traditional use either. We would expect that to be reflected in the fee levels for a traditional use registration. Any proposed fee levels
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  will need to be agreed by Ministers and will be the subject of public consultation before they are put before Parliament.

  We welcome the stated intention of the herbal forum, a group which represents all the United Kingdom manufacturing trade associations operating in the herbal sector, to have constructive discussions with the Medicines Control Agency on a wide range of detailed practical issues relating to negotiations on the Directive and its implementation should the Directive be agreed. A key aim of these discussions will be to identify ways to contain regulatory impact, consistent with protecting public health.

  Mental Health (Leeds)
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the specialist mental health posts in Leeds, West; and indicate which are filled. [81493]

  Jacqui Smith
  The 'three-month vacancy' and staff in post figures as at March 2002 for the former Leeds Community and Mental Health Services National Health Service Trust can be found in the table.

  Total Psychiatry Group

  3-month vacancy rate (percentage)

  11.6

  3-month vacancy rate (number)

  10

  Staff in post (wte)

  40

  Staff in post (head count)

  40

  General Psychiatry

  3-month vacancy rate (percentage)

  4.7

  3-month vacancy rate (number)

  0

  Staff in post (wte)

  20

  Staff in post (head count)

  20

  Notes:

  1. 3-month vacancy information as at 31 March 2002.

  2. 3-month vacancies are vacancies which NHS trusts are actively trying to fill, which had lasted for 3 months or more (wte).

  3. 3-month vacancy rates are 3-month vacancies expressed as a percentage of 3-month vacancies plus staff in post.

  4. 3-month vacancy rates are calculated using staff in post from the Vacancy Survey and the Consultant Census, March 2002.

  5. Staff in post data is from the Non-Medical Workforce Census, September 2001 and the Mini Consultant Census, March 2002.

  6. Staff in post data excludes staff employed by the health authorities.

  7. Medical and dental figures exclude staff in training.

  8. Vacancy and staff in post numbers are rounded to the nearest 10.

  9. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place.

  10. Strategic health authority figures are based on NHS trusts, and do not necessarily reflect the geographical provision of health care.

  11. Figures may not match previously published data due to a different method of rounding used on the staff in post data.

  Sources:

  1. Vacancy numbers and rates: DoH Vacancies Survey March 2002 and Consultant Census Health.

  2. Medical and dental staff in post: DoH Consultant Census March 2002.

  Information is not available for the specialities of child and adolescent psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, old age psychiatry, psychiatry of learning disability and psychotherapy as the sum of staff in post and vacancies is less than 10.
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  Norwalk Viruses
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what estimate he has made of the number of outbreaks of Norwalk-like viruses in NHS hospitals; [84146]

  (2) what estimate he has made of the cost of hospital outbreaks of Norwalk-like viruses to the NHS. [84147]

  Ms Blears
  The public health laboratory service (PHLS) has a voluntary reporting system for outbreaks of gastroenteritis, including those caused by norovirus, previously known as Norwalk-like virus. These data are known to be incomplete but in 2001, 80 hospital outbreaks1 were reported and to date in 2002 there have been 183 reports. We believe that this increase reflects both improved reporting and the fact that the usual decline in norovirus infections over the summer months did not occur this year. As part of a separate initiative, the PHLS has approached specialist laboratories and identified a further 275 outbreaks that had not been reported.

  We do not have data on the costs to the NHS of outbreaks of gastroenteritis caused by norovirus.
  1Outbreaks in England and Wales proven or suspected of being associated with norovirus.

  Opioid Substitution Treatments
  John Mann
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will undertake a study of the comparative advantages of using buprenorphine over methadone in opioid substitution treatments. [85039]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 4 December 2002]: The Department's guidelines document—"Drug misuse and dependence—guidelines on clinical management" (1999) describes the principles required for safe and effective clinical practice. The guidelines also describe the use of buprenorphine with reference to the evidence base (including its advantages and disadvantages) both for substitution for detoxification and substitution for maintenance prescribing.

  The national treatment agency for substance misuse (NTA) has a key role in considering and developing the research base for treatment and in disseminating evidence into practice. It has convened an on-going working group—the 'expert prescribing group' that meets regularly to consider treatment issues. Hence mechanisms are in place which allow the research agenda and evidence base to be kept under constant review.

  Buprenorphine has a long history of use in the United Kingdom, but more recently, with increasing experience of use, as a substitute maintenance and detoxification treatment. The NTA is currently reviewing its research priorities and will continue to consider treatment issues as they develop.

  Orthopaedic Care (Leeds)
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the length of time it takes to get(a) an appointment and (b) treatment in the orthopaedic departments in Leeds Health Trust [81494]
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  Jacqui Smith
  The Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust meets all NHS Plan targets with regard to referrals for out-patient appointments in orthopaedics. In September 2001, there were a total of 1,640 people who had waited longer than 21 weeks for an out-patient appointment in orthopaedics. In September 2002, there was nobody who had waited longer than 21 weeks. That represents a significant improvement.

  The trust also meets the NHS plan target to operate on all orthopaedic patients within a maximum of 12 months.

  Seroxat
  Mr. David Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received on the use of the drug Seroxat; and what research he has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the effects of the drug [83518]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 2 December 2002]: The Medicines Control Agency (MCA) has received a range of representations including parliamentary questions, letters from hon. and right hon. Members, patients and health care professionals about the safety of Seroxat.

  Seroxat (paroxetine) is a member of a group of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Before a product is granted a licence for use in the United Kingdom, satisfactory evidence of safety, quality and efficacy is required. After licensing, the safety of all medicines including SSRIs is continually monitored by the MCA and the independent expert advisory body, the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) and any new evidence which emerges is carefully reviewed.

  The MCA and the CSM carried out a major review of all side effects associated with SSRIs, which was completed in 2000 and resulted in product information for all SSRIs including Seroxat being updated and harmonised to reflect the common safety profiles of these medicines. An article in Current Problems in Pharmacovigilance in 2000 informed prescribers about this review and reminded them about the risk of withdrawal reactions.

  Withdrawal reactions are an important and well-recognised side effect of Seroxat and also occur with the other SSRIs. The MCA/CSM warned prescribers about the possibility of withdrawal reactions associated with Seroxat via an article in the bulletin Current Problems in Pharmacovigilance in 1993. The CSM re-reviewed the issue of withdrawal reactions and possible dependence with Seroxat and the other SSRIs in 1998–99. From detailed review of all available data, which included spontaneous reports, published literature, clinical trials and usage data, the CSM concluded that all SSRIs may be associated with withdrawal reactions on stopping but on current evidence they are not associated with dependence. As a result of this review product information for all SSRIs was updated in relation to withdrawal reactions. This issue was also reviewed at a European level by the Committee on Proprietary Medicinal Products (CPMP) which reached similar conclusions.
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  The product information for Seroxat which includes the summary of product characteristics for prescribers and the patient information leaflet contains details of side effects and warnings about withdrawal reactions. Doctors are advised to consider gradual tapering of dose when Seroxat is discontinued rather than abruptly stopping to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

  The MCA/CSM is currently undertaking an intensive review of the safety of SSRIs, and in particular withdrawal reactions with Seroxat. When this is complete, any new advice will be communicated to prescribers and patients.

  Specialised Services
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 27 November 2002, on specialised services,Official Report, ref 82780, if he will list the groups that attended the meeting on 10 September. [85391]

  Mr. Hutton
  The following organisations attended the national review group meeting on 10 September, considering commissioning arrangements for specialised services:

  The Academy of Royal Medical Colleges

  The Joint Consultants' Committee

  Association of Community Health Councils for England and Wales

  The Patients' Association

  The National Health Service Confederation

  One strategic health authority

  Four primary care trusts

  Five national health service trusts

  Chairs of regional specialised commissioning groups

  National Specialist Commissioning Advisory Group

  Department of Health

  Observers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

  The Royal College of Nursing were invited, but were unable to attend

  Sporadic CJD
  Mr. John Lyons
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the Government are doing to investigate sporadic CJD. [85388]

  Ms Blears
  One of the Department of Health-funded National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit's tasks is to identify and to investigate all cases of CJD, including sporadic CJD, in the United Kingdom by clinical examination, clinical investigations, neuropathological examination, genetic analysis, molecular biological studies, collecting basic epidemiological data and carrying out a case-control study. In addition, the UK is a member of the European and Allied Countries Collaborative Study Group, which is investigating the disease within and across European countries.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Accommodation Centres
  Tony Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if the Independent Monitor of Accommodation Centres will be able to consider
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  whether the location of a centre prevents a need of its residents from being met only once it has been built; [85015]

  (2)if it is the responsibility of the Independent Monitor of Accommodation Centres to monitor the operation of the whole of Part 2 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002; [85016]

  (3)if the views of the Independent Monitor of Accommodation Centres will be taken into account by the Secretary of State in his evaluation of sites for further accommodation centres; [85017]

  (4).if he will take into account views expressed by the Independent Monitor of Accommodation Centres as to whether a place as a location for the provision of premises to accommodate asylum seekers and their dependants prevents a need of its residents from being met. [85014]

  Beverley Hughes
  Whether the location of an accommodation centre prevents a need of its residents from being met is a matter that can only be considered and assessed by the monitor once the accommodation centre is up and running. The monitor will not be involved in the selection of sites and there is no requirement for the Secretary of State to consult the monitor prior to establishing an accommodation centre. Decisions on the location of accommodation centres will be taken by the Secretary of State, subject to the planning process.

  Part 2 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 makes provisions regarding accommodation centres. Under section 34, the monitor is required to monitor the operation of Part 2 of the Act, and in particular, to consider:
  (i) the quality and effectiveness of accommodation and other facilities provided in accommodation centres;
  (ii) the nature and enforcement of conditions of residence;
  (iii) the treatment of residents; and
  (iv) whether, in the case of any accommodation centre, its location prevents a need of its residents from being met

  The monitor must report at least annually to the Secretary of State after the centres are up and running and the Secretary of State must lay a copy of the annual report he receives before Parliament as soon as is reasonably practicable.

  If the monitor were to produce a critical report and identify a need of the residents of an accommodation centre which the location of the centre was preventing from being met, this would be one factor in the overall evaluation of the trial. If the monitor raised concerns with the Secretary of State, either in a formal report or before making his formal report, we would be able to consider whether those concerns required changes to be made

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what rights district councils have to stop asylum seekers coming into an area. [84651]
  970W
  Beverley Hughes
  It is Government policy that asylum seekers who request that accommodation be provided as part of an application for support are dispersed away from London and the south-east. The National Asylum Support Service (NASS), with the approval of Ministers of the day, designated certain areas (referred to by NASS as "cluster areas") as suitable for the dispersal of asylum seekers. Prior to designation NASS consulted each regional consortium (made up of all local authorities and county councils within that region) to seek their views on areas proposed for designation. District councils have no right to either stop NASS procuring accommodation for asylum seekers or to prevent asylum seekers being moved into NASS accommodation in their area.

  Asylum seekers not requiring accommodation from NASS can live wherever they choose. Local councils have no duty to provide housing to asylum seekers if their need for this arises solely as a result of destitution.

  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what powers he has to compel a county council to accept asylum seekers. [85063]

  Beverley Hughes
  Under section 101 of the Immigration and asylum Act 1999 we can, by order designate an area as a reception zone. No such orders have been made. We have established dispersal areas for asylum seekers requiring accommodation. A county council has no power to prevent asylum seekers being housed in accommodation provided to the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) for that purpose by an accommodation provider in an area designated by NASS as suitable for the housing of asylum seekers supported by NASS.

  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Folkestone is a high-dispersal area so far as asylum seekers are concerned. [85561]

  Beverley Hughes
  Folkestone is not used by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) as a dispersal area for asylum seekers requiring accommodation.

  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department why he proposes to locate a 24-hour reporting centre for asylum seekers in Folkestone. [85563]

  Beverley Hughes
  The setting up of regional asylum reporting centres is part of the Government's strategy to introduce a more rigorous control into the asylum process and bring about improved contact with asylum seekers while their claims are under consideration. The aim is to achieve stronger management of the asylum process, while affording asylum seekers opportunities to monitor the progress of their cases.

  Maintaining contact with asylum seekers while their claims are considered is essential. It is in the interests of all parties—the applicant, the local community and central and local Government—that asylum applications are managed quickly and efficiently as part of a well managed asylum system.

  Reporting centres will form an important part of this process, providing a well managed approach to the handling of asylum seeker's applications; from arrival to the removal of failed applicants, or the integration into the community of those recognised as refugees.
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  The Government are planning to set up a number of reporting centres throughout the UK as part of an overall contact management strategy to support the processing of asylum applications and is keen to utilise such centres for this reporting process, rather than have asylum seekers reporting to their local police station with significant implications on police resources.

  Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
  Mr. Streeter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) on how many occasions the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs met to discuss its 2002 report on the classification of cannabis prior to its completion; which members of the Council attended each meeting; and if he will place the minutes of the meetings in the Library; [85093]

  (2) on what basis members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs are appointed; [85092]

  (3) what research he has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the concentration of the active ingredients in cannabis used in the United Kingdom, with particular reference to THC; and what changes have occurred in this respect since 1972; [85098]

  (4) if he will ask the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs to review their recommendation on the reclassification of cannabis following recent research into a causal relationship between the drug and mental illness; [85099]

  (5) on the basis of what scientific evidence the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs to downgrade the classification of cannabis was made; and what research led the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs to conclude that the original decision on the classification of cannabis should be changed; [85096]

  (6)if the conclusions to the 2002 Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report on the classification of cannabis apply to all forms of cannabis; [85094]

  (7)if his intention to reclassify cannabis applies to all forms; [85095]

  (8)what assessment he has made of recent research into the causal relationship between cannabis use and mental illness; and if he will make a statement [85100]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs: 'The classification of cannabis under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971' was based on a detailed scrutiny of the relevant scientific literature, including four reviews commissioned by the Department of Health in 1998 as well as an update commissioned by the Home Office and completed in November 2001. A copy of the Council's report is in the Library. A fuller list of source materials is set out at pages 13 and 14 of the report.

  The Advisory Council is a statutory and independent Advisory Non-Departmental Public Body, which was established under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Under the Act members of the Council, of whom there should be not less than 20, are appointed by the Secretary of State They must include representatives of the practices of medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry and chemistry
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  other than the pharmaceutical industry and people who have a wide range of experience of social problems connected with the misuse of drugs.

  Since 1971 the Advisory Council has kept the classification all drugs of abuse including cannabis under periodic and systematic review. Following my right hon Friend the Home Secretary's announcement on 23 October 2001 that he would ask the Council to review the classification of cannabis, the Council agreed at its meeting on 8 November to commission some individual members to produce a draft report on the classification of cannabis. The Council met to discuss the draft report on 15 January 2002. It's discussion was informed by meetings of sub-committees of the Council, which had been held on 1 November 2001 and the morning of 15 January 2002.

  Minutes of meetings of the Council are not published documents. However, the Council's report on the classification of cannabis (referred to above) represents the outcome of the Council's discussions on 15 January 2002.

  During the period leading up to the Advisory Council's report, its' membership, and the capacity in which members were appointed, reads as follows:
  Sir Michael Rawlins, Chairman of the Council, Professor of Pharmacology, University of Newcastle;
  Mr Vivian Ahmun, Director, Network Drugs Advice Project London;
  Mrs Joy Barlow, Independent consultant and researcher, Peebleshire;
  Mr Norman Bettison, Chief Constable, Merseyside Police;
  Reverend Martin Blakeborough, Director, Kaleidoscope Drugs Project, Kingston upon Thames;
  Mr Raj Boyjoonauth, Specialist Manager, The Riverside Mental Health Service, London;
  Mr Alexander Cameron, Director of Social Work, South Lanarkshire Council;
  Dr William Clee, General Medical Practitioner, South Wales;
  Dr Michael Donmall, Unit Director, North West Regional Drug Research Unit, Manchester;
  Mr Roger Howard, Chief Executive, DrugScope;
  Mr Alan Hunter, Secretary of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry;
  Professor Ronald Jones, Professor of Veterinary Anaesthesia, University of Liverpool;
  Professor Otto Meth-Cohn, Chemistry Department, University of Sunderland;
  Mr Michael Narayn Singh, Public Education Officer, Manchester City Council;
  Professor David Nutt, Director of Psychopharmacology Unit, University of Bristol;
  Dr Diana Patterson, Consultant Psychiatrist, Shaftesbury Square Hospital, Belfast;
  Mrs Kay Roberts, Area Pharmacy Specialist-Drug Abuse, Greater Glasgow Community and Mental Health Services NHS Trust;
  Mrs Patrcia Roberts, Director of the Drug Studies Unit, Ruskin;
  Dr Anthony Duxbury, Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Oral Medicine, University Dental Hospital of Manchester;
  Ms Vivienne Evans, Chief Executive Addiction Service for Families (ADFAM);
  Dr. Laurence Gruer, Director HIV & Addictions,Clinical Directorate Resource Centre, Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow;
  Ms Kim Hager, Independent Drugs Counsellor, Exeter;
  Mr Peter Hampson, Chief Constable West Mercia Constabulary:
  Mr Paul Hayes, South East London Probation Service;

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  Mr Russell Hayton, Manager of Drug and Alcohol Services.
  Plymouth National Health Service Trust;
  Ms Lorraine Hewitt, Project Manager, the Stockwell Project.
  West Lambeth Community Care;
  Mr Peter Housden, Chief Executive, Nottinghamshire County Council;
  Dr Roy Robertson, General Medical Practitioner, Edinburgh;
  Dr Sue Ruben, Consultant Psychiatrist, Liverpool;
  Mr Ian Sherwood, Senior Clinical Nurse Specialist, Avon Drug Problem Team;
  Professor John Strang, Director of the Addiction Research Unit, National Addiction Centre;
  Mr Peter Walker, Headteacher, the Abbey School, Kent; and
  Mrs Barbara Whiteley, Magistrate, London

  The possible link between cannabis use and mental illness (especially schizophrenia) has been debated for many years. In its report on the classification of cannabis, the Advisory Council said that no clear causal link was demonstrated, although cannabis could unquestionably worsen schizophrenia (and other mental illnesses) and lead to relapse in some patients. The research highlighted by the British Medical Journal (23 November 2002) adds to, but is not at variance with, the existing body of research which was drawn on by the Council in its consideration of the classification of cannabis. The Council reviews all recent research in a systematic way. The Home Secretary does not propose to ask the Council to review its recommendation about the classification of cannabis.

  The Forensic Science Service and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist analyse drug seizures and are therefore able to monitor the concentration of active ingredients in cannabis used in the United Kingdom, and in particular of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The data they have collected indicates that the THC content of different cannabis products has varied, and continues to vary, widely, but that during the late 1980s and 1990s products with higher levels of THC became available as a result of new growing techniques being developed.

  The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, in its report on the classification of cannabis, recommended the reclassification of all cannabis preparations to Class C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. This includes all forms of cannabis listed in Parts 1 and 11 of Schedule 2 to the Act. The Home Secretary intends to bring forward proposals to the House to amend the Act in line with the Council's recommendations.

  Care Home Registrations
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average length of time was for care home managers' and owners' applications to be registered and processed by the NCSC; and how many applications have been outstanding in each of the last six months for which figures are available. [84997]

  Jacqui Smith
  I have been asked to reply.

  The information requested is not currently available

  CCTV
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many urban areas are 974W
  under 24-hour surveillance through the use of CCTV cameras; and what plans he has to extend the use of CCTV cameras for street surveillance [84396]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 2 December 2002] The Home Office does not hold information on the number of privately or publicly owned Close Circuit Television (CCTV) schemes in urban areas which operate 24 hour surveillance. It is for individual scheme owners (police, local authority or trading association) to decide surveillance periods based on crime and disorder patterns in their area and adopt an integrated approach.

  Coventry had five successful bids totalling £610,718 under the Crime Reduction Programme CCTV Initiative. Although this Initiative is now closed, other opportunities for funding of CCTV schemes currently exist under the Safer Communities, Communities Against Drugs and Small Retailers in Deprived Areas Initiatives.

  Congestion Charging
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the estimated cost is to his Department of the Central London Road User Charging Scheme for(a) 17 February 2003 to 31 March 2003, and (b) 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004. [81873]

  Hilary Benn
  [holding answer 19 November 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 25 November 2002, Official Report, column 98W.

  Immigration
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his oral statement of 2 December 2002, Official Report, columns 611–12, what criteria he has used to differentiate between Iraqi nationals resident in the Sangatte Refugee Centre and those resident in the United Kingdom in the issuing of work permits. [85480]

  Beverley Hughes
  Iraqis from Sangatte will be issued with work visas in order to admit them to the UK. This is an exceptional scheme designed to deal with an exceptional set of circumstances. It has no implications for other Iraqi nationals resident in the UK.

  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the Iraqi nationals resident in the Sangatte Refugee Centre to whom he intends to offer work permits he expects to be initially accommodated in the county of Kent. [85476]

  Beverley Hughes
  None.

  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with the Treasury on meeting the additional costs of(a) housing, (b) medical care, (c) education and (d) police activity generated by the influx of Iraqis currently accommodated in the Sangatte Refugee Centre from central government funds. [85477]

  Beverley Hughes
  None. The Home Office will meet from its own budget any temporary costs arising from the need to receive people from Sangatte and match them to jobs. The Iraqis are being admitted on the basis that they will work. We expect them to make a contribution to our economy, not impose a burden.
  975W
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his oral statement of 2 December 2002,Official Report, columns 611–12, whether it is his policy that no asylum seekers carrying French badges other than those in Sangatte Refugee Centre will be admitted to the United Kingdom. [85478]

  Beverley Hughes
  The Red Cross issued "badges" to all Sangatte residents between 27 September and 5 November. The arrangements announced on 2 December for bringing certain Sangatte residents to the UK apply to "badged" Sangatte residents who presented themselves at the centre by 8 pm on Tuesday 3 December.

  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements he has reached with the French Government to ensure that those wishing to seek asylum and having entered France do so in that country and are not permitted to transit to the United Kingdom. [85479]

  Beverley Hughes
  Since the Sangatte Centre closed to new entrants on 5 November, the French have expected illegal migrants in the Calais area to face deportation or claim asylum in France. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and Nicolas Sarkozy agreed on 2 December that the existing levels of security will be maintained in the Calais area until the message is fully understood that illegal immigration from Northern France to the UK is no longer possible.

  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his oral statement of 2 December 2002,Official Report, columns 611–12, how many (a) Iraqi and (b) Afghan nationals are claiming asylum in the United Kingdom. [85483]

  Beverley Hughes
  Between July and September 2002, 4,300 Iraqi and 1,555 Afghan nationals applied for asylum in the United Kingdom (excluding dependants). The number of Iraqi and Afghan asylum applicants currently awaiting an initial decision is not available, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost by examination of individual case records.

  77 per cent, of applications received in the period April to June 2002 had initial decisions made and served within two months (excludes withdrawals and third country cases).

  Information on asylum applications is published quarterly. The latest publication was published on 29 November 2002 on the Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate website at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.html.

  Angela Watkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what checks are made in the immigration appeal system to prevent individuals making subsequent appeals under an alias after their original appeal has been refused; and what the cost was of such appeals in each of the last five years. [82182]

  Beverley Hughes
  The Immigration Acts make provision for a right of appeal against decisions made by the Secretary of State to refuse immigration and asylum applications to an Adjudicator of the Immigration Appellate Authority (IAA). An appeal to an adjudicator—the first tier of the IAA —must follow an immigration or asylum application. Consequently it is 976W
  not possible to make a subsequent immigration appeal as described unless another application attracting a right of appeal has been made, and refused. Checks for multiple or alias applications would occur at the application stage rather than at the appeal stage.

  Public Protection
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements he has made for members of the public, with proper training, to be involved in the strategic management of multi-agency public protection arrangements; and when they will come into practice. [82671]

  Hilary Benn
  Arrangements for appointing lay people to the strategic management boards of the multi-agency public protection arrangements are being piloted in eight Areas: Durham, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Cumbria, Surrey, Dorset, Hampshire and South Wales. They have been recruited using a thorough screening and selection system provided by the Home Office Assessment and Consultancy Unit.

  A period of local induction and training in each of the pilot areas now follows, with national training for all those recruited in late January. This training will be delivered by experienced professionals in the field of public protection. It is expected that they will begin sitting on the strategic boards of the pilot areas as functioning members in the new year. The evaluation of the pilots will be conducted by Manchester University and overseen by the Home Office's Research Directorate.

  The Government sees this as an important part of building public confidence in the excellent work the police and probation services, supported by other agencies, do in this field. The Criminal Justice Bill includes measures which will enable my right hon. Friend Home Secretary to appoint two lay advisers to each area's multi-agency public protection arrangements once that bill has been enacted.

  Prison Population
  Mrs. Brooke
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action his Department is taking to ensure that where prisoners are enrolled in a course offering(a) education and (b) basic skills training, such prisoners are not moved to a different prison before completion of their course. [84249]

  Hilary Benn
  The Prison Service tries to ensure prisoners complete education courses and minimise any disruption to family life. Establishments are advised to place the necessary 'holds' on prisoners studying for basic skills qualifications.

  All prisons have a mandatory requirement to provide a core curriculum which includes basic skills, information technology and preparation for work all of which are assessed using nationally recognised qualifications.

  Basic skills are assessed using a national test which is available weekly. Therefore a prisoner who is transferred midway through a basic skills course is likely to be able to continue this at the receiving prison if access to the education department is provided.

  977W
  Furthermore, prisoners' studying for other core curriculum subjects should be able to complete these if they are transferred.

  Prison Population

    Probation
    Simon Hughes
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the expected gross increase in the National Probation Service budget is for the next financial year; how much of that increase will be spent on(a) National Directorate administration and programmes, (b) probation officer training, (c) hostels revenue grant and (d) probation board revenue resource allocation; and how much of the Probation Board allocation will be spent on (i) property and estate charges and (ii) national information technology increases. [84303]

    Hilary Benn
    [holding answer 2 December 2002]: The National Probation Service budget for the next financial year is expected to rise from £675.8 million to £746 million, an increase of just over £70 million. This is analysed as follows:

    £ million

    2002–03

    2003–04

    Change

    (a) National Probation Directorate (NPD) Admin and Programmes

    52.8

    50.7

    -2.1

    (b) Probation Officer Training

    42.0

    53.0

    11.0

    (c) Hostels Revenue Grant

    42.7

    49.0

    6.3

    (d) General Revenue Allocation

    520.0

    575.0

    55.0

    (e) Estate and Hostels

    18.3

    18.3

    0.0

    Total

    675.8

    746.0

    70.2

    It is estimated that the property and estate charges (excluding approved premises) will be about £62 million in 2003–04. The Home Office does not have precise information from probation boards about expenditure on property and estate charges in 2002–03. It is estimated that the costs in 2002–03 are about £52 million. The total budget of £62 million represents about 10 per cent, of the combined expenditure on the main service including training.

    It is estimated that the information technology costs will increase from £16 million to £21 million. Most of this increase is required to provide a superior network. The total budget of £21 million for boards represents 3.1 per cent, of the combined board expenditure on main service activities, hostels and training.

    Substance Misuse
    Mr. Burstow
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much was spent on preventive measures to tackle the misuse of(a) alcohol, (b) tobacco, (c) cannabis, (d) ecstasy, (e) amphetamines, (f) LSD, (g) heroin, (h) cocaine and (i) crack cocaine, in each of the last five years. [83466]

    Mr. Bob Ainsworth
    [holding answer 28 November 2002]: With regard to expenditure related to alcohol and tobacco I refer the hon. Member to the response given by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears) to his question on 28 October 2002, Official Report, column 665W.

    Separate figures are not available for the different illicit drugs specified. The nature of the expenditure can however be broken down by purpose. Figures for
    978W
    Planned preventative expenditure across Government on all illicit drugs for the period 2000–01 to 2002–03 as follows:
    preventing drug misuse by young people, including education, and early interventions which are particularly targeted at vulnerable young people—2000–01: £63 million, 2001–02: £92 million, 2002–03: £102 million;
    prevention of misuse by initiatives to disrupt trafficking and to reduce the supply of drugs—2000–01: £353 million, 2001–02: £373 million, 2002–03: £376 million;and
    preventative initiatives to strengthen communities and reduce the impact on them of drug misuse—2000–01: £45 million, 2001–02: £139 million, 2002–03: £171 million.

    Visa Conditions
    Rob Marris
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of those granted visas to visit the UK, with conditions attached, failed to abide by those conditions in(a) 2000 and (b)2001. [85137]

    Beverley Hughes
    Information on those people granted visas to visit the UK who failed to abide by the conditions of those visas in 2000 and 2001 is not available.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

    College Green Ticket Office
    Mr. Andrew Turner
    To ask the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission what the(a) budgeted and (b) outturn cost was of the College Green ticket office. [84721]

    Mr. Kirkwood
    The budget for the College Green ticket office was £53,000. The outturn cost is forecast at £53,019.

    New Palace Yard (Security Arrangements)
    Mr. Andrew Turner
    To ask the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission what the cost was of the new security arrangements in New Palace Yard. [84719]

    Mr. Kirkwood
    I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) on 21 October 2002,Official Report, column 6W.

    Westminster Hall Cafeteria
    Mr. Andrew Turner
    To ask the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission what was(a) the capital cost and (b) the gross and net annual budgeted running cost of the Westminster Hall cafeteria in the last three years. [84720]

    Mr. Kirkwood
    Westminster Hall Cafeteria has been closed since December 2000 while being converted into new visitor facilities, including a new café, lavatories and a lift for disabled access to the Grand Committee Room and other areas. No costs were therefore incurred after that date.
    979W
    There was no capital expenditure on the Westminster Hall Cafeteria in the two years before its closure.

    During the nine months April to December 2000, the actual gross running cost was £197,000; after a contribution from sales of £85,000, the net running cost for 2000–01 was £112,000.

    For the year April 1999 to March 2000, the actual gross running cost was £318,000; after a contribution from sales of £132,000, the net running cost was £186,000.

    Payroll budgets are not disaggregated, and so the budgeted gross and net annual running costs are not available.

  MINISTER FOR WOMEN

    EU Equality Directives
    Joyce Quin
    To ask the Minister for Women what recent discussions she has had with her EU counterparts on the implementation of EU equality directives. [83641]

    Ms Hewitt
    I have had no specific discussions with my EU counterparts on the implementation of EU equality directives.

    Pay Differentials
    Mr. Bercow
    To ask the Minister for Women what assessment she has made of the extent of differences in pay between men and women; and what her policy is towards it. [83643]

    Ms Hewitt
    Since the Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1970, the pay gap has reduced from 37 per cent, to 19 per cent, today. We are tackling the various causes of this pay gap, in particular by helping mothers to balance work and family responsibilities.

    Women (Public Life)
    Linda Gilroy
    To ask the Minister for Women how the work of her Department supports women in social enterprise [83644]

    Ms Hewitt
    Women already play an important part in social enterprises and DTI supports them through a wide range of activities. This will be strengthened through implementation of the Government's three year strategy for social enterprise, which I launched in July.

    Laura Moffatt
    To ask the Minister for Women what progress she is making encouraging women to apply for posts on public bodies. [83645]

    Ms Hewitt
    I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed).

    Female Clergy
    Mr. Edwards
    To ask the Minister for Women what representations she has received about granting employment rights for female clergy and ministers of religion. [83646]
    980W
    Ms Hewitt
    We are currently engaged in a wide-ranging consultation on the issue of employment status, and have had discussions with representatives of the clergy, and different faith communities and religious organisations, on the issue of extending employment rights. We have not had specific representations concerning female clergy to date, in response to the consultation, though I am aware of the case of Norma McNab which my hon. Friend recently raised with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

    Retirement
    Mr. Syms
    To ask the Minister for Women what assessment she has made of the amount of financial provision women have made for retirement. [83640]

    Ms Hewitt
    The Government's forthcoming Green Paper on pensions will address the impact and effectiveness of the pension system for women.

    The Government are committed to ensuring that women are not disadvantaged regarding pension provision and enjoy a decent income in retirement. We have already introduced a range of measures, including Stakeholder Pensions and State Second Pension to help with this.

  NORTHERN IRELAND

    Civil Service Review
    Mr. McGrady
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the Government will implement the recommendations contained in the review of the Civil Service. [84131]

    Mr. Pearson
    The public consultation period of the recommendations of the independent review of the "Appointment and Promotion Procedures for the Senior Civil Service of the Northern Ireland Civil Service" ended on 31 October 2002.

    The detail of the responses received is currently being drawn together for consideration.

    Supporting People
    Mr. Dodds
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will ensure that(a) charging and (b) means testing are not introduced for those in receipt of housing support services once the new Supporting People arrangements are put into place. [84515]

    Mr. Browne
    I am aware of the hon. Member's desire that everything should be done to avoid the need to introduce charging and means testing for housing support services. I am therefore currently exploring the potential for achieving this. However, it is clear that such a policy could be funded only by removing scarce resources from other spending priorities within the housing budget aimed specifically at improving the lives and general well-being of the most disadvantaged members of Northern Ireland's community.

    University Research Grants
    Rev. Martin Smyth
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what grants were given for research to
    981W
    (a) Queens University, (b) St. Mary's University College, (c) Stranmillis University College and (d) the University of Ulster in the last 12 months. [84395]

    Jane Kennedy
    Figures for the last 12 months are not available; however, the recurrent research grant allocation for the financial year 2002–03 to the universities and university colleges was:

    £ million

    Queen's University

    16.585

    St. Mary's University College

    -

    Stranmillis University College

    -

    University of Ulster

    11.068

    However, the Department for Employment and Learning also fund a number of special initiatives such as the Support Programme for University Research (SPUR) and the Science Research Investment Fund (SRIF) and estimated expenditure for the 2002–03 year is:

    £ million

    Queen's University

    6.905

    St. Mary's University College

    -

    Stranmillis University College

    -

    University of Ulster

    2.927

    Waste Water Treatment Plant
    Mr. Beggs
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on future provision of a waste water treatment plant for Larne; and when it will come into operation. [85621]

    Angela Smith
    There is presently no waste water treatment facility in Larne. Untreated waste water from the town's combined sewerage system is discharged into the estuary of Larne Lough through short outfalls at Blackcave and Sandy Bay. This practice is unacceptable in today's environment and improved facilities need to be provided.

    Plans for the provision of treatment facilities for the area are well developed and include the construction of a new works to treat the waste water from Larne and the surrounding communities of Ballygalley, Drains Bay, Glynn and Magheramorne. The new works will be designed to comply with current legislation, including the Bathing Water and Urban Waste Water Treatment Directives. These Directives apply the same standards of treatment in Northern Ireland as are applied in the rest of the UK and throughout the European Union.

    The current proposals include a housed compact waste water treatment plant within the town on land reclaimed from Redlands Lagoon. Treatment is to include primary and secondary treatment. Current proposals can accommodate a further stage of treatment should it be necessary to meet the consent standards set. The proposed works will be procured on a design and build basis to a strict performance specification and a short-list of contractors deemed to be competent to undertake this project has been set up. However, the invitation to tender is conditional on full planning approval being given. A planning application
    982W
    for the waste water treatment works has been submitted and a decision from Planning Service is awaited. Larne borough council are still considering this planning application, but it is hoped to get their agreement in the near future. Environment and Heritage Service has proposed more stringent effluent quality standards and treatment of a higher proportion of storm flows, in accordance with their proposed new environmental policy for coastal waters, the Northern Ireland Coastal and Estuarine Waters Classification System (NICEWCS). Water Service is currently engaged in discussions with Environment and Heritage Service to agree appropriate discharge consent standards to meet all of the regulatory standards. In order that the planning application may proceed, Planning Service has arranged for agreement between EHS and Water Service on the effluent standards to be a condition on planning approval, and approval on this basis is expected shortly.

    Subject to the resolution of these matters, construction of the new waste water treatment works for Larne is scheduled to commence in September 2003. It will take two years to complete at an estimated cost of around £10 million.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Civil Protection
    Mr. Letwin
    To ask the Prime Minister if there is a Minister designated as having responsibility for civil protection. [85425]

    The Prime Minister
    I refer the right hon. Member to the answer I gave the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) on 20 November 2002,Official Report, column 636.

  PRIVY COUNCIL

    Publications (Library)
    Llew Smith
    To ask the President of the Council if he will make it his policy that in cases where hon. Members request that ministers place publications in the Library, a copy of the material requested is automatically sent to the hon. Member in question. [86166]

    Mr. Robin Cook
    As Leader of the House, I want to modernise the House and to make sure that practices and procedures make it easy for Members to be fully informed.

    I am happy to endorse the practice of sending publications to Members who request copies to be placed in the Library of the House. The position remains that when informationis deposited in the Library for the first time, in response to a Parliamentary question a copy of the information should, wherever practical, be supplied to the Member at the same time1.

    From time to time there may be good reason why information cannot be made public and a request to place it in the Library therefore cannot be accepted.
    1 Government response to the Ninth Report of the Public Administration Select Committee: Ministerial Accountability and PQs.

    Private Members' Bills
    Dr. Iddon
    To ask the President of the Council if he will review the £200 allocation from public funds under the Resolution of the House of 29 November 1971, to hon. Members who have secured one of the first 10 places in the Private Members' Bill ballot. [84410]

    Mr. Robin Cook
    I see no need for a review at present. While I accept that the value of a £200 allocation has been greatly eroded over time, I note that only four Members have made claims since April 1999.

    Special Advisers
    Mr. Tyrie
    To ask the President of the Council what the(a) dates, (b) location and (c) sources were of attributable (i) articles, interviews or contributions for the media, books, newspapers or other journals and (ii) speeches or presentations made in the public domain by departmental special advisers since June 2001; who in his Department authorised the activity; and on what date this activity was recorded with the departmental Head of Information. [85119]

    Mr. Robin Cook
    My two special advisers joined the Department in July 2001 having both had a background in research. The information requested is set out as follows. The contents of the publications and presentations listed do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government.

    Meg Russell

    Publications:
    "Women's Representation in the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales: Party Dynamics for achieving Critical Mass" (with Fiona Mackay and Laura McAllister), Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 49–76.
    "Women's Political Participation in the UK", Report published by the British Council, 2002.1
    "Responsibilities of the Upper House: Constitutional and Human Rights Safeguards", Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 61–76.1,2
    "The Territorial Role of the Upper House", Journal of Legislative Studies, vol.
    7, no. 1,pp. 105–118.1
    "What are Second Chambers for?", Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 54, no. 3, July 2001, pp. 442–458. ISSN 0031–2290.1
    "The Women's Representation Bill: Making it Happen", Report published by the Constitution Unit, University College London, July 2001.1

    Presentations:
    "La riforma costituzionale nel Regno Unito, senza una costituzione scritta, dal 1997 ad oggi" ('Constitutional reform in the UK since 1997, without a written constitution'), University of Siena, 1 July 2002.
    "Increasing Women's Representation in Parliament: Lessons from Scotland, Wales and other recent UK developments", Fifth International Workshop of Parliamentary Scholars and Parliamentarians, Wroxton College, Oxfordshire, 4 August 2002.

    Greg Power

    Publications:
    "Making Government Accountable—The Report of the Hansard Society Commission on Parliamentary Scrutiny" Journal of Legislative Studies vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 1–12.1
    984W
    "Making Government Accountable" (with Alex Brazier), Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 54, no.3, pp.554–559.1
    "Real Politics—the wicked issues: Constitutional change in Britain and South Africa" (with Richard Calland and Sean Jacobs) British Council/Idasa, December 2001.1
    "Politics with a Purpose: Reforming the House of Commons" (with Peter Riddell) in The Progressive Century: The Future of the centre-left in Britain, N. Lawson and N. Sherlock (Eds), Palgrave, July 2001.1

    My Department does not have a Head of Information. When professional information services are required they are provided the Cabinet Office. The Publications and presentations listed above that were submitted after their authors joined the Privy Council Office were shown to, and cleared by, the Department's Director of Corporate Services.

    1 These publications were written and submitted prior to their authors joining the staff of the Privy Council Office, so departmental approval was not required.
    2 Also appeared as a chapter in the book "Second Chambers", N. Baldwin and D. Shell (eds.), Frank Cass, 2001. ISBN 0714651443.

  SCOTLAND

    Agriculture Holdings Bill
    Mrs. Lait
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions she has had with the Scottish Executive about the human rights implications of an absolute right to buy land under the Agriculture Holdings Bill, and if she will make a statement. [82449]

    Mrs. Liddell
    I have had no discussions with the Scottish Executive on this subject. The Bill in question is a matter for the Scottish Parliament.

    Airport Firemen
    Miss McIntosh
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations she has received on the strike by airport firemen in Scotland; and if she will make a statement. [82217]

    Mrs. Liddell
    I have not received any representations on this issue. Industrial relations are a matter for the respective management and trade unions to resolve. I urge both sides to continue to work together constructively to reach a mutually acceptable solution which will avoid strike action. I understand that both unions are to ballot members on a revised pay offer from BAA.

    Digital Television
    John Thurso
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport relating to the impact of analogue switch-off; and if she will make a statement. [83724]

    Mrs. Liddell
    I have regular discussions with my right hon. Friend on a wide range of issues, including the impact of analogue switch-off in Scotland. The Government are committed to ensuring that terrestrial analogue broadcasting signals are maintained until everyone who can currently get the main public service broadcasting channels in analogue form can receive them on digital systems, and switching to digital is an
    985W
    affordable option for the vast majority of people. We have consulted widely on this issue and details are available on the website: www.digitaltelevision.gov.uk.

    John Thurso
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions she has had with OFCOM on the impact of analogue switch-off in Scotland; and if she will make a statement. [83722]

    Mrs. Liddell
    I have had introductory discussions with Lord Currie, Chairman of OFCOM on issues around the Communications Bill and its major interest for Scotland. In its UK wide role, OFCOM will have an overarching duty to take account of the interests of the nations and regions in all its activities. The regulatory functions of the new body will not take effect until the Communications Bill becomes law.

    John Thurso
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what meetings she has had with(a) the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and (b) the Scottish Executive relating to the impact of analogue switch-off in Scotland; and if she will make a statement. [83723]

    Mrs. Liddell
    I have regular discussions with colleagues and Scottish Executive Ministers on a wide range of issues, including the impact of analogue switch-off in Scotland. The Government are committed to ensuring that terrestrial analogue broadcasting signals are maintained until everyone who can currently get the main public service broadcasting channels in analogue form can receive them on digital systems, and switching to digital is an affordable option for the vast majority of people. We have consulted widely on this issue and details are available on the website: www.digitaltelevision.gov.uk.

    Friends of Scotland
    Angus Robertson
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if she will list the country of residence of the members of the Friends of Scotland initiative. [83944]

    Mrs. Liddell
    I refer the hon. Member to my answer of 6 November 2002,Official Report, column 360W. The countries of residence of the current members of the Friends of Scotland network are as follows:

    Country

    Number of Friends

    UK

    48

    Australia

    36

    USA

    18

    Malaysia

    11

    New Zealand

    10

    Germany

    10

    France

    8

    Japan

    8

    Canada

    8

    Belgium

    3

    Hong Kong

    2

    Ireland

    2

    Trinidad and Tobago

    1

    Spain

    1

    The Netherlands

    1

    Italy

    1

    Luxembourg

    1

    Total

    169

  TRADE AND INDUSTRY

    Employment Rights
    Huw Irranca-Davies
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what employment rights she estimates UK workers will have by 2007 that have changed since 1997. [83615]

    Alan Johnson
    In our first term, we introduced a foundation of decent minimum standards in the workplace. We are now building on this, so that by 2007, employees will, for example, have been given rights to a minimum wage, four weeks paid holidays and to proper information and consultation. They will also benefit from a range of family friendly policies, such as the right for parents of children under six to request flexible working, parental and paternity leave and improved maternity rights. They will also have access to fair discipline and grievance procedures and may not be discriminated against on grounds of age, disability, religion or sexual orientation, or because they are part-time or fixed term workers.

    Mr. Neil Turner
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on changes to employment rights between 1997 and 2007. [83621]

    Alan Johnson
    I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given today to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies).

    Small Businesses
    Angela Watkinson
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many small business start- ups there were in the last quarter of 2001. [83616]

    Nigel Griffiths
    Official data for the whole of the calendar year 2001 show that there were 175,455 VAT registrations in the UK. There is no comparable data on a quarterly basis. VAT start-up data are not collected by size of businesses.

    DRAX Power Station
    Mr. Illsley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, if she will make a statement on the future viability of DRAX Power Station. [83617]

    Mr. Wilson
    The viability of Drax Power Station is a commercial matter for the operators of that station, its customers and, if the security of electricity supply is concerned, the National Grid Company.

    Business Taxes
    Tony Baldry
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made on the impact of business taxes on companies' decisions to locate in the UK. [83619]

    Alan Johnson
    According to the OECD, the UK has one of the lowest total tax burdens in the EU—far lower than the EU average. This has no doubt been an important factor in enabling the UK to take first place for share of EU total inward investment in 2001.

    Small Business Sector
    Patrick Mercer
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the prospects for the small business sector. [83620]

    Nigel Griffiths
    Small businesses play a vital role in the UK economy, contributing around £1 trillion each year. They provide new ideas, products and services and, most significantly, jobs. There are 3.7 million UK businesses and on average 998 of every 1,000 of them are small or medium sized.

    Prospects for the sector are encouraging, for example:
    The UK small business population has risen by over 50 per cent, since 1980. There is now one small business or sole trader for every 13 adults in the UK.
    Latest survival rates show that over 91 per cent, of businesses are now surviving one year after registration, with 65 per cent, surviving three years after registration.
    Only 1.1 per cent of active companies became insolvent in the 12 months ended Q3 (July to September) 2002.
    The SBS Omnibus Survey (2001–02) shows that the vast majority of small businesses are quite optimistic—over 80 per cent, of small firms say they are doing "very well" or "well".
    The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2001 also shows that the UK has a supportive environment for business start up and growth.

    Mr. Hoban
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on her policy on the small business sector. [83626]

    Nigel Griffiths
    The aim is to accelerate the drive towards ensuring the UK is, by 2005, the best place to start and grow a business and where:many more people want and have the opportunity to start a business;
    everyone with the ambition to grow is helped and supported;
    small businesses find it easy to respond to Government and access its services.

    Following DTI's recent cross-cutting review of business support, SBS' role has been re-focussed and enhanced, in particular it will:
    be a centre of expertise for Government on small business issues;
    be an innovator, pioneering new approaches across Government to meeting the needs of small business through better policy and high-quality services; and
    be an engine for change, demonstrating what can be done, measuring progress against outcomes in the market place, and taking action, at national, regional and local levels.

    SBS has developed a new framework for policy towards small business, which is based upon the key drivers for economic growth—improved productivity and a wider involvement in enterprise for all.
    988W
    The framework is built around seven themes, SBS is working with all its partners to build these into seven national strategies, which are:

    1. to build an enterprise culture.

    2. to encourage a more dynamic start-up market.

    3. to build the capability for small business growth.

    4. to improve access to finance for small businesses.

    5. to encourage more enterprise in disadvantaged communities and under-represented groups.

    6. to improve small businesses' experience of Government services.

    7. to develop better regulation and policy.

    Coal Industry
    John Mann
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much coal she expects to be produced in the United Kingdom in 20 years' time. [83622]

    Mr. Wilson
    The Department does not have forecasts for coal production in the UK in 20 years' time. Decisions on the level of output will be a matter for the relevant coal operators to determine in the light of future developments in markets, world prices, technology, regulatory requirements and geological conditions.

    Manufacturing Strategy
    Mr. Kidney
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress she has made in the implementation of her manufacturing strategy. [83623]

    Ms Hewitt
    The Manufacturing Strategy we published on 16 May identified seven key areas of activity necessary for manufacturing success. We have made significant progress in all of these areas to help manufacturers fulfil their potential in the UK.

    Energy Efficiency
    David Hamilton
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what role energy efficiency plays in the Department's energy policy. [83624]

    Mr. Wilson
    We are committed to working with others to ensure competitive energy markets while achieving safe, secure and sustainable energy supplies. Energy efficiency plays a key role in moving to a more sustainable energy policy for the UK in both the short and long terms. Energy efficiency also contributes to social and security of supply objectives.

    SMEs
    Mr. Michael Foster
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps she is taking to support small and medium-sized enterprises. [83625]

    Nigel Griffiths
    The Government's vision is that anybody with the talent, potential and drive to succeed in business has the opportunity and the necessary support to do so, regardless of their background. Government have an important role in creating a fertile business environment; addressing market failures; and ensuring that where it comes into contact with future entrepreneurs it encourages rather than hinders them.
    989W
    Measures already put in place and new developments announced in the pre-Budget report will take further steps towards attaining this goal, and the policy framework developed by the Small Business Service (SBS) will drive forward improvements in policy and service delivery.

    Government spends in the region of £2.5 billion a year on a wide range of services for small business. The Cross Cutting Review of business support set out a series of practical recommendations for driving up the quality and effectiveness of these services, with the aim of improving the customer experience for all small businesses.

    In addition, Spending Review 2002 provided the SBS with extra resources to help meet the challenges of its new role as a champion for small businesses across Whitehall. The Spending Review provided an additional £40 million by 2005–06, compared with 2002–03, to boost e-delivery of services, while the Phoenix Fund is also being extended by two years beyond March 2004 with an extra £50 million over 2004–05 and 2005–06 to promote enterprise in deprived areas.

    Fireworks
    Linda Gilroy
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what review her Department is conducting of the need for legislation further to control the sale and use of fireworks. [83628]

    Miss Melanie Johnson
    I would refer my hon. Friend to an answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick), on 17 October 2002,Official Report, columns 889–90 announcing a package of measures to address problems caused by fireworks. This followed discussions with other Government Departments, enforcement authorities and the fireworks industry.

    Laura Moffatt
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures she is taking to improve firework safety. [83629]

    Miss Melanie Johnson
    The Fireworks (Safety) Regulations 1997 introduced comprehensive controls on the types and sizes of fireworks which can be sold to the public. It also required compliance with British Standard 7114 and made it an offence to supply fireworks to those under 18 years of age.

    Also, I would refer my hon. Friend to an answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick) on 17 October 2002, Official Report, columns 889–90, announcing a package of measures to address problems caused by fireworks.

    Launch Aid
    Mr. Todd
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the future of launch aid. [83630]

    Alan Johnson
    The Government have been and continue to be supportive of the aerospace industry in the UK. Since 1997 we have committed nearly £1 billion in Launch Investment (previously known as Launch Aid) for major new large aircraft and engine projects.
    990W
    My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry announced on 16 May this year the establishment of the Aerospace Innovation and Growth Team (IGT), led by Sir Richard Evans. The IGT, as part of their remit, is considering medium to long-term strategic issues affecting the aerospace sector, including the future of Government support mechanisms. Sir Richard and his team are currently about halfway through their work and I expect the IGT to report by next spring with recommendations and an agreed action plan to take the industry forward.

    Science Budget
    Brian White
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the allocation of science budget under the 2002 spending review. [83631]

    Ms Hewitt
    I will be making a statement in due course.

    Shipbuilding Industry
    Mr. Davidson
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps she has taken in the last month to help the British shipbuilding industry. [83632]

    Alan Johnson
    No new initiatives have been taken in the last calendar month. Nevertheless, Ministers continue to work closely with the shipbuilding and other marine manufacturing industries to enhance their own efforts to improve their competitiveness, productivity and employment.

    On 6 November, I chaired the regular meeting of the Shipbuilding and Marine Industries Forum where representatives of the companies, unions and other principal stakeholders reviewed progress against targets and activities in the Implementation Plan. This plan is a series of joint and individual initiatives aimed at improving sales, employment and profitability and having the commitment of all the major interests, not just Government.

    Throughout the month, progress continued on the Shipbuilders and Shiprepairers Association's four-year programme of "master classes" and academic studies to improve productivity (a project supported by a DTI grant of £2.8 million) as did a programme towards enhancing the marketing capabilities of merchant shipbuilders (again supported by a DTI grant of £175,000).

    In addition, the Engineering and Marine Training Authority was well into its six-month study (assisted by grants from the DTI and the Department for Education and Skills) into the availability of the skilled manpower that will be needed for future merchant and naval shipbuilding projects, especially the Future Aircraft Carriers.

    Finally, as part of our effort to tackle unfair competition in the shipbuilding market, the World Trade Organisation action against Korean unfair pricing, which we have strongly supported, was started.

    War Assets (Redistribution)
    Mr. Dismore
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the
    991W
    progress of Lord Archer of Sandwell's committee on the redistribution of assets seized in World War Two. [83633]

    Ms Hewitt
    I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave him yesterday.

    Energy Policy
    Dr. Desmond Turner
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the role of environmental considerations in the formulation of the Government's energy policy. [83635]

    Mr. Wilson
    The Government is currently carrying out a review of energy policy with a view to issuing a White Paper in the New Year. Environmental considerations will be an important part of the White Paper. In particular greenhouse gas emissions will need to be reduced significantly during the 21st century, both globally and in the UK, if we are to avoid dangerous climate change and the energy system is crucial to that.

    Public Match Funds
    Andrew George
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of delivering of public match funds to EU objective one regions. [83636]

    Alan Johnson
    The Government have not carried out such an assessment, but are unaware of any current difficulties over the provision of public match funding to support projects in Objective 1 regions.

    Many of the sources of match funding are national programmes that respond to demand from the regions. In January 2002, the Government published a revised list of potential central Government sources of match funding in England. It is available at http://www.dti.gov.uk/europe/mfl.htm on the internet.

    Administration of the EU structural funds in Wales, including issues relating to match funding, is a matter for the Welsh Assembly Government.

    Aircraft Exports (Zimbabwe)
    Norman Lamb
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to the answer given on 27 November (Ref. 83035), whether an export licence was granted in respect of spare parts for Hawk aircraft for export to a country other than Zimbabwe which have subsequently been exported to Zimbabwe, contrary to the conditions of the export licence. [84725]

    Nigel Griffiths
    [holding answer 2 December 2002]: No.

    Working Conditions Directive
    Miss McIntosh
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations she has received concerning(a) the Working Conditions of Temporary (Agency) Workers Directive, (b) the Employment Status in Relation to Statutory Employment Rights Review and (c) the Employment Agencies Consultation on New Regulations; and if she will make a statement. [85165]
    992W
    Alan Johnson
    The Department of Trade and Industry's public consultation on the proposed European Union Directive on the Working Conditions of Temporary (Agency) Workers has ended and written responses will be made available upon request. The Department is analysing the responses, which will help to inform assessment of the potential impact of the proposed Directive on UK workers and businesses.

    The public consultation on employment status in relation to employment rights will finish on 11 December and written responses will be made available upon request.

    On the proposed new regulations on the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations, the Department has received representations from the trade associations representing the private recruitment industry, workers' organisations, employers' bodies, employment agencies, individual work-seekers and other interested organisations. The responses are being considered and will be made available upon request.

    Ministers and officials have also had meetings with interested individuals and organisations as part of these consultations.

    Clergy
    Mr. Ben Chapman
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on Section 23 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 with regard to the clergy. [84883]

    Alan Johnson
    We are currently engaged in a wide-ranging consultation on the issue of employment status, and have had, and are continuing to hold discussions with representatives of the clergy, and different faith communities and religious organisations, on the issue of extending employment rights to the clergy.

    Climate Change
    Mr. Blunt
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list the(a) schemes and (b) organisations which address climate change to which her Department contributes funding to. [85485]

    Mr. Wilson
    The Department contributes funding to various schemes and organisations that address climate change.

    It contributes to the work of the Research Councils on climate change, by funding through the Science Budget, particular programmes and activities run by the National Environment Research Council (NERC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

    The Department also assists the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia which supports the work in nine research institutions to promote the understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change. The Tyndall Centre is funded by the National Environment Research Council (NERC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); and the

    993W
    Department contributes £210,000 over three years for the development of assistance to business on climate change causes and its consequences.

    In addition, the Department contributes funding to support the development of renewable energy and cleaner coal technology, which make a valuable contribution to addressing climate change. Such programmes and organisations include the Renewable Energy and Cleaner Coal R&D programmes, the Renewable Energy Capital Grants Programme, Renewables UK, the Community Renewables Initiative and the Renewable Energy Advice Centres (REACS) through the Energy Saving Trust (EST).

    Developing Countries
    Mr. Ivan Henderson
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to promote and support the right of developing countries to provide targeted protection for their local producers to benefit from international trade. [85091]

    Nigel Griffiths
    The Government recognise that developing countries are at different stages of development. Within the WTO, we support the further development of Special and Differential Treatment provisions which will help all developing countries integrate into the world trading system. In addition, the Government believe that new WTO rules should reflect the implementation capacity of all WTO Members, particularly the developing and Least Developed Countries.

    Electronic Trading
    Mr. Yeo
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made towards the target set in 1998 for achievement in 1999 to 2002, to make the UK the best place in the world to trade electronically. [83597]

    Ms Hewitt
    [holding answer 26 November 2002]: The results of the joint DTI/Office of the e-Envoy independent International Benchmarking Study 2002 has shown that the UK is now one of the world's leading environments for electronic trading—indeed the study ranks the UK as the second best environment in the world for e-commerce, behind only the US.

    This is a great achievement which the report attributes to the UK's low internet access cost, light touch regulatory environment, strong use of ICT in the education system, advanced venture capital markets and strong leadership of the agenda. UK broadband prices have reduced from among the most expensive in the G7 to among the cheapest.

    Around 73 per cent, of UK business, with 10 or more employees, are now connected to the internet, an overall increase of 16 per cent, year on year since the target was set. At present 46 per cent, of internet users are buying online, up from 28 per cent, two years ago. B2B (Business to Business) sales remain significantly higher than B2C (Business to Consumer) amounting to £10.9 billion in 2001, which amounts to a 36 per cent, year on year growth.
    994W
    To date there are over 1.1 million broadband subscribers. There were only 180,000 subscribers this time last year and there has been an increase in the number of companies using broadband. 18 per cent, businesses with 10+ employees have a broadband connection, compared to 8 per cent, at the end of 2000.

    Employment Law
    Miss McIntosh:
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the impact of (a) the Working Conditions of Temporary (Agency) Workers Directive, (b) the Employment Status in Relation to Statutory Employment Rights Review and (c) the Employment Agencies Consultation on New Regulations, on people engaged in interim management consultancy. [85166]

    Alan Johnson
    The Department published regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) on the proposed European Union Directive on the Working Conditions of Temporary (Agency) Workers and the draft Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House.

    In developing policy on the proposed Directive and regulations on the conduct of employment agencies, the Department will take into account representations received during the public consultations about interim managers.

    A discussion document on employment status in relation to statutory employment rights was published on 11 July 2002. This document is not a proposal to legislate. It is seeking views on the justification for, and effects of, extending statutory employment rights to categories of working people currently excluded from them. The public consultation on employment status in relation to employment rights will finish on 11 December. If an outcome of the review was to propose new regulations, a regulatory impact assessment would be undertaken and there would be further consultation.

    Energy Targets
    Mr. Yeo
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made towards the target set in 1998 for achievement in 1999 to 2002 to maintain or improve(a) levels of energy security, diversity and sustainability and (b) competitive energy prices. [83601]

    Ms Hewitt
    [holding answer 26 November 2002]: The UK has access to a wide range of fuels and generally has a more varied and balanced supply than many other countries. The mix of fuels has become increasingly diverse, including through increasing use of renewable energy. The UK remains self-sufficient in energy, but is likely to become increasingly dependent on imports of gas. Competition in UK electricity and gas markets has contributed to lower prices. Data for 2001 suggests that UK industrial gas and electricity prices were the second and fourth lowest in the EU respectively. UK domestic gas prices in 2001 were the second lowest in the EU, while domestic electricity prices were the fourth lowest, based upon available data. By 2000, UK greenhouse gas emissions were 13 per cent, below their 1990 level. More

    995W
    detailed performance information is available in the Department's publication "Energy: its impact on the environment and society" published in July, and will also become available in the Department's forthcoming publication on energy sector indicators.

    French Nuclear Facilities
    Norman Baker
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps she has taken to satisfy herself that(a) the normal emission levels from nuclear facilities on the northern coast of France and (b) the emergency procedures in place at nuclear facilities on the northern coast of France are consistent with proper protection of the UK environment. [84746]

    Mr. Wilson
    [holding answer 3 December 2002]: Under Directive 96/29/Euratom, member states are required to ensure that discharges do not give rise to doses to members of the public which exceed the prescribed limits. The UK participates fully in the process through which these limits are determined. Each member state has an obligation for ensuring that these Euratom Community requirements are implemented in their national law, and for establishing facilities necessary to carry out continuous monitoring of the level of radioactivity in the air, water and soil. The European Commission has the task of ensuring compliance with these requirements and has specific powers under which it can verify the operation and efficiency of the monitoring equipment around nuclear sites. The UK Government have no reason to believe that the European Commission has not been assiduous in fulfilling its enforcement responsibilities in France, or indeed, anywhere else in the European Union.

    In addition, under Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty, member states are required to submit general data to the European Commission relating to any plan for the disposal of radioactive waste so that the Commission can determine whether the plan is liable to result in radioactive contamination of the water, soil or airspace of another member state. France will have been required to submit such data to the Commission in respect of nuclear facilities on its northern coast and to satisfy the Commission that the disposal of waste from those facilities would not result in the radioactive contamination of any part of the United Kingdom.

    It is the responsibility of each member state to ensure that the operations undertaken at the civil nuclear installations on its territory comply with the requirements of the Euratom Basic Safety Standards (Council Directive 96/29/Euratom), which includes requirements concerning emergency preparedness. Emergency preparedness requirements are also included under Article 16 of the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) to which both France and the UK are contracting parties. As stated above, the European Commission is responsible for monitoring compliance with obligations under the Euratom Treaty. Contracting parties to the CNS are subject to a three-yearly peer review of their responses to the requirements of the Convention. Both the UK and France participated in the last peer review meeting which was held in April 2002.

    Leg-irons and Cuffs
    Mr. Chidgey
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many UK firms that have traditionally manufactured over-sized cuffs and leg- irons been subjected to inspection and investigation by her Department in each year since 1997. [82944]

    Nigel Griffiths
    [holding answer 26 November 2002]: The Export Control Organisation's Compliance Officers visit holders of open licences to establish that the conditions of these licences are being met. One firm that manufactures over-sized handcuffs was visited by Compliance Officers in 1997, 1998 and 1999.

    Investigations into alleged breaches of UK export controls are the responsibility of HM Customs and Excise.

    Renewable Energy
    Malcolm Bruce
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what proportion of sales licensed electricity suppliers are obliged to obtain from renewable sources; and what proportion they will be obliged to obtain from renewable sources(a) by 1 April 2003 and (b) by 1 April 2011. [85436]

    Mr. Wilson
    For the current year, the Renewables Obligation is set at 3 per cent, of total electricity sales from licensed electricity suppliers. This will rise to 4.3 per cent, for the period 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004, and to 10.4 per cent, for 2010–11 and subsequent periods. Suppliers may discharge their Obligation either by themselves supplying renewable electricity to customers in Great Britain, or by producing Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) purchased in the market, or by paying a buy-out price in place of all or part of their Obligation.

    Malcolm Bruce
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what proportion of the electricity generated in the United Kingdom came from renewable energy sources in(a) 2001 and (b) to date in 2002. [85487]

    Mr. Wilson
    The proportion of electricity generated in the United Kingdom, in 2001 that came from renewable energy sources was 2.6 per cent. Complete data for 2002 will not be available until summer 2003. However, because generation from large scale hydro sources by major power producers in the first three quarters of 2002 was 1.6 TWh higher than in the corresponding period of 2001 and because large scale hydro generation accounts for over 40 per cent, of generation from renewables, it is anticipated that this recovery alone will have raised the renewables percentage in 2002.

    Mr. Llwyd
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the provisions in force to ensure that exporters of renewable energy goods are protected against the risks of non-payment. [84193]
    997W
    Ms Hewitt
    ECGD's full range of products is available to UK based capital goods exporters in the renewable energy sector. This includes:(i) export credit insurance providing cover against the risk of not receiving payment due to specified commercial or political risks.
    (ii) guarantee for loans arranged by UK banks to overseas borrowers to finance the purchase of capital goods and related services. These enable the exporter to offer credit to an overseas buyer while receiving cash payments via the lending bank.
    (iii) insurance against political risks for UK companies investing overseas.

    Credit insurance for such exports is also available from private sector providers.

    As announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in September this year, from April 2003, ECGD will make available cover for at least £50 million of exports each year for projects in the renewables sector which meet its minimum risk standards.

    Thailand
    Mr. Wyatt
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she has concluded a trade deal with Thailand with respect to(a) armaments and (b) poultry. [85475]

    Nigel Griffiths
    No trade deals have been concluded with Thailand in respect of armaments and poultry.

    Universities
    Mr. Yeo
    To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made towards the target set in 1998 to increase by 50 per cent, the number of companies spun out by universities by 2001–02. [83593]

    Ms Hewitt
    [holding answer 26 November 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on 17 December 2001, Official Report, column 119W.

  TRANSPORT

    Bus Lanes
    Mr. Evans
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if there is special provision for ministerial cars to use bus lanes in guidelines issued by his Department. [85332]

    Mr. Jamieson
    The Departmental guidance, Local Transport Note 1/97—Keeping Buses Moving, makes no reference to specific categories of cars.

    East Lancashire
    Mr. Evans
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many times he has visited east Lancashire in his official capacity; and what the purpose was of each visit. [82399]

    Mr. Spellar
    None.
    998W

    Future Development of Air Transport
    Mr. Robathan
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many completed questionnaires have been returned following the consultation paper(a) The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom: Midlands and (b) The Future Development of Air Transport in the UK: South East. [84979]

    Mr. Jamieson
    To date, around 16,000 paper and 1,500 web questionnaires on the Midlands consultation have been returned. The corresponding figures for the south-east are 8,000 over 3,000 respectively.

    Manchester Airport
    Mr. Kilfoyle
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what throughputs were projected for Manchester Airport's second runway; and what the actual throughput is. [85617]

    Mr. Jamieson
    It is estimated that by 2030 the throughput of Manchester Airport could range from 40 million passengers per annum (mppa) (if no new terminal capacity is provided) through to 70 mppa (if growth is facilitated and concentrated at Manchester). This equates to the runways handling between 300,000 and 440,000 Air Traffic Movements (ATMs) per annum.

    In 2001, Manchester handled 19.1 million passengers and 182,000 ATMs.

    Modes of Travel
    Mr. Andrew Turner
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what methods he uses to estimate the relative environmental impact of journeys by(a) train, (b) aeroplane and (c) ferry; and if he will make a statement. [85088]

    Mr. Jamieson
    Environmental impact assessments of different transport modes take into account the full range of environmental matters, including air pollutants, CO2 emissions and noise, the length of journeys and the quantity and type of fuel consumed. There is also consideration of other local emissions sources, background levels of air pollution in the area and the extent to which emissions from the transport modes in question can be dispersed. The impact of infrastructure on the local environment is also assessed.

    Rolling Stock
    Mr. Evans
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the average age of rolling stock is in each of the rail operating companies; and what proportion is(a) over 10-years-old, (b) over 20-years- old and (c) over 30-years-old. [85337]

    Mr. Jamieson
    The table gives the average age of rolling stock for each train operating company. The proportion of stock over 10, 20 and 30-years-old is not readily available.

    Company

    Average Age (years)

    Anglia Railways

    25.12

    Arriva Trains Merseyside

    23.50

    Arriva Trains Northern

    12.54

    c2c

    2.00

    999W

    Company

    Average Age (years)

    Central Trains

    10.92

    Chiltern Railways

    8.67

    Connex South Eastern

    19.89

    First Great Eastern

    18.24

    First Great Western

    27.70

    First North Western

    15.27

    Gatwick Express

    12.29

    Great North Eastern Railway

    16.63

    Island Line

    35.50

    Midland Main Line

    21.26

    Scotrail

    15.53

    Silverlink

    17.56

    South West Trains

    24.68

    South Central

    28.95

    Thames Trains

    11.50

    Thameslink

    15.50

    Virgin Cross Country

    17.84

    Virgin West Coast

    32.44

    Wales and Borders

    14.76

    Wessex Trains

    15.80

    West Anglia Great Northern

    19.23

    Speedmeters type-approved by the Secretary of State for police use

    Approved from

    Mobile Radar speed measuring devices

    Kustom Falcon

    31 July 1986

    The Gatso Mini Radar Mark 3

    31 July 1986

    The Gatso Mini Radar Mark 4

    31 July 1986

    Kustom HR 4

    1 January 1987

    Kustom HR 8

    1 January 1987

    Kustom Roadrunner

    1 January 1987

    Muniquip K-GP

    8 November 1989

    Kustom Cordless Falcon

    31 October 1997

    Speedar SR1

    10 February 1998

    Light beam speed measuring devices (laser)

    The LTI 20.20 TS/M

    1 November 1993

    The Kustom ProLaser II

    18 September 1995

    The Kustom ProLaser III

    21 October 2002

    The LTI 20.20 TS/M "Speedscope"

    1 April 1996

    Riegl LR90–235/P

    16 October 1998

    Cleartone Stealth Speedlaser

    5 May 1999

    Laser Data Interface (LDI) only when used in conjunction with Kustom ProLaser II

    24 May 1999

    Also Autovision (AV3) when used in conjunction with both Kustom ProLaser II speed measuring device and the Laser Interface (LDI)

    24 May 1999

    Unipar Urban Speed Ace

    28 May 1999

    LTI 20.20 UltraLyte 100

    15 July 1999

    Jenoptik LaserPatrol

    15 October 1999

    Leica XV2 SpeedLaser

    12 February 2001

    Autovelox 104/C-2

    15 October 2001

    LASTEC Local Video System (for use with LTI 20.20 TS/M or LTI 20.20 TS/M "Speedscope" only)

    10 February 1998

    LaserCam Digital Camera System (for use with LTI 20.20 TS/M or LTI 20.20 TS/M "Speedscope" only)

    26 February 1998

    Gatsometer BV + AUS speed camera battery powered (commonly known as the "Gatso Camera"

    1 July 1992

    Road sensors speed measuring devices1

    Micro Mercury 90500

    9 August 1993

    Micro Mercury 92600

    9 August 1993

    The SpeedMaster DS2

    9 August 1993

    The Autovision 2

    9 August 1993

    The Speedman Enforcement System

    9 August 1993

    The Truvelo M4 Squared speed measuring device

    9 August 1993

    The Truvelo Combi S

    23 June 1997

    The Truvelo Combi S-me Speed Camera System

    15 April 1999

    Speed Master DS3 and Autovision 3 (AV3). Approved from same date and subject to the condition that it be used in conjunction with Speedmaster DS3

    24 May 1999

    Fixed Radar speed measuring devices

    Gatsometer BV + AUS speed camera mains (and a few battery powered and/or trailer mounted) (commonly known as the "Gatso Camera")

    1 July 1992

    Speed Cameras
    Mark Tami
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what type of(a) fixed speed cameras and (b) mobile speed cameras are in operation in the UK; and how much they cost. [84585]

    Mr. Bob Ainsworth
    I have been asked to reply.

    Information on fixed site and mobile speed cameras used in the United Kingdom is not held centrally. All speed enforcement devices must, however, be type-approved by the Secretary of State in order for their evidence to be relied on in court proceedings. Devices currently type-approved, from among which police forces select their equipment, are listed in the table.

    The cost of the devices is a commercial decision for manufacturers and their agents, and this information is not held centrally.
    1001W

    Speedmeters type-approved by the Secretary of State for police use

    Approved from

    The Serco Speed Enforcement System Type 1 with either the Techspan Systems Controlled Motorway Indicator Type 450EE or the Securite et Signalisation (SES) Controlled Motorway Indicator Type 450EE (M25 controlled motorway project)

    24 May 1995

    Road sensors speed measuring devices1

    The Traffiphot "S" speed detection device

    11 March 1994

    The Truvelo Combi S

    23 June 1997

    The Truvelo Combi S-mc Speed Camera System

    15 April 1999

    Distance over time measuring devices

    Speed Violation Detection Deterrent (SVDD)

    1 April 1999

    1 Activated by means of sensors or cables on or near the surface of the road.

    Note:

    Some equipment can be used as either a mobile or a fixed site unit.

    West Coast Main Line
    Mr. Evans
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what his latest estimate is of the completion date of the West Coast main line upgrade. [85334]

    Mr. Jamieson
    The Strategic Rail Authority's draft strategy for the West Coast Route Modernisation project proposes substantial completion by 2006, though work in the Trent Valley, for which Transport and Works Act approvals are required, is planned to continue until 2008.

  TREASURY

    BCCI
    Keith Vaz
    To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the meeting between the Inland Revenue and the BCCI Staff Committee. [85087]

    Dawn Primarolo
    I understand that the Revenue are continuing their contacts with representatives of all parties to the proposed BCCI settlement with a view to clarifying the tax treatment as soon as possible.

    Child Tax Credit
    Mr. Hancock
    To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the percentage of families in the Portsmouth, South constituency who will benefit from the child tax credit from April 2003; and if he will make a statement. [85868]

    Dawn Primarolo
    Nine out of 10 families with children will be eligible for the child tax credit, to be introduced in April 2003. Estimates of the number of families with children in the Portsmouth, South constituency who will benefit from the child tax credit are not available; however, an estimated 650,000 families with children in the south east of England are expected to benefit from the child tax credit.

    Insurance Industry
    Andy King
    To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to institute an inquiry into the working of the insurance industry. [86046]
    1002W
    Ruth Kelly
    We have no plans to institute a general inquiry into the working of the insurance industry. The Department of Work and Pensions will be undertaking a formal review of employers liability compulsory insurance and will announce details shortly.

    Working Families Tax Credit
    Ms Buck
    To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many recipients of the child care component of the Working Families Tax Credit there are in(a) England and (b) each region; what percentage of recipients of the child care component represents WFTC claimants in each region; and what percentage of recipients of the child care component represents households with children in each region. [85184]

    Dawn Primarolo
    The latest available figures appear in the following table.

    Families benefiting from the childcare tax credit1 within Working Families' Tax Credit (WFTC) or Disabled Person's Tax Credit (DPTC)

    Government Office Region

    Total benefiting, May 2002

    As a percentage of all families with children receiving WFTC or DPTC2, May 2002

    As a percentage of all families receiving Child benefit3, August 2002

    England

    138,836

    13

    2.3

    North East

    6,679

    9

    2.1

    North West

    25,985

    13

    3.0

    Yorkshire and The Humber

    16,092

    11

    2.6

    East Midlands

    13,104

    12

    2.6

    West Midlands

    17,166

    12

    2.6

    East

    11,115

    12

    1.7

    London

    17,267

    17

    2.0

    South East

    17,527

    14

    1.8

    South West

    13,813

    12

    2.4

    Region not identified

    88

    1 The childcare tax credit gives help with eligible child care costs for children aged up to 15 (16 if disabled) at the September following the start date of the award.

    2 WFTC and DPTC are available to families with children aged up to 16 at the start date of the award, or aged up to 18 and in full time non-advanced education.

    3 Child benefit is available to families with children aged up to 16 (or 18 if in full time non-advanced education).

    Sources:

    Inland Revenue, Department of Work and Pensions; administrative data

    Tax Credit Claims
    Mr. Simon
    To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he intends to issue Regulations under section 42 of the Tax Credits Act 2002 relating to claims by persons subject to immigration control. [85403]

    Dawn Primarolo
    Regulations under section 42 of the Tax Credits Act 2002 will be made shortly.

  WORK AND PENSIONS

    Basic State Pension
    James Purnell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the arrangements and procedures are for deferring the basic state pension. [84449]

    Mr. McCartney
    Entitlement to the state pension arises when a person attains state pension age but to be entitled they have to make a claim. They can put off claiming their state pension to earn increments. When they claim, each part of the state pension is increased by about 7.5 per cent, for each full year of deferral. The minimum period of deferral is seven weeks.

    Currently the maximum period for deferral is five years but from April 2010 there will be no time limit and the incremental rate will increase to about 10.4 per cent, for each full year.

    It is up to the individual to decide whether to claim their state pension at state pension age or to defer claiming. A person can choose to defer either by writing to the Pension Service to request deferral or by not returning their claim for a state pension.

    Lone Parents
    Mr. Paul Marsden
    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what percentage of lone parents are(a) in full-time employment, (b) in part-time employment, (c) in education, (d) on a training scheme, (e) unemployed and (f) claiming sickness benefits. [86163]

    Mr. Nicholas Brown
    The information requested is in the tables. As these categories are not comprehensive or exclusive there will be some lone parents counted in more than one category and some that are not included in any.

    Data from the spring 2002 labour force survey

    Percentage of lone parents

    Full time employment1

    29.1

    Part time employment1

    24.5

    In education2

    12.7

    On a training scheme

    1.1

    Unemployed

    6.6

    1004W
    1 Full time employment is classified as work of at least 30 hours on average per week. Part time employment is classified as work of less than 30 hours on average per week.

    2 The percentage of lone parents in education is taken as those lone parents enrolled in some type of formal education; this includes both part time and full time education as well as those enrolled on courses and not attending and those enrolled and not revealing their work status

    Data from Family Resources Survey1 2001–02

    Percentage of lone parents

    Claiming sickness benefits2,3

    8

    Of which

    Incapacity benefits

    2

    Sickness benefits

    7

    Statutory sick pay

    1

    1 In the FRS benefit receipt is based on self-assessment and therefore may be subject to mis-reporting.

    2 "Sickness benefits" comprises all lone parents claiming at least one of the following: DLA, War disablement pension, Severe disability allowance, Disabled persons tax credit, Attendance allowance, Industrial injury disablement benefit, Disabled person's tax credit.

    3 Lone parents claiming one type of sickness benefit may also be in receipt of other sickness or incapacity benefits, hence the percentage of lone parents claiming any type of sickness benefits is smaller than the sum of those claiming each type of benefit.

    New Deal
    Mr. Heald
    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what data is collected on the number of persons who have entered the New Deal gateway more than once; and if he will make a statement. [84439]

    Mr. Nicholas Brown
    [holding answer 2 December 2002]: The New Deal for Young People and the New Deal 25 plus are the only New Deals that have a gateway period. The New Deal Evaluation Database contains details of each spell a person has spent on gateway.

    At September 2002, 776,800 people had started on the gateway of the New Deal for Young People programme (629,920 individuals). Of these 126,410 clients (20 per cent, of all individual gateway starters) have entered the gateway more than once.

    At September 2002, 508,380 people had started on the gateway of the New Deal 25 plus (383,580 individuals). Of these 97,560 clients (25 per cent, of all individual gateway starters) have entered the gateway more than once.

    Source:

    New Deal Evaluation Database.

    Voluntary Sector
    Sue Doughty
    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the impact of the voluntary sector on the labour market [80408]

    Mr. Nicholas Brown
    We recognise the value of the voluntary sector to the community and have recently laid before Parliament draft regulations that should make it easier for people out of paid employment and claiming jobseeker's allowance to make a greater commitment to volunteering.

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  South Cambridgeshire District Council (Bellwin Scheme)
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Christopher Leslie)
  South Cambridgeshire District Council experienced exceptional flooding and consequential damage in the district on the weekend of 20–21 October 2001. Given these circumstances I am satisfied that financial assistance under the Bellwin scheme is justified. A scheme will therefore be established under section 155 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Grant will be paid to the authority to cover 85 per cent of the eligible costs above a threshold, which it has incurred in dealing with the flooding.

TRANSPORT

  Private Hire Vehicle Licensing
  The Minister for Transport (Mr. John Spellar)
  Following a consultation exercise. I have decided to agree to the request from Plymouth City Council to make regulations which would enable (i) London licensed private hire operators to sub-contract bookings to Plymouth private hire operators; (ii) a Plymouth licensed private hire operator who accepts in Plymouth a hiring which starts in London, to use a Plymouth licensed private hire vehicle for that hiring; and (iii) a Plymouth licensed private hire operator who accepts in Plymouth a hiring which starts in London, to use a Plymouth licensed private hire driver for that hiring.

  This decision will be effected by means of transitional regulations made under section 37 of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998.

  A decision note, containing a summary of responses and setting out my decision, has been placed in the Library.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  News 24
  The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell)
  I have today placed copies of the independent review of BBC News 24 by Richard Lambert in the Libraries of both Houses, together with a letter to Gavyn Davies setting out my response.

  In response to the review, I have attached two further conditions to the approvals of BBC News 24. These require the Governors to publish their response to the Lambert report by the end of March 2003, and to
  84WS
  promulgate revised commitments for the service, taking account of Richard Lambert's recommendations, by the end of May 2003.

  A website version of the review can be found on the DCMS website at www.culture.gov.uk www.culture.gov.uk

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Local Government Finance
  The Minister for Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford)
  On 8 July 2002, the Government published a consultation paper asking for views on options for reforming the formula grant distribution system for local authorities. Responses for this paper were invited from local government and other interested parties by 30 September.

  An analysis of responses received to the consultation has been published today. Copies have been placed in the Vote Office and the Library of the House. The Government's response to the consultation will be set out later today in our proposals for the 2003–04 local government finance settlement.

DEFENCE

  Eurofighter Typhoon
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie)
  Progress towards the entry to service of Typhoon has been reviewed closely since the start, in April 2002, of test flying with the instrumented production aircraft. The process of gathering flight safety and performance data, which is necessary to accept aircraft into service, is taking industry longer than the agreed schedule. The large volume of work to resolve outstanding and arising design issues, although individually minor, has also progressed more slowly than expected. As a result, we have concluded with our international partners and with industry that the evidence required to permit contractual acceptance of the aircraft by the four partner nations will not be complete before the end of March 2003. Allowing for the joint, four-nation acceptance process, aircraft should then be ready for hand-over to the Royal Air Force by the end of June 2003. In any event, following the loss of a development aircraft in Spain on 21 November, it is essential that there is a time allowance for the realignment of test flying tasks. Further delay cannot be ruled out until the causes and implications of the crash are fully understood. This second delay, since the contract was placed with industry, to Typhoon's entry to service is extremely disappointing, but safety remains paramount, and we will only accept aircraft that meet the agreed specification. Every effort will be made to accelerate the entry to service and work-up process to prevent or minimise any delay to the operational employment of Typhoon, scheduled for the second half of the decade. It is this latter date, of course, when the RAF is able to use the aircraft on operations, that is so critical.

  QinetiQ
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie)
  On 1 July 2001 the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency was successfully divided into QinetiQ plc, a wholly Government-owned company, and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which remains part of the Ministry of Defence.

  On 6 March 2002, Official Report, column 313–314W I informed the House that we had decided to sell a substantial stake in QinetiQ to a strategic partner who would help to develop the company in preparation for a future flotation on the stock market. Our decision followed a detailed analysis of market conditions, which led us to conclude that this approach offered best value for the taxpayer, and would meet our objectives for a successful public private partnership.

  Following the announcement in early September that The Carlyle Group had been chosen as preferred bidder in MOD's selection of a strategic partner, the MOD has now signed a deal with Carlyle. The transaction values QinetiQ at around £500 million. Following adjustments to reflect current assets and liabilities, MOD will receive between £140 million and £150 million from the transaction (the final amount will depend on the company's exact financial position at completion). This will be in addition to £50 million already received from QinetiQ as part of the purchase price for its assets.

  The Carlyle Group will acquire a 33.8 per cent, economic interest in QinetiQ with a further 3.7 per cent, of the shares to be available for employees of QinetiQ. Management control and responsibility for setting future commercial strategy will now lie with QinetiQ and Carlyle, allowing them the freedom to make appropriate decisions to grow the business. MOD will retain those rights that are conventional for a major shareholder. QinetiQ's board of directors will be augmented by the appointment of two Carlyle nominees. MOD will also have the right to appoint two non-executive directors. QinetiQ employees will have the opportunity to invest in the future of the business through a staff equity scheme and will each receive a small free allocation of share options.

  This is a good deal for the taxpayer, for QinetiQ and for the company's employees. At completion, the taxpayer will have received a total so far of around £200 million from the PPP and MOD's retention of a significant stake in the business will ensure that the taxpayer shares in the anticipated future growth in the value of the company. The company will benefit from the injection of new private sector capital together with The Carlyle Group's track record in assisting companies to grow and develop. As previously announced, our intention remains to sell our entire stake in QinetiQ within three to five years, probably through a flotation on the stock market.

  QinetiQ will remain a British company based in the UK. MOD will retain a special share in the company to ensure that the nation's defence and security interests continue to be protected. There will also be robust safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest and to ensure that the integrity of the Government's procurement process is not compromised.
  86WS
  Subject to the satisfactory fulfilment of a number of final conditions, we expect to achieve the formal completion of the sale process early in the new year.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Departmental Finance
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Blunkett)
  Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Home Office's Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) for 2002–03 will change as follows:

  (a) the DEL will be increased by £168,713,000 from £10,340,772,000 to £10,509,485,000 and the administration cost limit will be increased by £66,928,000 from £2,681, 618,000 to £2,748,546,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital, are set out in the following table:

  (£'000)

  Resources Change

  New DEL

  Capital Change

  New DEL

  Total DEL

  45,000

  9,430,783

  123,713

  1,078,702

  Of which

  Voted

  8,085,505

  901,307

  Non voted

  1,345,278

  177,395

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

  (i) Take up of End Year Flexibility including £29,567,000 for anti drugs projects; £6,577,000 for National Probation Directorate's projects and £6,326,000 for anti drugs and crime reduction research projects.

  (ii) Take up from the Capital Modernisation Fund of £173,000 for Evidence Based Policy fund.

  (iii) Claims on the DEL reserve totalling £77,400,000 comprising £54,000,000 for community safety officers and other policing announced in the budget 2002 and £16,400,000 for juveniles.

  (iv) Changes include an increase in the administration costs limit of £66,928,000.

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

  (i) Take up from the Capital Modernisation Fund of £37,700,000 for additional prison places.

  (ii) Take up of End Year Flexibility including £76,641,000 for Police and crime reduction projects; £51,928,000 for Prison Service related projects and 20,324,000 for accommodation centres, scanners and removal projects for the Immigration Service.

  The increases will be offset by inter-departmental transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve.

  Police Grant
  The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety (Mr. John Denham)
  I have today placed in the Library a copy of the Home Secretary's proposals for allocation of police grant for England in 2003–2004. The Home Secretary and I intend to
  87WS
  implement the proposals subject to consideration of any representations we receive about them, and to the approval of the House.

  Funding the police service properly is a top priority for this Government. The settlement I am announcing today continues that commitment. The total provision for policing, to be supported by grant in 2003–04 is £9,243 million. This is a cash rise of £543 million or 6.2 per cent, over the provision for 2002–03. This includes principal formula police grant, direct Home Office spending, the standard spending on which revenue support grant is based.

  We launched the first National Policing Plan last month. It outlined four policing priorities: tackling antisocial behaviour and disorder; reducing volume, street, drug-related and violent and gun crime; combating serious and organised crime; and, increasing the number of offences brought to justice. This settlement underpins delivery of those priorities and reinforces our commitment to police reform. There is funding to enable English forces to increase police strength and contribute towards the target of 132,500 police officers in 2004. This will be made available through continuation of the highly successful Crime Fighting Fund which we plan to fund for another three years. Better use will be made of those officers. They will
  88WS
  benefit from a pay system that rewards the most experienced officers who can demonstrate a high level of professional competence and those in the most difficult and demanding posts. They will be supported by Community Support Officers (CSOs) and civilian custody staff and investigators, reducing bureaucracy and freeing police officers for operational duties. As part of this, resources will be available to recruit further CSOs across the next three years, allowing English forces to employ their share of the 4,000 we believe should be in place by 2005. Better use of technology will help police officers still further. We are investing in IT with further funding for authorities taking up the Airwave radio communication service and for the Metropolitan Police Authority's' Command Control and Communications Information (C3i) System. Funds will be available for roll-out of the custody and case preparation system which will enable data on those in custody to be collated by the police and used across the criminal justice system.

  We are taking the opportunity to outline the wider provision for support for the police service in England. This includes police grant and revenue support grant, a range of specific grants to be paid directly to police authorities for particular initiatives, capital grants and borrowing approvals, and operational and central spending in support of policing provided directly by the Home Office.

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.

Message from the Queen
Lord Luce: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a message from Her Majesty the Queen signed by her own hand. The message is as follows:
"I have received with great satisfaction the dutiful and loyal expression of your thanks for the speech with which I opened the present Session of Parliament".

Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [H.L.]
11.6 a.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lord Williams of Mostyn, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about policing in Northern Ireland and the exercise of police powers in Northern Ireland by persons who are not police officers, and to amend the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Licensing Bill [H.L.]
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Licensing Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clause 1,

Schedules 1 and 2,

Clauses 2 to 4,

Clause 177,

Clauses 5 to 8,

Schedule 3,

Clauses 9 to 111,

Schedule 4,

Clauses 112 to 176,

Schedule 5,

Clauses 178 to 196,

Schedules 6 to 8.—(Baroness Blackstone.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002
11.8 a.m.
The Earl of Onslow rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 31st October, be annulled (S.I.2002/2675).
The noble Earl said: My Lords, first I must declare an interest. I am a name at Lloyds and have been clobbered, and I have some asbestos barns at home. I would not have dreamt of raising the subject on either of those counts in your Lordships' House. I raise it because I am genuinely worried about the costs, about the science, and about one or two other related Issues on which I shall address your Lordships.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Minister who, yesterday, took much time out of a busy day to receive me in her office. She and her officials were helpful and kind. I did not necessarily agree with what she said, but with justification she said that I did a small "bounce" on her. I shall not tell your Lordships the nature of the "bounce", but I believe that she will agree that it was only a rather small, cuddly, bouncy, woolly, toy playball.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, we would all agree that the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, is a teddy bear in disguise.
The Earl of Onslow: President Roosevelt produced the teddy bear.
It is said that the regulations are introduced to stop 4,700 deaths over the next century. That is one death every 10 days or less than two-thirds of 1 per cent of the total death toll. I do not believe that a statistic like that can be regarded as a statistic, especially as, at the moment, the government death book attributes to mesothelioma only 250 deaths a year, mostly among those horn before 1940 and the number is falling.
It is perfectly reasonable to say that the figure is probably an underestimate. Even if 600 deaths a year were to be treated as an underestimate, that does not coincide with the figure for asbestos-related deaths given by the Government of 3,000 to 4,000 a year. Those figures came from Dr Julian Peto, whose study was reasonably well rubbished by Dr Gibbs and Professor Pooley in what I believe would be regarded as peer review in the scientific world. There is some evidence that the Government have ignored that. However, the figures are central to the Government's case.
Yesterday in the Minister's office we went through the matter at considerable length. She and her officials tried to persuade me. I hope that your Lordships know me well enough to understand that if I had been persuaded that what the Government are doing now is correct, I would have withdrawn my Motion, regardless of any embarrassment that may have been caused or whatever mud had stuck on my face. I would have been prepared to say that I was wrong. However,

1235
I agree with the Government that if only £1.5 billion over 50 years is required to keep everyone quiet, that is peanuts and does not matter. I shall turn to the cost issue later.
I hope your Lordships will bear a little science lecture from someone who studied no science even at GCSE, which in my day—in the year of the coronation—I believe was called school certificate. I have had to sap up on the matter, but I believe that I am reasonably well informed.
Blue and brown asbestos are iron silicate, very nasty and non-water soluble. White asbestos is magnesium silicate. Magnesium is water-soluble and the fibres themselves dissolve. Everyday we breathe in 20,000 of them because it is all around us. The place is wall-to-wall white asbestos fibres, even though we cannot see them.
Yesterday's claims on ratio danger for asbestos were that blue was a factor of 500; brown was a factor of three; and white was a factor of one. If that is correct, why do the regulations in the fibre rules state that white asbestos fibre tolerability is only two-thirds that of the blue and the brown? That kind of figure does not make sense to me.
The next point is that if these deaths are all caused by asbestos, why have there been no deaths caused in the white asbestos mines? There have been no recorded incidents of death caused by white asbestos. The HSE in some evidence to the World Health Organisation quoted the Meldrum report. That report said that there is,
"no reliable evidence to associate mesothelioma with white asbestos".
The Government's own agency said that. If that is the case, and the HSE are saying something different now, either the Government must show that Meldrum was wrong or they must say that he is right. If he is right, do we really need these regulations and their associated costs?
When the Americans introduced similar regulations the matter was taken to court. There is a quote from the judge that has been thrown about quite frequently; I suppose it is because it is quite a good quote and well worth repeating. When throwing out the regulations, the judge said:
"More Americans will die of inhaling a toothpick than they will of inhaling white asbestos".
It is not as though the Americans are not frightened of diseases; they reach for their lawyers at the drop of a hat. Even now we are a race of anarchists compared to how the Americans reach for their lawyers. Furthermore, when the Twin Towers were hit, 40 tonnes of white asbestos were released into the atmosphere. Everyone screamed, "Panic". The Environmental Protection Agency, when told that the measurements were well above existing safety levels said: "We know, but there is not any real risk to the public".
I shall now give a little lecture on trans-substantiation. The reason that I use trans-substantiation means that I can quote the Council of
1236
Nicea, which gets above the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who is bound to quote the Long Parliament or the Rump Parliament. But what happens with white asbestos is that the magnesium silicate that goes into the cement then becomes calcium silicate. One could say that white cement is not covered by the regulations as they stand. Calcium silicate is called Wollastonite. Wollastonite is absolutely safe. I have a piece of paper from someone with authority who tells me that. I have not read it yet, but that is what I am told it says. No one has in any way argued against that point. So we have this trans-substantiation. It is not homoiousian; it is homoousian. It becomes completely different. So there is no real danger.
I turn to the next hole in the regulations. The regulations do not cover the third of water mains that are made of blue asbestos piping. One cannot have it both ways: to cover harmless white asbestos roof sheeting on the one hand and, on the other, not to cover what could be—but some would say is not—the blue stuff, which everyone says is dangerous, underground. The argument will be, "Oh, well, it is not going to be disturbed". It is not going to be disturbed; no one is talking about disturbing anything, but we are talking about making a survey of it. Therefore, if one surveys what is on someone's roof or in someone's wall, which is not going to be disturbed, one should survey the blue piping underground. There can be no difference in that argument.
Finally, I turn to the subject of costs. The TUC is reputed to have said that the provisions would cost £80 billion. I do not have any authority for stating that figure, but it has been bandied about. There is, however, a figure from the Health and Safety Executive. It first said £8 billion. In a letter to John Bercow on 22nd October, Mr Nicholas Brown said that the cost would be £3 billion. Yesterday, the cost was stated as being £1.5 billion. Will it tomorrow be one and tuppence? As far back as Edward III's Windsor Castle, government costs have overrun. The building of these Houses of Parliament cost twice or three times the budget. The cost of groundnuts in Tanganyika went all over the place. Nimrod aeroplanes cost miles in excess of their budget. It would be unkind and tactless of me to mention the Dome, but I am tempted to be mildly unkind and tactless.
The United Kingdom representative to Members of the European Parliament—I think that he goes by the unfortunate name of UKREP, which is quite disgusting—briefed MEPs on 2nd May, stating:
"There is strong evidence that both the EC directives and the HSE regulations on this issue are all based on flawed science".
There have been times when established science has been proved wrong and been overthrown. Questions should be asked. Let us think about the Lying-in Hospital in Vienna. Semmelweis says, "Everyone must wash their hands, because that will stop puerperal fever". All the established scientists said no, but he was proved right. Thirty or 40 years ago, we treated mental illness with lobotomies and electric shock treatment. We do not now, because the established science of the time was criticised.

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I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that there is a case for scientific query. More than anyone else, because she is an academic, she knows that on occasion, we must think outside the box—as the dreadful modern cliché has it. I beg her to think outside the box and say, peradventure, "My advice may not be accurate—although I completely concede that honest and good men have given it". She is an academic, and I have seen her chew up the late Lord Mackay—admittedly, with the help of the redoubtable Lady Young. Those of us on Lord Mackay's side of the House listened and accepted what she said because she won her intellectual argument. That is the ground on which I beg the Government to look outside the box and think again, scientifically. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 31st October, be annulled (S.I. 2002/2675).—(The Earl of Onslow.)
11.22 a.m.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Onslow for bringing the regulations to the House's attention. I shall speak in support of my noble friend's Prayer and, with leave, also to the separate Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I apologise to noble Lords for the lateness with which the Motion appeared. Noble Lords may well be aware that the statutory instrument itself was not available in the Printed Paper Office until last Thursday afternoon. Any noble Lords who tried to find the regulatory impact assessment will have found that the copies deposited in the Libraries of both Houses were copied only on the odd sides of the page. I received a full copy only at the weekend.
For the record, I declare an interest as the director of a company that has received a number of asbestos-related claims. I also state for the record that I have neither sought nor received any advice or opinion from that company for the purposes of today's debate.
It is the duty of those of us on these Benches to remind Ministers of the regulatory burdens that the Government impose on British industry. The Confederation of British Industry estimates that the Government have added £47 billion to British industry's costs since 1997; the British Chambers of Commerce calculates the regulatory burden alone at £16 billion. That represents a serious drain on the productive capacity of this country, and accounts in no small measure for the faltering economy to which the Chancellor had to own up in his recent Pre-Budget Report.
The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations seem to be competing for some kind of prize for imposing burdens on business. Of course, they do not rival the £5 billion annual pensions raid, with which the Minister will be familiar. Indeed, the Minister's department seems to be the home for business burdens and might better he named the burdens on work and pensions department.
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The cost involved in the regulations is unclear. Less than a year ago, the Health and Safety Executive said that the cost was £8 billion or £5 billion. Now, magically, it is £3 billion or £1.5 billion. Whatever the costs are, they are spread over several years, but they have significant front-end loading, with the first few years bearing the main burden. Many have been concerned that the cost estimates produced will prove to be significant underestimates for both industry and the wider economy, which may well be affected by the regulations.
Against those costs, the Government set the value of the benefits in terms of the value of preventing fatalities. The assumptions underlying those calculations are contentious and significantly weight the answer in favour of the benefits outweighing the costs. For example, the calculations use a Department for Transport figure for the value of preventing a fatality, itself a controversial topic, and then arbitrarily double it.
Those detailed calculations are important, but the heart of the issue is whether the scientific evidence supports the regulations. No one on these Benches objects to regulations aimed at harmful substances—provided, of course, that they are supported by the scientific evidence and are proportionate.
The regulations treat white asbestos in much the same way as blue or brown asbestos. That is where the scientific evidence is worrying. I am no scientist, but my noble friend Lord Onslow has already made a powerful case that the scientific evidence on which the Government rely is at best arguable and at worst downright wrong. In that light, the calculation of costs and benefits may well be incorrect and the regulations disproportionate.
My noble friend explained that white asbestos is chemically entirely different from brown and blue asbestos. However, the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive—I shall probably refer to them interchangeably and incorrectly—have demonised white asbestos in much the same way as the very different brown and blue asbestos. There is compelling evidence for the latter's involvement in mesothelioma and lung cancer. As my noble friend said, white asbestos is a naturally occurring fibre that we inhale in quite large quantities every day. It can be harmful in excess, as can many substances, but there is no credible evidence of harm from ordinary exposure that would justify the full force of the regulations. I understand that there is no evidence that white asbestos is dangerous once encapsulated in cement—which accounts for most of its use in this country.
It is difficult to understand how an organisation such as the Health and Safety Commission, which is usually regarded as sensible, could have found itself waging a jihad against white asbestos. It appears to date back to a study by Dr Julian Peto in 1985, to which my noble friend referred. As my noble friend described, that study has been undermined by later work by Dr Gibbs and Professor Pooley—work commissioned by the Health and Safety Commission but then ignored by it.

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The Health and Safety Commission has already achieved a ban on white asbestos in new products. That ban, achieved in 1999, was well ahead of the European requirements, and the UK supported the European directive—despite the fact, as my noble friend pointed out, that UK REP warned that there was strong evidence that both the EC directives and the HSC regulations on the matter were based on flawed research. It probably also warned that Europe was out of step with both the United States and Japan, which have reached completely different conclusions about white asbestos, based on detailed scientific examinations. The Government are now going beyond a ban on new white asbestos products with these new onerous and extensive regulations that attack existing white asbestos.
It is my understanding that there is no evidence to link white asbestos to any deaths. The Health and Safety Executive's regulatory impact assessment, which uses a figure of around 4,700 avoided deaths to justify the regulations, appears to calculate the impact of blue, brown and white asbestos without distinction. However, if some of those deaths have been incorrectly attributed to white asbestos, the cost-benefit case for the regulations could fall down.
I said that I was neither a scientist nor a statistician, but I read the regulatory impact assessment. Noble Lords who have read it will know that it is complex and requires expertise—certainly beyond mine—to be understood fully. For all those reasons, my Motion proposes that the Government set up an independent scientific inquiry to examine the scientific evidence relating to white asbestos that underlies the regulations. I am aware that the Government generally prefer not to set up independent inquiries and rely instead on their own scientific advice. We saw that in the case of foot and mouth disease, and I hope that that experience will have taught the Government the value of the objectivity that independent examinations can bring. My Motion does not ask the Government to withdraw the regulations; it is not a fatal Motion. It does, however, ask the Government to set up an independent inquiry, to consider the regulations in the light of its findings within one year and to report to Parliament at that stage.
I expect that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, will say that the Confederation of British Industry, the National Farmers Union and other trade bodies have accepted the regulations. I am puzzled as to why British industry has not challenged them. According to my research, most of the representative bodies seem to have taken the scientific opinions of the Health and Safety Commission at face value and have concentrated only on implementation issues. In particular, the NFU, which should have been concerned about the science because of the prevalence of white asbestos in farm buildings, has meekly accepted the HSC's assertions about the medical risks from asbestos. The HSC may well be proved right, but
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I believe that there is sufficient doubt about the science to warrant an independent scientific inquiry. I hope that the Minister will agree to my Motion.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, can the noble Baroness clarify the question of the value for money on a human life that she quoted from the Department for Transport? The noble Baroness said that it had been doubled. The Department for Transport uses a range of values, as she knows. Some of us may complain about them, but they range from £100,000 for road accidents to £5 million for a rail accident and something like £50 million for signalling. There is an enormous range, and it would help the House if she could say to which figure she referred.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I referred to the figure used in the regulatory impact assessment prepared by the Health and Safety Executive and laid by the Department for Work and Pensions. The figure used in one of the detailed annexes is, as I recall, a little over £1 million, which is the Department for Transport's value. That figure is then doubled.
11.30 a.m.
Lord Walker of Doncaster: My Lords, in his speech, the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, declared an interest and said that he had asbestos in his barns. I have asbestos—on my chest. I do not whether that is a declarable interest.
For most of my adult life, prior to entering Parliament in the 1960s, I worked in industry with asbestos, mostly white asbestos. In the 1960s, when I was a junior Minister, I was much involved in the discussion of the regulations relating to asbestos. The debate so far today has carried echoes of the discussions that we had then, when I was persuaded that we should not legislate as rigorously as we might have done, because the dangers had not been fully assessed. Are we going down that road again? Do some noble Lords seek to take us down it again?
In the discussions on the regulations in the other place, the Minister said:
"Asbestos is the most serious occupational health problem in terms of fatal disease that the country faces."—[Official Report, Commons, 24/10/02: col. 481.]
That is what we are discussing. I am aware of the argument that chrysotile white asbestos is not as dangerous as other forms of asbestos. What cannot be ignored is that, in many applications of white asbestos, it has been mixed with the more dangerous forms—blue or brown—and is, therefore, inseparable. The risks from the more serious kinds are likely to be contained in the mix with the white asbestos.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, for the past 30 years, blue asbestos has been screened at the mine from white asbestos, so it is not mixed.
Lord Walker of Doncaster: My Lords, it would be wise for me to leave the rebuttal of the noble Earl's detailed point to my noble friend the Minister.

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The World Health Organisation said that all asbestos types could cause cancer. In the debate in the other place, a Member quoted from the WHO's recent review of chrysotile asbestos, which states:
"Exposure to chrysotile asbestos"—
white asbestos—
"poses increased risks for asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma in a dose dependent manner. No threshold has been identified for carcinogenic risks".
The Government's proposals appear to have widespread backing from industry and commerce. They claim a positive response to the regulations from the CBI, the TUC, the British Property Federation and the Federation of Small Businesses, among many others, including specialists in asbestos application.
Between 1968 and 1998, 50,000 people in the United Kingdom died from asbestos-related diseases. I wonder how many of those people might have been saved if I had rejected the siren voices in the 1960s when we were regulating and not been persuaded to take a different approach. The insidious nature of the afflictions tells us that there will be many more for whom we in this place can do little or nothing. However, we can try to help future generations. We must do something, and the regulations are a belated but welcome contribution to that end.
11.37 a.m.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I had not intended to speak in the debate. I do so only because I suppose that I should declare an interest. My first job in industry was with Universal Asbestos. My secretary, who has worked with me for 40 years, was also in Universal Asbestos. We made most of the asbestos products, and, in the United Kingdom, our main competitor was Turner & Newall. We then became Cape Asbestos. Gradually, we sought to replace asbestos products with others, but your Lordships are in danger of drawing the wrong conclusions: it is not asbestos alone, but the relationship to many lung diseases that causes problems. The best form of legislation on pollution control was the Clean Air Act.
I ask your Lordships to think for a moment about the generation that follows us, which suffers more and more from lung-related problems. Flats must have wooden floors—no carpets—and there are problems with dust and house-mites. I do not wish to promote asbestos, but it was called a "wonder product". When we made asbestos, as it was called—my noble friend Lord Onslow referred mostly to asbestos cement—we would bring in Cape Blue, a fibrous product, the whites and a range of others in an almost open lorry. We would tip it all down a tip, and I would take people round, pick it up and explain how it worked.
Asbestos cement products were highly necessary in the post-war years because of the damage. It was the most economic way of building factory roofs or farm buildings. We poured the asbestos fibre, sorted into its groups, into a slurry into which cement and other products were placed. There was a paper-making process, in which the mixture would go round a drum.
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It would dry and end up as a sheet, which could be moulded on top of forms to make corrugated roofing known as Standard 6, Standard 3 or Canada tile. There was a range of such products, which were well designed and were used, depending on the pitch of the roof, to keep the rain out. It was economic and profitable. It was profitable because it was easy to assemble quickly. Your Lordships will remember that during the war many temporary buildings, known as handcraft huts, were erected. They had single frames without support and they are still in existence today.
There were other important applications because asbestos cement was used everywhere; for example, for drainage and guttering. However, there were more dangerous elements. Asbestos—apart from its ability to be a flexible reinforcing material for the manufacture of sheets or pipes—was used for its fire resistant qualities. Almost every ship built before a certain year will have its steel still covered with sprayed asbestos. We made a product called Seel and I sprayed reinforced steel joists with Seel for fire protection, wearing a simple cotton mask. That was a dangerous activity.
I should declare an interest too. In future, I shall probably, as a pensioner of Universal Asbestos, receive a pension that will allow me to meet the cost of travelling to your Lordships' House about three times per year.
In time, the industry changed its name and the word "asbestos" was dropped because people were worried about the claims. In the past, the farming industry had the problem of farmers' lung. After all, we have two nostrils—we have two of most things—but only one mouth—and many things go into our lungs. I give as a comparison passive smoking.
If I had had the money I would have tried to become a member of Lloyd's and might have had claims against me. In comparison to Europe, the United States and Japan did not have the same requirement to use economic, cheap products for rapid rebuilding after wars. Asbestos is located throughout the United Kingdom and the current regulations for its removal are simple. If one wants to redecorate a house or a flat and asbestos is found, a notification must be given to the local council. A specialist firm will then use filters to remove the asbestos at a cost of approximately £500 per dwelling. However, sprayed asbestos, which is found around many pipes, has often been coated with plaster and painted. Frankly, that is safe until disturbed.
There are reasons to believe that most asbestos cement products, because of the way in which they were assembled, would not, in themselves, be inherently dangerous—the amount of absorption in the lungs is very small indeed. The difficulty of airborne activity is associated with the blue fibres. One of the advantages that the blue fibre had, which is now a disadvantage, is that it could be teased open into more individual components and finer parts. Therefore it provided better insulation and support for manufacturing.

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It would probably be impossible to conduct an audit of the whole of the United Kingdom. But if one could, it might be found that there was hardly a building which was not, in some way or other, linked to asbestos—whether the asbestos be in the ground and linked with other methane, or whatever. My concern is that there is a certain lack of knowledge and wisdom in introducing the regulations. We all support the need to protect people for the future. However, in digging up all the problems of the past, we would eventually raze the United Kingdom to the ground and be trying to establish ourselves in some form of freer territory.
It is worrying when governments, with all the best intentions in the world, seek to provide protection for past events. The economic benefits to this country which were provided by asbestos were considerable. I sit down saying that I believe the Government would be wise to take the recommendations of my noble friend Lady Noakes and produce some form of more reliable information, rather than creating the scares that now go with pathogens and so forth.
I spoke on this matter 40 years ago in your Lordships' House. I was nervous because Lady Summerskill was attacking me as a hereditary Conservative Peer. I say only that when I was a temporary shop steward in the Transport and General Workers' Union, witnessing suffering from asbestosis or pneumoconiosis, I remembered the words of my uncle, Stafford Cripps. There is no political division on this.
I hope that your Lordships realise that it is not the industry against politics. It is not management against worker. I merely ask the Minister to give more information that does not scare the living daylights out of me.
11.45 a.m.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, I want to speak briefly. I should like to ask the Minister a question. I became involved in asbestos—as everyone has been at some stage—when in the 1970s British Rail discovered that all its sleeping compartments were padded with asbestos. They always had been and no one realised the danger. I remember the efforts and lengths that we went to keep the issue quiet. We looked for special ways to deal with it; for example, stripping the asbestos out under water.
Today's knowledge of the danger of asbestos has been around for a long time. As the noble Lord, Lord Walker, said—and if I may say so, in a very impressive speech—the danger is well known. However, I believe that the reason employers are prepared to accept these onerous controls possibly arises from an appeal hearing in your Lordships' House recently when a number of people engaged in a "class action" against their former employers. The Law Lords found in favour of those appellants and, as I understand the position, there is now a potential legal liability on employers who find themselves liable to an action on those grounds. If that is so, it makes clear why employers would not be opposed to these regulations, which, if enforced, will give them some
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protection. What is clear is that a large number of people have died as a result of asbestos and many more will die for the same reason. I was involved on the fringe of this issue with one of the appellants. I read the medical case notes and I am bound to say that it is an extremely unpleasant way of leaving this world.
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords—
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Cross Benches!
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I believe that we should hear from the Labour Benches before another Cross-Bencher. We have had one Cross-Bencher.
11.47 a.m.
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, my speech is not a teach-in on asbestos. I am speaking from knowledge gleaned from previous work in my trade union, Amicus, and through the Health and Safety Commission on which I served for six years. Therefore, I declare an interest.
The TUC has been mentioned. It acknowledges that white asbestos is not as harmful as blue or brown asbestos. However, it is a category one carcinogen and that means that it kills. The World Trade Organisation believes that it kills. The European Union has banned white asbestos as a killer. The International Agency for Research into Cancer believes that it kills. Surely, such important bodies cannot be ignored.
I shall not trade numbers today because that is a futile exercise. We all search for, and quote, statistics that prove our case. However, there are statistics on both sides. For me one death at work is one death too many. I know that others on this side of the House agree. There have been thousands, not a few, directly relating to asbestos over the years, and there will be more.
I am disappointed to see these Motions on the agenda. I do not believe that there is any need for an independent scientific inquiry. The regulations are about life and death. Asbestos produces deadly dust and fibres, as has already been said. It produces terminal cancer and takes lives. It affects the lives of all those who know asbestos victims; and that is what they are—victims.
As we sit in these glorious surroundings, our working environment, it is difficult to visualise the kind of working environments which create such illnesses. However, they exist for thousands of working people in this country today. The regulations that we are discussing today are not opposed by the most relevant employers' organizations, including the CBI—and the CBI is very vigilant on these issues. The chief executive of the Asbestos Removal Contractors Association (ARCA), Mr Terry Jago, not only does not oppose them, but he positively welcomes them. The Asbestos Removal Contractors Association represents licensed contractors and accredited

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laboratories. It works closely with the HSE on the subject of asbestos and the issues of health surrounding it. The association has concentrated on improving standards for dealing with asbestos, its main aim being to ensure that asbestos is dealt with safely and that it is effectively managed. That is exactly what these regulations do. The ARCA believes firmly that the regulations spread best practice and that, as such, they will target the minority of businesses which currently fail to manage asbestos properly and show them ways to improve.
The regulations will help construction workers and their management to identify in advance where there is asbestos in a building. This will protect workers from being inadvertently exposed to any form of asbestos and w ill allow suitable precautions to be taken where any activities relating to the construction of a workplace are being carried out.
There have been complaints in some quarters in relation to the consultation process carried out in relation to these regulations. I can tell your Lordships" House that the ARCA is full of praise for the full and comprehensive consultation process which has been undertaken. So is the CBI and so is the TUC. "Full and comprehensive"—their words, not mine.
I am sure that some will accuse me today of overreaction on this issue. Throughout the history of controls on asbestos, unions and trade unionists have been accused of scaremongering and exaggerating the dangers. Such accusations have always been proved wrong. If anything, the controls have been too cautious, too limited and too late.
During my time on the Health and Safety Commission I was only too well aware of what asbestos can do and does do to workers. As my noble friend said, asbestos is the greatest work-related health problem ever experienced in the UK. Three thousand people die each year as a result of asbestos-related diseases. As we sit here prevaricating, workers out there are inhaling the materials which will eventually kill them.
The workers that I am talking about are not as pampered in their working conditions as we are in this House. Not for them leather seats; not for them a heated Chamber or kind ushers to assist them. Workers who come into contact with asbestos put their lives on the line every day—their lives, not ours—and we have a responsibility and a major duty to those workers to pass these regulations as quickly as we can.
11.53 a.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I hope that the noble Baroness, who spoke with reference to her own experience with the Health and Safety Commission, will not leave your Lordships' House today with the impression that those of us who disagree with her do so on the question of whether or not asbestos is dangerous and whether those who work in its neighbourhood should be protected from it. There is no challenge on that at all. All that some of us are trying to say today, as I understand it, is that we wish to be sure of the science and that the science is correct.
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The noble Baroness and those who feel like her have simply got to accept that every now and again government scientists, and scientists serving executive commissions such as the Health and Safety Commission, can be wrong.
They also can be extremely unconcerned with the effects of what they do. The temptation for those who possess power to use it is very real. They do not always think in terms of the unnecessary and avoidable costs in which their rulings may result. That is all that we are saying.
I would remind the Government that in Bill after Bill nowadays there are clauses giving Secretaries of State and Ministers more and more powers to do this, that and the other, and that sometimes those powers are used unwisely, oppressively and without proper care. My fear, which was awakened during the recent foot and mouth outbreak, is that government scientists find it all too easy, instead of making sure of what is the science, to give advice to Ministers, and that gives those Ministers' policies the garments of scientific respectability. That is what worries me.
As my noble friend on the Front Bench said, I wish only to be clear as to what is the science. I am not arguing at all about the menace of asbestos.
11.54 a.m.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, these are very important issues. The whole asbestos story in relation to mesothelioma has been confusing over the years. with justified worry about the increasing number of cases of mesothelioma, awareness of the large amounts of asbestos in place in buildings and the profitable industry of asbestos removal. However, there have been some important studies in the past few years—particularly from Canadian millers and miners—which have shed light on the wide misinterpretation that may have occurred of previous data on risk.
I declare an interest: in that one of the research centres in the UK on the topic of asbestos and mesothelioma is my own university, the University of Wales College of Medicine, and its partner, Cardiff University.
Mesothelioma is a horrid type of cancer which does not respond to chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and often causes severe pain. I have looked after patients with this disease, who are often young. Their tumours have been histologically diagnosed by Dr Gibbs, whose name has been mentioned already in the debate.
There are two families of asbestos. The first is serpentine asbestos, which is chrysotile or "white" asbestos. As the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said, these fibres are ubiquitous. They are everywhere in the atmosphere and have been so probably for millions of years. They are even found in samples of Antarctic ice. These short-coiled fibres are cleared from the lung relatively rapidly within a few weeks of being inhaled. From extensive studies in Canada and South Africa, the evidence is not there that they per se cause mesothelioma. These are the fibres found in artex ceilings and concrete. The fibres are locked in to these

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surfaces and are not released when in situ. As white asbestos may not itself cause mesothelioma, disturbing it and releasing the dust of the fibres into the air when it is removed may cause more problems than leaving it in place.
Fibres in the second group are very nasty. These are the amphibole mineral group of fibres, which are the commercial forms of "blue" or crocidolite and "brown" or amosite asbestos. The other fibre, tremolite, has not been used commercially but has been of significance in the studies to which I have referred because it is a contaminant of the white asbestos mined in Quebec in Canada. These amphibole mineral fibres are long, straight fibres which stick in the lung when they are inhaled and persist there for many years. They are the fibres that cause asbestosis and can sit in the lung until mesothelioma develops.
These fibres are found in lagging around pipes and have been used in specialised insulation as they are chemically resistant to acids. Brown asbestos has also been used in some building products, as has blue asbestos to a lesser extent. Most is hidden away and is not accessible except to maintenance men and firemen. Where it is present, it should be encased because when its removal is attempted the atmospheric fibre count in a building goes up dramatically. Whatever precautions are taken, these levels do not appear to settle back for many years. The Health and Safety Executive has data showing this.
The problem with Section 2 of the statutory instrument is that it does not adequately differentiate between the levels of chrysotile fibres, which are of less concern, and the permissible levels of other forms of asbestos—those in the amphibole group—which are either present on their own or in mixtures.
Perhaps I may briefly explain some of the research findings as I understand them. The Quebec asbestos miners and millers were mining white asbestos. They were found to have an elevated incidence of mesothelioma, but this was less than 30 cases among a workforce of over 10,000 people with very high levels of exposure. By contrast, in the South African amphibole miners, mining brown and blue asbestos, the relative incidence was ten-fold higher.
Analysis of the fibres found in the lungs of miners in Quebec showed that those who had a high level of tremolite fibres—the contaminants—were the ones who went on to develop mesothelioma. The tremolite was the contaminant; it does not appear that it was the white asbestos (chrysotile) fibres themselves that were linked with the tumours.
Not all white (chrysotile) asbestos is contaminated with tremolite; it is not found in the lungs of those exposed except in the workers exposed in the Quebec fields, where there are high levels of contamination. These workers were exposed at levels of at least 1,000 fibre cc years, whereas the standard in Europe for fibre exposure works out at about a lifetime exposure of 4 fibre cc years.
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To put this in context, the background level of asbestos fibres, of which nearly all the fibres are chrysotile or white asbestos, in buildings in the UK is generally 0.001 fibres/cc or less, which is similar to levels measured in the street.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency advised the government to introduce a ban on chrysotile, but this was overturned in the courts on the grounds that there was insufficient scientific evidence to support the disease potential of chrysotile asbestos. The scientific evidence is such that there is now a "chrysotile defence" mounted in the US in cases of litigation.
A recent study from the Health and Safety Executive has shown that the potencies of the other fibres to cause mesothelioma is much greater. Chrysotile fibres in the Quebec workers, contaminated with tremolite, have a potency of 1, compared with amosite—brown asbestos—which has a potency of 100, and blue asbestos, which has a potency of 500. The potency of tremolite-free white asbestos is probably far below a relative risk of 1.
The situation may be further complicated by recent suggestions from research that the risk of developing mesothelioma is also linked to the presence in the patient of Simian Virus 40, which seems to predispose to tumour development.
This is a very complex picture. The scientific literature on the relationship between chrysotile (white asbestos) per se and asbestos-related disease is not conclusive. It is clearly there for the other forms of asbestos. The important problem of Simian Virus 40 in causing malignancy must also be considered and further researched.
This issue must remain under scientific scrutiny as the data are complex. I seek reassurance from the Minister that such revision of regulations can occur as and when other information comes to light. I understand that the Government must take a precautionary view, but they must not replace one risk with another, which may be greater, from alternative materials to pure white asbestos or from disturbing fibres which are in place.
12.4 p.m.
Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, I am puzzled by the trepidation of noble Lords opposite over these regulations. I had something to do with asbestos signs and controls when I was in charge of epidemiological planning in the Health and Safety Executive.
I should just like to add one extra point to the expert speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. We knew in the HSE that excess exposure to white asbestos (chrysotile) caused a large incidence of the crippling lung disease, asbestosis—which is not a cancer. If noble Lords could visit a sufferer from asbestosis trying to breathe or even walk across a room, I do not believe that they would think it was harmless. Surely, it is welcome that the European Union has adopted directives which these regulations implement and welcome that UK protection will be increased.
12.5 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I declare an interest as a farmer who may be affected by the regulations. I had not heard of' them until last Thursday, when my noble friend Lord Onslow told me about them. I tried to obtain a copy from the Printed Paper Office. None was available; however, the PPO very efficiently obtained a copy for me quite quickly.
My main point relates to the process of scrutiny of these important elements of legislation. Statutory instruments are just as much legislation as anything else. Effectively, this a major Bill—in the sense that it will result in considerable cost. The estimates of the cost are uncertain but they appear to be anything above £1 billion. To impose on industry a cost of £1 billion without extremely good reasons would seem to be contrary to the Government's overall policy of reducing the burdens on industry in such a way as to enable British industry to be more effective, more efficient, more competitive and more profitable so that it can contribute to more employment and contribute, in the form of taxation on profits, to the national economy. Therefore, it is important to realise that the principle of proportionality is exceedingly relevant to this piece of legislation.
We know that the scrutiny of secondary legislation is inadequate. The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, of which I was once a member, is purely concerned with vires; it is not concerned with merits or sustainability of proposals put forward in statutory instruments. I know that the House is now considering better ways of applying that kind of scrutiny. This is a very good example of where a better way is needed.
In primary legislation, the House of Commons, sadly, has abandoned to a large extent the proper process of scrutiny and this House is acting as an extremely effective long-stop in those matters. But when it comes to secondary legislation such as this, it is no less important.
I was fascinated by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Frankly, it illustrates—this is no criticism of another place—that there is no way in which the expert opinion that we have just heard would be obtainable in another place. Those sorts of people do not get that sort of experience if they spend a lifetime in politics. It is a very good example, and one that I hope will be remembered, of the merits of the sort of people who are in your Lordships' House.
My point is that questions have been raised on accuracy and on the justification for this particular statutory instrument. It is 15 pages long. I have waded through it and I am not very much the wiser. I shall not dream of getting involved in the scientific discussion on the comparison between white and other types of asbestos. I merely note that experts have very different opinions.
I remind the House of the dictum of my noble friend Lady Thatcher that it is for officials to advise and for Ministers to decide. I question whether there was a proper, carefully considered ministerial decision. I should be interested to know, when the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, replies, when she first read
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through this statutory instrument. This is no criticism of her, but I suspect that it appeared in her box at a fairly late stage and I am sure that she devoted such time as she had to understanding it.
I remember the late Ernest Marples saying to me that the only way he felt he could do his job as a Minister properly was to say to his officials: "Look I shall do my boxes between 6.30 and 8.30 in the morning, and it is up to you to ensure that what I need to make a judgment on is in those boxes. It is no use filling my boxes in the 'Yes, Minister' way to prevent me making the right decisions". My question is whether there has been a proper ministerial decision on a matter of considerable magnitude in terms of potential costs. I am sure that legislation on asbestos is needed and we should all support any necessary legislation. But all my noble friend Lady Noakes is asking, as I understand it, is that there should be further consideration of the merits of this particular statutory instrument. I should find it hard to 'believe that the Government should resist that.
Lord Elton: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, can he add to his remark that there is nothing in the Motion to delay the implementation of the regulations, and that the protection will be there?
12.10 p.m.
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the MSF section of Amicus. There seems to be a difference of opinion between the two sides of the House. On this side, we are concerned about lives; on the other side, it appears—the noble Earl can shake his head from now until Doomsday—
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, it is offensive to accuse me of not caring about lives. Of course I care about lives and the welfare of my fellow subjects; otherwise, I would not have used the energy and undergone the boredom of trying to get my pea-sized brain around this subject.
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, I accept the noble Earl's indignation. I shall tell him about my practical experience, not of looking at roofs, but of being engaged at British Rail. The noble Lord, Lord Marsh, mentioned his experience. I shall tell him about working in workshops where people lagged boilers, with dust everywhere. He may shake his head; I shall discuss white asbestos later. I do not think he has had to work anywhere with his hands; I am sorry about that. Twenty years later, people are dying from that experience because they did not know the dangers that arose from contact with asbestos.
One of my friends who died was a brilliant sportsman—he played cricket and football. Anyone who saw him die as a result of inhaling asbestos would not be discussing whether the asbestos is white, brown or blue, or whether there are dangers. He would be asking what we can do about it if dangers arise from it. We know. I admit that there is a difference between asbestos in lagging and white asbestos. Nevertheless, dangers arise from it and they were pointed out. My

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noble friend, who suffers as a result of contact with white asbestos, said that his lungs are full of it. He is not alone. If there are dangers, we should take precautions.
The French national biomedical research agency, which has been in conflict with the Canadians, says that all forms of asbestos are cancerous. The noble Earl referred to Professor Julian Peto. Professor Peto also wrote in the Lancet:
"White asbestos is rapidly cleared from the lungs and could because of this be less dangerous than other forms of asbestos".
That is what we are discussing. He said that that was especially the case when exposure was short term. He added that prolonged exposure certainly causes lung cancer and that in his view it was not a risk worth taking. I repeat: it is not a risk worth taking.
Some speakers referred to regulations. There are regulations, but many are necessary for health and safety, which is paramount. I would have expected a meeting of minds between noble Lords on that issue. Let us not imperil that by letting the issue seem like one of costs rather than preserving lives. Do not forget about this. Businesses and the CBI have accepted the risk, so why are we having this debate?
Let us move on. Let us implement sensible regulations. In some cases, white asbestos was mixed with blue or brown asbestos. Although, as the noble Earl rightly said, it may be 30 years since that happened, those deaths do not result until 20 to 30 years later. In more extreme cases, it will be up to 50 years before one sees the effects of exposure. The effects are so terrible when they emerge that I appeal to everyone in the House to support anything that will prevent deaths from any asbestos.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, how long does he think the regulations will be delayed if the Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is agreed to?
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, I do not know. The noble Baroness mentioned a year.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. My Motion merely asked for a scientific inquiry to be set up and for the Government to consider that within a year. It does not delay the regulations by a single day.
12.15 p.m.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, I know that the House is anxious to progress but I wish briefly to speak. As a Minister in the Department of Employment, I was responsible for health and safety for two years. I was tasked with deregulating health and safety regulations. I asked officials to send us all the health and safety regulations that affected business. There was a pause. After a day, they said they would need to hire a special van. We decided to look at the key elements in a major review. The boxes were
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not done from six in the morning until eight at night. I am sure the noble Baroness spends a great deal of time on these matters.
That experience taught me two things about the Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission. It is a myth that the two organisations are full of risk averse people dreaming up regulations that will add enormous costs to business. We reduced the number of regulations by about 40 per cent, mainly by eliminating duplication. My second lesson was that the Health and Safety Executive's advice, particularly scientific advice, is second to none and impartial. The suggestion that it will provide what Ministers want to hear was not my experience. Asbestos has been the biggest single problem that health and safety officials have had to deal with.
I do not have a problem with the Motion put forward by my noble friend Lady Noakes in so far as it does not prevent the regulations being implemented. To my mind, the regulations have been subject to detailed, careful scrutiny and a cost-benefit analysis. They are looked at by officials who bend over backwards to balance the benefits against the costs for industry. My only anxiety is the message we are sending to the Health and Safety Executive's scientists. Surely we should back their judgment. We have no reason to believe that they operate in a partial manner. It may be an unpopular message to some of my colleagues. I say to my noble friend Lord Onslow that, when I entered the Department of Employment, I suspected that these scientists were uncommercial and did not understand the costs they imposed on businesses. I was pleasantly surprised to find the reverse.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords—
Earl Russell: My Lords—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I think it would be the feeling of the House that we should hear from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and then from the Minister.
12.19 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, we have just heard an important speech from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, to which I listened with great interest. There are two areas of uncertainty. One is scientific: the danger of white asbestos. The other is political, also apparent in many other debates: the extent of businesses' social responsibilities to the community. It is easy to confuse the two areas of lack of consensus with each other. I shall endeavour not to do so. It will be the judgment of the House whether I succeed. I suspect that very possibly I may not.
I listened with fascination to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who spoke with authority. The final words that linger in my mind from her speech are that the evidence is not conclusive. So far as I can discover, there is an area of lack of academic consensus on the

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danger of white asbestos. However, that lack of consensus happens within parameters. It is, I think, agreed on all sides that there is a danger. The argument is about the extent of that danger. Incidentally, I should say that Professor Julian Peto, whose work has been much attacked in this debate, was working in collaboration with Professor Sir Richard Doll, whose reputation is of the very highest. I should also perhaps say that he used to be a close friend of my sister-in-law. I knew him very well and would have welcomed him as a member of the family. However, I am not declaring that as an interest, because I do not believe myself to be capable of reaching an independent scientific judgment on the evidence. I am interested in the reactions of the jury.
Business is usually very well capable of arguing its corner. I remember when we were dealing with the Statutory Sick Pay Act 1991, the heaviest and, in my view, the most unjustifiable burden on business that I have known during my time in this House—placed on it by a Conservative government—I received innumerable representations from the CBI, the TUC, whose interest in the success of business is genuine but often forgotten, the Federation of Small Businesses and the National Farmers Union. All those bodies have been consulted about these regulations and have approved them. That fact weighs heavily. The thought of an improper and unjustifiable burden placed on business with the approval of all these bodies is about as improbable as a cruel and useless treatment of asylum seekers approved by the Refugee Council. It could happen, but the burden of proof resting on those who allege it is very heavy.
I am also influenced by the actions of my college, King's College London, which is now my former employer. In the old days of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, it used to be a standard joke that in the next world the Almighty would approach one or two among them and say, "Since you have been particularly wicked, in purgatory I shall give you charge of a university with two medical schools". My college principal is responsible for three medical schools—King's, Guy's and St Thomas'. They are all medical schools of some distinction. He will have had no difficulty getting expert academic advice from a wide range of people.
Just over two years ago, my college discovered asbestos in its roofing and immediately decided, in the absence of these regulations, to accept the responsibility that is now to be placed on it. That responsibility has already been discharged. The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, who is chairman of my college council, will confirm that King's College London is in no position to take on unnecessary burdens. It is feeling the financial draught, as all universities are. The fact that that decision was taken with informed scientific evidence behind it should be taken seriously.
I also have an article from the Annals of Occupational Hygiene, volume 44, No. 8, from the year 2000. It gives a statistical study that covers the same ground covered by Professor Peto. Although I have
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had only 10 minutes to read it, on the whole it appears to uphold his judgments. What emerges clearly from that study is that the rate of cancer and asbestosis among those exposed to white asbestos varies heavily from sample to sample. There is need for some independent variable, probably several, to be established. That is a matter for future research. The Minister is always drawing my attention to the virtue of regulations in conferring flexibility. I am sure she will do so again today. It enables her to keep up—as I am sure, knowing her, she will—with the further development of academic thought in this area.
The other problem is the social responsibility of business. Occasionally, one listens to Conservative spokesmen who sound as if they think that business should have no social responsibility. I am sure that the impression is misleading, but not enough trouble is take to show that that is so, just as on the other side not enough care is taken to show that we remember that business is the goose that lays the golden egg and that we depend on its profits for practically everything we want to do. We should get away from that pro and anti-business ideological division on all sides.
Some burdens are inherent in business, as they are in parenthood. One simply cannot get away from them. Some others are inherent in the interests of business in attempting to make a profit. I once said that there was no more extreme example of short-termism than killing one's customers. I think I was mistaken. An even more extreme example is to kill those on whose services one is daily dependent. It struck me strongly from the debate in another place on 24th October that more than 25 per cent of those who die because of asbestos are plumbers, electricians and carpenters. One has a responsibility to people whom one asks to do that sort of work. No firm wants a reputation for bringing about the deaths of those who attend to its plumbing. Incidentally, I hope the Minister has taken on hoard the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, about water pipes. That might be a matter for a suitable regulation on another subject. No doubt she will take other advice. A firm that persuades those people that it is not safe to do business there will not stay long in business. Here again, the social responsibility is in the interests of business. Beyond that, businesses have responsibility for contributing to common burdens, as ordinary citizens do. There is no specific claim to an exception.
When the name of Mr Jago was mentioned, there was a general cry of, "Well he would, wouldn't he?". However, in the same letter he has also said that he does not think that these regulations represent any new departure in the treatment of asbestos. He did net have to make that statement and it is not necessarily particularly in his interests. It ought to carry some weight.
That brings me to the proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for an inquiry. I have my doubts about the utility of that. When there is no academic consensus, the findings of an inquiry will depend almost entirely on who is appointed to it. The findings will be impeccable and will be compatible with all the known evidence, but one will know perfectly

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well that if six different people had been appointed to carry out the inquiry they would have come up with different findings. The inquiry cannot create academic consensus where it does not at present exist. That can be done in one of two ways: either by a major conceptual breakthrough that changes the questions that we all ask, or by the slow accumulation of the small change of particular individual case studies so that, if I may so put it, the weight of coin in one pocket becomes grossly lopsided with the weight of coin in the other. That process takes time. I cannot see how an inquiry could take it any further.
The other matter that concerns me as regards the proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is that she proposes two different tasks for such an inquiry. As far as I can see, those tasks would not fit very easily together. The first is a purely scientific inquiry about the risks of white asbestos, which is a matter for scientists. The second is about whether the risk justifies the cost, which is a political decision and one that I do not believe academics are any more competent to make than anyone else—in fact, if they are particularly obsessive in the pursuit of academic truth, occasionally less so. It is essentially a political responsibility, and a buck that we cannot pass.
Finally, I turn to the example of the United States, about which a great deal has been said. I am not a believer either in the supremacy of business or in the supremacy of politics. In my view, we need a see-saw relationship between the two where the balance varies from time to time. Recently in the United States, both because of economic theory and power, the balance has tilted exceptionally far in favour of business. The state of' US campaign funding has contributed to that outcome.
The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said that Americans reach, first, for their lawyers. But which Americans have access to the largest team of the most high-powered lawyers? The answer must undoubtedly be the big corporations. The globalisation of business has tilted the balance between political and economic power to a very large extent. In fact, one may say, certainly as regards the United States, and increasingly so in some other places, that bringing a big business to justice is about as difficult as bringing a medieval earl to justice—a long struggle, but worth undertaking.
The fact that the process is different in the United States is not necessarily an argument for saying that we should follow that example. I believe that these regulations are justified in the present state of affairs, and I shall so advise my noble friends. The matter needs to be kept under review, but we do not need to ask the Minister to do that because I am certain that she will do so in any event. Therefore, should there be a vote on the matter, I shall advise my noble friends on these Benches to vote with the Government.
12.33 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, asbestos is the most serious occupational health problem, in terms of fatal disease, that the country faces. In the
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30 years between 1968 and 1998, 50,000 people died in the United Kingdom from asbestos-related diseases. As my noble friend Lord Walker expressed so eloquently, the human suffering and misery behind those terrible figures continue today. There is nothing that we can do about those already exposed. But we can certainly, and must, do much more to prevent exposure today and so prevent the painful and prolonged illness and death in the future to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred.
The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations are a critical element in the Government's asbestos regulatory regime. They provide protection for those who do, or may, work with asbestos. Since coming to office in 1997, the Government have done much progressively to strengthen the laws on asbestos in the workplace, including tightening the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 1987, as amended, to provide protection for those at work from inadvertent exposure to asbestos fibres. However, the Government believe that the risks from asbestos will not be fully controlled until one vital piece of the legislative jigsaw is put in place; namely, the duty to manage asbestos in buildings.
Research shows that over 25 per cent of those people currently dying from asbestos-related diseases, some 750 per year, have worked in building and maintenance operations. While virtually all exposure routes have now been effectively controlled—by, for example, banning the use of asbestos products—it is estimated that 500,000 commercial and public buildings across the country still have materials in them that contain asbestos. In many cases, no one is managing the risks from the thousands of tonnes of asbestos still present in those premises. People working on those buildings, such as plumbers, electricians and other maintenance workers, often do not know they are at risk from disturbing the material, which is the real problem. Therefore, they do not know if their work is putting other users in the building at risk. A worker may be charged simply with replacing a light fitting; but, in the process of so doing, he may disturb asbestos that was safe up until that point. He will be unaware of the existence of asbestos, but in the course of his work he may multiply the hazard. That is the sort of situation that we have in mind.
The Health and Safety Executive is aware of numerous incidents where such workers have been exposed to asbestos, with this often resulting in construction projects being stopped and the premises evacuated, as well as potentially serious consequences for the workers involved. It is to deal with this unsatisfactory position that the Government are proposing new legislation.
In my view, the requirements of the new duty to manage asbestos are simple and straightforward: they will require those who have responsibilities for maintenance activities in non-domestic premises to assess whether there is any asbestos in their premises, and, depending on its condition, either remove it or manage it. That will ensure that maintenance activities carried out subsequently do not expose workers to any avoidable risk. The task of managing it may simply be

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a matter of leaving it alone, or barricading it off. Those responsible must ensure that information on the location and condition of these materials is given to anyone likely to disturb it.
Considerable effort has been taken to ensure, as the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, suggested, that the duty to manage regulation is flexible, thereby allowing a proportionate approach to be taken towards compliance. If the noble Lord studies the regulatory impact assessment, he will see that that is the position. Significant expenditure is required only when the risk justifies it. The requirements are based on the sound business practice of establishing and managing risks efficiently, and closely follow current good practice in the workplace.
In common with the usual procedures on health and safety legislation, the Health and Safety Commission carried out widespread and comprehensive consultation before bringing its proposals to the Government, as pointed out by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. This clearly set out the costs and benefits of the proposals that were included in the regulatory impact assessment, which was published in the consultation document. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. A wide range of organisations expressed support for the proposals—the CBI, the TUC, the British Property Federation, the Federation of Small Businesses, government departments with major property portfolios, such as the MoD and the Department of Health, various local authorities, including Birmingham City Council and many London boroughs which will have significant responsibilities under the new duty, NHS trusts, charities, trade unions, retailers, banks, universities, building and allied trade associations, utilities providers, as well as asbestos specialists. They all support the Government's policies.
The Government are aware of the views of a small minority who believe that chrysotile (white asbestos) is safe, and that, therefore, it should not be included in the proposals. However, that view is contrary to the majority of expert opinion, which supports the Government's view that all asbestos types can cause cancer. Indeed, all asbestos types are unequivocally classified as carcinogens by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, and by regulatory bodies across the developed world.
It is true that most expert opinion, with which I do not disagree—indeed, neither have your Lordships challenged it today—states that blue and brown varieties of asbestos are more dangerous than white. The most recent review of the relevant evidence suggests that this difference is substantial. However, there is a problem: although chrysotile (white asbestos) is less dangerous, it is still dangerous for two primary reasons. First, it contains tremolite, which is a contaminant and which, as far as we can tell—and as pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—causes the mesothelioma risk.
Secondly, as was mentioned by other speakers, you cannot tell the colour of asbestos from its colour. White asbestos, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, was
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mixed with brown and blue to improve its drying qualities. However, you cannot detect that from the colour. Moreover, if you test it, you will create the very disturbance that these regulations are designed to prevent happening. Therefore, in an effort to find out what you want to know, you will increase dramatically the risks that follow from such activity. 'That is why we should not take that risk.
As a result, the Government's estimate is that it will give rise to an uncertain and unacceptable risk of cancer. Noble Lords have referred to the background fibres in the atmosphere. Maintenance workers have on average 100 times the exposure of the rest of us and have a one in 5,000 risk. I repeat that you cannot extract white asbestos from the asbestos that is currently in our public buildings. The deaths of workers from asbestos and its related illnesses are equal to the deaths from all other accidents in the construction industry. We know that the construction industry is among the most dangerous in this country.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, called for an independent scientific inquiry. That always sounds seductive. I have to say—and I hope she will agree—that her proposals are ill-timed and inappropriate. When the European Union brought in Council Directive 1999/77/EC, which applies restrictions on the marketing and use of products containing chrysotile asbestos, it was mindful that scientific knowledge about asbestos and its substitutes was continually developing No one says that the scientific research has closed. I assure your Lordships that I will do my best, in so far as I am not a scientist, to keep that evidence under review.
None the less, the directive included a commitment to ask the Scientific Committee on Toxicology and the Environment to undertake a further review of any relevant data on the health risks of chrysotile and its substitutes by 1st January 2003. This work is currently being undertaken by Professor Benedetto Terracini whose report will be available in December 2002. I will ensure that a copy of the report is made available in the Library as soon as it is published. If, as a result, any of your Lordships wish to table an Unstarred Question, that debate would encourage the further advance of our information.
To undertake a separate UK review at this time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has called for, on an issue that affects all member states in the EU, and when a major report is on its way to your Lordships' House, would add little to the wider scientific debate on chrysotile. The House may also be aware that the Select Committee on the European Union has recently written to Professor King, the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, seeking his advice, and he will also be reporting in due course.
We accept that we cannot put precise numbers to the degree of risk, because chrysotile is mixed with more dangerous contaminants, from tremolite to brown and blue asbestos. The new duty to manage will impact on a large and diverse group of duty holders many of whom did not have health and safety responsibilities in the area. The HSE is aware of the considerable challenges that will result.

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Therefore, we are happy to give the assurance that we will hold a review into the operation of the regulations, and these two issues in particular. This could be done by the end of next year, still some time before the regulations fully come into force. We will be able to take on board new scientific information. We will invite major stakeholders such as the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Property Federation to contribute to this review. I hope that I am meeting the merited concerns of your Lordships' House while not endangering further the lives of maintenance workers whom your Lordships have a moral responsibility to protect.
Annulling these regulations would have far reaching consequences and I am confident that your Lordships will back away—
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I am not going to press my Motion, so the Minister can leave out that bit.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I will. I was going to threaten the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, with the European Court of Justice and a few other remarkable things, but in his greater wisdom he has backed away from the nuclear deterrent.
In support of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I am as confident as I could—be and I do not say this lightly—that if the previous government were on these Benches they would be bringing forward these regulations. I ask your Lordships to think about that, given the independence of the HSE and its impeccable academic research and the wide-ranging responsibilities of the Health and Safety Commission and the degree of consultation. I would challenge any noble Lord opposite who has held Front Bench responsibility to say that if they were sitting here, they would not be bringing forward these regulations today. I know that they would do so.
It is not often that we debate issues that directly impact on the lives of individuals. If we do nothing, then the clock ticks for every week that the regulations are delayed. One worker dies. We can make a difference today by supporting the regulations, rejecting the siren calls to annul or to have a scientific committee of inquiry, given that we have a major Europe-wide review due as well as the input of the Chief Scientific Adviser, and my assurances that I am happy to come back to the House with our review in a year's time.
I hope that your Lordships will agree that I have done my best to meet the legitimate concerns about the developing state of scientific knowledge, but in turn I hope that none of your Lordships is willing to play Russian roulette with the lives of maintenance workers, the consequences of which will possibly not be manifest until 30 to 35 years' time, or even longer. Many of us will not be there to see it, but those workers and their children will pay the bill of our neglect today.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I do not in any way apologise for the prayer to annul. We have had an
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extremely interesting debate. The contributions of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the Minister have been well worth listening to. I particularly liked the Minister conceding quite a lot of what my noble friend Lady Noakes was asking for, but pretending that she was not. That is the skill of a superb politician. Talleyrand would be proud—although she does not limp like Talleyrand.
The Minister said that she would keep the regulations under review and come back. That is a sensible view to take. I take slight exception to what the noble Lord, Lord Walker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, said. The idea that one would pass by on the other side when someone is suffering and be accused of not caring is not true. It is impossible to emphasise that more strongly.
Having said that, there have been arguments flying around that white asbestos is a grade one carcinogen. So is the euro coin, as a matter of technical interest.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, one cannot inhale a euro coin.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, one would have to have an enormous nose to do so. I thank all noble Lords for taking part in the debate and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002
12.48 p.m.
Baroness Noakes had given notice of her intention to move, That this House calls upon Her Majesty's Government to refer to an independent scientific inquiry, with full access to government papers and with powers to take evidence from Ministers and officials, the scientific evidence pertaining to white asbestos underlying the regulations laid before the House on 31st October (S.I. 2002/2675) and to invite the inquiry to report on the degree of risk to public health from white asbestos and the costs of implementing the regulations and to advise whether the risk justifies the likely costs of implementation; and asks Her Majesty's Government to give an undertaking that they will review the regulations in the light of the findings of the inquiry and report to Parliament not later than one year after the coming into force of the regulations.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I echo the words of my noble friend Lord Onslow: this has been an excellent debate. There has not always been agreement in all parts of the House, but the debate has demonstrated the strength of the accumulated wisdom that resides here. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, whose interesting and expert speech illuminated the subject for many of us.
The Minister knows that I intended to divide the House on this subject. I felt strongly that it merited further study. However, in the light of her speech, and

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particularly of the new evidence from Europe that she has undertaken to place in your Lordships' House, and with the assurance she has given to review the regulations in a year's time, we on these Benches are more than satisfied. I shall not be moving my Motion.

Contracting Out (Functions in Relation to Applications for Patents) Order 2002
12.49 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 5th November be approved [40th Report, Session 2001–02, from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this proposal will make it possible for the UK Patent Office to contract out some of its search and examination work. Contracting out serves two purposes: first, it will take forward the process of international co-operation in which the Patent Office is playing a leading role:, and, secondly, it will help the Patent Office improve turnaround times. I shall come in a moment to the draft order, but I should like first to set out the context, particularly the international context, which has led us to bring this measure forward.
International co-operation already plays a large part in the international patent scene. Applicants seeking protection across the world can make a single application to the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, which will eventually evolve into national patents in as many as 179 countries. Alternatively, the European Patent Convention allows a single application to be made to the European Patent Office, resulting in European patents effective in up to 30 European countries. This co-operation is taken forward by a continuous process of harmonisation of the pa tent laws in different countries. Increased harmonisation makes it easier, cheaper and quicker to obtain patent protection across the world. In a recent development, many patent offices are now beginning to consider work sharing. Currently, work is repeated over and over again in different patent offices as applicants prosecute their applications in different countries. Work sharing would help reduce this duplication.
The UK Patent Office is widely recognised as a strong performer. It has been improving efficiency on a number of measures since it became an agency 15 years ago, and it delivers a high level of service to its customers. It has recently been awarded the Charter Mark for the fourth consecutive time. It introduced a fast-track search and examination procedure some years ago which is used by 20 per cent of applicants. It issues search reports quicker than most others in Europe and the world. However, its input has been steadily increasing, which puts a strain on resources, and it recognises that it must do better to meet the needs of its customers, in particular by reducing turnaround times.
In recent months, the Patents Directorate of the Patent Office has introduced a series of measures to make further improvements in its efficiency, its turnaround times and its customer service These measures include improved recruitment, retention and training of patent examiners. The office is also working with patent agents to streamline the way applications are drafted and examined. A further measure is the introduction of a "Private Applicants Unit" to deal with applicants who do not employ a patent agent to represent them. The office has been using electronic searching for many years and is now developing electronic filing and processing systems. It is also currently seeking ISO 9001:2000 quality accreditation for the patent granting process.
A medium-term objective for the Patents Directorate is, by these measures, to reduce the number of applications awaiting processing. The intention is to provide a more rapid response than it currently achieves, and in the longer term to provide a response with substantially no delay at all. In that way, the office will not only be better geared to the needs of its customers but will also be better prepared to contribute to wider innovation issues in the future.
That is the background. The message is that the Patent Office operates in an increasingly international arena. It is working hard to improve efficiency and responsiveness to its customers, and is looking forward to increased co-operation with other patent offices in the future in order to provide further customer benefits.
It is within this framework that the present draft order has been introduced under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. It is very brief, but it has the effect that the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks will be able to authorise persons outside the UK Patent Office to carry out the search and examination functions normally carried out by UK patent examiners. The Patent Office is currently discussing contracting out a small number of searches with the Danish Patent and Trade Mark Office, and a small number of searches and examinations with the Netherlands Intellectual Property Office. Such contracts will constitute a further measure, in addition to those I have already mentioned, to help deal with pending work. At the same time, the contracts will initiate some practical cooperative working arrangements between the UK, the Danish and the Netherlands offices which will be a step towards work sharing.
The contracts under consideration would run for two years initially. They would be renewable in one-year tranches if both parties agreed. Any contract must last no longer than 10 years, as is provided in the deregulation Act. The total number of search and examination actions under consideration is less than 5 per cent of the UK input. The contracts give flexibility to increase this number, and this option is open if it is convenient to do so, but it is not intended that the amount of work contracted out should increase to any great extent. The cost to the Pa tent Office will be the same as the in-house cost and the applicant would pay the same fee. On timing, most of

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the preparations have been made and the contracts could begin soon after the passing of this order, subject of course to the will of your Lordships' House.
The work will be done to the same standard as in the UK Office: Danish and Netherlands examiners have worked alongside UK examiners during the past year to train in UK practice and procedures. Work they have done has been assessed in comparison exercises. In any contract, their cases will be included in the Patent Office's existing quality assurance system and the outcome will be fed back in regular management meetings. The Danish and Netherlands offices will be subject to the same confidentiality obligations as the UK Office, and any patent application which has a bearing on national security will not be included in the scheme.
The Patent Office consulted on these proposals earlier this year. The consultation paper was placed on its website and sent to 46 organisations and 77 individuals. In the event, very few responses were received, just five to be exact, to which I shall come. The views expressed were carefully considered in the Patent Office in bringing these proposals forward, and the office made some refinements to its preparations as a result. Now, these responses have also been posted on the Patent Office website along with a discussion of the responses and the decision to continue with the proposals.
Among the responses, there was broad support for contracting out the search function. Respondents recognised the advantages of improved responsiveness and preparing for the future, but stressed the need to safeguard aspects such as quality, cost, security and timeliness. Those matters are of course of great concern to the office, and I have already referred to the measures that will be put in place to safeguard them.
Respondents raised other issues in relation to patent examination. Under the arrangements being discussed, examination would be carried out in the Netherlands office. The issues raised included the Netherlands examiners' competence to operate in accordance with UK law and procedures, and the need for close interaction between the applicant and the examiner during examination. I understand the concern, but these factors should not affect the outcome for the applicant. Contracting examiners have a very good command of general and technical English, they already work under patent law which is aligned across Europe, and have trained in UK procedures. The office will also run a "buddy" system whereby applicants can discuss their case with the buddy UK examiner. The work which the office has done with the Netherlands to satisfy itself about their English language and examination capabilities is positive so far but is nevertheless continuing. It will need a satisfactory outcome for the contract to proceed.
This is a practical move for the Patent Office. It will introduce a useful element of flexibility into its resource planning over the next few years and will involve close working with colleagues in other offices. It will help the office to improve customer service both
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in the short term by providing a faster turnaround and potentially in the longer term by developing international co-operation. I am pleased to commend the draft order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 5th November be approved [40th Report, Session 2001–02, from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Sainsbury of Turville.)
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, the Minister has explained the purpose of the order in his usual equable and persuasive style, for which we are grateful. However, although he has presented the matter as de minimis in many ways, I cannot help but feel that there may be more to it than at first meets the eye.
My concerns are in no way diminished by reading the proceedings in another place, where Miss Melanie Johnson, the Minister's colleague, spoke to the order at length in Committee. Her speech, which has now been echoed by the Minister, can be paraphrased as follows. The UK Patent Office is an efficient and strong performer—witness the Charter Mark grant for four consecutive years—but it is overwhelmed by work. She did not say whether that was because the office has been starved of resources and not recruited sufficiently, or whether it was because of the natural inventiveness of the British people—but we can let that pass. So, she said, we have to find a new way of providing help at no additional cost, which we can do by employing the Dutch and Danish patent offices. She concluded that that is excellent, first, because it is value for money; secondly, because it will maintain a rapid response rate to applicants; and, thirdly, because it will show us to be good Europeans and internationalists. So far, so reasonably logical.
But when answering questions from the committee she threw it all away. She remarked that the UK Patent Office carries out 15,000 searches and 12,000 examinations per annum. She said that the two offices in the Netherlands and Copenhagen—as the Minister has now told us—would carry out 400 searches in the first year and 750 searches in the second year and no examinations at all. So behind this brave proposal, which is trumpeted as a huge step forward, we have something that will cover only 2.7 per cent of the searches in the first year and 5 per cent in the second year and will give no help at all as regards examinations.
Further, as the Minister correctly pointed out, even to achieve that minimal help the UK Patent Office has had to set up substantial elaborate administrative schemes with regard to quality control, standard operating procedures, Ianguage tests and, above, all, as the Minister said, with regard to a buddy system whereby each applicant dealt with in Holland or Denmark has a UK patent officer as a buddy. That must represent a huge duplication and waste of effort.
It is hard to see how this proposal makes sense on an operational, administrative or financial basis. So what could be the basis behind the proposal? It could be the forerunner of a much larger, more far-reaching and
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ambitious idea. We can discover whether that is the case if the Minister is prepared to give the House clear and unequivocal responses to three questions.
First, does a UK citizen applying to the UK Patent Office to have his or her invention patented have the right to insist that it is done within the UK or can he be forced to accept processing in Holland or Denmark? Secondly, do the powers being granted in this regulation permit the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks to contract out to any country in the European Union provided he is satisfied with the quality standards being offered, or is it permissible to contract out only to Holland and Denmark? Noble Lords should note that I refer to powers in that regard, not proposals. Thirdly, by what date does the Minister expect the UK Patent Office to have recruited sufficient additional staff to be able to take back the 5 per cent share of applications from Holland and Belgium for processing within the UK?
If the answers to those questions are, respectively, "no", "yes" and "I do not know"—that is, no, a citizen cannot insist on processing within the UK; yes, he may go anywhere within the EU; and I do not know when the UK Patent Office will have recruited sufficient staff to bring back all processing within the country—a bigger issue may be at stake; that is, that this is a first step in the Government subsuming the UK Patent Office operations within the European Patent Office. After all, that has already happened in Holland, which is why that country has surplus capacity to offer us for the reasons the Minister laid out.
There is another straw in the wind with regard to this matter. While preparing my remarks for this debate I looked at an article on the front page of yesterday's Financial Times. I am sure that the Minister has seen the article; he probably wrote it. The article is headed,
"Inventive employees could he awarded royalties".
But that is not the critical paragraph, which comes later. It states:
"The proposal comes in a consultation launched by the DTI and the Patent Office as part of moves to bring the UK into line with changes to the European Patents Convention. Patent laws in Britain have not been significantly updated since 1977".
This idea is not necessarily a bad one. After all, as I believe the Minister pointed out, it would result in a single patent giving an inventor protection in 30 European countries simultaneously. However, it would be wrong for the Government to slide in such a proposal under the cover of a minor, not to say minimalistic, change involving Holland and Denmark only. If a strategic change of that kind is in prospect, the Minister ought to withdraw the statutory instrument we are discussing and resubmit it with revised explanatory notes. The House can then debate it properly in the full knowledge of what is in prospect.
Last night I had the privilege of listening to a lecture in Oxford on the five tests for entry to the euro given by Mr Ed Balls, one of the Minister's colleagues. He
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said that transparency was a key policy for the Government. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how transparent he is prepared to be.
Lord Razzall: My Lords, it is obviously for the Minister and not for me to respond to the speech we have just heard from the Conservative Front Bench. I am somewhat puzzled by the conspiracy which the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, seems to spot within the terms of the order. I am particularly puzzled by it as the Explanatory Memorandum that Her Majesty's Government circulated with the order makes quite clear what their policy objective is:
"On a global scale, this points to an obligation on patent offices to work towards increased co-operation with a view to reducing duplication of effort and moving in due course towards mutual exploitation of each other's work".
Her Majesty's Government make no secret of the direction in which patent procedures and, indeed, hopefully, patent law, are moving. That is their policy objective. As someone who has over the years been involved in that field on a professional basis, I welcome that policy objective. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that if we reach the stage where there is a significant further development in that area, we ought to have the opportunity to debate it within this House. However, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, I welcome the policy objective. Indeed, all practitioners in the field would undoubtedly welcome it as anything that can be done to eliminate the duplication of effort and cost that results from having to make individual patent applications in different countries is obviously to be welcomed.
However, as regards the terms of the order, I should like to probe the Minister on two points. First, I believe that the Explanatory Memorandum makes clear why the Patent Office is going down this route; namely, that there is now a significant mismatch between demand and examiner capacity. The reason for that is that it appears that the Patent Office has recruited and trained many examiners who then get a much better paid job in the private sector or in patent organisations. The Minister ought to confirm that the Government will keep an eye on that matter vis-à-vis the Netherlands and Denmark which, after all, are nice countries in which to live. It would be unfortunate if we continued the practice of training many examiners who then obtain better paid jobs in the Netherlands or Danish patent offices. If that situation continues, it rather defeats the objective of the proposed scheme. I hope that the Minister will confirm that his department will keep an eye on relative pay scales in that area as they could constitute a potential problem.
Secondly, on the general issue, perhaps the Government could confirm when they intend to conduct a review of how the scheme operates and when they will produce a report on how it operates in practice.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am grateful for the comments that have been made. The issue we

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are discussing constitutes a significant development for the Patent Office. It is important that people should understand the thinking behind the measure.
There is a backlog in this area, for the reasons that have been clearly set out. In terms of providing a service to industry it is important that that backlog is dealt with as quickly as possible. This is one—but only one—of the ways in which that should be done.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, I say that we must put even more energy into ensuring that we increase the numbers of people whom we recruit and hold on to them. That is fundamental to tackling the main issue. We have made some steps in relation to pay to bring that about, but it is difficult to increase numbers rapidly because of the large training element.
Some examinations are in fact being contracted out. Contracts have not yet been signed with either the Danish or the Netherlands office, but it is proposed to contract out 250 searches to the Danish office in the first year, rising to 500 searches in the second year. For the Netherlands, it is proposed to contract out 150 searches or examinations in the first year, rising to 250 in the second year. As the noble Lord rightly said, however, that is minor in comparison with the scale of the problem. Above all, we need to drive up the number of people so that we do the work in this country. The order should not be seen as doing anything more than giving added flexibility to deal with the problem in the light of the most important consideration, which is to improve the service that we give our customers.
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, asked three questions. He asked whether people had the right to insist that the patent was done in this country. The answer is "No", but we will make certain that the quality is the same throughout and allocations will he made in line with that. He asked whether the contract could go to any country, to which the answer is "Yes". Finally, he asked by what date we would be able to withdraw. We believe that there will be a possibility of that in two years, but that depends on being able to achieve the necessary recruitment.
None of this has anything to do with moving operations to the European Patent Office. Our Patent Office is one of the strongest in Europe. One problem with getting a further new European patent, which is actually highly desirable, is that many countries are deeply concerned that, in those circumstances, all the patent work would come to the United Kingdom, because the advantage of the English language is enormous for many businesses. The measure should be seen as standing on its own and creating useful flexibility to deal with the problem of the backlog.
The order is only a starting point. The Patent Office has still to finalise preparations with the Danish and Netherlands offices. If all parties are content with those preparations, work could begin in a matter of weeks and Patent Office customers would then start to benefit from an increased flow of work. The international co-operation issue is for the medium and longer term, but there is every prospect of significant
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developments in that direction. Such developments will be of great benefit to innovators seeking to protect their ideas across the world.
The draft order is a significant measure that will provide increased flexibility for the Patent Office, improve the service it can offer customers and prepare for future international co-operation.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Agreement on Trade, Development and Co-operation Between the European Community and its Member States and the Republic of South Africa) Order 2002
1.14 p.m.
Baroness Crawley rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 7th November be approved [First Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I know that we are under some time pressure, so I shall keep my remarks to the minimum.
Africa is a key UK interest and we are committed to working with European Union partners to find ways to bring peace, security and sustainable development to the continent of Africa. With that in mind, in October 1999 the EU concluded this trade, development and co-operation agreement with the Republic of South Africa. The agreement offers a number of benefits to South Africa and will serve to increase its co-operation and integration with the EU.
The first aspect of the TDCA relates to trading arrangements, and its key element is the establishment of a free trade area between the EU and South Africa. The UK believes that trade access and integration into world markets is vital for achieving sustainable development. The EU is already South Africa's main trading and investment partner, and the agreement will strengthen the relationship, giving South Africa better access to European Community markets and giving the EU better access to South Africa. The agreement covers about 90 per cent of current trade between the EU and South Africa.
The free trade area established under the agreement contains measures to protect South Africa, as well as advantages over other similar arrangements. The South African economy is being restructured, so the EU will open up its markets more quickly and extensively than will South Africa. The EU will liberalise around 95 per cent of imports from South Africa in the course of 10 years, while South Africa is expected to liberalise around 86 per cent in the course of 12 years. The TDCA will be fully compatible with WTO rules.
Certain products and sectors have been excluded because of their sensitive nature to either side. On the EU side, those are mainly agricultural products, while South Africa was concerned about the export of European industrial items. Those products account

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for a low percentage of trade between the two, and some sectors have been liberalised to access EU markets to some extent. Nevertheless, the UK realises the importance to the developing world of access to EU markets for agricultural products; that is especially true of Africa. We are committed to working together for further reform of the CAP and towards the opening up of EU markets.
The EU provides most of its development funding to South Africa through a bilateral programme: the European programme for reconstruction and development. The first multi-annual allocation covered the period between 1995 and 1999, and had an annual budget of around 125 million euros. It was targeted at improving the living conditions of the poorest sectors of the South African population, and at combating poverty.
For all those reasons, the UK supports fully the trade, development and co-operation agreement between the EU and the Republic of South Africa. We believe that it will play a vital role in South Africa's continued development and its further integration into the world economy. I commend the order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 7th November be approved [First Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Crawley.)
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, for setting out the purposes of this order. We welcome the broad principles behind it and the prospect of the expansion of freer trade to the benefit of South Africa and its neighbours. However, there is a need for caution in examining the possible knock-on effects of the trade, development and co-operation agreement.
There could be major beneficial implications for South Africa, but we must remember that the pattern of southern Africa is one in which South Africa is only one part. It is part of the South African Customs Union, which consists of a number of other counties that I shall mention in a moment, and the larger Southern African Development Community, which has aspirations to be a free trade area in due course. The first important question is about the benefit that better access to European products, which may only be manufactured goods but the provisions could extend to processed foods as well, will have for smaller countries that are part of the South African Customs Union—notably, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. What happens if they find that their markets into South Africa are removed or undermined by European goods which may be subsidised in some areas if they are related to agriculture? There could be dangers there, together with damage to poor countries and infant industries, which will need to be safeguarded very carefully. I believe that the order made mention of infant industries, albeit those in South Africa.
Therefore, of course we are in favour of freer trade because we on these Benches believe strongly that free trade, a long with good governance, the rule of law and
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property rights are the keys to development and social prosperity—much more so, frankly, than the large transfers of government-to-government aid, which generally have done so badly for South Africa. Perhaps it is already having an encouraging effect. Indeed, the Minister in another place brought out a statistic which I found so heartening that I can hardly believe it to be true—that is, since this agreement was provisionally applied a couple of years ago, exports to the European Union from South Africa have risen by 50 per cent.
That is the background. In a moment, I want to return to the concern about other countries which may be hurt and not helped by the order. I have a few questions for the Minister. First, why are we debating the matter only now when the agreement was signed on 11th October 1999? I am sure that there is a perfectly good explanation for that.
Secondly, how will the order affect all the new members of the European Union which are about to join or will join next May? How will their various sectors, which could be in direct competition with exports from South Africa, be impacted upon?
Thirdly, as the noble Baroness explained, although a large number of products are included, some agricultural products are still excluded. It appears from the literature that the burden of adjustment is slightly heavier on the South African side. Forty per cent of all traded goods in South Africa appear to be affected, but in the European Union that figure is only 25 per cent. Therefore, it will not be roses all the way for South Africa. Some heavy adjustment in South Africa will have to take place, quite aside from adjustments in the neighbouring part of the South African Customs Union.
Then there is the question of how the dark poison of Zimbabwe and the impact that it is already having on the whole region will be affected by this aspiration for freer trade. Only last week, a senior Commissioner of the European Union travelled to the region and pointed out that the Zimbabwe effect was poisoning the whole development impetus of the region and undermining all the hopes that we have invested in the new economic plan in NePAD. How will that help? Will it help at all, or will it be undermined by the continuing deterioration of the Zimbabwean situation as it plunges towards total catastrophe and starvation?
I return to where I started—that is, to the immediate impact on the other members of the South African Customs Union. Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland are fine countries. They are doing their best to move forward. They export substantially to South Africa and now have a new competitive rival. Competition is good, provided it is handled in a socially understanding and sympathetic way. As a result of trying to do good on this front, we must not find that we damage and weaken many people who are

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already in an extremely disadvantaged state. Those are the questions that I wanted to raise in relation to the order.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, this is unfamiliar territory for me, but this is a non-controversial measure, which we on these Benches welcome. We very much welcome the agreement on trade development and co-operation between South Africa and the European Union. As we heard, the European Union is South Africa's main trading and investment partner. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate that the agreement will greatly benefit both South Africa and the EU with better access to markets.
I have only one question for the Minister. Is she able to tell us what infant industries the Government believe should be exempt from incorporation into the treaty? Because we are short of time, I shall be happy if she gives her response in writing.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the extremely interesting but short debate on this significant agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, asked a number of important questions. First, he talked about the importance of the agreement—or perhaps, he thought, the threat within the agreement—for the South African Customs Union countries. South Africa's neighbours within the customs union should benefit from the cheaper imports which will enter South Africa as a result of the agreement. Furthermore, the rules of origin, which, as he knows, are flexible within the agreement, should allow South Africa to export customs union goods as South African. Therefore, if they are made in Namibia or Swaziland, they can still be exported into the EU as South African goods because the rules of origin have been made flexible specifically for this agreement.
He also asked why we are ratifying the agreement only now. Again, that question is quite proper. The UK hopes shortly to join the six other member states that have ratified the agreement. The agreement between South Africa and the EC was reached in late 1999, as the noble Lord knows, and has been in provisional application since 2000. In order for it to come into full force, all member states, as well as South Africa, will have to ratify. The delay has been caused, in part, because of complications over the position of our Crown dependencies in relation to the agreement. We hope that other member states will ratify fully as soon as possible.
The noble Lord also asked about candidate countries. Those countries will become party to the agreement when the treaty of accession comes into force. If the noble Lord wishes me to respond further, I shall be happy to do so in writing.
Our relationship with South Africa covers far more than Zimbabwe. It would be wrong to allow key bilateral issues in trading relations between the European Union and South Africa to be affected adversely by what has happened with Zimbabwe. As the noble Lord knows, the EU last agreed to extend sanctions in September this year. Seventy-nine people
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are now on the travel-ban list and half a million assets belonging to named people in Zimbabwe have been frozen in 28 accounts in the UK. Therefore, we are doing everything that we can to support Zimbabweans and to isolate the regime. But we do not wish the difficult situation with regard to our relations with Zimbabwe to influence in any negative way our agreement over this TDCA.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for her remarks and I shall indeed write to her on the matter of the infant industries.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Designation of Public Authorities) Order 2002
1.29 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 24th October be approved [40th Report, Session 2001–02, from the Joint committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble and learned friend the Lord Privy Seal.
The order is made under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The purpose of the draft order is to make the bodies listed in the schedules "public authorities" for the purposes of Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Those public authorities will be subject to the statutory duties set out in Section 75(1) and (2) of the Act, requiring them to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between specific groups.
Although devolved government has temporarily been suspended, we remain committed to ensuring the full implementation of the agreement. The order is a further step in that important process.
In order to demonstrate its commitment, each public authority is required to produce an equality scheme that sets out how it will fulfil the duties. The schemes will cover the full range of the organisation's functions in Northern Ireland. As required by the guidelines approved by the Secretary of State each will include arrangements for policy appraisal; public consultation; public access to information and services; monitoring; and timetables. Those schemes will be submitted to the Equality Commission for approval.
The Equality Commission will advise on preparation, validate and monitor the Section 75 statutory obligation and will investigate complaints of default. Section 75(3)(b) and (c) of the Act automatically brought the vast majority of public authorities in Northern Ireland—around 120—within the scope of the statutory equality duty.
We intend that the statutory duty should, in time, embrace as many bodies as possible. It is our policy that non-designation should be the exception, not the rule. This order is not the end of the process and further designation orders will be brought forward as and when required. I commend the order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 24th October be approved [40th Report, Session 2001–02, from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton).
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I have little to say on this order. It moves forward with the agreement. I support the order.
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, on these Benches we regard the order as a welcome addition and look forward, as the Minister assured us, to further designations in the future when appropriate.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords, I shall endeavour to be brief. I am aware of the pressure of time. I hope that your Lordships will not consider me churlish if I express the hope that Northern Ireland business is not forced to be rushed through in an inappropriately short time. I spent 18 years in another place where. for too long, Northern Ireland business was relegated to the midnight hours or rushed through inappropriately.
No one can disagree with the objectives of the order. It is one thing to expect bodies and individuals to meet the criteria for promoting equal opportunity and promoting good relations, but quite another to see that implemented on the ground. I implore the Government to look carefully at some matters that they are forcing upon the people of Northern Ireland which contradict the objectives of the order. There is an inequality of opportunity and I hope to deal with that to a greater extent when we discuss the new police legislation due to come before the House in the future.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Smith of Clifton, for their support. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, that the Government have absolutely no intention of rushing through these orders. I had understood that noble Lords who wished to be present preferred to take the orders now rather than after Starred Questions. On behalf of my noble and learned friend the Lord Privy Seal, I can assure the noble Lord that we guard jealously the right of noble Lords to comment at the right time on matters affecting Northern Ireland.
I am aware of the view of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, on the issue of equality in general. I believe that he supports the order and its aims. I look forward to receiving his comments in detail as we embark on the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2002
1.35 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 18th November be approved.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble and learned friend the Lord Privy Seal. The order will amend the existing legislation relating to the operation of local government in Northern Ireland. It will remove ambiguity and complexity from existing provisions for funding district councils and strengthen their powers and responsibilities in the areas of economic development and community safety.
I propose to comment briefly on the order. I draw noble Lords' attention to the principal provision. The main purpose of the order is to put in place a new methodology for the distribution of the resources element of general grant payable to district councils. It would also extend the existing economic development powers and introduce new discretionary community safety provisions for councils.
Articles 3 to 7 deal with the payment of grants to district councils. Article 4 is an enabling power for the making of regulations to set out the formula for determining the amount of the resources element of the general grant payable to district councils. The existing statutory formula is complex and frequently results in wide variations year-on-year, making effective long-term financial planning difficult for councils. The new methodology would be simpler and would incorporate new factors, taking account of the relative socio-economic disadvantage between districts, in accordance with new targeting social need principles. It would also provide for regular payments to facilitate good financial planning.
Article 8 would extend the powers to promote economic development, allowing a broader range of activities, including the provision of sites and the acquisition of land for economic development. Also, the article would repeal the existing time limit on expenditure by district councils for that purpose.
Article 9 provides powers to district councils to engage, if they so wish, in community safety activity through voluntary community safety partnerships. Such partnerships are to be established under a community safety strategy devised by the Secretary of State.
Extensive consultation has taken place on all those matters and district councils in Northern Ireland generally accept the proposed changes. In particular, there has been overwhelming support for the new economic development and community safety powers.
Your Lordships may be aware that the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 is almost identical to the Bill that was being debated by the Northern Ireland Assembly prior to its suspension. It was considered by the Assembly's Environment Committee, which subsequently published a report on its findings. Concerns raised by the Environment Committee and suggested amendments have been addressed in the order. The Environment Committee was content that its recommendations would be taken on board and did not propose to bring forward any further changes. I commend the order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 18th November be approved.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I shall be considerably briefer on this order than I had intended to be. One point that I wish to make is that I believe this is a very—and I am not talking about today's timing and the rush there is now—unsatisfactory way of ruling Northern Ireland. I have mentioned this matter outside the Chamber to my Chief Whip and to the Government Chief Whip, and I know it is the view of my colleagues in another place. We cannot continue running Northern Ireland, in the absence of the Assembly, by a series of orders taken one after the other without proper and due scrutiny. I must ask the Government to examine a means whereby we can have pre-legislative scrutiny of some of these orders.
This order is a classic example of what is required. It is a significant order, altering the rules and regulations for 26 local authorities. It sets up orders and ways and means of adjusting the financing from one local authority to another and allowing them to raise funds for a great number of different things. I am sure that had this debate taken place in Stormont, it would have been contentious and would have lasted a considerable amount of time. I see the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, nodding in agreement with me.
That is just one example. There are nine orders outstanding at the moment that concern the management of Northern Ireland, six of which will be taken after the Second Reading of the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill. I was asked whether I was prepared for that to happen. I confess that I said, "Yes", but I believe that probably nearly every one of those orders deserves a separate debate of about one hour each in the form of an Unstarred Question. This method of pushing loads of orders through—there will be more coming until the Northern Ireland political situation changes—is quite wrong. I must ask the Government in the strongest possible words to look into this matter and to make sure that some form of democratic process is put in place so that we can properly scrutinise and examine orders which would be debated in full were they in Stormont.
In principle, I have always believed that the right place for the management of Northern Ireland and for parties and political tribes to work, to get together, and to make matters work is at a local level. I believe that there should be a significant reorganisation of local government. The number of local authorities should be significantly reduced and the next stage, if we do not quickly get the Assembly back working properly, should be to devolve more power to fewer local authorities and to make it work in the villages and in the towns. Having said that, I support this order.
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I associate these Benches with the remarks by the noble Lords, Lord Maginnis and Lord Glentoran. We are the guardians of Stormont during its suspension. We must not let these orders go through on the nod; we must
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contrive some way to debate these orders properly because, as the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, says, there are many more coming along.
We welcome the rationalisation of the grant provisions and finances to local authorities, in particular, the extension in local government powers with regard to economic development. This is the first time in my living memory that a government have extended the powers of local government instead of taking them away. We support the orders.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords, I first acknowledge and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, for her response to the earlier order.
Anyone who wears a local government hat, as I first did over 21 years ago and continue so to do. will welcome this order. But I regret that it has to be dealt with here instead of in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I hope that it will not be long before that forum is up and running again.
Local government has, particularly since the mid to late 1980s, been a stabilising influence in Northern Ireland. Extending the responsibilities of local government has increasingly benefited our communities.
The power devolved to councils in relation to economic development, which is dealt with at Article 8, has been a successful innovation during the past decade. I welcome the extension of that provision at Article (8)(2)(b) to allow councils to acquire, hold and develop land for that purpose.
A careful and considered approach will have to be adopted in implementing this function so that small local government bodies are not overstretched financially, or in respect of their ability to cope with a very specialised discipline, and I would hope that the department and Invest Northern Ireland would be sympathetic and co-operative in this area.
The Assembly when it resumes its functions will have to grapple with how 27 local government bodies can be reduced to a smaller number of more economically viable units if this example of devolved responsibility is to work effectively.
I welcome the way in which the general grant element has been dealt with and the process modified to more equitably facilitate less well-off councils. The new three-year provision is certainly welcome in so far as it better allows forward planning to take place.
I hope that, as has happened this year and in previous years, when the general grant element was dealt with on an annual basis and not quantified until the last minute, the new three-year assessment will permit earlier notification to councils of their entitlement.
Finally, Article 9(2) states:
"The Department may by order confer or impose on district councils other functions … "
I say no more than that I sincerely hope that the powers of district councils in relation to community safety councils will be handled sensitively and that

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district councils will be given time to build up trust on this front before the department "imposes" anything on them.
I implore direct rule ministers to recognise that to irritate political sensitivities in this area could create the opposite effect to what is intended. I believe that consultation, rather than imposition should—indeed must—be the methodology employed in this initiative. I support the order.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, the noble Baroness was kind enough to reassure me that this order did not concern the DPPs. For that I thank her. I therefore have nothing further to say, except that I strongly support the views of my noble friend Lord Glentoran and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, that while we are in direct rule, we need to devote more time than this to these issues.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I. too, share the background of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis; I was in local government for a period of 24 years until 1997. I note the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. Of course we all hope that the need for Westminster to make decisions will last for a short time only.
I note noble Lords' welcome for the ability for future planning. At the moment there is no intention and there are no plans to impose on Northern Ireland the functions about which the noble Lord expressed concern. I, too, welcome the fact that this is an extension of powers to local government. If there are any points raised which I have failed to answer, I shall of course write to noble Lords.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Housing Support Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2002
1.48 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 18th November be approved.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I move this Motion on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lord Williams of Mostyn.
The purpose of the draft Housing Support Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 is to confer on the Northern Ireland Housing Executive the function of securing the provision of housing support services to individuals with particular needs, and to empower the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to pay grants to eligible persons towards expenditure incurred by them in providing certain housing support services.
The order amends Section 129 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992 to exclude payments in respect of such services when determining entitlement to housing benefit. The provisions mirror the measures contained in the Local
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Government Act 2000—Section 2 and Sections 92 to 96—and the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001—Section 91.
If any noble Lords have detailed questions, I shall of course be delighted to answer them. The proposals broadly mirror arrangements proposed for Great Britain, which were subjected to widespread documentation through the document, Towards Supporting People. They were also debated in the Northern Ireland Assembly and scrutinised by the Social Development Committee. Of course, they include the full provisions relating to the disclosure and unauthorised disclosure of information of information necessary to comply with data protection legislation. There is also provision to amend Section 129 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992 to exclude payments in respect of housing support services when determining entitlement to housing benefit. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 18th November be approved.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, the order seems to be common sense. I support the Motion. It is worth saying that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive has done a fantastic job from many years. It should be complimented. I hope that the order will help it to continue.
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the order.
Lord Rogan: My Lords, I shall be brief. I begin by echoing the sentiments of other noble Lords, especially the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, in asking for more time to be debate Northern Ireland issues. It is a matter of deep regret that we are today discussing these three Northern Ireland orders; they should be dealt with hack home in Belfast. Speaking as an Ulster Unionist, I can only underline once again how keen is my party that we return to normal business in Northern Ireland. However, let me repeat that that can and will happen only when the republican movement has moved to carry out the necessary act of completion so desired by the vast majority of people in the Province.
The Housing Support Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 has been introduced to replace the Housing Support Services Bill, which was welcomed by all parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly. As such, I am more than happy to welcome the legislation in its new form. The one area of concern raised during the Bill's passage through the Assembly was funding—especially whether sufficient money had been set aside to provide for the potential growth of needs. Can the Minister give an assurance that the order before us includes sufficient far-sightedness to ensure that the Government, or the Northern Ireland Executive, if it is to be restored, avoids a funding crisis furl her down the line?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, and other noble

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Lords in their congratulations. I can only stress to noble Lords that when the Order Paper was printed, every expectation was that the first order on the agenda would take a quarter of an hour and Northern Ireland would have its appropriate time. We have certainly not in any way sought to curtail debate.
I hope that it reassures the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, if I tell him that officials from the Department for Social Development are in contact with their counterparts in the Department of Finance and Personnel and have been involved in discussions with the Treasury to ensure that the supporting people budget is adequately funded. If noble Lords want on reflection to ask further questions, I hope that they will write to me.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I beg to move that the remaining order and regulations be postponed until after Starred Questions. They will be followed by my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton repeating a Statement on the local government financial settlement 2003–04.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended at 1.54 p.m.]

Environmental Regulatory Inspection Charges
3 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshieasked Her Majesty's Government:
How charges for inspection are fixed in the case of environmental bodies such as the Environment Agency.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, there are a number of environmental regulatory charging schemes, covering a range of industrial and agricultural sectors. The general principle adopted is that regulators should set charges to cover the full costs of regulation and that those whose activities impinge on the environment, rather than taxpayers, should meet the cost. The Environment Agency's charges are considered and approved by Ministers each year.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, would the Minister like to hear of a specific example that affects
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agriculture badly? A friend of mine put in four septic tanks to handle the facilities for the students who come to pick his fruit. The cost for the tanks and for putting them in was £3,296 and £400 for labour, making a total of £3,696. SEPA—the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency—which I would relate closely to the English Environment Agency, as they sprang from the same sire—charged £2,320 for an inspection that took about an hour. The British Geological Survey took, with VAT, £646. The VAT on the tanks was £566. For an expenditure of £3,696, the Government collected £3,532. That cannot be good for agriculture.
The charges levied by SEPA and the British Geological Survey should be scaled according to the size of the job. I dare say that, on a job costing £400,000, such a sum would be reasonable, but it is unreasonable for that job.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, the noble Lord is right in so far as SEPA originated from the bodies that came together to form the environmental protection agencies. However, as the noble Lord is aware, because he helped the process along, devolution means that he must address his views on what happens in Scotland to the Scottish Parliament. It is a matter for that body.
I reiterate that, for England and Wales, the policy is that the costs must be recovered. From my background in local government, I know that people often fail to recognise that additional costs are incurred in providing services. What happens in Scotland is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, in whose existence the noble Lord rejoices.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, how many schemes are in being? When were they last reviewed? Are they reviewed regularly?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, unusually, I am puzzled by the noble Baroness's question. The range of functional responsibilities of the Environment Agency for England and Wales covers flood defence, water resource management, water quality, integrated pollution control, radioactive waste management and waste management. Therefore, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive list of the individual areas in which there is activity that falls under the remit of the agency.
The question posed by the noble Baroness was not clear.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, in her response to the noble Lord's Question, the Minister said that there were various charging schemes. My questions were: how many schemes are there, when were they last reviewed, and are they reviewed regularly?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I go back to the point that the charging systems for England and Wales are fixed in consultation with the Environment Agency. I cannot give the noble Baroness a list giving the exact number of such

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schemes, although I am happy to write to her. The schemes cover regulation of all the industrial complexes, farming and other areas of pollution.
The recommendations made by the Environment Agency on the level of fees to be charged are, as far as I am aware, adjusted annually. Should I prove to be wrong, I shall write to the noble Baroness.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, has a calculation been made setting the charges that properly fall on farmers and on the agriculture industry against the subsidy that they receive from public funds?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I am not aware of any work to create that precise cross-referencing. The scheme is not intended to produce more than the cost of administering the service and should ensure that no additional cost falls on the taxpayer, under the polluter pays principle.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, Section 46 of the Environment Act 1995 requires that the accounts of the Environment Agency be audited each year by auditors appointed or approved by the Secretary of State. Does that audit include a duty to consider whether the charges levied by the Environment Agency are reasonable?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I would be extremely surprised were that not to be the case. It is part of the terms of reference of the Environment Agency. In addition to the consideration given by the auditors, there is the ministerial responsibility, which, in England and Wales, is held by the appropriate Minister of the Welsh Assembly working in co-operation with my right honourable friend Michael Meacher.

Special Constables
3.7 p.m.
Lord Bradshawasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will bring forward proposals to pay special constables.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am aware that there has been a debate for a number of years on whether special constables should be paid. Specials themselves are not agreed on this. Some Specials have argued in favour, while others have felt that payment would devalue their volunteer status.
We intend to introduce amendments to the Special Constabulary regulations to allow police authorities to submit schemes that they have agreed with their chief constable for the payment of special constables. Such schemes will require the approval of the Secretary of State. Running a number of trial schemes will help establish to what extent payments to Specials have a
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positive effect on their recruitment and retention and on the number of hours that they are able to offer their force.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer and declare my interest as Vice-Chairman of the Thames Valley Police Authority.
The Special Constabulary was around 20,000 when the Government came to power and is now 11,500. By the time that the Minister moves to bring in a scheme, the constabulary will have disappeared altogether. He gave almost the same Answer as I have had before.
Will the scheme that the Minister has in mind happen quickly? Will it specifically target the police authorities near London, for whom retention is a serious problem? Despite large efforts to recruit more officers, we are unable to increase numbers, and we are losing experienced officers to London and further away, where houses are cheaper.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, first, I should perhaps congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on his persistence on this issue. It is a very important issue and he has raised it a number of times. I have probably responded in the past to some of his questions.
Yes, we recognise that that is a problem. Yes, we want to see the new approach adopted as soon as possible. I believe that we telegraphed it in last year's White Paper Policing A New Century: A Blueprint For Reform. We want carefully to evaluate the impact of running such pilots. Perhaps the noble Lord is aware of the proposals from the Cumbria police authority which is intending, obviously with co-operation from the centre, to introduce a pilot scheme to evaluate the impact that relaxing the regulations might have on attracting and, more importantly, retaining special constables working in that difficult area.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the fall in special constables in England and Wales, quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, reflects a serious crisis in morale among special constables? Does he also agree that there is a danger that the introduction of community support officers may further undermine that morale?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I do not accept that there is a lack of morale. There is continued confidence among Specials in the support and encouragement that they receive. There is no doubt that we are successful in recruitment; it is retention that is the problem. That is precisely why means of retention through relaxation of the current regulations are being seriously considered and will be evaluated through pilots.
I do not agree with the second point made by the noble Viscount relating to community support officers. They are increasingly popular among those forces across the country which are now submitting

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schemes. They have been successfully introduced in London and are doing a tremendous job on behalf of the communities that they serve.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that there was quite an exodus of special constables two or three years ago when basic training requirements were introduced, which meant that long-serving special constables who had been happy to do the job, were expected to go through precisely the same training as somebody who had just walked through the door and said that he or she wanted to be a special constable? Is that still the case?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, there has been some research into the causes behind the falling away of Specials within the special constabulary. No one reason is pinpointed. I believe that last year some 400 Specials actually went into the mainstream police service. That is very encouraging; that has always been a good route. Some 40 per cent have cited family reasons as one of their reasons for leaving the Special Constabulary; namely, the pressure on them of the mix of their job and their work/life balance.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, will the Minister tell me whether, although the special constables are not paid, they are given any form of honorarium or support? The Minister mentioned that they are given support. Does he mean financial support or are they actually out of pocket because they are special constables?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, no. I do not believe that they will be out of pocket. They receive allowances and costs for being in attendance. As I have made plain earlier—and I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, is aware—payment is in the form of a wage. Other support is management encouragement and working with the local force systems.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, is it not the case that all other voluntary service organisations, ranging from retired/ retained firemen to the Territorial Army, are paid? Why should the police be different?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, raised a question which has obviously been debated many times in the past. It is for that reason we have come to the stage where we believe that there is some value and merit in relaxing the regulations so that a pilot can be evaluated. I must say—and I believe that I made the point in my initial response—that special constables themselves are somewhat divided as to whether payment is a good idea. In receiving payment, they would have to be taxed not just on the payments they receive, but also on their attendance allowances. For many of them there is not necessarily a big benefit to be found in payments.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, while approving of the recruitment of special constables, will the
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Minister ensure that prospective special constables' criminal records are checked before they are appointed, whether or not they are paid?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, can rest assured that their record is well checked.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, will the Minister consider a proper pilot—not some little scheme in Workington—in a big police authority?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was not being discouraging towards the efforts of the Cumbrian police service because I am sure that the special constables will be very welcome in Workington; the extra special constables that they receive will be very welcome on the streets.
As to the second point raised by the noble Lord, it is for police authorities to bring forward schemes in consultation with their chief constables. They will be properly looked at and evaluated, and then put into effect.

Royal Navy and RFA: Satellite Television
3.15 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcesterasked Her Majesty's Government:
What consideration has been given to the provision of satellite television dishes to all Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships; and what would be the cost involved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): My Lords, a package utilising existing military satellite links to provide "near real time TV" to larger ships should be complete next summer. We have commenced a trial of the feasibility of providing satellite dishes to all RN and RFA surface ships. Once trials are complete, we will be assessing likely costs and will need to consider the affordability alongside other projects.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that moderately encouraging reply. He knows that recently I completely my commitment to the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme when I joined HMS "Westminster" while it was sailing in the South Atlantic. Is the Minister aware that when I asked members of the crew what single change would most improve life at sea, the almost universal response was the opportunity to keep up with the news, follow football and watch the soaps? That was what would make the greatest difference.
Given that the technology now exists to provide satellite television almost anywhere in the world, perhaps I may encourage my noble friend to give its provision a higher priority? In addition, would the

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Government be willing to consider a commercial sponsor, if one were forthcoming, to help defray the cost?
Lord Back: My Lords, I begin by congratulating my noble friend on completing his tour of duty on the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme. I am reliably assured that he made an excellent sailor. As regards his Question, that matter has a high priority. As I say, by summer next year all three aircraft carriers, HMS "Ocean" and all frigates and destroyers will have, effectively, satellite television. That is a high priority.
As far as concerns sponsorship, the Government are ready to consider any practical and realistic ways of providing rest and recreation opportunities, including sponsorship. As my noble friend will know, however, the devil is often in the detail. Any arrangements which might be considered with private sponsors would have to meet rigorous criteria of propriety and regularity.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, will the noble Lord explain what the difference is between "real time" television and "near real time" television and how that affects the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, who spent some time in the South Atlantic?
Lord Bach: My Lords, that is a jolly good question—and I shall answer it. "Near real time" television will use existing military satellite links to transmit approximately six hours of recreational television over an 18 hour period each day. That can be played back on board at a time appropriate to the time zone in which the ship is operating. That is why it is "near real time".
Lord Burnham: My Lords, bearing in mind the enormous demands on finance in the Ministry of Defence, can the noble Lord give a figure for the cost of installation of the dishes?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I am not in a position to give a figure as to cost. However, as far as the larger ships are concerned that I have outlined, that cost will be met.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, is it not a fact that—bearing in mind the importance of crew welfare—there is a captive audience here? It may be a wonderful opportunity to show some British films. British films have a great deal of difficulty in being distributed and seen. Do the Government have any policy to show those films to the crews in order that we may receive some feedback which may, in the end, have a salutary effect on British film production and distribution which could benefit us all?
Lord Bach: My Lords, the noble Viscount makes an excellent point. Perhaps I should remind him that films, by way of video and film, have been shown on Her Majesty's ships, both surface and submarine, for many years. The film "In Which We Serve", which I
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am reliably informed was seen by my noble friend Lady Symons on a submarine on one occasion, is one that we shall ensure is shown again soon.
Lord Greenway: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the provision of properly functioning armament and equipment should remain the greatest priority as compared to the provision of television to Her Majesty's ships?
Lord Bach: My Lords, of course I agree with that. The whole House will agree with that. But, as we move forward with technology, it is very important that those who bravely serve on our ships should have as good a time as possible.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, are we moving forward if the programmes shown are similar to the film "In Which We Serve", which I believe is about 30 years old?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Earl, in particular, should ask that question. I thought that, with me, he shared a liking for past times. Thirty years is not that long ago. I think the film is older than that and was made perhaps 60 years ago. But it remains an excellent film, which I am sure the noble Earl has enjoyed.
Lord Puttnam: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the British film industry is finding it extremely difficult to attract audiences outside this country? The fact that sailors on ships will be viewing these films outside the UK may be a tremendous promotional asset for the DTI when it is pointing out the advantages of UK film making.
Lord Bach: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. No one in this House has greater experience in this field than he. I shall certainly bear what he has said in mind.
Lord McNally: My Lords, if the research of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, is right and the priorities of the men on HMS "Westminster" is to watch news, football and soaps, is this not a long way from the traditions of the British Navy expressed by Winston Churchill, which were "rum, sodomy and the lash"? Does this trend bode altogether well for the mettle of our fighting men?
Lord Bach: My Lords, Sir Winston Churchill was undoubtedly the greatest Englishman ever—the BBC have told us that—but he was not always right.

Special Educational Needs
3.22 p.m.
Baroness Walmsleyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they intend to take in the light of the report from the Audit Commission on children with special needs.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My Lords, we welcome the report, which recognises the action we are taking to address many of the priority issues it identifies. We will publish next year a programme of practical measures to improve outcomes for children with special educational needs through earlier intervention, better co-ordination of education, health and social services, support for inclusion and action to raise the attainment and recognise the achievement of children with special educational needs.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is she concerned that the Audit Commission report showed that many parents of children with statements were finding great difficulty in getting those children into the school of their choice, with the implication that schools are excluding children with special needs in order to protect their position in the league tables? Given that the report also states that,
"schools have struggled to balance pressures to raise standards of attainment and become more inclusive, and that national targets and performance tables fail to reflect the achievements of many children with SEN so that inclusive schools appear to perform badly",
is it not time to abandon these misleading and damaging league tables and to introduce a system which properly measures the successes of children and schools?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, there is evidence from the Audit Commission—largely anecdotal—of the unwelcoming attitudes of some schools towards children with special educational needs. Noble Lords will recall that from July 2002 there is a requirement for education authorities to publish their arrangements for monitoring the admissions of children with special educational needs. This will be part of the discussions of the statutory admissions forum in order to ensure that we are dealing with the needs of these children. Many schools are inclusive and achieve high standards. The introduction of value added measures will help to support schools which are inclusive and which work well and hard with children of differing needs. We hope that they will give a more rounded picture. We are looking at ways in which we can recognise the wider achievements of schools and pupils as part of this action programme.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, the Audit Commission identified particularly the difficulties that
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children with autism spectrum disorders experience in school admissions. I declare an interest as the father of an autistic daughter. What action are the Government taking to address this problem?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, work has gone on between the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Health which has produced guidance to help promote good practice and work with local education authorities. However, this is an area in which we have more work to do. In considering an action programme, I am concerned to ensure that we are supporting children on the autistic spectrum effectively. That means working closely and as well as we possibly can with local education authorities and organisations which support these children.
Lord Renton: My Lords, will the Government bear in mind the vital, overriding factor that a high proportion of children with special needs are in need of special education? To send them to mainstream schools not only deprives them of that, but obstructs the general giving of education for normal children in mainstream schools.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, there is much evidence to support the fact that many children who have special educational needs can be taught well in a mainstream school, to the benefit of all the children in that mainstream school. We have 1,098 maintained special schools. A working group is currently examining how best the department and the Government as a whole can support special schools, working closely with heads and others involved in special schools, to see what more we can do to ensure their rightful place. I agree with the noble Lord that they are valuable for our children with complex needs who are best educated in special schools.
Lord Addington: My Lords, Recommendation 8 in the Audit Report in regard to the monitoring of the progress of special needs is probably one of its most damning because it suggests that we do not know when we are getting it right and getting it wrong. Will the Minister give an undertaking that we shall shortly have enough information to be able to make assumptions on all the legislation on this issue that we have passed through Parliament? Without it, we shall not know whether we have wasted at least half our time.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord the assurance that he seeks. The information currently coming through from the data identifies, first, the special educational needs of children within a framework; and, secondly, the attainment of those children. So from next year, for the first time, we shall have the kind of detailed information that will help us to work out the right level of support; to enable us to ensure that schools are more

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successful in supporting these children; and to help us to value their attainment, for reasons which are obvious to the noble Lord.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, does the Minister recognize—I am almost certain that she will—the very real increase in the number of young people who are now diagnosed as having autism? Some of the difficulties they are having, both with local authorities as well as with schools, has more to do with the lack of support in the classroom for the teacher, who ultimately has to cope. Any disruption which arises from that will impact on the other children in the class. Does the Minister agree that the real issue is more to do with support in the classroom to enable teachers to cope and less to do with league tables?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness. More children are being diagnosed with autism or with being on the autistic spectrum. From the evidence that I have seen, this is in large part to do with the fact that we are more able to recognise the three areas that denote someone who should be on that spectrum. We are looking very carefully at how we can support these children. I agree that it is a matter of what more we can do in the classroom. We are looking at how we can better support our teachers, particularly in their induction year as they begin teaching. We are looking also at how we can provide support through additional resources, including extra support on behavioural issues. We want to identify children with behavioural problems associated with special educational needs, including autism, in order to help them and to make sure that the support is there.

Local Government Settlement
3.30 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place on local authority revenue finance for England 2003–04. The Statement is as follows:
"I am pleased to be able to inform the House that next year's local government settlement will see total support from government grant and business rates of £51.2 billion. This is an increase over this year of £3.8 billion or 8 per cent in cash terms. It provides substantial real terms growth in the funding we are providing for local government.
"The £51.2 billion is made up of £24.3 billion in revenue support grant, £15.6 billion in business rates, £4.1 billion in police grant and £7.3 billion in special and specific grants.
"Today I am announcing details of the allocation to individual authorities of the £39.9 billion of revenue support grant and business rates. When taken together with the police grant, this represents an increase of 5.9 per cent cash over this year's allocation.
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"We announced last year that, from 1st April next year, we would introduce a system for distributing grant between authorities which is fairer, more transparent, and more just. Honourable Members will know that we have taken a long, hard look at the grant distribution system. We had no doubts on the need to replace the outdated and discredited SSA system. However, developing a robust, appropriate and fair replacement has been a challenging task, not least because of the many competing claims from different categories of local authorities. We have held very detailed discussions with local government and those with expertise in this area as we looked at all the current formulae and the options for change. We held 15 meetings of the technical group in just over a year. In addition, many more meetings were held with those with an interest, covering education, police, personal social services and other council services.
"We have then carried out a wide-ranging consultation on those options, including, useful seminars and debates in this House, where Members let us know their views. The consultation paper included 47 specific options, and another 52 exemplifications were done at the request of local authorities.
"We received some 55,000 responses to the options on which we consulted over the summer. Over 1,000 of these responses were from councils, members of the public, Members of this House, business organisations and others with an interest. The others were sent in response to various campaigns. Several petitions were also received.
"I announced the publication of an analysis of those responses earlier today by means of a written statement, and copies of the analysis itself have been placed in the Vote Office.
"In reaching a conclusion, we have needed to balance up the pressures, evidence and representations.
"One of the major problems with the old SSA system is that it attempted to take a view on what authorities needed to spend. This was unrealistic, and inconsistent with our approach towards devolving responsibilities, so we will not continue with it. Notional spending allocations do not imply anything about the budget or spending choices that will need to be made. Those are decisions that should properly be taken by councils in consultation with their council tax payers. The one exception is in respect of the Government's key priority of education, where we have said that we want to see authorities pass on increases to schools. In summary, the purpose of the new system will be to distribute grant according to authorities' relative circumstances and relative ability to raise resources from council tax.
"The new grant distribution formula will, in the main, no longer rely on past spending patterns—one of the main criticisms of standard spending assessments. The new formula will ensure that the

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distribution of grant is relevant to the circumstances councils face now, reflecting up-to-date spending patterns where appropriate.
"We have worked hard to make the system less complex and difficult to understand. This was never going to be easy. The sheer size of the sums of money going to local authorities, the wide-ranging responsibilities undertaken by councils, and the differing circumstances faced by those authorities across England mean that there will still inevitably continue to be a degree of complexity in the formulae used. However, we have simplified the structure of the system, which can be summarised as a basic allocation to each authority with top-ups reflecting particular circumstances facing councils such as deprivation, high wage costs and sparsity.
"The formulae also no longer include the sort of perverse incentives and inadequate indicators that were present in the old system—for example, the old fire formula was based on the number of calls each authority received. That meant that it had little financial incentive to improve fire safety and safety education and so reduce the number of calls. It is that kind of anomaly which we have tried to remove from the new system.
"I know many honourable Members will have a particular interest in the decisions we have taken on the area cost adjustment. We have concluded that pay costs should be recognised within the system, but the ACA has been re-designed to minimise the `cliff-edge' effect. It will in future better reflect the different circumstances in London and the South East and those authorities with differing pay costs. It will also reflect the needs of areas outside the South East with high pay costs.
"The other aspect which I should highlight is that we have increased the extent to which the system takes account of councils' relative ability to raise council tax—'resource equalisation', in the jargon. This means that we make a more realistic assumption about average council tax. It does not mean that we simply reward high spending.
"Turning to other formulae, we have made good the promise to ensure that no authority's schools will lose out in real terms from the changes. The new education formula ensures that every education authority's per-pupil allocation goes up by at least 3.2 per cent cash—well above inflation.
"The environmental, protective and cultural services formula has been greatly simplified, and now better recognises the basic costs that all authorities face. We have made some detailed changes to personal social services—we have simplified it so that there is now a single formula for residential and domiciliary care for older people—though as PSS was reformed comparatively recently the changes here are less extensive than elsewhere. And we have listened to the argument put to us by small authorities—particularly shire districts—that they face a fixed 'cost of being in business'. So we have allocated a flat-rate £300,000 element to most classes of authorities, to recognise that cost.
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"As I have already promised, the system will incorporate 'floors and ceilings' to safeguard authorities from excessive short-term variations in grant. For the last two years we have guaranteed that no authority received less grant than it did in the previous year on a like-for-like basis. Those councils with education and social service responsibilities did, of course, significantly better, and last year we were able to ensure that all councils received a grant increase at least in line with inflation. Honourable Members will know that we have already made clear that no local authorities will receive a cut in grant next year in cash terms.
"These floors ensure that every authority within the scheme gets a reasonable level of grant increase, given the overall distribution and the total level of funding available. To pay for the floor, we impose a maximum on grant increases, and scale back the rises received by authorities between those two levels.
"I am pleased to be able to announce that I am setting the floor levels so that in 2003–04 all authorities will receive a grant increase on a like-for-like basis well ahead of inflation. That means a real terms increase in grant for all authorities.
"The floor increases in cash terms for police and fire authorities and shire districts will be 3 per cent and the floor for unitary authorities, county councils, metropolitan districts and London boroughs will be 3.5 per cent.
"To pay for these floor increases, we will be setting a ceiling of 4.9 per cent for single-service police and fire authorities (including the Greater London Authority); 8 per cent for unitary authorities, county councils, metropolitan districts and London boroughs; and 12.5 per cent for shire districts.
"Increases above the floor but below the ceiling will be scaled back by 5.4 per cent for police and fire authorities, 1.3 per cent for shire districts and 4.6 per cent for authorities with education and social service responsibilities.
"In addition, as I said earlier, we will phase in the new education formula in such a way that no authorities' schools will lose out in real terms. The education formula will incorporate a floor of 3.2 per cent in cash terms and a ceiling of 7 per cent per pupil.
"In addition to the increases in funding for local authorities' general grant, we are also providing further increases in grants for specific initiatives. Of key importance will be the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, which will allocate £400 million of grant via local strategic partnerships to help support and kick-start public services in the most deprived areas—£100 million more than this year. On a like-for-like basis, local authorities will receive £1.3 billion more next year in special and specific grants.
"As we promised in the local government White Paper, we have looked closely at these grants to ensure that ring-fencing is kept to the minimum

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necessary. Members will be aware from the recent announcement on freedoms and flexibilities that the proportion of funding paid to local authorities as ring-fenced grants will, on current plans, reduce over the three years of the spending review, and that excellent councils will also receive additional freedoms from ring-fencing. Ring-fencing revenue funding is set to decrease from 12.4 per cent currently to below 10 per cent by 2005–06.
"Our plans for next year provide local authorities with good increases in grant—increases that mean that since 1997 we have raised government grant to local authorities by some 25 per cent in real terms, compared to a 7 per cent reduction in real terms in the last four years of the previous administration. There could be no clearer illustration of our commitment to supporting and helping local authorities to deliver the strong local leadership and quality public services that local residents rightly expect and that local government wants to provide.
"Given the significance of the review we have undertaken, local authorities have, understandably, been awaiting today's announcement with some anxiety. Some authorities have been predicting a settlement under which councils will have to make cutbacks or impose significant council tax increases. I am glad that today's announcement demonstrates that those fears and the scaremongering about cuts in grants from our political opponents were unfounded and unjustified. The good increases in funding provided by the spending review, the realistic levels of floors and ceilings we have been able to set, and the decisions we have taken on the distribution of grant to local authorities mean that there is no reason why councils cannot continue to improve services while sticking to reasonable council tax increases. Today's proposals are good news for local government. As such, I commend them to the House".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.42 p.m.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. It is nice to form up to him again. I declare my usual interest as a member of a London local authority. The local government finance settlement has for years been about as opaque as a dense fog. We learn today that there is to be a change in the system, which, according to the Statement, will no longer rely on past spending patterns but will reflect up-to-date spending patterns, where appropriate, with a simplified structure. Hooray to that, if that is what it is.
Having read the Statement, and from what I have seen of the vast tomes of documents on the subject, only the terminology seems to have changed. Standard spending assessments (SSAs) have become total formula spending (TES). SSAs for individual authorities have become formula spending allocations (FSSs). Standard tax elements have now become share of assumed national council tax (SANCTs).
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Whether a name change is relevant is of no concern to local residents. What matters to them is the amount of council tax that they will have to pay. To quote the Statement, the rub will lie in,
"the extent to which the system takes account of councils' relative ability to raise council tax"
That is to say, how the ratios can be adjusted between government grant and milking the council tax payer.
The new system looks heavily at councils' ability to raise council tax, which is a form of equalisation. The Minister says optimistically that that does not mean rewarding higher spending but that well-run authorities that have been prudent and kept council tax down will be penalised. It is instructive in this respect to look at the shifts in grant, not the broad averages, nor the nearly incomprehensible floors and ceilings that the Minister had difficulty in explaining. The actuals should be looked at. Inner London councils will receive an increase of about 3.5 per cent. Kent, Essex and Hampshire will receive 3 per cent. By contrast, Durham, Cumbria, Derbyshire and Cheshire will all have rises of some 12.5 per cent. Presumably, less additional council tax will have to be raised there than in other areas.
If anyone can understand the complexities and rationale of that, it will not be the residents of London and the South East; nor will they know about credit given for higher pay claims as in the newly-revamped ACA. People in Leicestershire, which will receive £85.48 less per child than Lancashire, and in Buckinghamshire, which will receive £83.20 less per child than Durham, will not understand it. Why does the formula ignore rural poverty? The front-page headline of The Times in July was right when it predicted that Labour would tax Tory voters to fund its own heartlands.
Burdens will be imposed not only as a result of the shift in grant to the North and East from well-run councils in London and the South East, but the inequity resulting from the shambles that was caused by the inadequate census. Figures for areas where no returns had been attained were guessed, attributing to many council areas, including my own, a ridiculously reduced population. That is extremely relevant, as grant is based on population as well as on spending and specific need. What is being done to assist the many authorities for which figures were made up?
Last year, average council tax in England rose by 8.5 per cent—the biggest increase in the history of council tax, inflation being just 2.5 per cent. The small print of the Pre-Budget Report predicts that in 2002–03 and 2003–04 council tax receipts will rise by 7.2 per cent against an inflation rate of 2.25 per cent. In two years, council tax will have risen by almost 16 per cent—a staggering figure—against the background of what was said by the Deputy Prime Minister; namely, that the munificence of the grant settlement meant that there was no reason why councils could not continue to improve services while sticking to reasonable council tax increases.
Every year, the Government claim that their funding settlements are generous. This year is no exception. Every year, council tax across England

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soars. In London, the situation is compounded by the extravagances of the mayor and his taxing requirements. Band D has soared by 38 per cent since 1997–98 against the background of a promise by Keith Hill, the then Minister for London, that the new mayor and assembly would cost only 3 pence a week—hollow laughter. The expectation is that this year there will be a further large hike in band D council tax in London as a result of the mayor. I suppose one can only be grateful that at least Ken Livingstone lives up to his promises. As he said during Question Time last September:
"I went into an election saying I would increase the council tax".
Indeed so.
This Government do not protect ordinary families, who will be affected even further by the proposed rebanding and the introduction of new bands heralded in the Local Government Bill. This year, an average band D tax will be over £1,000, which will increase the burden on ordinary families with ordinary incomes and ordinary homes.
I should not perhaps end my remarks without welcoming something in the Statement. I welcome the proposal and promise by the Deputy Prime Minister to reduce the proportion of specific grant, which has risen remorselessly since this Government came to power. Directing local authorities on how to spend the money is a bad way to deliver grant. It is, therefore, with relief that I note that it is at least proposed to reduce the figure to 10 per cent by the year 2005.
I have a few questions for the Minister. Does the noble Lord agree with the estimate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that council tax will increase by 16 per cent over two years—figures taken from the pre-Budget review? By how much does the noble Lord expect council tax to rise as a result of revaluation and rebanding? What control can the Government put on the Mayor of London to prevent London's council tax payers being soaked? What will the Government do to recompense the 32 local councils, which, under the flawed census, have "lost" more than 5 per cent of their populations?
3.51 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I begin by declaring an interest as a member of the Greater London Assembly. The Statement relates to what is termed the local government finance settlement. It occurs to me that this is a very particular use of the word "settlement". I do not believe that it can be regarded as an agreement with local authorities, a meeting of minds, or even a compromise. Although we welcome certain aspects of the announcement, perhaps the Minister will acknowledge that that is the case for this year in particular.
The Government published a consultation document in July for response by the end of September. We have heard that 55,000 responses were received. The report on the consultation rather dismissively says that the great majority of those
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responses were sent as part of various campaigns about education funding. I should not lightly dismiss comments on education funding, whether or not they formed part of campaigns. However, it was not a straightforward consultation; indeed, it could not be because the area is most complex. The paper included many options and questions.
As we have heard, the Government promised a fairer, more transparent and simpler system. They said in the paper that, following consultation, they might decide that,
"relatively complex formulae give the most appropriate grant distribution".
Perhaps the Minister can tell the House whether the Government regard the outcome as, to use that term, "relatively complex"? In the other place earlier today, I heard the Minister with responsibility for local government say that the "ceilings support the floors". I thought to myself that perhaps it is complex.
The problem is this: how do we know and, more importantly, how does the world know what the changes will be? Is it right to wrap up the response to the consultation on principles with an announcement of cash? That is, perhaps, the opposite of "transparent". Does it not leave the Government entirely open to the accusations made by their political opponents and those they call "scaremongers"? Why have these two concepts been wrapped up and announced together? Does this meet the guidelines from the Government's Cabinet Office about consultation; and, indeed, about the spirit of good consultation?
Further, would the Government themselves be able to plan on such a basis? For example, local authorities are being told to plan for three years ahead, but then—I appreciate that it is historical, but this Government have not changed the position—they are faced with a timetable that includes digesting what the noble Baroness just described as an enormous amount of material with almost no time to do so, after which they have to apply such detail to their plans, consult their own communities, and come to decisions as early as next February. If the Comprehensive Spending Review was so close to decision time, would the Government be able to make such plans?
More specifically, the Government make much of reducing ring fencing. I am afraid that I cannot be quite as welcoming as the noble Baroness. Lady Hanham, in this respect. Although the Government have abolished seven special grants, can the Minister confirm that 16 new ones have been introduced? The noble Lord referred to excellent councils receiving additional freedoms, but does he not recognise that that is a highly centralised approach? I believe that there is a large number of ring-fenced grants in the police budget. As I understand it, the Home Office is one department that appears not to be reducing its ring fencing.
Can the Minister comment further on "floors"? In order to assist local authorities to plan ahead, can the noble Lord say when the Government will announce the floors for years two and three? I well understand

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the need to await the detailed demographic information. But, as has already been said, there are considerable doubts and queries about the recently-announced census results.
Can the noble Lord tell us anything more about London? In particular, can he say whether there will be a single floor across all the functional bodies, including the police and fire services? The Statement indicates that there is a single ceiling, so I assume that there is a single floor. If so—this is one for the aficionados, I am afraid—how will the Government protect the fire authority in London when, on any basis of the consultation, it was set to lose very substantially? That is a real issue in London. Indeed, I shall be surprised if we do not hear some reassurances in that respect this afternoon.
We are all aware of the resource issues, especially in the social services sector. We are also aware of the extra responsibilities that will be placed upon local authorities. Bed-blocking is just one example. We realise that money will be going into the service, but I have been told that the fines system that the Government are set to impose could lead to a downward spiral in places where there is simply no capacity to provide extra service and where it will be cheaper to pay fines than to provide the service. That does not scent to me to be the right way forward. Your Lordships recently gave the Licensing Bill a Second Reading. This will put a cost on local authorities as regards dealing with the transfer of the licensing system from magistrates.
If turn, again, to London. On education, can the Minister tell the House whether the working families' tax credit data have been used as a measure of deprivation? That is not something that one can readily find in the swathes of material. I should add that the take-up of that benefit is very low in London, because of high housing costs and the interaction of the credit with housing benefit. I use that rather complicated example simply to demonstrate the complexity of all these issues and how much digestion they will need.
Finally, can the noble Lord tell me how I should answer a point that was made to me today by someone working in the field of partnership between local government and business? The Government are promoting the new business improvement district proposals (BIDs), which are being sold on the basis of additionality—that is, additional funds being made available. How can I assure those whom we are asking to support this venture that the Government really will treat such funds as additional?
3.58 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I was perhaps expecting rather more warmth from the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, after repeating this Statement. None the less, I was pleased to receive the welcome that she gave at the conclusion of her remarks for the changes to specific grants. That touches on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Indeed, I believe that there will be both recognition
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and welcome for that move across local government. Over the three-year period, we shall be reducing the percentage from 12 per cent to 10 per cent. I know that that reduction will not please everyone.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made the point that there are still many areas where specific grants apply. That will continue to be the case, and rightly so. In some areas of public service activity we want to ensure that we drive up standards and fully reflect the needs of different communities for certain services to be provided in a particular way. Therefore, while there is a welcome freedom and flexibility involved, we are committed to that change. However, it is a change that will take time to introduce.
I enjoyed the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about the dense fog of local government jargon and terminology. When I was reading through these papers earlier today I was reminded of the first expression I came across in the allocation of funding to local authorities—I believe it was "GREA". That must be some 20 years ago. I had to ask the borough treasurer, a crusty individual who did not like to be questioned, what "GREA" meant. He gave a long and impenetrable answer. Local authorities have been bedevilled by that tendency ever since and tend to make heavy weather of explaining how things work.
This is an excellent settlement for local government. I have not always said that about local government settlements. Like the noble Baronesses who have spoken today I have criticised more than a few of them. I understand the concerns over this year's allocation, not least because it conies at an unsettling time when there has been extensive consultation over the way in which the settlement will go in the future.
We have given a commitment on floors and ceilings. There will be a real terms increase in grant this year. There is a cash increase for all local authorities. I cannot remember many years when one could consistently say that that was the case. I remember making some severe criticisms when in real terms individual local authorities suffered considerable damage as a result of cuts in their real terms allocation.
I will try to deal with some of the points made by the noble Baronesses. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, raised an important question about census data. All I can say is that most local authorities want us to use the most up-to-date information. This is the best data we have on a consistent basis. The floors on grant guarantee all London boroughs a 3.5 per cent increase, which is well above the accepted 2.3 per cent inflation level.
The noble Baroness also raised the issue of council tax increases. If local authorities want it that way—and we all agree that they do—council tax levels are to be set locally after consulting with the local electorate. It is not for us as Government to pre-announce their council tax increases for them. They must determine the increases themselves. We accept that there are indicative figures, but that is a matter of resource allocation.

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I refute the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about resource equalisation rewarding higher spending authorities. It does not. Resource equalisation is about the relative ability to raise council tax. It does not take account of individual spending decisions.
I do not agree with the noble Baroness's claim that we ignore rural poverty. The figures show that rural shire districts gain some 7.6 per cent in grant. That is not ignoring rural poverty; it is nearly three times the current level of inflation. She also asked whether revaluation would lead to large increases in council tax. It is too early for us to tell what the impact of revaluation will be. We should not trot around scaremongering. Some households will move to a higher band and some to a lower one, but there should not be any change to the overall amount of council tax collected.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, referred to the mayor. The mayor and the GLA are accountable to their electors. They have to meet their electorate regularly. Electors will make up their minds based on a number of factors, of which council tax responsibility will doubtless be one.
I have tried to cover most of the issues raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about the increases in ringfencing. I explained that our long-term objective is to reduce that. We shall continue to consult and to take careful account of the points made by local authorities to us over the period.
Consultation this year has been detailed and thorough. We have published a response to it. Local government will rightly always want to make points about the formula. We will try to respond to those as best we can. We have secured more than adequate funding; it is a generous settlement for local government.
All local authorities will have an above inflation increase. Some of those increases will be larger than others as the formula has changed. We have tried to provide a fair system of floors and ceilings in changing the formula so that its introduction does not interrupt local services, as we have seen so many times in the past. I believe that the Statement will be welcomed.
4.3 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Minister claimed clarity and simplicity for the Statement. I join the two Front-Benchers who have already spoken to say that it scores no marks out of 10 for either clarity or simplicity. It is an extremely complicated Statement. The Minister prayed in aid the situation 20 years ago. The Government have been in office for almost six years. It is time for them to defend their own record and not constantly to go back 20 years.
The Minister was astonishingly sanguine about the census data. In case he has been asleep over the past few weeks, the census has been deemed the most unreliable that has ever taken place in this country. Because many aspects of the settlement are based on
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the census data it will impact acutely on some local authorities. I am surprised that the Minister is not prepared to admit that.
What proportion of the so-called £15 billion per year until 2006 is included in the Statement for education? And, more significantly, how much of the global education budget is being held back by the Department for Education and Skills to fund its centrally controlled projects? In other words, how much of that money will not be going into the classroom to help with our children's education?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, looking at the education figures, the education increase is some £2billion. That is a 7.5 per cent cash increase; 5.1 per cent in real terms. Since 1997–98 that is a £10.5 billion increase. As a member of the Government I am extremely proud of that significant increase. The noble Baroness asked about the amount being held back. I cannot answer that question, but I am happy to have it researched and to provide the detail to the noble Baroness.
I am sure that all Members of your Lordships' House will welcome the fact that a typical secondary school with 1,000 pupils will see a direct grant payment rise of some £50,000 in the year 2003–04, and a typical primary school with 250 pupils will see its direct grant payments rise by some £10,000 in that financial year. We want to ensure that money for education reaches the front line directly. I am sure that all three major parties are agreed on that. That is what we are attempting to achieve through this settlement and all other settlements.
I understand the noble Baroness's unhappiness on the issue of the census. If particular authorities feel that the quality of the census in their area is not as it should be, no doubt they will have already have made representations. All I can do is to encourage them to continue to do so. I know from my local government experience in Brighton that where we had disagreements with the count we made representations, and, from time to time, governments have recognised the validity of those claims. It is open to local authorities to make such representations. As I said, however, the census provides the best available data to deal with these matters. Unhappiness with the census will undoubtedly continue, but we have to trust and rely on that material.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am glad that the Government have recognised the difficulty of sparsity in some of our very remote areas. I shall concentrate on those areas, where it is extremely costly to deliver services. I have three questions. First, what proportion of the new allocation will be used to cover increased pay awards—both for pay and for pensions—for local authority employees? Pay and pensions are two very considerable aspects of the districts' expenditure.
Secondly, what extra funds have been allocated for home-to-school transport and some of the peripatetic services in very remote rural areas?

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Thirdly, how much consideration was given to the fact that the national Government require local government to provide many additional services? I am thinking in particular of the attempt to keep people in their own homes for as long as possible—which in itself is good—with the consequence that people are being moved out of hospital very early. The cost of such a move is very high for those in urban areas, but it is extremely high in very sparse areas. Social services are al ready much more sparsely allocated in rural areas than in urban areas. I hope that the Minister will address that point.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Baroness asked three good questions, but I am unable to reply in the detail they deserve. Ministers reached a judgment on sparsity based on the best available evidence, and almost all sparse areas have gained from the overall reduction in top-ups and the consequent increases in the basic amounts. We have very carefully taken account of that. It is not particularly relevant to this settlement, but some very careful work relating to Scotland and Wales has been done to identify key settlements. As I made plain earlier, however, this settlement benefits rural areas, with grants to rural areas increasing by 7.5 per cent, I think. We continue to take account of density and sparsity issues.
I cannot answer the noble Baroness's first question on the percentage increase in pay and on pensions. Home-to-school transport, however, will be within the LEAs' central functions and will be part of their internal allocations. I recognise that that is an issue on which representations will undoubtedly continue.
We have tried to adjust the baseline to take account of the extra burdens, and to identify those new burdens within the formula. It is an exercise that governments must take into account every year when trying to establish the rationale behind their formulas.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, I have two points. First, will the Minister answer the question on the extra cost to local authorities arising from their anticipated licensing function, and the question on BIDs which he did not have time to answer earlier?
Secondly, it will take us a long time to come to grips with this mass of figures and information. As noble Lords have said, however, the settlement has been represented as a transfer of new funding from the South to the North. Is that the case?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I think that local authorities have broadly welcomed the new licensing regime. Perhaps the noble Lord himself, when he was more busily engaged in local authority work, campaigned to bring licensing within the local authority ambit. I do not know, but I think that it is the type of issue that exercises the minds of local councillors. My understanding of the licensing regimes is that they will generally be self-funding. I think that that has been understood from the outset of the negotiations to bring the new arrangements within the orbit of local authorities. However, that is all subject to passage of the Bill.
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The noble Lord raised broader issues such as winners and losers and North versus South. We have tried to ensure that we have a formula that works and that operates fairly for all of England. I would contend that this formula is simpler, despite what the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, and the noble Lord himself have said. We have tried to present a formulation that takes greater account of local circumstances and the ability to increase council tax and that is more easily explained. All formulae are complex, but this one provides for a basic amount per head plus top-ups for deprivation. I do not think that anyone could argue against including top-ups for deprivation in the formula. The formula also takes account of pay costs and other specific needs. As the Statement makes clear, the formula also helps smaller authorities.
Others might disagree, but I would argue that the regional variations fall within a fairly narrow band. In the South East, the increase is 4.5 per cent, whereas in the East Midlands and West Midlands it is at the upper end, at 7.1 per cent. It is 6.3 per cent in the Yorkshire and Humber region; 6 per cent in the North East; and 6.6 per cent in the North West. I think that I made a note earlier that the district authority in Pendle—which the noble Lord., Lord Greaves, represents or represented—did really rather well this year.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, as a Member of your Lordships' House I do not represent anyone but myself.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, in the light of the figures mentioned by my noble friend Lady Hanham and provided in the background information to last week's Pre-Budget Report, are we to take it that future council tax increases at three times the rate of inflation would be reasonable?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I do not think that it is for me to pronounce from this Dispatch Box what would be a reasonable increase.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, the penultimate sentence of the Pre-Budget Report states that there,
"is no reason why councils cannot continue to improve services whilst sticking to reasonable council tax increases".
If the two figures provided by two separate departments are to have any validity, the Minister is obliged to accept the proposition.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I listened to what the noble Lord said, but I do not have to accept his proposition. It is not for me to pronounce on what is an acceptable or unacceptable percentage increase in council tax—I am sure that it will vary across the country. I am also sure that it will vary very much in line with the express wishes of local voters, local electors and those who play a full part in their local authority. There will undoubtedly be larger council tax increases in some areas than in others. It will also reflect their ability to raise council tax, which is an important part of the new formulation.

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So I shall not pronounce. However, I think that the baseline of our settlement, which is well above the current inflation level and has very protective floors and ceilings, ensures a very generous Statement. I challenge the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, to compare this year's settlement with even the most favourable settlement under the previous Conservative administration. I think that he will find that, in some if not most respects, that settlement is found wanting.

Potato Industry Development Council (Amendment) Order 2002
4.19 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 23rd October be approved [40th Report, Session 2001–2, from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty.
The Potato Industry Development Council, known as the British Potato Council, is an executive non-departmental public body. It was established by the Potato Industry Development Council Order 1997, under the provisions of the Industrial Organisation and Development Act 1947. It exists to commission potato research and development; to transfer technology: to collect and disseminate market information and to promote potatoes in the UK and overseas markets.
The BPC is self-financing through a statutory levy on growers and purchasers of potatoes which raised approximately £5 85 million in the year 2000–01. It carries out important work for the potato industry and I know that DEFRA Ministers appreciate its achievements at a difficult time for the industry.
The major changes proposed in this order are the raising of the minimum levy thresholds for both growers and purchasers and the establishment of a dual levy rate system. The increased thresholds will relieve smaller players of the financial burden of the levy and reduce the BPC's administrative costs. The dual levy system, with a basic rate, and a higher rate for late payment, will act as an incentive for punctual payment and further reduce the BPC's administrative costs. The order also proposes that when growers and purchasers do not provide annual returns by the due date, BPC estimates based on previous information can be increased by up to 10 per cent. This will allow for estimates to reflect upward planting and market trends as appropriate. The net result of these changes will be to direct more of the levy to the front line tasks of the council. The amendment order also proposes some minor cosmetic changes. The order will come into effect on 1st January 2003. I commend it to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 23rd October be approved [40th Report, Session 2001–02, from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for presenting the order. The order has the support of the devolved administrations and of the British Potato Council. As the noble Baroness said, it does not result in any increase to the Exchequer, as I read it, but is calculated to yield a net benefit to the British Potato Council of some £40,000 per year. It also reduces administration costs which must he welcome. It is calculated to benefit the potato industry by approximately £99,000 per year. That benefit will accrue to the smaller producers and merchants, which we welcome.
However, I have two questions for the Minister. First, the change in the statutory date for making planting returns from 15th May to 1st June is a good idea as it ties in with the IACS deadlines. That seems common sense. Has consideration been given to a wet spring occurring and planting being delayed? Is there any flexibility in the dates laid down in the order? Could they be altered or a derogation made? Nowadays as a result of climate change, it is not unusual regularly to experience very wet seasons.
Secondly, two levy rates for both growers and purchasers exist at present: a basic rate where payment is made by a due date, and a higher rate for late payments. These new proposals will catch those members who have paid on time and who have in the past received a £1 discount. I understand that that applied to about 70 per cent of members. It would be unfair if they lost out under the new system. The noble Baroness is probably aware that the £1 discount has never featured in the Potato Industry Development Council Order. I hope that when the noble Baroness replies to the debate she will comment on that matter.
As the noble Baroness will be well aware, potato prices for free market potatoes are desperately low. The order should help some of the UK's smaller producers and merchants which we welcome. We support the order.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, on behalf of these Benches I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, for presenting the order. I agree with many of the comments made by the noble Baroness. Lady Byford. It is clearly beneficial for small producers and purchasers to be removed from the requirements of the scheme. We very much welcome that. We welcome the fact that bureaucracy, and the amount of money that the British Potato Council spends on bureaucracy, will be reduced. We also welcome the changes with regard to the dates for providing information relating to the planting and lifting of potatoes. I await with interest the response to the sensible question asked in that regard, given the fact that our climate appears to be increasingly erratic.
I have a further general question. I understand that the constitution of the British Potato Council allows for only one marketing specialist member out of

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16 members. Given the present state of the market, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, referred, are the Government satisfied that enough proactive marketing is taking place? We on these Benches support the order.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for their comments. The early payment discount is not covered by the order. Its replacement by a dual levy rate provides legal certainty. However, the loss of the early payment discount will be taken into consideration when the British Potato Council sets its levy rates for future years.
I welcome the recognition on the part of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord of the important issue of help for smaller producers. An important part of the council's work comprises disseminating accurate market information. Prompt submission of returns is essential for that and also helps the council to pursue the promotional activities that the Government, the council and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, wish to see.
The BPC will look kindly on returns that are submitted late due to difficult planting conditions. The order proposes to extend the deadline from 15th May to 1st June to allow returns to be submitted with greater certainty in seasons when planting conditions are difficult. I hope that I have covered the points that were raised.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Air Quality (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2002
4.28 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 14th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the Second Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty.
This statutory instrument relates to Part 4 of the Environment Act 1995. The Act provides for the publication by the Secretary of State of a national air quality strategy which must, among other things, contain standards relating to air quality, objectives for the restriction of the levels at which particular substances are present in the air, and measures to be taken by local authorities and others for the purpose of achieving the objectives.
The regulations amend the Air Quality (England) Regulations 2000 and prescribe new air quality objectives for benzene and carbon monoxide for the system of local air quality management. They create a second air quality objective for benzene of five micrograms per cubic metre or less expressed as an annual mean to be met by 31st December 2010. That is three times tighter than the current objective. They also replace the current objective for carbon monoxide with one of 10 milligrams per cubic metre or less when
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expressed as a maximum daily eight-hour running mean and to be met by 31st December 2003. That level is about 10 per cent tighter than the current objective. We set that objective to be met two years earlier than the corresponding European limit value.
The remaining provisions of the regulations concern changes to the interpretation note in the schedule to the 2000 regulations. They relate to the statistical methods to be applied in the case of the new air quality objectives. Regulation 2(3)(a) explains the meaning of the expression "maximum daily running 8 hour mean". The air quality objective for carbon monoxide is now set in terms of this expression. Sub-paragraphs (b) and (c) of regulation 2(3) are needed to make clear what is meant by the expression "annual mean" when it is used in the new air quality objective for benzene.
Local authorities must review and assess air quality in their areas against the prescribed objectives. When objectives are unlikely to be met, authorities must declare air quality management areas and prepare remedial action plans. Authorities do not have to meet the objectives but work towards them, because action to regulate sources of emissions often rests with other bodies, such as the Environment Agency or the Government. Modelling indicates that the new objectives should be met largely by present policies. Local authorities' duties are supported through the revenue support grant settlement and the supplementary credit approval programme.
Air quality has improved considerably since the London smogs of the 1950s. The number of poor air quality days has fallen from 59 in 1993 to 21 in 2001. However, the problem is still serious. Experts estimate that up to 24,000 people die prematurely every year in the UK because of its effects, and long-term effects are significantly greater. Government measures have tightened controls on industrial and vehicle emissions. Our 10-year transport plan includes an investment programme of £180 billion to improve public transport, cut congestion and reduce pollution. That may be outweighed by increasing levels of traffic. however. Local air quality management will identify hotspots and enable action to be taken to tackle them. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 14th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing the regulations before us.
In August, the Minister announced that air quality is getting better and that levels of most pollutants have fallen considerably over the past few years through measures to cut emissions from industry and traffic. I ask the Minister: is that optimism overshadowed by recent revelations that carbon dioxide levels have risen since 1997? If so, how can she be confident that the Government will reach their new targets?
I also understand that by 2010 the 24-hour objective of 50 micrograms per cubic metre will be exceeded no more than seven days a year in Scotland and most of

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the United Kingdom and no more than 10 days per year in London. When the Conservatives were in government, our target was not seven or 10 days, but four days a year by 2005. Will the Minister explain why lower targets have been set than were originally set by the Conservative government?
The proposed amendments to the Air Quality (England) Regulations 2000 are partly an outcome of the Government's consultations in September 2001 on the proposals for air quality objectives for particles, benzene, carbon monoxide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. For the purposes of local air quality management, they are to be welcomed. Tighter longterm objectives for pollutants are necessary if the health protective focus of the air quality management regime is to be maintained.
In the current regulations, the running annual mean is the average of hourly levels of benzene recorded by monitoring equipment over 8,760 hours—the number of hours in the year. The new method will be based on readings taken over a 14-day period, which the Minister has explained. The daily means will be averaged over the year to give an average annual mean. I must admit that I found these regulations challenging.
We understand the reasoning behind the changes in methodology. It evens out the highs and lows of daily data that can be collected when certain vehicle types associated with fuels emitting higher levels of benzene, such as unleaded fuels, are present. It spreads the effect of the short-term local congestion, or when the benzene does not readily disperse because other environmental factors clock in, such as climatic conditions.
The air quality strategy for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was published in January 2001, and has set standards and objectives to be achieved for eight key air pollutants between 2003–08, including benzene. In addition to reviewing and assessing the ambient air quality in their areas, local authorities are charged with the task of achieving new objectives in a cost-effective way. Has any data research been established following the introduction of traffic-calming measures, especially with regard to the vast increase in the number of sleeping policemen in our cities and villages? I am sure that they have made a difference, because cars are forced to slow down and then regain the impetus to go over them.
It is perplexing that local authorities are not legally required to meet the new objectives, but only have to work towards them as part of their local air quality management duties under Part 4 of the Act.
Is air pollution from air travel included in the equation? Is the Minister not concerned about the rapidly expanding use of air travel? Indeed, research is being carried out into new build in respect of airports, which takes into account the forecast of a rapid rise in air travel in the next 20 years.
There is a national legal requirement to meet European objectives. It seems strange to set targets only of aspiration for local areas when we have
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national responsibilities to Europe in the form of a legal obligation. Whatever the regulations do, however, we hope that they succeed. It is in all our interests that air quality is of a better standard. I understand that, although the Government are urging local authorities to work towards the targets, they are not required or funded to do so. Will the Minister clarify that?
Air quality strategy must be based on sound science, but there comes a point at which the pursuit of ever-finer degrees of accuracy becomes a substitute for real action. We all want there to be better and cleaner air; it is a top priority for the public. We know that poor quality air has a direct effect on the good health of our citizens. For some, it affects the quality of their working life, but for others it affects their ability to enjoy everyday living.
I thank the Minister for bringing this important statutory instrument before us. I am sorry that I have asked her so many questions, but I look forward to her response.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, I believe that it is reasonable that we widen the discussion slightly from the rather modest regulations that are before us.
The regulations are modest. The Explanatory Memorandum states that the objectives are,
"unlikely to result in any additional burden for local authorities".
It also states that the regulations are,
"not expected to have any financial implications, either to the public, to industry, to local authorities or to central Government".
I believe that the Minister quoted the exact wording, which suggested that,
"virtually the whole of England will achieve the new objectives on the basis of existing policies".
Therefore, in a sense, these new regulations, and the targets within them, follow existing trends rather than set new ones. On that basis, I consider them to be modest.
However, we meet today in your Lordships' House on the 50th anniversary of the infamous great smog of London in which it is estimated that between 4,000 and 12,000 people died. I am pleased to say that I did not live in London in those days, but I did live in the Yorkshire coalfield, where smog was as prevalent as it was in London—perhaps for different, or partly the same, reasons. Those of us who remember the smogs of those days find it difficult to explain to people who are too young to remember them just how awful they were. They were dreadful, and it is one of the great triumphs of legislation, through the Clean Air Acts and so on, that we no longer have to suffer them.
However, it has now emerged that when, in 1952, the government of the day—a Conservative government but that does not matter; any government would have done the same—had to deal with the problem, they pretended that the cause of the large number of deaths and of the large number of people suffering serious illness without dying was an influenza epidemic. In today's Evening Standard, Professor Devra Davis, a

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visiting professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, claims that it was a cover-up. She said:
"By the end of February"—
that is, in 1952—
"around 12,000 people had died unexpectedly, yet there was no evidence that one-third of people in London at that time had influenza".
I suppose that that is the way that governments behave. But, fairly soon after that outbreak, it was realised that the whole country—the government and society—had been in denial about what was happening to people's health as a result of what, at the time, was blamed on the weather but what was, in fact, atmospheric pollution.
In a report called The Clean Air Revolution: 1952–2052, which is being published today and is available in this building, the National Society for Clean Air suggests that this country is in denial yet again. It suggests that deaths from lung cancer, for example, caused by air pollution number approximately 4,000 a year. That is more than the average number of 3,500 deaths which occur through road accidents. Official estimates suggest that 24,000 people a year die due to peak air pollution episodes.
According to that report, there is new evidence that long-term exposure to everyday levels of pollution may increase heart disease. Those of us with family members who suffer from asthma, as does my (laughter, know how difficult that condition is. Again, the increase in the prevalence of asthma is being widely related to increased atmospheric pollution, particularly from road transport.
I mention those matters because, although the provision before us today is modest, increasingly it appears to be the case that the Environment Act 1995 and the air pollution strategy which the Government published two years ago are proving, and will prove, to be inadequate. We shall have to face such issues in a far more fundamental way than has been the case so far. Having said that, we on these Benches are content with the modest measure which the noble Baroness has put before the House.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I thank both the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I shall begin with the final points raised by the noble Lord. Estimating the number of deaths caused by air pollution is a very complex and difficult task. However, we understand the problem better today than we did 50 years ago. We agree that further work is needed to quantify the precise number of deaths caused by air pollution and the key factors which contribute to it.
In this response to both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, we recognise that targets reflect what we know can be achieved. The point that is being made is that they are not sufficiently ambitious. However, we have to strike a balance between environmental, economic and social objectives. Tightening the regulations will help but the targets must also be achievable.
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The noble Baroness also raised the issue of research into the effects of traffic-calming measures. The Department for Transport has a major research programme, known as TRAMAQ, which concerns traffic management and air quality. It is examining the effects on air quality of all traffic-calming measures. I am sure that the noble Baroness will be pleased to hear that. We are adopting the new measuring method because benzene has long-term health effects and it is sensible to measure its levels over a complete year. That is directly in line with the European directive. I shall return to that point in a moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raised the question of the impact on local authorities. We support running costs in the calculation for RSG, and additional borrowing powers towards capital costs are available through the supplementary credit approval programme. Since 1997, £21 million has been awarded.
The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, explained that under the Conservatives the targets were tighter. We examined that issue and the targets that had been set. Our modelling shows that it would be impossible to meet the original target set by the Conservative government in relation to particles even if all the cars in London were switched off and not running. Therefore, we have had to balance the knowledge available. That is not a criticism of the noble Baroness's government. The benefit of the new modelling and targeting proposals is that they show that it is difficult to set targets unless one considers whether it is possible to achieve them.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made the allegation that air pollution is worsening. In fact, it is improving. We accept that there has been a substantial fall in the level of bad air quality. We want to continue to tackle that issue. For example, ozone levels are strongly affected by pollutants blown over from mainland Europe, and we are working at a European level to tackle that problem.
The new objectives do not include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In answer to the noble Baroness, monitoring data are strictly limited. We have added a further 15 monitoring sites to the national network. We now have 25 and hope to develop more. We need to make separate regulations to transpose the EU directive. That will require the Secretary of State to meet the limit values. The Air Quality Limit Values Amendment Regulations are expected to be laid for negative resolution later this month. We cannot use the draft regulations before us today to transpose EU limit values. Local authorities do not possess all the powers that are needed to meet that. We believe that our targets are challenging. Aviation is included. Central government and local authorities both consider emissions from airports and aircraft, and many airports are developing air control strategies.
I hope that I have covered all the points raised by noble Lords. If I have missed any, I shall write to them.

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In conclusion, I am conscious that today is Plain English Campaign Day, but I defy even that organisation to deal with this subject without straying from what most people view as plain English. I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Stem Cell Research: Select Committee Report
4.50 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the Select Committee on Stem Cell Research (HL Paper 83, Session 2001–02).
The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, it has been an immense privilege and responsibility to chair the Select Committee set up by your Lordships. The issues, at once scientific, legal, ethical, philosophical and theological, have been testing.
I want to thank members of the committee for the seriousness with which they approached the task and the variety of experience, gifts, and perspectives that they brought to it. In particular, I thank our clerk, Tony Rawsthorne and his team and our scientific and legal advisers, Professor Chris Higgins and Professor Roger Brownsword.
Above all, we were conscious of two overriding issues: first, the relative potential of stem cells derived from adults compared with those taken from the early embryo; and, secondly, the moral status of the early embryo—that is the multiplying cells of the fertilised egg to the first signs of a nervous system or primitive streak at about 14 days.
In relation to the first question, your Lordships will appreciate that this is a very fast-moving field. A great deal of research was reported from the time that we were set up in March 2001 until the time that we reported in February 2002. Since then, further interesting and important papers have been published. Some of that research has suggested that adult stem cells hold out the best promise for therapy. Others have pointed out the questions and difficulties that still remain with work done on adult stem cells and argue that for certain forms of therapy embryonic stem cells are likely to prove necessary. Those are highly technical, complex matters in, as I say, a fast-moving field.
However, even as non-specialists, albeit ones who tried hard to get on top of the basic scientific principles involved, we were able to make the following judgments. First, at this stage it is not possible to predict whether therapies using adult stem cells or embryonic stem cells will prove more effective. Any form of therapy using stem cells is still many years away—estimates vary as to how many years. It could be that adult stem cells will prove more effective for some conditions, and embryonic cells for others. At this stage it is simply not possible for anyone to know,
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not even those at the forefront of research. Given that, it would certainly be wrong, on scientific grounds, to close off one or other of those promising lines of research.
That is the judgment of highly distinguished scientists whose work is exclusively with adult stem cells; for example, Professor Helen Blau, the director of the Baxter Laboratory for Genetic Pharmacology at Stanford University in the United States, wrote to the committee to say,
"The work in my laboratory is entirely focused on adult stem cells".
She went on to indicate some of the successes that she has had, stating:
"At this point in time it is impossible to say which type of cell, ES or adult stem cell, will prove more useful in treating a given disease. One may be preferable in some cases whereas the other may be preferable in other cases. Time will tell. Thus, research on both should be encouraged and facilitated".
I emphasise that that comes from a director of a laboratory that is focused entirely on adult stem cells.
We certainly believed, and therefore recommended, that both funding bodies and the Government should support work on adult stem cells. Paragraph 3.22(c) says:
"recent research on adult stem cells, including stem cells from the placenta and umbilical cord, also holds promise of therapies; and research on them should be strongly encouraged by funding bodies and the Government".
In the light of that recommendation, it is difficult to see what force there is in the criticism that we may have ignored this promising area.
Secondly, in order that such therapies may be developed a great deal of fundamental research still remains to be done. Here we became convinced that such research needs to be done on embryonic stem cells as well as adult ones. That is because embryonic stem cells—those taken from the blastocyst after four or five days—are pluripotent; that is, they are capable of developing or differentiating into any one of the specialised cells that make up the human body. As such they provide a benchmark with which to measure what adult stem cells are or are not capable of.
For a similar reason we concluded that some research on cell nuclear replacement—misleadingly called therapeutic cloning—is likely to prove necessary, as in this scientific procedure a specialist cell from an adult is, as it were, fused with an egg and in the process becomes de-differentiated; that is, it ceases to be a specialist cell and becomes a stem cell. As therapies in the future, or at least some of them, could be based on the ability of cells not only to regenerate but to de-differentiate and then differentiate into other kinds of specialist cell, research in this area, simply trying to find out what is happening and why, certainly looks necessary.
I say "looks necessary" because as your Lordships know we have the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) which will license work on embryos only if it is convinced that such research is strictly necessary and that the desired research results cannot be obtained in other ways. It was clear to the committee that the HFEA has a very

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high reputation internationally and we are certainly fortunate in this country in having such a regulatory body. It ensures that where embryos are concerned, only research that is necessary is carried out.
However, the considered judgment of your Lordships' Select Committee is that if the benefit of therapy is to be realised, whether using embryonic stern cells or adult stem cells, much fundamental research remains to be done and research on embryonic stem cells will play a key role in that, not least in realising the potential of adult stem cells. That is the judgment of those whose work is exclusively with adult stem cells, who have, we might say, a vested interest in such work, but who recognise that research work on both kinds of stem cell is absolutely essential.
Since we produced our report there has been a much publicised paper from Professor Verfaillie's laboratory in Minnesota. That laboratory identified a class of adult stem cell which can differentiate into a variety of adult cell types when transplanted into a host mouse. That is clearly a promising line of research, although there are many unanswered questions as well as different ways of interpreting the evidence, as spelt out by Professor Verfaillie herself. Furthermore, in her televised interview at a science museum debate, Professor Verfaillie said that, following her findings, the first thing she needed to do was to hire an expert in embryonic stem cells if the potential of those particular adult cells was ever going to be understood and realised. The next stage was further research using ES cells.
The second overriding question that we considered is that of the moral status of the early embryo. The committee fully respects the position of those who believe that from the moment of conception the dividing, multiplying cells of the early embryos should be accorded the rights of a human person. We state the arguments against that position and the moral case for research in the following words: first, in Chapter 4.10,
"the fact that a person has the potential to qualify as a member of some class in the future, if certain conditions are met, does not confer the rights that belong to members of that class of being until those conditions are met. A medical student is a potential physician, and if he or she qualifies may practise as such: but the potentiality alone does not confer a right to practise".
Secondly, in Chapter 4.16 and 4.17, we state:
"Burden of proof arguments are notoriously hard to resolve. If there were no morally serious issues for undertaking research on human embryos, then the mere possibility that the early embryo is a person would be sufficient reason not to do such research. However, if there are morally weighty reasons for doing such research a decision must be reached on the basis of arguments that fall short of proof.
There are morally weighty reasons for doing research that may lead to therapies for many serious and common diseases, and the concept of respect for persons can also be invoked on this side of the argument".
Recognising that people give different weight to those ethical arguments in their personal lives, we concluded nevertheless that it would be wrong for us, as legislators, to put a stop to all research on embryos at this stage. Ever since the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and the 1990 legislation,
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this issue has been extensively discussed, legislated for, and voted on, so we concluded that section in these words:
"Whilst respecting the deeply held views of those who regard any research involving the destruction of a human embryo as wrong and having weighed the ethical arguments carefully, the Committee is not persuaded, especially in the context of the current law and social attitudes, that all research on early human embryos should be prohibited".
There is an appendix in the report which shows why it is possible for there to be two readings of the long Christian tradition on the status of the embryo. I shall not repeat what is said there, but I believe that what it sets out is fair to both sides of the argument.
There are of course a number of other important considerations and recommendations in our report, such as the international dimension of what is happening in other countries, as well as reflections on our own law. Then there is the commercial element. I hope that others of your Lordships, including members of the Select Committee, will comment on some of these. We also make a number of specific resolutions on which your Lordships may wish to comment. The Government have of course made their own response and I was glad to read that it was so positive, but I think it might be more appropriate if I comment on particular points, fairly briefly, at the end of the debate when I have had an opportunity I o hear what the Minister might have to say.
Finally, I remind your Lordships that you set up this committee to reflect in greater detail and depth on the regulations that were passed by this House on 22nd January 2001. For the reasons we have set out in our report, we believe that your Lordships were right to pass those regulations. This is an important area of research that holds out real promise, in the long run, for people suffering from a whole range of serious diseases. While people are right to raise ethical questions, we believe that the law as we have it, together with the regulatory framework that we have in place, provides the necessary safeguards. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the report of the Select Committee on Stem Cell Research (HL Paper 83, Session 2001–02).—(The Lord Bishop of Oxford.)
5.2 p.m.
Lord Turnberg: My Lords, the House owes a great debt of gratitude to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and his colleagues on an extremely impressive and important report. They have painstakingly sifted through the scientific evidence about embryonic stem cell research, of which there is a great deal, and have weighed the ethical and legal arguments with great wisdom. I do not believe that there could be a more authoritative report on such a difficult issue than this one. The Government have wisely recognised that in their response.
I took the opportunity of re-reading our debate of almost two years ago, as I am sure many noble Lords did. It is difficult to imagine what new points there can be to make after the eight or more hours of debate that

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we had on the subject. It is difficult to imagine a better informed body of men and women than your Lordships on this complex subject, in light of that debate and now this report. I shall limit my remarks to one or two points.
On that occasion I spoke in favour of the changes in the regulations that would allow this type of research to be pursued, so I am naturally very pleased with the conclusions of the committee's report. I have to express an interest as scientific adviser to the Association of Medical Research Charities, whose member charities were eagerly awaiting this report and who now feel overjoyed. It is no exaggeration to say that they are extremely pleased that this potentially valuable avenue of research has not been closed off.
Of course, they and the patients and carers who support them know as much as anyone that cures for the diseases that they are concerned about are not just around the corner. They know from bitter experience that miracle cures, promised regularly in the press, are all too often empty promises. However, stem cell research has exciting potential and offers them hope—not for today or even perhaps for tomorrow, but for some time in the future. It is hope not necessarily for them, but for future sufferers. Hope sustains many of them.
It is worth looking at what has happened in the past couple of years, since our debate. It is clear that, while there are many welcome advances in the adult stem cell field, these have not yet obviated the need for embryonic stem cell research, despite efforts to say otherwise. As Professor Verfaillie herself has said, we still need both types of research. They are complementary.
There has been some hopeful research in the background sciences. For example, a recent report in June in Nature from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda said that animal experiments reported of a cure of an animal model of Parkinson's disease in rats, using rat embryonic stem cells. Of course, much more research is needed in animals and in man, but that is a small step in a very encouraging direction. The field is moving forward on several fronts, as it should be.
The right reverend Prelate has outlined well many aspects of the report and I am sure that other noble Lords will discuss them. I finish by reiterating my welcome for the committee's confirmation that reproductive cloning is to be banned—no one would deny that—but that embryonic stem cell research should be allowed to continue under the strict regulations laid out in the report and under the control of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which has served us so well. I am gratified by the Government's ready acceptance of it.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: My Lords, this was one of the most challenging subjects placed before a committee of the House. It is a complex subject in terms of scientific background. Stem cell research has the potential in the long term to relieve the most
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painful and distressing symptoms suffered by many victims of Parkinson's disease, other neural diseases, spinal cord injury and liver and pancreatic diseases.
At the same time, the research necessitates the need for the use of embryonic stem cells as well as adult stem cells—as the first two speakers have mentioned—and those produced also by the placenta and the umbilical cord. That raises difficult ethical questions with which we literally struggled during the year that we were given to produce our report.
After all our hard work, it is encouraging that the Government's reaction is generally favourable to our recommendations. During the year, we had representations from many people with differing views, including those of differing faiths, which was of great assistance. The passing of the Act prohibiting human reproductive cloning and making it a criminal offence in 2001 was a very important safeguard against any slippery slope argument.
There was no doubt in our minds that human cloning is a very dangerous scientific experiment that could result in unacceptable human abnormalities. It should not be allowed to happen. We hope the Government will be successful in supporting a United Nations international ban on human reproductive cloning as soon as possible.
The inquiry did not come in at the start of embryonic research. The legislation permitting abortion has been in place for over 30 years. As we say, it would be difficult to justify an absolute prohibition on the destruction of early embryos while permitting abortion in a wide range of circumstances post-implantation and well after the emergence of the primitive streak.
Later, the 1990 Act was enacted after the Warnock committee inquiries in the 1980s and subsequent lengthy public and parliamentary debate. That allowed research on early embryos up to 14 days after fertilisation to promote not only treatment of infertility and to increase knowledge of congenital disease and the causes of miscarriages, but also to develop more effective techniques for contraception. Its very strict rules are published at the beginning of the book of evidence. I hold up the book of evidence so that noble Lords can see what we had to listen to and read. The Human Fertilisation (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001 added to them, increasing knowledge about the development of embryos and increasing knowledge about serious disease and enabling any such knowledge to be applied in developing treatments for serious disease—the reason for the committee's report.
We considered in depth, taking into account the evidence we had received from many witnesses, the respect to be given to the human embryo from the beginning, including the experience built up from the passing of the above two provisions. We took evidence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority under the excellent chairmanship of Ruth Deech, and learned of its strictness in the application of the 1990 regulations, of which we wholly approved, and which we believe

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should continue in the future in applying the new regulations. In that light we have adhered to the original 14-day limit for research on an earlier embryo when it is still in fact smaller than a pinhead and before the development of a nervous system.
In carrying out the enforcement of the 1990 Act, the HFEA in applying the regulations strictly has allowed the creation only of 118 embryos for research during the ensuing decade. We believe the strict regulations should continue, particularly as we were advised of the existence of 53,497 spare embryos in March 1999. We made a very strict recommendation, perhaps the most important recommendation in our report:
"That embryos should not be created specifically for research purposes unless there is a demonstrable and exceptional need which cannot be met by the use of surplus embryos".
We are glad that the Government in their response have underlined the need for that strictness.
If these surplus embryos are not implanted, they will eventually be destroyed. However, even so they must not be used without the informed consent of those donating the embryos, having been given relevant information on the possible research and time to consider it. Once again, that process has been strictly regulated by HFEA for over 10 years. It has also made clear that no payment can be made for donation and that the clinical and research roles are separated.
Clearly, the coming years will show successful development in the treatment of disease using both embryo and adult stem cells. However, evidence was given to us that the pluripotence of embryo stem cells will contribute through careful research to the successful treatment of disease by both types of cell. We also hope that more research will continue into the application of stem cells from the placenta and umbilical cord. At present they are discarded, but they contain the relevant cells for the baby, and may perhaps in the future be preserved for use in their future lives.
We recommend that the Government should, towards the end of the decade, undertake a review of scientific developments and particularly of the progress of adult stem cell research to see if research on human embryos is still necessary, with which the Government have agreed. That is another important safeguard. We are pleased too that the Government have agreed to ensure that the HFEA has sufficient resources to carry out its important work.
Clearly, the results of this research need to be available in the future for therapy of serious diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, with their distressing symptoms. However, it will be necessary for the proper and strict control of the purity, provenance and monitoring of their use. We recommended that a condition of granting a licence that the HFEA should require that any ES cell line generated in the UK in the course of the research should be deposited in a national stem cell bank overseen by a steering committee.
It is good that the research councils have indicated their intention to make the banking of cells a requirement in any award for research. The
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Government in their response added that in pursuance of their statutory duty to satisfy themselves of the necessity for research the HFEA should also take into account the suitability of existing ES cell lines already banked before granting a licence.
The UK has established an international reputation for the strictness of the HFEA over the past decade, which also includes ethical approval by local research ethics committees. We all hope and pray that over the years stem cells will enable therapies to be developed for serious and distressing diseases.
However, HFEA strictness is essential. The Government's response underlines the necessity for stringency in the HFEA when carrying out its statutory duties. As we say on page 36 of our report,
"a number of scientific witnesses argued strongly that reputable scientists do not look for a research environment with minimum regulation, but want an effective regulatory regime which sets out clearly what is and what is not permitted, so that they know where they stand both scientifically and ethically: and that is why the regulatory environment in the United Kingdom is attractive to researchers".
It is on that reputation that our report is built, and it must continue; on that basis our time and effort, we hope, will not have been wasted.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Dahrendorf: My Lords, I rise with great diffidence and after agonising whether I should speak at all. I am, in a sense, the first victim of the Statement on the Local Government Financial Settlement, having to make an inevitable trip and having delayed it so that I can take part in the entire debate today. If the House is prepared to listen to me despite the fact that I cannot stay for the Minister's response, I should like to begin by associating myself with the noble Baroness, Lady Platt of Writtle. She, if I may remind the House, was one of seven noble Baronesses on the committee. If it is not improper to say so, the remaining men were put to shame by the style in which the majority of the committee conducted our debates.
I mention the remaining men because while we were sitting Lord Carnarvon met an untimely death. I am sure that many noble Lords remember him with great affection. He would have made further contributions to the work of the committee.
The commitment, the deep understanding of issues, the fairness and the openness of discussion which we experienced were the result of the membership of the committee and of its eminent chairman, the right reverend Prelate.
In the debate preceding the setting up of the committee, I was one of those sitting on the fence. I was genuinely not clear which way I would come down on this question of embryo stem cell research. Indeed, I am often trying to work out moral issues: I do not have the certainties that enable some to be clear about answers even before they undertake further inquiry. However, at the end of our work, I firmly support the report.

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There are four reasons why I changed my mind to move to one side of the fence. The first is, in a sense, scientific. It has to do with the status of the "early embryo", as we called it.
In passing, I may say that one problem in this whole area is that even the terminology is in some ways polemical. The right reverend Prelate mentioned the expression "therapeutic cloning", which is really cell nuclear replacement, but which, by including the word "cloning" suggests that something is happening that bears a distinct similarity to the cloning of human beings, which we all want banned.
The term "early embryo" is also in some ways misleading, because the cells that define the early embryo before implantation cannot by themselves develop into a human being. Implantation in the womb is essential for the development of those cells into a human being. To me, as an amateur in the matter, that is an important scientific fact—even apart from the moral and, indeed, anthropological facts that the noble Baroness, Lady O'Neill, adduced in our discussions, and to which she may return today.
The second reason why I changed my mind was practical. I was struck by the fact that the scientists whom we met were not excessively enthusiastic about research on embryos. Indeed, they were all looking for other ways to conduct the fundamental research that needs to be done and extremely interested and intrigued by the possibilities of adult stem cell research. I support that, and so did the committee, but adult stem cell research, which is so strongly praised by those who are highly sceptical about early embryo research, is a peculiar process. It involves the dedifferentiation of adult stem cells to a point at which they have many of the qualities of embryonic stem cells.
As an amateur, and without wanting to take the point too far, at times I wondered whether, at the end of that road, we may not reach a point at which dedifferentiated adult stem cells have precisely the qualities of pluripotent and, ultimately, totipotent embryos. That would raise a peculiar issue about artificially producing human beings. In other words, I felt that the scientists' attitude was welcome, but raised and left open questions that some opponents of such research must answer if they really want to use adult stem cells as a substitute.
However, let me not stray too far from areas in which I can claim some competence and come to my third point. Obviously, we were all impressed by the moral dilemma between research on early embryos and the possibility of finding cures for terrible, disabling diseases. It is regrettable that some scientists these days have adopted the celebrity culture and announce prospects of success long before they are real—a harmful habit that, I hope, will be countered by others who see the difficulties. There is a moral dilemma and, at the end of the day, my decision was in favour of the potential for cure.
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There is fourthly the need to control research projects and what research is allowed. The noble Baroness, Lady Platt, has said everything that I would want to say on the subject. I wholly support her view that that must be done in a competent, impartial, thorough and, above all, stringent manner. I hope that recent doubts cast on some actions of the HFEA can be either dispelled or corrected, so that we end up with an agency that we can trust.
That leads me to a final point, which concerns cloning and the international scene. In many continental countries, British practice in the area is regarded as especially liberal—indeed, more. One German newspaper recently described the United Kingdom as a "clone Eldorado" and lumped it together with Singapore and China. That is simply incorrect. The argument rests on a total misunderstanding of the practice of licensing research that we advocate and is in force in this country. On the contrary, we avoid the German hypocrisy of allowing research on imported stem cell lines but banning those produced at home. We also avoid the American hypocrisy of demanding a total worldwide ban while not legislating at all on what happens in United States laboratories.
Admittedly, the international scene is confusing. At one end are the cloners. Severino Antinori in Italy does not declare where he is undertaking his work, and the Canadian, Brigitte Boisselier, works in Las Vegas in the United States. Both claim that the first human clones will be born within weeks. I am not sure that those claims are well founded, but I fear that, one day, something of that kind will happen. I hope that your Lordships will not regard it as cynical when I say that it is probably only when it happens—it is bound to go wrong in significant ways—that many will wake up to the need to find international ways to ban the cloning of human beings.
However, Britain is far from that end of the spectrum, and from the position of countries that promote controlled but unrestricted research on embryos as a matter of public policy. China is one example of that; another is Singapore, which has gone out of its way to create something called Biopolis, a huge research centre, which, I understand, has now attracted one of the "inventors" of Dolly the sheep, Professor Alan Coleman. It has gone out of its way to try to attract scientists from all over the place.
There are those who offer the opportunity of unrestricted research. There are those who want to ban all research. The report steers a kind of middle course for Britain. Although I do not normally advocate a third way, in this case the middle course is appropriate, and I therefore support the Motion.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, my concerns about the Select Committee's report fall broadly into four categories: procedural, ethical, scientific and regulatory. I understand the points that the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, just made, and I know that he has agonised about the issues. However, the dilemma

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that he faced, when we debated the questions in 2001, was the dilemma of the whole House. The noble Lord had to vote in favour—as he did—of therapeutic cloning at the end of that debate because the Select Committee that we established was a retrospective Select Committee. Even if he had wanted to continue agonising, he was required to cast his vote before your Lordships were able even to consider the matters.
Your Lordships may recall that, during our debate, I moved an amendment asking for a Select Committee to consider the questions before we proceeded. I said that our situation was like that of a court being asked to give out,
"the verdict and sentence, before hearing the defence, the prosecution and the witnesses".—[Official Report, 22/1/01; col. 23.]
During the debate, my noble friend Lady Warnock said:
"We have been bullied and pushed to do things more quickly than we should".
She also said that people who feared the developments in embryology should be,
"given some hope that their fears may be listened to".—[Official Report, 22/1/01; col. 45.]
The failure to appoint to the Select Committee anyone who spoke in the debate against reproductive and therapeutic human cloning was unlikely to strengthen the impression that anyone was listening. All 26 witnesses who were called to appear before the committee to give evidence from a scientific or medical perspective were from the pro-embryo research lobby. Notwithstanding what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford said today, no scientists were specifically called to submit oral evidence from an exclusively adult stem cell perspective. The importance of evidence on adult stem cells from, for instance, Professor David Prentice, whom I asked to travel here from the United States, where he is a senior scientific adviser to Congress, is not even referred to in the report. The right reverend Prelate asked for force to be given to that criticism.
The cursory way in which adult stem cell technology was investigated was brought home to me by a question put by a member of the Select Committee at the final public: hearing:
"Are you saying that it is possible, certainly as you understand it, to understand the process whereby an adult stem cell, which, as I understand, it is not yet possible to isolate, can be used but not in isolation?"
Not only can adult stem cells he isolated, but they can offer greater potential than embryonic stem cells. During the same hearing, Professor Prentice warned of the dangers to public health of using embryonic stem cells.
I remain profoundly concerned about the effect on society when we treat nascent human life as a natural resource to be mined, exploited and commodified. The Department of Heath recently confirmed to me—I am grateful to the Minister—that, since the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, over 900,000 human embryos had been created through in vitro fertilisation. Almost 300,000 embryos remained unused and were therefore destroyed. A mere 4 per
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cent of nearly a million human embryos have seen the light of day. I repeat: a mere 4 per cent of nearly a million human embryos created since 1990 have seen the light of day. Where is the special status that my noble friend Lady Warnock talked about in her report and which Parliament is supposed to have accorded the human embryo? We trade in human embryos, we manipulate them, we experiment upon them and we destroy them. They have no special status worth talking about.
An article in Nature magazine on 4th July 2002 underlined how much we knew about our earliest moments of life. I support the remarks that have already been made in your Lordships' House about how fast-moving the science is. We now know much more than we knew then. The article, entitled "Your Destiny from Day One"—not from day 14—states:
"Your world was shaped in the first 24 hours after conception. Where your head and feet would sprout, and which side would form your back and which your belly, were being defined in the minutes and hours after sperm and egg united".
The embryologist Alan Handyside also warns that meddling with early human embryos might carry serious adverse consequences:
"It's possible you could be removing a cell with a predictable fate and causing damage".
Even if we do not accept the inviolability and sacredness of human life from conception—I am disappointed that the report fails to mention the unanimous submission of a group of eminent theologians from all Christian traditions—the precautionary principle surely requires us to err on the side of caution wherever there may be any doubt. We are not potential human beings; we are human beings with potential. The right reverend Prelate gave the example of the medical student who could fulfil his or her potential by one day becoming a doctor. If we terminate that life, he or she will never fulfil that potential. We are always on a gradient, from the moment of conception until our natural death.
In our debate in January 2001, the right reverend Prelate said (at col. 37) that embryo
"research should only be done … if it is truly necessary and that research cannot be done any other way".
There is now no doubt that the research can be done in another way, either using adult stem cells or embryonic stem cells from non-human primates. Everyone in Parliament wants therapies that alleviate illness. There is no disagreement between us about that. However, it is dishonest to suggest that the only way to make progress is by the creation and destruction of countless human embryos. Should we not, at least, ask what progress has thus far been achieved at the expense of one million human embryos, before we permit the destruction of more?
An editorial in New Scientist—not a religious voice—had this to say just a few months ago:
"Like stuck records, Ministers and policy makers continue to enthuse about therapeutic cloning even though the majority of bench scientists no longer think it's possible or practicable to treat patients with cells derived from cloned embryos. They have already moved on to investigating the alternatives".
In its editorial, Nature said:

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"The idea of 'therapeutic cloning' seems to be on the wane…most now believe that it will be too expensive and cumbersome for regular clinical use".
The conclusions in the Select Committee's report are based upon outdated research that has been superseded by research conducted since 1999 and demonstrates profound levels of healing using adult stem cells.
I must also refer to the regulatory issues that were touched on by the right reverend Prelate and others in the debate and are raised in the report. The committee and, today, the right reverend Prelate expressed confidence in the work of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. He said that it is held in high international esteem. However, the regulation of embryonic stem cell research has been entrusted to an organisation in disarray. In July, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee was highly critical of the HFEA:
"The Lords Stem Cell Research Committee reported that the HFEA is 'highly regarded, both at home and abroad … [and] has the full confidence of the scientific and medical research community'"—
the very things that we have been told in our House today. It said:
"We are unclear on what evidence it based this assertion".
And so am I. The recent mix-up scandals at IVF clinics; the contemptuous issuing of a licence authorising embryonic stem cell research in 1997, four years in advance of parliamentary approval; this week's revelations regarding Professor Ian Craft's egg trading arrangements, in flagrant disregard of Section 12 of the 1990 Act; the suffering that that has caused women; and the shocking disclosures from the embryologist, Dr Sammy Lee, in the Sunday Telegraph on 10th November, demonstrate that the criticisms of the Science and Technology Committee are not unfounded. Indeed, they reflect a general concern that is widespread in the country today. I am surprised that that is not reflected in the report before us.
Dr Lee wrote that he knew of at least six cases where the wrong embryos were put into women. He maintains that it is,
"galling that the HFEA has sought to brush aside any meaningful discussion of why mistakes occur in IVF clinics, and how frequently".
Yet the Government continue to insist that the HFEA has their full confidence and that they have no plans to conduct an inquiry into its work. In a reply to me earlier today, they say that they are simply going to double the money they give to the HFEA to £5.5 million. Surely, that is something that the Public Accounts Committee should examine.
Also consider for a moment our international isolation on these matters. The noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, talked about a "cloning Eldorado". The noble Baroness, Lady Platt of Writtle, mentioned her hope that there would be international action to end reproductive cloning. On that issue we would be in total agreement.
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It is all very well asking other countries to support us, but we have obligations too. Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, which the Government have still not signed, prohibits the creation of embryos for research purposes. At the end of last month, the European Parliament voted for a total ban on reproductive and embryonic cloning. In the US, there is a four-year moratorium on cloning for biomedical research. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, that that is insufficient and proper regulations should be passed by Congress as well. In Germany, destructive embryo research is prohibited. In France, President Chirac is opposed.
In other words, it is perfectly possible and reasonable to reach conclusions different from those of the Select Committee, and many of our international partners have done so. Here, at the behest of the pharmaceutical and bio-tec industry, the United Kingdom has compromised its high standing in the international community.
To conclude, I have outlined my disquiet about the genesis of the Select Committee and its attitude towards the ethical, scientific and regulatory issues that are at stake. Adult stem cell research is a viable scientific alternative and has clearly overtaken research using human embryos. It is simply not true to say that we need to do both. While I admire many of the individual noble Lords and Baronesses who have served on the committee, I do not believe that this is a good report. I believe that it is deeply flawed and I fear that it will not stand the test of time.
5.41 p.m.
Lord Tombs: My Lords, the debate which led to the setting up of the Select Committee lasted for almost seven hours and attracted a large number of speakers. Those speakers can be divided into three groups—those supporting the government Motion without reservation, those supporting it with reservations, and those opposing it.
In the first group—those supporting the Motion without reservation—there were 14 speakers, two of whom were later appointed members of the Select Committee. In the second group—those supporting the Motion with reservations—there were 11 speakers, two of whom were later appointed members of the Select Committee, and one of them chairman. In the third group—those opposing the Motion—there were 13 speakers, none of whom was appointed to the Select Committee.
Therefore, of the eventual membership of the Select Committee—11 in all—four were appointed from those supporting the Motion, and none from those opposing it. I believe that the Committee of Selection, perhaps unknowingly, served the House badly in that regard. The respect which Select Committees of this House enjoy widely is based on the belief that they are fully independent of the issues being considered. That is a valuable asset which must be jealously and conscientiously guarded.

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However, when we turn to the declaration of interests by committee members, the situation worsens. Of the 11 members, nine declared interests—past or present—in academic fields, medical charities or the pharmaceutical industry, which could lead them to favour unfettered medical research. Of course, such a background does not preclude examination of the ethical dimension, but it suggests sympathies and peer pressures that make an independent appraisal more difficult.
In those circumstances, I have sympathy with the members of the committee. They were placed in a situation where their natural sympathies lay with unfettered medical research and were not exposed to the challenging discussions which would normally take place in a Select Committee.
So it was no surprise, to me at least, that the conclusions of the Select Committee supported the policy of the Government. It was no surprise, but it was a great disappointment because it meant that an historic opportunity to introduce an ethical dimension into this medical research policy was missed. Instead, on this subject at least, the unenviable position of the United Kingdom as one of the most ethically indifferent of western nations was confirmed.
The Select Committee concluded that the embryo enjoyed special but not absolute rights—a view, incidentally, not shared by many church leaders and theologians. But it also concluded that research on human embryos could be ethically justified only if there was no alternative. Here the alternative route of adult stem research is crucial. We owe a great debt to my noble friend Lord Alton for using his appearance before the Select Committee to introduce scientific evidence on the immense developments in that field. I am sorry to say that the Select Committee failed to recognise the importance of that evidence.
But, perhaps because of that, Recommendation (xix) of the report suggests that,
"At an appropriate time, perhaps towards the end of the decade, the Government should undertake a further review of scientific developments, particularly of the progress of adult stem cell research and therapies, and of the development of stem cell banks, with a view to determining whether research on human embryos is still necessary".
The Government have accepted that recommendation.
Welcome though such a recommendation is, it raises the question of why the benefit of the doubt is not given to the embryo rather than to the research scientist. A carefully argued written submission by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Plymouth, the right reverend Christopher Budd, put the case for a five-year moratorium on embryo stem cell research, and recent developments in the field certainly support that advice.
The view of the Standing Committee that embryo research is necessary for the present rests on the fact that the UK research establishment remains fixated on embryo research and its seemingly great potential. The astonishing advances in adult stem cell research and therapy over the past two years have taken place in other countries, notably the USA, and it is unfortunate that the Select Committee failed to invite evidence on the current situation from those countries. Instead, it
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relied heavily on advice from British scientists, influenced by their attachment to embryo research and unfamiliar in many cases with the rapid advances in adult stem cell work internationally.
I digress to say that it is not in the least surprising to me that scientists in one field do not seek to criticise the need for work in other fields—dog does not eat dog—and that researchers are content to work in their own fields and to observe with interest the work of others. It would be naive and unfair to expect them to decide the issues which the Select Committee was set up to examine.
The same mistake must not be made in any future review of the need for research on embryo stem cells, and the speed of developments in adult stem cell research and therapy make the suggestion of a review towards the end of the decade an unsatisfactory one. Instead, the pace of development requires, in my view, that there should be an annual review by a standing committee, independent of government and including international scientists familiar with developments in the adult stem cell field. I hope that the Government will seriously consider that option.
5.47 p.m.
Baroness Warnock: My Lords, I add my congratulations and expressions of gratitude to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and his committee on their report. I declare an interest having been involved in the 1990 legislation, within the framework of which the debate is now taking place.
The report has been criticised on the ground that its conclusions were wholly predictable, but that does not entail that they are wrong. I find it difficult to understand the suggestion that the report is in favour of unfettered medical research because it is clear that the framework of regulation within which research using human embryos is carried out is rigorous and quite specific. I also find it difficult to understand how it can be said of the report that it has missed an opportunity to revisit the ethical and moral considerations that lie behind the 1990 legislation.
I shall confine my few remarks to Chapter 4 of the report, where the central moral issue of the status to be accorded to the early human embryo is discussed. As the report notes, this moral question has not changed since the 1980s and the lead-up to the legislation of 1990.
In paragraphs 4.6 to 4.17 (pages 21 to 22) of the report, under the heading "Should the early embryo be treated as a person?", I thought that the report. for once, failed in clarity. It failed to make clear the confusion generated by introducing the concept of personhood into the debate. The question of whether the embryo is a person is not a different question from that of the status we should accord to the embryo; it is exactly the same question.
People sometimes speak as though asking whether an embryo is a person is like asking whether an animal is a horse—a member of the genus equus—to be set tied by observation, scientifically. But, of course, that is not the case. The question of whether someone or

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something is a person is a legal—or, at least, quasi-legal—question, a matter of deeming someone to be a person. There is no sense in saying such things as, "The embryo may possibly be a person", or, "The embryo is probably, or probably not, a person". Neither probability nor discovery comes into the question at all. It is a matter of decision—and Parliament did decide in 1990 that the early embryo did not have the right to the protection that presumably belongs to persons.
I regret that in the original report that led up to the 1990 legislation we used words such as "respect for the embryo". That seems to me to lead to certain absurdities. You cannot respectfully pour something down the sink—which is the fate of the embryo after it has been used for research, or if it is not going to be used for research or for anything else.
I think that what we meant by the rather foolish expression "respect" was that the early embryo should never be used frivolously for research purposes. That is perfectly exemplified by the regulations that are brought in and the licensing provisions that are looked after by the HFEA. It is the non-frivolity of the research which is conveyed by such expressions as "respect for" or "protection for" the embryo.
Finally, one question that must be addressed is whether embryos should be created specially for research purposes. Personally, I have never been able to see any moral objection to creating embryos for research purposes once the central moral decision about the status of the early embryo has been taken. Of course, those who believe that the embryo must be given the full protection of the law from the moment, or the process, of fertilisation believe that it would be utterly wrong to create human embryos for research. But if you have taken the decision that the early embryo is to be used, where necessary, for research, my own view is that there is no difference between an embryo that is surplus to IVF requirements and an embryo that is specially created.
The enormous value, as I see it, of the new knowledge, the new science, the new understanding to be gained from embryonic stem cell research suggests that embryos should, if necessary, be specially created—so that this knowledge can be acquired and can ultimately be used for therapeutic purposes. I do not believe in a sharp distinction between fundamental research and practical and useful research. You cannot have therapeutic research unless you understand the science. That is brought out clearly in the report.
I am in favour, therefore, of using embryos created by cell nuclear replacement as research tools. But one point worries me. It was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Alton, and I believe it to be serious. There is the possibility that women may be exploited into giving away whole cycles of eggs. This was the most shocking story—I entirely agree with my noble friend. The HFEA or another body must address it immediately, perhaps by introducing new regulations to prevent the exploitation of women who, because they are
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desperate to have children, agree to give away a whole cycle of eggs in exchange for free IVF treatment. That is a shocking thing to do.
We need new regulations to cover egg donation. The possibility of donors being exploited is another reason to carry out research using adult stem cells rather than embryonic ones. However, both areas of research must be explored, and I accept fully the probable limitation of the use of adult stem cells.
5.55 p.m.
Lord Brennan: My Lords, stern cell research is a matter of profound medical, legal and social significance. I must, therefore, begin with two very important cautions. First, the topic deserves to be debated with intellectual discipline and reliable reasoning; therefore, the message should not go out from this House today that stem cell research will produce cures for serious disease. It might. It is a speculative aspiration. It is unproven whether it will cure and, if it does cure, it is unknown when.
The second caution is that we must not proceed in the expectation that the legislative framework embodied in the regulations of 2001 represents valid law. Next February, the Judicial Committee of this House will hear the final appeal on the question of whether the regulations are valid. Its decision will involve a major question of constitutional importance: whether the courts of our country have any role in plugging legislative gaps created by the legislature or whether those matters should be remedied by the organ of democracy that created them.
Central to the report is the assumption that the regulatory framework of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority—I shall hereafter refer to it as "the authority"—works effectively in the public interest and can be seen to do so. Secondly, it assumes that there is a reliable legislative framework overall. Thirdly, the committee readily accepted the limited nature of its inquiry into the field. It did not, and could not, come to any conclusions about the degree of control society should exercise over the use of the products of stem cell research for the benefit of the community. I will deal with each point in turn.
First, does the authority have an adequate system of regulatory control in practice? Let us test the proposition. One, licence applications are never published before they are considered by the authority. It is, therefore, impossible for the public to know to what the licence application is directed. As a result, it is impossible for them to know whether the Government's undertakings and the authority's declared policy are being met, namely that stem cell research will be permitted only where it is necessary, desirable and there is no alternative. How are the public to know?
Secondly, after licensing decisions are made they are not referred to in public for up to two years after they have been made. The report of the authority for the year November 1999 to November 2000 was only published in the late summer of the year 2002. When I say "published" as regards what happens with these

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licences, I ant being generous. By way of example, in the 1997 report there is one page that embraces 19 licence decisions, the longest of which stretches to just over 40 words in its description. That cannot plausibly be said to represent informing the public about a licensing decision. In any event, it is too late for anyone to do anything about it because the licence has been given and acted on.
Finally, the right reverend Prelate quite rightly emphasised that at the heart of this question is the integrity and value of the research that is accomplished. Outside the world of this authority, science seeks to achieve those standards by peer review. I shall test with noble Lords the proposition of whether the peer review system under the authority is established as being reliable to our satisfaction: we do not know the system of selection; we never know the expertise of the peer reviewer; and we do not know whether there is any conflict of interest. If your Lordships think that I am being overly strict, I have with me a real-life example from a licensed applicant. In evidence given to the Science and Technology Select Committee of the other place, Dr Austin Smith who is a holder of a licence and a declared peer rev iewer—said:
"Unfortunately the [Authority's] … committees seem insufficiently familiar with the science also. In responding to my queries it seems that the [Authority] … looks to the Medical Research Council for specialist input, who in turn ask my view, with the result that I am asked my view of a ruling which I am seeking Research regulation seems to be at the margin of their activities".
He measured his words carefully, but it is almost risible to suggest that that is a proper system of peer review. It may not be representative; indeed, he may be wrong. However, we do not know.
From all of those propositions I invite noble Lords to consider with me the following suggestion. In scientific issues of this importance, should we not endorse the views of the Science and Technology Select Committee of the other place, which observed in 1999 that there was a crisis of confidence by the public in the regulation of science and technology and called for greater openness and dialogue. Do any of us disagree? If that is a proper objective, I invite my Government to consider the following proposals with the authority. First, adequate details of licence applications should he published. This should not be brushed aside with reference to the nonsense of commercial confidentiality. We are talking about the investigation of humankind for the benefit of humankind.
Secondly, adequate details of decisions should be published. Thirdly, the people who are peer reviewing should be identified, as should their expertise and terms of reference, and a declaration should be required of no conflict of interest. Fourthly, let the authority explain why this research was the only alternative. And, fifthly, let the licence holder who sought leave to investigate report its conclusions, successful or otherwise, back to the authority so that it can summarise the conclusions in its annual report.
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None of that presently happens. Therefore I question the conclusions in paragraphs 8.1 and 8.2 that the public can be satisfied that the authority works in a way that we know and can understand.
The second question is whether there is an adequate legislative framework. The authority is reported as declaring in the report at paragraph 8.22 that it does not have regulatory control over stem cells once extracted from the embryo. I understand that it repeated the same declaration in a court case about tissue typing the other day: embryo control, yes; extracted material, no control by us.
Unless I have misunderstood the science, it is the extracted material that founds much of the research intended to be carried out. If the authority declares that it has no regulatory control over it and no competence in that regard, how can it be said that the present legislative framework is there?
I give two illustrative examples. Extracted material can be used for either research or treatment, but in both instances without regulatory control. It can be so used without any criterion applied as to whether it is necessary and desirable and whether there is an alternative. What we legally require in respect of embryos, we do not legislatively require in respect of material extracted from them.
I turn to the question of commercial control I do not want to give my own views, to which I spoke in January 2001, about where all this was going and who was going to own these wonderful benefits to society: the Geron corporation which has just bought up the Dolly company in the North of England and now has most of the patents in the world in this field; or should it be us, the people who want the benefit from it?
In the evidence to the committee at page 448, Professor Wyatt, a sceptic on stem cell research, concluded:
"The extent of funding of all research involving embryos should be transparent and open to public scrutiny … The commercial ownership of cell-lines and research data needs careful regulatory and public scrutiny. There should be legal protection of "Whistle-blowing' by scientists in commercial organisations if ethical concerns are raised".
Who is to disagree? I turn to a stem-cell research enthusiast, the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, at page 156, who put the matter crisply in a way that cannot be improved on:
"My own personal belief is that the results of such research should be universally available without significant commercial considerations".
Who would disagree?
Whichever line one takes, there is no government policy of which I am aware, nor any external policy of NGOs in the medical world, as to how society will obtain the benefits of this research, if they ever occur, in a way that serves the community and not the profit-maker. I recall for your Lordships the phrase "intellectual discipline and reliable reasoning". Where are we going?
My conclusion is short and, I hope, simple. The authority should grant no licences until steps regarding the system I have recommended are, at the

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very least, considered; until the legislative framework covers the concerns I have expressed; and until society can be satisfied that what is sought to be done will serve society. This debate is not the end; it is merely an episode in a long-running debate on a legal and social concern for us all. The need for legislative oversight cannot be deferred until the end of the decade; it is a constant requirement. I for one intend to pursue that oversight.
I have not troubled your Lordships with my disagreement with the committee's conclusion. I adopt the reasoned arguments of the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Tombs. I thank noble Lords for their patience.
6.11 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I speak with trepidation because this subject has such profound ethical, theological, scientific and clinical implications and because of my respect for members of the committee, for the enormous amount of work they have devoted to the preparation of this report, and to their personal commitment to ethical and scientific integrity. I therefore express my concerns with profound humility. However, I have voiced them previously, and subsequent developments have not allayed them. These include the apparent arrogance of the United Kingdom in going it alone while other European countries and the United States have been constrained by scientific and ethical arguments from going down the path recommended in this report. That point has been very fully made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton.
Furthermore, while great emphasis is laid on the therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells, it is acknowledged that these cannot have any effective clinical application for many years. However, the progress being made with adult stem cell research suggests that they may have more to offer without the immense ethical or safety problems associated with embryonic stem cells. Everyone wishes to hasten therapeutic developments to alleviate the anguish of illnesses such as Parkinson's disease. As a nurse, I cannot feel anything other than passionately committed to measures to relieve suffering in a whole range of diseases which may be treated by stem cell therapies. However, the question must be asked whether it is prudent to proceed now with a more ethically and clinically problematic route of embryonic stem cells when the option of adult stem cells is generating very positive results and is being used successfully in many parts of the world. Indeed, the United Kingdom is being left behind in this field of research.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford referred to the report's encouragement for adult stem cell research. Encouragement is one thing, funding is another. In the United States, 75 per cent of private funding is going to adult stem cell research organisations, whereas embryonic stem cell research organisations are receiving a very small amount and are struggling to survive. I should therefore like to ask either the Minister or the right reverend Prelate how
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much funding is currently underpinning the encouragement for adult stem cell research. I should also like to concur with the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, when he expressed his grave concern about the suggestion that the situation should be reviewed towards the end of the decade. The issue is much more urgent than the end of the decade. However, I shall focus on the risks of embryonic stem cells as they seem to receive such inadequate consideration in the report, perhaps because the relevant experts who could present the alternative arguments were underrepresented in the witnesses giving evidence.
The report claims that there is no reason to suppose that the risk of tumour formation is higher in embryonic stem cells than in adult stem cells and that cultured embryonic stem cells are unaltered and can be grown and manipulated safely in culture. But these claims are contrary to all the available peer reviewed evidence. I therefore offer some counter arguments which are grounded in reputable scientific research. Time will not permit me to cite the sources but I shall make those available in a fuller paper which I shall place in the Library for anyone to check my claims and arguments.
First, the report does not address the very serious risk of teratoma or teratocarcinoma formation with embryonic stem cells. These are tumours composed of a mixture of various inappropriate tissue types such as bone, cartilage, hair or teeth, which can develop anywhere in the body, for example, in the heart or in the brain.
Tumour formation is not a hypothetical risk but is, or can be described as, an intrinsic property of embryonic stem cells. Indeed, the presence of only a minute number of embryonic stem cells (relative to the numbers implanted in stem cell therapies) is sufficient to generate these tumours. The report also clearly implies that adult stem cells are just as likely to form teratomas, stating that there is
"no reason to believe that (there) is a significantly greater risk for embryonic stem cells than for (adult) stem cells".
But, so far, adult stem cells have not been found to produce these tumours.
Secondly, there are a number of ways that embryonic stem cells and their differentiated progeny could generate cancer, when they are cultured as would occur in the process of multiplying embryonic stem cells for therapies and to an even greater extent in the case of the proposed stem cell bank. The risk is greater still if the embryonic stem cells are obtained from "therapeutic" cloning.
Recently, a form of mutation in embryonic stem cells in culture has been identified which could result in cancer. In this case the cells appear to have the correct number of chromosomes, but they are the wrong chromosomes. There are no copies of a chromosome from one parent but two from the other parent. It is a particularly dangerous form of mutation. The study, which investigated mutations in embryonic stem cells, was reported in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States of America earlier this year. The authors state that the increased

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risk of tumour formation after (embryonic) stern cell therapy should be viewed with concern. By contrast, they state that this mutation
"is not commonly observed in other normal somatic cells"—
this includes adult cells.
Thirdly, the report also claims that cultured embryonic stem cells are unaltered and safe because these cells, at least in the case of mice, can form normal offspring. But the report does not reveal the vast numbers of embryos produced from cultured embryonic stem cells that fail before one succeeds, and the very high percentage that have foetal abnormalities or are born with gross abnormalities or that die at or around the time of birth or shortly after.
The reality is that the experiments described so positively in the report demonstrate clearly that cultured embryonic cells are altered and unsafe, not unaltered and safe. It thus appears to give them a clean bill of health whereas there are numerous ways in which they could cause tumours, including cancers. If this issue is not addressed thoroughly, and if in future years people develop such tumours from embryonic stem cell therapies, they and their relatives will not look kindly on the committee which claimed that embryonic stem cells were unaltered and could be safely cultured despite the fact that there is much evidence to the contrary.
With respect to "therapeutic" cloning, the risks would be even higher because of the very high incidence of severe abnormalities in cloned embryos. If these defective embryonic stem cells were used for "therapeutic" cloning, they would produce defective cells. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, the abnormalities would not be detectable, as at present in many cases there is no way to tell which are the defective cloned embryos. If such defective cells were used for therapies, they would be likely to cause cancer.
Finally, through ignoring the dangers of embryonic stem cells, and attributing the unique advantages of adult stem cells also to embryonic stem cells, the report commends a procedure that would instantly result in tumour formation if embryonic stem cells were used, despite having received clear warning of those dangers.
Numerous studies with animals with serious diseases such as heart attack, liver failure, stroke and traumatic brain injury have shown that adult stem cells can be injected intravenously or transplanted some distance from the site of injury, since they migrate to the site of injury, differentiate into the appropriate cell type and begin to repair the damage. There have been astonishing levels of success with disorders such as heart attack and liver failure, and dramatic reductions in mortality.
Those studies show that adult stem cells have the ability to migrate to the site of injury and repair the damage. In some cases, differentiation of the stem cells at the site of injury was also clearly demonstrated. That is extremely advantageous, since it means that adult stem cells in many cases could be injected or even mobilised from internal stores rather than surgically transplanted. 'That is particularly helpful in cases like
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stroke, heart attack and spinal cord injuries, where surgery could be dangerous. It also means that the adult stem cells do not need to be either dedifferentiated or differentiated before transplant, since local signals in the body direct events appropriately. It therefore provides a very elegant, quick, simple and safe procedure. However, that procedure cannot be carried out using embryonic stem cells, because of the severe risk of tumour formation when injecting or transplanting undifferentiated embryonic stem cells into the body.
I conclude by arguing that there seem to be strong grounds for concern about the conclusions of the report. I hope that they will be taken into account before it leads to potentially irreversible developments that could harm those whom it is intended to help.
6.21 p.m.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve: My Lords, I do not believe that any of us can do anything but accept the seriousness of these issues, and the tone in which we are discussing them is entirely appropriate.
I was a member of the Select Committee and learned a great deal while serving on it. I remind noble Lords that the Select Committee was established to consider issues arising from stem cell research. One thing that we learned was that these are early days, and we are not talking about therapies as yet. Enthusiastic mention has been made of developments that may be adult stem cell therapies, or may not. We are in such early days that it is rash to go beyond the evidence with claims about the relative merits of different sorts of therapies.
In general, I do not believe that opponents of the regulations that this House passed in 2001 or the critics of the Select Committee report have disagreed with the report on the thought that these are serious purposes. They disputed two points: in some cases, they have argued that the regulations are unnecessary and in others that they are unacceptable. Those who believe that embryonic stem cell research is unnecessary will believe that the regulations are unnecessary and that there should have been no extension of the purposes of the schedule to the 1990 Act, which sets out the original purposes for which early embryo research was permitted. They claimed that it was unnecessary because adult stem cell research alone would provide what we all hope for.
The Select Committee spent a great deal of its time on that point. Some claimed that scientific and medical witnesses invited to appear before the Select Committee were selected from a supposed pro-embryonic stem cell lobby, but that was not the case. The committee did not choose its witnesses but invited a wide range of bodies to respond. Many chose to do so while some did not choose to do so. It invited many representatives of faith communities. Many distinguished experts appearing on behalf of those bodies had experience of research into adult stem cells. As far as we know, none was working on or had worked on human embryonic stem cells.
Contrary to some publicity, subsequent work on adult stem cells has raised new difficulties as well as new hopes. I believe that that is inevitable at this stage

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of the research. In particular, the right reverend Prelate referred to the much-cited work of Professor Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota, who, as she herself said, raised problems that can be resolved only by further work on embryonic stem cells. In short, we found no evidence of a division among scientists into distinct adult and embryonic stem cell research communities. Experts who gave both oral and written evidence did not support the view that adult stem cell work alone would be sufficient. Any of us might have hoped that they would support the view, but they did not. Many of them considered that work on embryonic stem cells was the only way to provide a bench-mark against which adult stem cell research could be calibrated.
Since publication of the report, I believe that there has been an additional reason for thinking very carefully about adult stem cell research—that is, like all adult cells, adult stem cells have been through the process of imprinting during the period of embryonic and foetal life. That means that they have been differentiated or marked in certain ways that we do not yet well understand and their reversal is a difficult matter.
At a later date, when the most basic scientific questions about stem cells of all sorts have been answered, it might prove possible to advance the purposes of the 2001 regulations without further research on embryonic stem cells. In that case, the 1990 Act would not permit the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to license further embryonic stem cell research. Licences for work using early embryos may be issued only where,
"the research cannot be achieved by other means … and is necessary or desirable for a permitted purpose".
The drafting of the 1990 legislation makes the refusal of a licence for research on embryos the default position, and licences to do such work require explicit justification. I have a great deal of sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, about the way in which the process of accountability for the issue of such licences could be improved. I myself am sceptical that publishing them is as effective a remedy as he would hope, but I am sure that there is room for improvement.
Other witnesses who opposed the 2001 regulations and the 1990 Act did not venture into predictions. They did not claim that adult stem cell research alone would prove sufficient. I believe that they were prudent in that respect. They argued against embryonic stem cell research as a matter of principle. That is a position for which I have a great deal of respect. But I have most respect when those who advance it openly state that they wish to abolish all IVF treatment in this country. They are the only consistent opponents of embryonic stem cell research. They acknowledge that IVF treatment, too, involves the destruction of early embryos and that it could not have been introduced without embryo research. However, I cannot see that anyone who considers IVF treatment to be acceptable can consistently object to
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tightly regulated research on embryonic stem cells for purposes that are every bit as important as the treatment of infertility. The two stand or fall together.
While the committee came to the view that there were morally serious reasons for undertaking stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research, we also made recommendations, which the Government have accepted, that will, we believe, put downward pressure on embryonic stem cell research.
The most significant proposal was to encourage the formation of a stem cell bank, to require that any cell line developed in the UK be deposited in that bank and to require that cells from the lineages in that bank be made available for research. That was not because we did not think that the cell lines that are the products of stem cell research needed regulation, but because we did not think that they needed regulation by the HFEA. The regulation that they would require is rather different and is more comparable to the regulation for the use of all cell-based therapies.
Matters have moved fast. Since the committee reported, the Medical Research Council. with support from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, has established the UK stern cell bank at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control. That initiative will allow important research to go ahead with minimal use of early embryos. The bank will hold existing and new adult, foetal and embryonic stem cell lines and will give researchers access to ethically approved, well characterised, well documented and guality-controlled stem cell lines. Those lines will continue to multiply and reproduce themselves and they can survive indefinitely. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority would not then be permitted to grant licences for any early embryo research for work that could be carried out by the alternative method of using cell lines held by the bank.
I want to make a small additional point about the international team. To characterise it as a team which the UK lies outside seems to me entirely mistaken. Anyone who followed the debates in European parliaments last year will know that there was a great deal of movement and a great deal of shifting of ground so that by the end of the year the position of the United Kingdom was much less exceptional than it had appeared at the beginning. We should also recognise that many of those jurisdictions may have committed themselves to fine words, but they are not enforcing the standard to which they claim to commit themselves.
If I wanted somewhere to carry out irresponsible research on embryonic stem cells, this is the last country that I would choose for rather obvious reasons. The climate of strong condemnation, coupled with permissiveness, that we see, for example, in the United States and Italy, is something that one may hope international regulation could bring under some control, but as the Select Committee realised, that will be a difficult matter.
All noble Lords can see that the point of embryonic stem cell research is that it holds promise. At this stage we do not know whether it is high promise, middling

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promise or low promise. That is the nature of research. However, it holds promise of enabling something to be done to alleviate terrible diseases. It is early days and we cannot foresee the sequence or the pace of fundamental scientific and medical advance. But I believe that the creation of the MRC stem cell bank will be a good way to support regulated and effective research and to minimise the use of early embryos.
6.32 p.m.
Lord Chart: My Lords, I thank the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Oxford for drawing our attention to the Select Committee report on stem cell research. I have listened carefully to the speeches of noble Lords and my contribution to the debate arises from my professional experience as a neonatal paediatrician caring for new-born babies for nearly 30 years here and in South-East Asia. Therefore, I shall concentrate on the treatment. uses of stem cell research.
I wish to remind your Lordships of the history of stem cell research. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been taking place, using animal cells and human cells, particularly bone marrow, for more than 40 years. The first bone marrow transplant took place in 1969 in a patient with leukaemia. Adult, foetal and umbilical cord blood cells have been available to researchers for the same period. I have used bone marrow transplants and, therefore, it is not true to say that stem cell therapy has not been available. We are using it and it is available. The harvesting of a large number of cells to repair deficient or damaged tissues and their lack of immunological rejection by the host have been features looked for by researchers to satisfy the treatment needs of patients.
Stem cell research from embryos is new and was launched in 1996, only six years ago, by James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin working on non-human primates. His group successfully cultured human embryonic stem cells from five-day embryos in 1998. Embryonic stem cell research has become fashionable since then. There is a close relationship between research and treatment using stem cells because many, if not all, serious diseases in human beings have the potential to be treated by regenerating new tissue from stem cells. However, tragic results have occurred from experimental treatment, for example using foetal tissue implants to treat Parkinson's disease, which is a degenerative disease of the brain. Patients' symptoms and signs of disease disappeared initially after foetal tissue transplants, but the disease returned with a vengeance later and the latter condition of patients was worse than before treatment with foetal implants.
This failure of treatment was thought to be due to immunological rejection of the foetal implants, hence the quest for stem cells without the capacity of being rejected by the diseased host—in other words, looking for cells that had not already had imprints. In this regard, the best tissue to use for treatment would have to come from the patient's bone marrow.
Reports of the use of adult stem cells have been more positive now than when the Select Committee wrote its report and are certainly further along than when it sat
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to hear evidence. For example, the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation, published two papers on 3rd September this year on the repair of heart muscles damaged by heart attack. The first paper, by Strauer et al, from Germany, reported the successful use of the patient's own bone marrow stem cells in 10 people with heart attacks. Three months after they received their own bone marrow stem cells infused into their heart, significant decreases in the areas of heart damage were found. These areas were significantly smaller than in patients who did not receive stem cells. This is permissible and legitimate experimentation and is quite difficult.
Another paper in the same journal reported research in mice. Heart cells derived from embryonic stem cells had a tendency to develop irregular beating rhythms. The US scientists found that heart cell; derived from mouse embryonic stem cells had abnormal beating rhythms. The transplant of such cells into an already damaged heart could promote abnormal heartbeat. The scientists concluded that adult stem cells—in this case in the mouse—had more restricted developmental potential and are more suitable for treating damaged hearts. Embryonic stem cells have great potential for development, as noble Lords have described. That potential makes them more dangerous to use than adult stem cells with restricted developmental potential.
Furthermore, umbilical cord stem cells and hone marrow stem cells can be injected into the body by catheters—I have done that myself—and directed to specific damaged tissues. In contrast, embryonic stem cells would require to be implanted by surgery, because they can form tumours, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has described, when injected into the blood stream.
Clearly, the evidence being accumulated today favours research in the use of adult stem cells in the bone marrow or from umbilical cord blood, particularly of a close relative. The rapid advance in stem cell research in the United States and continental Europe makes some of the conclusions of the report out of date and inappropriate, particularly the encouragement of embryonic stem cell research to the same degree—that is how I understand it—as adult stem cell research.
Embryonic stem cells cannot possibly be the treatment of first choice in serious diseases, and not even for a limited number of disorders where damage is due to severe trauma to the brain or spinal cord, because of all the advances in adult stem cell research with therapeutic use in these areas. Therefore, much more encouragement and funding should he given to adult stem cell research if we are concerned with treatment. Another problem with embryonic stem cell research is the need to use donated embryos produced by various methods of fertilisation, including in vitro fertilisation. Problems about that have already been discussed by noble Lords.
I believe that the Select Committee's report is overoptimistic in its confidence on the HFEA's ability to regulate IVF clinics. Recent reports of the white

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mother who delivered black babies after IVF treatment because of a laboratory error is, I suggest, only the tip of the iceberg of such errors. How many more mistakes have taken place and been undetected because all the babies were white?
Finally, I was looking for recommendations for the improved monitoring and audit of IVF clinics and of embryonic stem cell research by the HFEA. That is more necessary now than when the Select Committee was sitting.
In conclusion, the future of stem cell research should logically promote the use of adult stem cells, particularly in the bone marrow. The Select Committee's report may have been overtaken by new reports of the use of adult stem cells. More stringent regulations must, therefore, govern embryonic stem cell research in Britain if we do not wish to be lumped with Singapore and China as the El Dorado of embryonic stem cell research. In May when I was in Singapore, the Singapore Government publicly declared that because Britain had encouraged embryonic stem cell research, they would go even further: they wanted to be the first in the world to use, what I would consider as, unfettered embryonic stem cell research.
6.41 p.m.
Baroness Northover: My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I welcome the fact that we are at last debating the report. It is impossible to predict precisely how medicine will develop far into the future, but we have a responsibility to try to see where promise seems to lie. In fact, we mostly seem to agree that the promise of stem cell research is one of the most exciting prospects for treating disease in the future. But, as so many noble Lords have said, we do not know whether, when, or how this could be applied. What we do know is that such research helps our fundamental understanding of human biology. It has always been on that that advances in medicine have been made; and yet research on stem cells has been surrounded by controversy.
Those of us who were members of the Select Committee came to it with a range of different opinions—from those who had supported the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in the original vote, to those who supported the proposal that research should take place. We came from a wide range of political positions and a wide range of backgrounds, with some having a deep knowledge of the area, and others of us very little or none.
The chairman, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, could not have been more even-handed, patient and thoughtful, as we sought to find our way through the issues. We listened; we disagreed with each other; we debated; and we came to a unanimous agreement; and that is the report in front of your Lordships.
We had sterling support from our expert advisers. We certainly needed the scientific advice from Professor Chris Higgins from the Hammersmith
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Hospital. He was very careful to answer our questions factually. We were also anxious to have advice from a legal and ethical expert. That role was admirably carried out by Professor Roger Brownsword. It was important that we had the balance of the two advisers, even though we were so fortunate to have among our number such an outstanding expert on ethics and philosophy as the noble Baroness, Lady O'Neill.
We were able to call for evidence from experts of the highest calibre. We were especially determined that those who opposed research in this area should make their case. They did; both on paper and to the committee. Although no date seemed possible for the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to make his presentation. he needs to know that we concluded that we should simply continue our work until we found a mutually agreeable date, which I am very glad to say was the case. We contacted a wide range of people and organisations and received a mass of material. The quality of what we received was mostly of a high standard, as your Lordships can tell from the supporting papers. Some of the material that we received had not been accepted by peer-reviewed journals. As your Lordships would expect, we took that fact into account when assessing the feasibility of what they claimed to have been able to achieve.
We considered the issues long and hard and, while respecting those who hold the view that no research should be carried out on embryonic stem cells, we concluded that we should not shut the door on that promising line of research. The majority of people in Britain feel that the 1990 Act has in most instances worked well to control the matter, and we were not persuaded to overturn that status quo. We recognised that there is a deeply held view that any research on human embryos is wrong. That is a straightforward difference of opinion and should be recognised as such.
However, society as a whole accepts that work on embryonic cells up to 14 days is acceptable in research on fertility. We felt that to extend the benefits of such research to cast light on normal development as a key to understanding serious disease was, if anything, even more justifiable. We endorsed the position laid down in the 1990 Act that no such research should take place after 14 days. The stage at which ES cells would be extracted would be well within that time, as that must be done before they start to differentiate. We reiterated that there were strong ethical and other objections to the idea of reproductive cloning—which is of course illegal; and we did not propose to challenge that in any way.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, there is a lively debate about which have more potential: adult or embyronic stem cells. While we sat that debate raged, and it rages still. We considered that question long and hard. However, we were persuaded that whereas the long-term potential of adult stem cells to produce tissues compatible with a donor may have particular promise, first, more needs to be known about how cells develop—which, we concluded, may at present best be learnt from embryonic stem cells.

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We were frequently presented with the argument that adult stem cells offered greater possibilities. A distinction must be drawn. One may oppose research on embryonic stem cells for moral reasons. That is fair enough. But the argument that science finds that one field shows more promise than another must be assessed separately and dispassionately. I assure your ]Lordships that we considered that question longer and harder than almost anything else. We concluded that, at present, both sides of that research show promise and that adult stem cell research alone simply does not eclipse the potential of embryonic stem cell research—if anything, the reverse is the case.
We therefore conclude that, at present, research should continue in parallel. Work is being undertaken on both embryonic and adult stem cells around the world, and only time will tell how each informs the other. It is self-evident that if scientists and clinicians find greater illumination from their study of adult stem cells, that is where the scientific community will focus.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Platt of Writtle, and my noble friend Lord Dahrendorf explained, we laid down a series of checks and regulations on the research. We therefore felt that it was appropriate that control of this area should be held by the HFEA. Our main concern, as a result of doing that, was that it should have the resources to handle all its new responsibilities. I seek strong assurances from the Minister on that point.
Stein cell research undoubtedly has the potential to benefit vast numbers of people who suffer from all kinds of diseases and disabilities. Our task was to review the field and thus, implicitly, see whether the decision that your Lordships made to allow research to proceed was the right one. I assure your Lordships that the committee, which came from a spectrum of views on the matter, took evidence widely, considered carefully and concluded unanimously. We recognise that some people feel very strongly on the issue. For them, in all honesty, no protections, promises or possibilities will ever be enough. However, we feel not only that our conclusions are fully justifiable, but also that they are widely shared in Britain today.
6.51 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, it is a pleasure for me to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford on a compelling speech at the start of the debate and on the equally compelling and succinct report of the Select Committee that he chaired. I was among noble Lords who firmly supported the establishment of that committee, even though at the time of our debate—22nd January last year—I was persuaded that the regulations then before us were worthy of approval.
In taking that apparently—or ostensibly—equivocal position, I was mindful of one issue above all others: the need for Parliament to secure public trust. Despite all the consultation, there was at the time a distinct feeling that, in their enthusiasm to promote stein cell research, scientists and politicians had, in an important sense, left the public behind. I think back, in
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particular, to the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, in our earlier debate. She made that very point, and it was a wise one.
It is not just in this area of medical research but in many others also that we must remember an important principle. The fact that something can be done is no reason for us to refrain from asking, on behalf of the public, whether it should be done. In the present context, Parliament was satisfied as to the "should", but there were perhaps three central issues that gave rise to hesitations: the possibility that soon there might be an ethically uncontroversial alternative to research on early embryos involving adult stem cells; the ethical acceptability of creating an embryo for the sole purpose of conducting research into stem cells; and, thirdly, the question that perhaps overarches all the others—the ethical status of the early human embryo.
At the same time our debate gave rise to related and parallel concerns. One such concern, well expressed, as I remember, by the noble and right reverend. Lord, Lord Habgood, was that, if Parliament were to consent to stem cell research involving human embryos—as it went on to do—that consent should not be open-ended, either as to time or to substance. Many of us felt that we needed further and better particulars about the boundaries of the proposed research and that Parliament should retain proper oversight over the consent that it had granted. To do that, it needed to be sure that those charged with day-to-day responsibility for implementing its wishes were capable, in the fullest sense, of doing so and, equally, that the Government were sympathetic to the notion of de-limiting the timespan of the order.
Those were the main considerations underlying the decision of the House to establish a Select Committee, and they must, therefore, be seen as the benchmarks of the committee's success. Having read the committee's report and the Government's response to it, I am in no doubt that the right reverend Prelate and his colleagues have fulfilled their remit in a most creditable fashion. That said, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has voiced a number of criticisms of the report, which I know are deeply held, and I have listened to him with particular seriousness, as I always do. Other noble Lords have supported him.
Perhaps I may be allowed to focus on a few of the main issues that have been highlighted. The first, where all debate has to start, is the overarching ethical issue of the status of the embryo. The report covers that in Chapter 4 and in an interesting short appendix about the Christian tradition. On the theological position I take my cue, as I always have clone, from the right reverend Prelate. The report acknowledges that there are differing traditions and beliefs among different Christian denominations and groups. However, it is significant that the Jewish belief accords with that which the right reverend Prelate enunciated in our last debate—that is to say, the gradualist view of an embryo acquiring increasing moral status as it develops. In essence, that is the position adopted in the Warnock report and which was accepted by Parliament in the 1990 Act.

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Of course, there are many, including the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to whom that view will never be acceptable. Those who believe that a person is created at the moment of conception will take issue with the notion of an early embryo being used instrumentally as research material.
The report points out—and I agree—that the consequences of trying to ascribe to a very early embryo the full moral status of a person are, in current societal terms, untenable. The corpus of existing law and public attitudes are relevant here. Public attitudes are. of course, not the same as right and wrong, nor do they determine what is right or wrong. But the law on stem cell research cannot operate in a vacuum. In vitro fertilisation is a widely accepted procedure, yet it cannot be conducted without wastage of a large number of spare embryos.
The abortion laws have been in place for many years. While it is possible to have an ethical debate—and many do—about the detail of those laws, there are no serious moves to challenge the laws in principle, whether on a human rights basis or any other. Nearer to home, the HFEA has been in operation for over 10 years now, but its decisions have never been the subject of a legal challenge, nor, so far as I am aware, of concerted criticism. It would be anomalous to ban embryonic stem cell research while allowing those other activities to remain legal.
One of the reasons why it is important to revisit and confirm the decisions of the Warnock report as to the ethical status of the human embryo is that, if in due course stem cell research is successful in pointing the way to therapeutic treatment of disease, there will be inevitable commercial consequences. Parliament has always recoiled from condoning the commodification of human beings in any form. If we accept that the early embryo lacks the status of a person but is, nevertheless, to be accorded respect, we need to decide how far such respect should extend when it comes to commercial patents. The ability to patent an invention is generally seen as a spur for conducting research. The downside of patenting, however, is that it tends to raise the cost of research and thus impede access to healthcare.
The Select Committee's report touches briefly on those issues but comes to no firm conclusions. My own view is that it should not be legal to buy, sell or patent human embryos, however defined. However, there is a case for allowing the purchase and sale of embryonic stem cell lines and for the patenting of the products and technologies arising from them. As the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, indicated, the purposes for which patents may be granted and the scope of such patents should be the subject of ethical scrutiny. For example, I believe that the law should not allow a company to patent a technology relating to embryonic stem cells merely with a view to blocking its competitors. Nor should it be possible to register a patent that is unduly broad in its scope, as that would give the patentee an excessive degree of control. There is a balance to be struck between the interests of inventors and the interests of society. I share the view
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of the Select Committee that this whole issue needs to be kept under review, but that ought to mean some solid work being commissioned sooner rather than later.
Some witnesses who gave evidence expressed the view, as have a number of noble Lords today, that the ethical difficulties inherent in embryonic stem cell research could be avoided altogether if the research were exclusively conducted on adult stem cells. I believe this either/or view to be profoundly mistaken. The weight of evidence presented to the Select Committee arguing for embryonic stem cell research, and for such research to run in parallel with work on adult stem cells, was considerable.
I have seen recent evidence emanating from the University of Edinburgh which seriously questions the possibility of adult stem cells being able to differentiate and proliferate into various cell types. It is thought that such cells might simply fuse with existing cells so as to create genetically mixed cells of questionable medical value. The Bio Industry Association has pointed out that it is difficult to isolate adult cells that are free of contamination from other cell types.
The point, however, is that solid evidence about which cells are likely to be useful for which therapeutic purposes, and to what extent, is at present lacking. As the report points out, both routes appear to have potential, but as for the notion of favouring adult stem cells exclusively, we are simply not in a position to say that they offer the route to salvation or the answer to every question. Nor are we likely to have those answers for some time. We first need to understand how all stem cells behave, and in that context it is accepted that embryonic stem cells, at least for now, have an important role to play.
This is where the technique of cell nuclear replacement, or CNR, is particularly relevant. There are those who argue, as did the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that CNR should be prohibited on the grounds that it is unlikely to provide a general basis for disease therapies for the foreseeable future. But the Select Committee was, I believe, right to downplay this argument. CNR and the related procedure known as oocyte nuclear transfer have considerable potential for identifying the process of de-differentiation in cells and for preventing the transmission of mitochondrial disease.
It is something of a relief that in the Government's view basic research of the kind that is needed initially before any applied research is possible will fall within the scope of the current regulations. There was a fear that it might not. However, there is a point that arises from this. The Select Committee's insistence that no embryo should be created specifically for research purposes without prior proof of demonstrable and exceptional need is surely right, but, where basic research is concerned, demonstrable and exceptional need is not a straightforward matter to prove, especially given the standard requirement that licence applications presented to the HFEA should be as tightly drawn as possible. It would be helpful if the Minister could comment on this.

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Perhaps I may say at this point how much I welcome the establishment of the UK stern cell bank which in time should considerably reduce the need for research using early human embryos. Meanwhile it is absolutely essential that the HFEA should keep itself abreast of scientific developments which, as has already been said, are very fast moving.
The HFEA has two principal roles—as an adjudicator and as a policeman. In its capacity as an adjudicator it has, I believe, a good track record. Perhaps the one area where I have cause to question my previous views has been in relation to the HFEA as a policeman. The recent press stories of serious and basic administrative errors in IVF clinics may or may riot point to a wider problem. Either way the public need to have confidence that they are being well served by such clinics.
The recent article in the Sunday Telegraph by Dr Sammy Lee pointed to a less than satisfactory culture operating in certain IVF clinics, where only a minority of embryologists are registered with the HPC or have any real experience of the tight working disciplines that are needed. There are allegations, too, that some clinics are abusing the trust of patients.
We need to be sure that the HFEA is equipped to regulate all the clinics and research establishments that fall under its jurisdiction. With that in view, I welcome the recent announcement of increased base-line funding for the HFEA. That funding should, I hope, enable it to focus on two additional issues highlighted both by the Select Committee and by the Science and Technology Committee in another place: the need to monitor research data and research outcomes, and the need to communicate more openly with the public, and in so doing to promote public confidence. That point was well made by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan.
It is open and public debate about policy which so often acts as a lubricant for good science. In a field such as this, neither the science nor the debate will remain stationary. Because of that, all policy decisions should be regarded as having a limited life and should be regularly revisited to ensure that they remain valid in the prevailing circumstances.
I believe that the Select Committee's report will serve us very well as a base-line for that continuing debate. For that reason as much as any other it should be warmly welcomed.
7.6 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, for the third time in the past two years we have had a debate of high quality on the question of stem cell research.
I want to begin by praising the work of the committee, so admirably chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford. Despite the daunting scale of the task, as the right reverend Prelate suggested, the Select Committee has produced a report which has been widely praised as comprehensive and authoritative in a remarkably short time.
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Perhaps I may echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, and pay tribute to Lord Carnarvon for his contribution to the Select Committee.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, would have preferred the Select Committee to report before the House debated the order that was passed in 2001. All I would say is that this House, when it debated the order, had a very clear choice. Following the most intense and robust debate that I have experienced in this place, the House came to a clear view.
In response to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, about the committee members, this is not a matter for the Government but for the House and the Committee of Selection. Looking through the list of members of the Select Committee, it would he very hard to believe that they were not as robust as they possibly could be in dealing with the very difficult matters before them.
On the conduct of the Select Committee, I have no doubt that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford will wish to respond. I know that there will never be unanimity of view on the matters debated by the Select Committee. However, I have been struck by the very positive comments that I have received from the many people who have read the report.
Stem cell research is important because of the potential ability to differentiate into so many different cells and tissues. The research does hold prospects for the development of new treatments. The hope is that tissues derived from stem cells will be used to develop treatments for diseases and injuries which are currently incurable.
We have heard from many noble Lords about that potential. My noble friend Lord Brennan is cautious about the expectations, and my noble friend Lord Turnberg said that such outcomes may not be round the corner. But be that as it may, I believe that stem cell research offers hope for the future.
I also recognise that there is a considerable amount of debate to be had about whether research into the potential of adult stem cells is in the end likely to prove more fruitful than research into embryonic stem cells. The noble Baronesses, Lady O'Neill and Lady Northover, were particularly persuasive of the need for work to continue in parallel. The Select Committee concluded that both human embryonic and adult stem cells hold the promise of new therapies and that funders should encourage research on both.
There is always a risk that we will quote from our most favoured scientists. I do not intend to indulge in that. However, it is significant that many of the most eminent researchers in the field of adult stem cell research believe that, given the current state of science, it is important to understand how cells behave, because solid evidence is lacking—the noble Earl, Lord Howe, made that point. That is why, given the current lack of knowledge, it is surely important for research on adult and embryonic stem cells to continue.
I also accept the need for research into cords. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Platt. We are considering proposals to double the size of the

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National Blood Service cord blood bank over the next three years. Its aim, along with the banking of adult stem cells in the MRC national stem cell bank, is to ensure that we have the capability to research using all known avenues.
That also applies to the question by the noble Baroness, Lady Platt, about funding. I confirm that funding is available for all types of research. That must be right at the moment. The Select Committee called for continued funding of stem cell research. We are working with partners in the research councils and have prioritised stem cell research. We have also asked the Medical Research Council to take the lead with other funders and the regulatory agencies in developing a national stem cell initiative.
The Government were able to accept or endorse 24 of the report's 28 recommendations. Of the remaining four recommendations, two dealt with the test that should be applied before embryos are created for research purposes. The recommendation was:
"Embryos should not be created specifically for research purposes unless there is a demonstrable and exceptional need which cannot be met by the use of surplus embryos".
There are certain reasons why scientists would wish for the creation of embryos for research. Noble Lords referred to the statistic that 118 have so far been created for research.
The 1990 Act sets out stringent tests that the HFEA must apply when deciding whether to approve such use of embryos. Schedule 2, paragraph 3(1) of the Act permits the HFEA to authorise research that involves the creation, keeping or use of embryos. Schedule 2, paragraph 3(6) states:
"No licence … shall be granted unless the Authority is satisfied that any proposed use of embryos is necessary for the purposes of the research".
The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, can see no difference, once that position is reached, between embryos created for research and those created for other circumstances. The existing law in this area is robust. In combination with a case-by-case review of research applications by the HFEA, it ought to achieve the Select Committee's objective.
I turn to the two remaining recommendations in the report. In paragraph 8.8 the department is asked to examine with the HFEA the possibility of drawing up indicative guidance as to what constitutes "serious disease". During the passage of the 2001 regulations, I indicated that we were not convinced that a list of what constitutes "serious" would be helpful. Noble Lords will know that I am not very keen on lists. I believe that they build unnecessary inflexibility into legislation. It is much better for the HFEA to operate on a case-by-case basis. It should also carefully consider the disease or diseases to be studied to ensure that the requirements of the 2001 regulations are met. Noble Lords have referred to the fast pace of science. Having a list in the regulations would not be consistent with the situation.
Paragraph 8.23 calls for a new committee to oversee the use of embryonic stem cells in clinical trials as treatments. The Government are not convinced of the
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value of establishing another committee. At present, the main thrust of embryonic stem cell research is to improve our scientific understanding of cell development. We cannot know when, or whether, ES cells will be used as therapies. The use of cell-based treatments, with which I shall deal later, is already subject to existing controls operated under the medicines legislation and will be reinforced by developing EU legislation currently in draft. Therefore, in these circumstances, we do not believe that additional controls are needed. However, I undertake to look at developments in the use of ES cells and to consult with key stakeholders if we believe that further action is needed.
I listened with great care to the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who referred to what they described as the "exploitation of women" in the practice of offering free IVF treatment to women if they agree, first, to donate some of their eggs. I agree that this raises some serious ethical issues. I understand that the HFEA has referred the matter to its ethics committee. I shall undertake to ensure that the conclusions of that committee, together with those of the HFEA, are communicated to noble Lords. I shall also arrange for a copy of those conclusions to be placed in the Library of the House.
I turn to the question of the HFEA and its performance as regulator. I have no quarrel with any noble Lords in their determination to ensure that the authority is robust in the operation of its duties. On the passing of the 2001 order. I said that the robustness of the authority was critical to public confidence; and I say so again this evening. I also respond to the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who asked me whether I thought the HFEA was proving to be robust as a policeman.
Clearly, all of us have been concerned about a number of recent cases. I am glad to report to the House that the HFEA is to introduce a range of measures to help meet the challenges that it faces as a regulator. That includes an increase in the number of inspectors and other regulatory staff, more training for inspectors, more unannounced inspections, a new code of practice for clinics with clear standards that clinics will be required to meet, more account to be taken of patients' views in the inspection process, and a faster processing of licensing applications, renewals and variations. I believe that the latter represent very welcome action. I can assure noble Lords that the Government will be keeping a very close eye on the performance of the HFEA.
In a number of recent cases I have been most anxious to ensure that the HFEA was as thorough as it could be. I do not believe that that detracts from the overall performance of the HFEA over what is now a decade. I pay tribute to the work of the authority, especially to its past chair and to the current new chair who is doing sterling work in ironing out some of the issues that have been raised.
I turn to funding. We expect funding for the HFEA to increase in the next year from just over £2 million to £5.5 million. The Government's contribution to the

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new figure will be £1.5 million. That should ensure sufficient funding for processing applications for embryonic research to produce stem cells lines and to ensure the authority can establish the robust policing role I have described. We will keep funding closely under review.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady O'Neill, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I thought that my noble friend Lord Brennan raised some important matters about the licensing processes. I have some sympathy with a number of the points he raised although I am not sure that I agree with some of his solutions. The HFEA is reviewing its procedures for processing research licence applications. I will ensure that my noble friend's points will be referred to the HFEA. I regret that the HFEA's last annual report was late, but I am glad to say that the next one is due out on time and will be published shortly.
My noble friend Lord Brennan asked about the regulation of the use of the embryonic stem cell once extracted. A research licence would not be granted by the HFEA in the first place if the stem cell line was not intended to be used for one of the purposes in the regulations. Once extracted, the stem cells are not within the scope of the Act. The reason for that is that, unlike the embryo, embryonic stem cells are unable to become a pregnancy; if planted into a woman they cannot develop. For that reason, those cells are treated as any other human cell lines, but at that stage research governance requires ethical approval to be obtained for any research involving human tissues and cells. The recent consultation document Human Bodies, Human choices proposes new controls to cover all human tissues and cell lines.
The noble Baroness, Lady O'Neill, referred to the establishment of a national stem cell bank, the first of its kind. This is very important. It will curate ethically-sourced quality controlled stem cell lines for research leading to the development of new therapies. It will provide access to standardised reagents, reduce the need for individual groups to generate their own cell lines and will reduce the numbers of embryos used for embryonic stem cell research.
A stem cell bank steering committee has been established under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. It will meet for the first time shortly. Its work plan will include development of a code of practice for the stem cell bank and reviewing, on a case by case basis, all applications to deposit and access embryonic stem cell lines.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Platt, that the Government would welcome world-wide action to ban human reproductive cloning and will undoubtedly support action within the United Nations. On the question of international action I must reject the image of the UK as the El Dorado of stem cell research as a realistic picture. The reason scientists are attracted to this country to work is because they believe that we have achieved the right balance between allowing legitimate scientific research within a strict legislative and regulatory framework. Long will that balance continue in this country.
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This has been a splendid debate. I am not sure that any of us has brought any new insights to it, but none the less the arguments have been well put. The Select Committee has done an excellent job and its report is remarkably well written. I pay tribute to all Members for their work.
I reiterate that these are very difficult and sensitive issues. The Government have a responsibility for ensuring that the regulations, the legislation and the work of the HFEA are as effective as possible. I assure the House that the Government will keep all these matters tinder very close review, which is as it should be. I am sure that, as we come to debate these matters on further occasions, we will be able once again to address some of the issues which undoubtedly will develop in the years ahead.
7.25 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. I believe—and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, will agree—that it has been not only a very serious and thoughtful debate but a rational debate. It has been greatly encouraging to have such a high level of discussion. I hope that noble Lords will excuse me if I deal only very briefly with the points made and take up perhaps just one point from each speech.
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, reminded us that at the heart of this debate is the prospect of hope for people who are suffering. It was good to have that brought before us again right at the beginning. We are talking about people suffering from a range of terrible diseases. Whatever research risk route we may think is or is not right to go down, we believe that there is hope for such people in the long run.
The noble Baroness, Lady Platt. emphasised the strict nature of our regulatory authority, the HFEA. This has been questioned by a number of noble Lords on all sides of the House. I wonder whether it is not right to draw a distinction between problems which might have emerged at the moment and for which the HFEA has been highly criticised and the fact that we have in existence a regulatory body with clearly defined powers. What we do know is that many other countries look to that regulatory body as a model for what they would like to have in their own country. I think that that is what we primarily have in mind in supporting the HFEA in our report. It is not for me to respond to the criticisms, but I think that the Minister has responded very strongly to that issue. We know that those concerns will be taken into account.
It was very good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, sharing with us how he had become a member of the committee with a very open mind and how he had gradually been persuaded by the arguments which the committee eventually accepted.
In a powerful speech, the noble Lord, Lord Alton. made a number of points which need to be taken very seriously. The first was a point that he has made before and that was made by various other noble Lords—that only 26 scientific or medical witnesses invited to

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appear before the committee were from the pro-embryonic stem cell lobby and that no scientists were called to submit oral evidence from an exclusively adult stem cell perspective. Although the noble Baroness, Lady O'Neill, has already mentioned this, I feel that I ought to emphasise that the committee issued its call for evidence to a very wide range of representative organisations. These naturally included the major scientific and research organisations such as the Royal Society and the Medical Research Council. How could we not ask those representative bodies to come before us? Inviting organisations to give oral evidence, the committee did not specify who should represent them. In the event, however, those who appeared on behalf of those bodies included some distinguished experts with experience of research in adult stem cells and, as far as we know, no one working on human embryonic stem cells.
The committee also asked a number of international experts working on adult stem cells for their views on the way forward, and they were unanimous that research needs to continue on both ES and adult stem cells.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, also drew attention to the very important report by a number of theologians which was submitted as part of the evidence from the Linacre Centre and to which reference has been made. I assure your Lordships that I read that report very carefully a good number of times and I believe that the position—that is, the two readings of the Christian tradition—is fairly represented in the appendix at the back of the report.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out that since our report was published an article had appeared in Nature magazine that cast doubt upon the utility of cell nuclear replacement. However, our report also indicated a certain scepticism on the part of the scientific community at present with regard to that matter. We had already taken that on board. I refer the noble Lord to paragraph 5.9. We did not need the article in Nature to remind us that the original high hopes in regard to that matter are not at the moment shared by the scientific community.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, suggested—as he has suggested before—that this country is isolated internationally as regards the matter that we are discussing. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, pointed out—this was reiterated by the Minister—it is
much fairer to say that we are in the middle of a spectrum. If one looks at what is happening in the United States, in Germany and in Europe, we are not nearly as isolated as some people suggest. For example, as regards EU funding for research under framework six, until the end of 2003 the Commission will not fund research projects involving the use of human embryonic stem cells with the exception of stem cells already banked or isolated in culture. That agreement means that research projects that used banked embryonic stem cells, such as those going into the new Medical Research Council bank, will qualify for EU funding until January 2003. Other research, such as that involving the extraction of embryonic
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stem cells from embryos, will be subject to a temporary suspension until the end of 2003. The UK is not isolated in this regard. Other countries, including the European Union, are to some extent following the lead that we in this country have taken.
The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, took up some of the other points that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, made in relation to what is perceived as our lack of proper attention to adult stem cells. I do not want to repeat what I said when I opened the debate. However, we need to draw a distinction between a person's basic ethical position and other matters. I deeply respect the position of those who think that no research on embryonic stem cells should take place. I respect that basic ethical position. However, we should not confuse that with an objective assessment of the pros and cons of research on the different kinds of stem cell. I find it very difficult to believe, and rather disappointing, that people cannot appreciate how strongly our report supports work on adult stem cells, that we believe that it needs financial encouragement and that there is clearly real hope there. I cannot go on repeating that point but if people look at our report they will certainly find that that is the case.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, mentioned the status of the embryo and questioned the use of the words "person" and "respect". I shall certainly read her comments carefully as she made some important points that I should like to ponder further.
I believe that we all agree that the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, made an extremely weighty speech with regard to informing the public about licensing decisions, questions raised in regard to peer review and the commercial aspect of the matter, which the Minister has already indicated he will take seriously. I hope that I may stress a fairly obvious point: that is, that the stem cell bank is owned by the Medical Research Council and therefore stem cells will not be available on a profit basis.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, pointed to the real possibility of tumours developing as a result of using therapies based upon embryonic stem cells. We were aware of that. I refer noble Lords to paragraph 3.6 of our report, in which we say that that is a possibility and add that it is essential to guard against those risks. In our scientific chapters, we try to set out the advantages and limitations of both kinds of research as objectively as possible. There are grave questions about some forms of adult stem cell research. The main weight of the scientific community could not agree with the view that adult stem cell research alone is likely to produce all of the results.
The noble Lord, Lord Chan, wanted more encouragement to be given to adult stem cell research. It was good to have an informed medical opinion. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said, recent studies suggest that there are major questions about what is really happening with regard to some forms of adult stem cell research. Is it truly transdifferentiation or is it cell fusion? I am not a scientist and I do not know the answer. I merely suggest that there are still many questions to be answered by further research on adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells.

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I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for indicating to the House the way in which the committee worked and for saying that we worked harder on the issue of adult stem cells than on any other. We tried to look as objectively as possible at all of the issues.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his thoughtful speech and the important points that he made about patents. The Minister has already suggested that he will address that issue. Finally, I thank the Minister for the positive response to our report and the fact that the Government have accepted 24 of our recommendations. I am not sure whether he mentioned that we made 27 or 28 recommendations; there were three recommendations that he could not accept. I hope that it is fair to the committee to say that those recommendations were fairly finely judged anyway, particularly with regard to the question whether there should be an indicative list of serious diseases. We were uncertain at the last moment about whether to advance that.
I thank all those who have taken part in this debate and I am grateful for the tributes to the committee's work. We have had a serious, thoughtful and rational debate. I commend the report to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Biofuel Industry
7.37 p.m.
Lord Carter rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their view of the environmental, economic and agricultural advantages of a viable biofuel industry in the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I begin by saying that I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Whitty., who has made a particular effort to be here this evening to respond to this debate. I tabled this Question for two reasons: first, to seek the Government's view of the prospects for a viable biofuel industry in the UK; and, secondly, to comment on the Chancellor's proposed 20p rebate on fuel duty for biofuels.
I make it clear at the outset that my Question is concerned only with biodiesel and bioethanol, and their potential use as transport fuels. There is a much wider debate about the non-food uses of agricultural crops, but that is not for this evening.
I should declare a former interest in this subject. For 30 years before I joined the Government in 1997, I was involved with United Oilseeds, a major farm cooperative that is responsible for marketing a substantial proportion of UK oilseed crops. Some years ago, United Oilseeds sponsored a car that drove from Land's End to John O'Groats fuelled entirely by rape oil, and it raised a large amount for charity along he way.
I framed the Question with three elements,
"the environmental, the economic and agricultural advantages",
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of a viable UK biofuel industry. I shall deal with each in turn. I turn first to the environmental benefits. The evidence seems to be incontrovertible that there are substantial advantages in terms of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions in favour of biofuels compared with fossil fuels. However, this is not the time or the place to go into all of the very detailed and technical figures.
Therefore, I ask the Minister two simple questions. Do the Government accept the figures produced by the biofuel interests regarding the beneficial effect on greenhouse and gas emissions resulting from the use of biofuels? Secondly, have the Government made any calculation of the possible effect on our Kyoto and domestic targets for the reduction of emissions if biofuels were to be used on the scale envisaged by the draft EU directive; namely, if 2 per cent of road fuels by 2005, increasing to 5 per cent by 2009, came from biofuels?
The economic advantages of a viable biofuel industry appear to be substantial. The EU Commission has estimated that between 45,000 and 75,000 jobs could be created in the EU—mainly in the farming regions. That is already happening in France, Germany, Spain and Austria. Therefore, the obvious question is: why not here? British Sugar, which has a considerable potential interest in the production of bioethanol from wheat and sugar beet at its existing plants, estimates that 20,000 to 30,000 jobs could be created by a 1.2 million tonne UK biofuel industry.
I shall return later to the question of the proposed 20p rebate on fuel duty. But perhaps I may ask the Minister whether the Treasury is aware of a German study which suggests that between 73 and 83 per cent of the tax forgone by duty rebates is offset by quantifiable benefits to the economy. That of course assumes that the duty rebate is set at a level to support an industry which is producing those benefits. Did the Government conduct a full and proper cost-benefit analysis before arriving at the proposed 20p rebate? Did they attempt to bring into their calculations, as an alternative, the cost and the beneficial effects of the 26 to 30 pence rebate that the industry says is the minimum required if there is to be a UK industry at all?
The agricultural advantages are clear. A new market for existing crops would provide considerable help for an industry which is suffering its worst crisis since the 1930s. Crops for biofuel would produce an economic use for set-aside land. Crops which are now being exported to produce biofuels could be processed here and create jobs and agricultural activity at home. We would be helping, albeit in a small way, to improve fuel supply security by using home-grown feedstocks which need no new agricultural technology. In the case of sugar beet, that would also help to resolve the problem which will face the EU when it comes to review the sugar beet regime in relation to the highly subsidised production of sugar beet for sugar and the disadvantage that that creates for imports from developing countries.
The case for the agricultural advantage was put to me succinctly by Mr Martin Farrow, the managing director of United Oilseeds, who said:

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"There is nothing more frustrating than sitting here with willing growers, willing processors and a market that wants to buy".
I ask my noble friend now whether the Government accept the estimates of potential crop use produced by Mr Peter Clery of BABFO—the British Association for Biofuels & Oils—if we are to meet the targets in the draft EU directive. This is not the time to go into all the figures. I am sure that the Minister is aware of the estimates of the crop use that would be required from oilseed rape, wheat, sugar beet and so on if we were to meet the targets which have been declared in the draft EU directive.
I now return to the question of the rebate on fuel duty. In my view, the Government should be prepared to consider increasing the 20p rebate if a sound case can be made on environmental, economic and agricultural grounds. I am the first to admit that such a case would have to quantify the gross cost to the Treasury of duty forgone and the net cost after quantifying the benefits. I know that that is always a difficult argument for the Treasury, which views the matter in terms of the cash forgone and not the quantifiable benefits which must be based on a certain number of assumptions.
If the Government are to meet their objective that production of bioethanol should begin in the UK in the second half of 2004, they will certainly have to rethink their approach on the lines that I have indicated. I ask my noble friend what was the basis of the 20p rebate. How did the Treasury arrive at the figure? We may all have our own views on that, but I would appreciate an informed view from the Minister on the complex and detailed calculations of the Treasury. I am sure that the Minister knows that a reasoned case was produced by the biofuel interest that showed that a rebate of between 26p and 30p per litre is essential if there is to be a UK biofuel industry. On what grounds was that case rejected?
On 29th November there was a letter in The Times from my honourable friend Mr John Healey, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who referred to the incentive for biodiesel introduced by the Government in July. He said:
"It is still early days, but there are already encouraging signs that the industry is being stimulated and we expect biodiesel to be available in over 80 petrol stations by the end of the year. Sales have grown steadily to over 300,000 litres in October—a five-fold increase since the first month of production".
Will my noble friend confirm that that production of biodiesel was from recycled vegetable oils from fish and chip shops? That is not quite what we had in mind in relation to the environmental, economic and agricultural advantages of a biofuel industry.
An important point has arisen since the rebate was announced in the Pre-Budget Report. It has been pointed out that at 20p there is a real incentive to import bioethanols produced from written-off plant using products from the Lomé countries and thereby avoid the EU tariff. I understand that the feedstock could be imported from third countries into Lomé countries, used to produce bioethanol and then sent here. That would completely undercut any UK
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production and we would not receive the Kyoto and greenhouse gas reduction benefit as that would be counted against the target of the originating country.
I am not sure that that is what the Treasury had in mind when it produced the 20p rebate, but a simple question arises: what is the Government's assessment of the effect of the 20p rebate on imports of bioethanol? That is a crucial question. The result is that the Government, in their attempt to encourage the indigenous industry, will be seen to be encouraging overseas competitors.
It seems that we have a real opportunity to create a new environmentally friendly industry with considerable economic and agricultural benefits: but I emphasise that it needs the understanding and the help of the Government. I hope that in reply the Minister will be able to confirm that that understanding and help will be forthcoming.
7.48 p.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for introducing the debate and providing this chance to discuss these important matters. I regret to say that I had read the Question rather more widely than the noble Lord. I hope that the next seven minutes will not be too much of a burden for the House.
I must declare an interest in that I own farmland and woodland in Scotland and that I sell firewood. I also declare that I have been in considerable correspondence with Mr John Nicholson of Biopower in North Wales, manufacturers of waste vegetable oil fuel for diesel vehicles, but I have no financial connection whatever with that.
The question posed by the noble Lord appears to me to relate to energy crops for transport and for the production of electricity and district heating. Those are relevant and competent issues. Noble Lords will be well aware that Dr Rudolph Diesel used peanut oil in his prototype compression ignition engines. As an aside, he encountered problems with the gumming up of the valves, but today that would be solved by the addition of a solvent. I remind the House that I am not a chemist, but rather an enthusiast. The Question seems to me to be about the impact on the countryside of greater agricultural production of energy crops. Even in Scotland, with its proportionately greater areas of forestry, it is cheaper to import timber from Scandinavia than to harvest our own. Why is that? While we have lots of aims for the countryside, such as farm and timber production, biodiversity, the tourists' patchwork quilt and public access, the Scandinavians have approached their timber production on an industrial scale. That means huge forests as against our usually small woods.
I am not decrying our multiple aims—production, biodiversity, tourism and access—but we have to understand that energy crops will deliver a uniformity into the countryside that may conflict with our other aims. Energy crops are driven by proximity in two forms. First, they need to be grown close to the processing plant. Secondly, the processing plant needs

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to be adjacent to a population centre, whether the intended use is for transport fuel, electricity—to avoid the voltage drop—or district heating.
In the case of a power station fired by willow coppice or woodchip, that means that the countryside adjacent to the town will need to have a fairly uniform appearance if the economies of transport are to be overcome. Similarly, the use of oilseed rape as part of a road fuel will have a different visual impact on the countryside—bright yellow—and an effect on some people's respiratory systems.
Beyond the landscape issues, there are concerns about biodiesel and bioethanol. They are clearly fuels favoured by the Treasury, which has reduced the duty on them by 20p a litre, as the noble Lord mentioned. That reduction is inadequate to stimulate real investment in rape methyl ester—RME—processing plant.
Biodiesel is not a very green fuel because it is only 5 per cent R VIE and 95 per cent fossil diesel. I believe that its conversion produces a lot of waste glycerol and much contaminated water from the washing process. However, it is a start.
Looking Further ahead, I am impressed by the production of a biofuel, sold as Biopower V100, in north Wales. It is derived from a waste product—used cooking oil collected from chip shops and commercial kitchens—and refined. The resultant fuel for diesel engines gives more power and better upper cylinder lubrication. It has the huge merit of being a sustainable use of a waste product.
However, the firm Biopower has received no help from the Government and has to pay the full duty of 46p per litre. I am most concerned about a statement made by a Customs and Excise officer in the Treasury in a letter to Biopower, which said that the then DTLR,
"does not wish to encourage the use of straight vegetable oil"—
SVO—
"as a fuel for vehicles as their information indicates it will have significant negative environmental effects and damage vehicle engines, and could"—
this is probably the most important part—
"undermine the development of a viable, high quality, processed biodiesel market".
Biopower would hotly dispute the allegation of engine damage. This seems highly prejudicial towards a new industry. Does the Minister still stand by that statement? The attitude runs contrary to the approach in Germany.
In the recent Llanelli incident, it was reported that motorists had been arrested by the police and had cars impounded because they were using new, unused cooking oil—straight vegetable oil—mixed with
methanol in their diesel cars. I believe that that is a Customs and Excise and not a police matter. If the duty had been paid, there should be no issue.
I would note that Biopower tell me that it is difficult to get hold of the appropriate excise form, EX 103—derived from the Hydrocarbon Oil Duties Act 1979—
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as Customs and Excise officers do not usually stock it. Alternative road fuels are important to the future and should not be obstructed by government.
In conclusion, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, is right: there is good potential for biofuels grown in our fields, and as a sustainable crop for our farmers. This could be an immediate solution to set-aside. so long as we appreciate the industrial scale that will be needed.
7.55 p.m.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, this is the time of a debate when one normally starts by thanking everyone who has contributed to the exciting and stimulating discussion from all sides of the House. On this occasion I shall thank my noble friend Lord Mar and Kellie for standing in for everyone else, and in particular I shall thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for introducing this very important topic so that we can have this debate this evening.
In passing, I should inform the House that in September the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton debated and approved a policy paper called Our Rural Future, which was produced under the auspices of my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. It was very nice to see her here today. Within that policy paper we committed ourselves very firmly to the kind of programme put forward this evening by the noble Lord, Lord Carter. So, I am sure that there is a great deal of support for what the noble Lord was saying across the political spectrum. As a political party, we shall certainly not let the matter drop.
I take the view that the debate is not quite so wide as my noble friend thought it was. We are really talking about biodiesel and bioethanol. In that context, we should remember that in the past—certainly 100 years ago for example—a large amount of land in this country was given over to producing biofuels in the form of oats for horses, which, apart from the railways, at that time provided most of the transport in this country. So there is nothing new about this issue; it is a question of adopting and adapting traditional crops for new uses.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said, the issue falls within three areas. There is the environmental side which deals with carbon saving. Obviously, there are different points of view. People will argue about exactly what the carbon saving is from each particular proposal. But, nevertheless, no one can dispute that there is some there.
Fuel security is an important issue. We import 80 per cent of our road fuels in this country. We arc fortunate that we do not still import the virtual 100 per cent that we used to import. Nevertheless, there is a huge question mark about oil supplies and the location of oil supplies around the world. The more oil substitutes that we can provide in this country the more the country will benefit.
There is an interesting question regarding the use of farmland. There is interesting debate going on about the future of farming in all kinds of places, as the Minister will be aware. Many people talk about food security and how far in the modern world we should

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attempt to be self-sufficient in food or in temperate food. In a fortnight there is an interesting Starred Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that the balance of trade in temperate food matters.
Behind that question lies that of how much of our own food we ought to produce. My firm view is that in a European market within a wider global market, we shall probably not produce as much of our own food in future as we have recently—certainly if the policy lines suggested by Ministers come about. Farmers may have to depend on fewer subsidies in future. Perhaps the large-scale arable farmers in the North East, East and South East of England and eastern Scotland may have to get by without any subsidy. That is clearly some time off, but if that is the case, it will be difficult for geographical and climatic reasons for such farmers to compete with many other farmers in the rest of Europe and other parts of the world.
If that is the case, those farmers will need substitute crops. Given the choice of growing crops for oil substitutes—for fuel—and growing crops for food, which is likely to be of most benefit to the future security of this country? There is a good case to be made that fuel has a higher priority than food. It is highly unlikely that we will be unable to gain access to secure sources of food without a cataclysmic change to the way in which the world is organised. It is all too easy to envisage circumstances in which oil supplies may be severely affected.
We then come to the questions of the rural economy and farm businesses—whether farmers will find it more difficult to compete on food crops and whether they will stay in business. If the rural economy and landscape are to survive in an acceptable way, alternative, substitute crops will be required. That is one reason why people are so interested in biofuels. Even if only set-aside land is involved, about 500,000 hectares are set aside in any given year. No one believes that set-aside is a viable long or even medium-term option. It is crazy to pay farmers for keeping land to do nothing. Even if only set-aside land is involved, surely using it for something useful would be a huge step forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked the Minister some of the direct questions that I was going to ask, so I shall not duplicate what he said. I remind the Minister that the Curry report, on which I think he places great store, although we are not yet sure exactly how much store the Government place on it, suggested that duty on biofuels should be reduced to the level on liquid petroleum gas, which is 4.5p per litre—hardly any duty, which is a radical step. So the level mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, is not radical in that context.
However, when the Government reduce duty on biodiesel by 20p per litre and, in the Chancellor's latest Statement, propose to reduce duty on bioethanol to the same level, that appears to many people to be a half-hearted approach. Perhaps the Minister can tell us on what basis that decision was made, as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked. Is the Treasury concerned
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about loss of revenue? At the present rate, it will not lose any revenue. If the reduction is insufficient to encourage people to carry out the capital investment required to set up plant and systems, it will not lose any revenue, because no one will produce such fuels. Is that the problem?
Is the influence of the oil lobby behind all that, as many people quietly suggest, putting pressure on the Government and restraining them from adopting a more adventurous or radical policy?
It all comes down to whether the Government believe that it is a serious way forward in making a substantial inroad into fuel consumption in this country. If they claim that they do, the level to which they propose to reduce the fuel duties does not match their rhetoric. If they do not believe in it, why do they bother with it in the first place?
The debate and the proposals made during it have reached a stage at which it would be very helpful if the Government were to publish a clear statement of policy on the matter, showing where they think that it is going and their proposals to achieve it. Then, there would be a government document that we and everybody else could debate, and we could see where we were going. At the moment, the Government take initiatives without a clear policy framework or policy commitment and adopt a rather half-hearted approach.
8.6 p.m.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I congratulate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for having secured this important debate. Biofuels and non-food uses of crops offer great potential to us as individuals, to the environment and to our farmers. However, we will need proper government commitment to get such businesses off the ground.
As we know, crops can be used directly for generating heat or electricity. More excitingly, they can be made into biodegradable polystyrene replacements, fibre boards, pharmaceuticals and lubricants, to name but a few. In such circumstances, it is, perhaps, a little surprising that the growth of nonfood crops is small and has had to struggle to get a take-up. In some instances, we know that planning permission has been sought but has not been granted. In other instances, insufficient crop acreage has raised doubts about the viability of some schemes. The Minister will not be surprised if I return to the thorny question of planning.
The Chancellor's announcement in his Pre-Budget Report of a duty cut for bioethanol equal to the 20p given to biodiesel is welcome, but the Minister was not surprised, I am sure, by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and others indicated that industry felt that the reduction fell below what was required for commercial viability. I would hate the Minister to think that farmers are always moaning, but I suspect that even he will acknowledge that an appropriate base price must be established, if a new industry is to be a success.

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In his Statement, the Chancellor announced a 20p per litre tax cut for green fuel bioethanol. The green fuel, refined from potatoes, sugar beet or wheat, will now he taxed at the same level as hiodiesel, which is refined from rapeseed. The tax break is not as generous as the one for liquefied petroleum gas, equivalent to 40p per litre. Although the Minister, Michael Meacher, indicated that further lobbying could succeed in securing further cuts, it seems strange to give a little, while accepting that more help might be needed in the future. Chris Carter, the political affairs director of British Sugar, which is considering investing in a bioethanol processing plant said, when the announcement was made, that he found it "frustrating". He said:
"We are pleased that the Government have recognised the significant environmental and economic benefits that the development of a UK based bioethanol industry could bring. However, our feasibility studies clearly show that a greater reduction will be necessary to encourage investment into this exciting new area. We continue to endeavour to present the case for increased support for bioethanol and hope that the Government will recognise this in time for the Spring 2003 Budget".
In his opening comments, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said that it could bring between 20,000 and 30,000 jobs to the UK. Those jobs would be of great help to many struggling rural economies.
I have been critical but not too critical—obviously, 20p is better than nothing. However, I must record my delight in the announcement made today by, I think, the Argent Group Europe, which has opened the first large biodiesel plant in Scotland. That is an investment of £10 million. Indeed, that is to be welcomed. The plant w ill turn animal residues, fats and used cooking oils into 50 million litres of fuel per year. I understand that the plant will not be of benefit to oilseed growers. Perhaps the Minister will explain why the plant is not to use those crops. Is it perhaps because the new plant will have sufficient amounts of fats to use or is it because the processing procedure is not compatible to take oilseed rape crops?
I move from a newly announced success story to one that failed and is a worry to me; namely, the fate of ARBRE. Will the Minister explain how enterprises like ARBRE can in future be "better protected"? The Curry report tells us that we all need to co-operate and work together, but that was a co-operative and a very good venture which failed. The liquidation of such a venture is regrettable and does little to install confidence in persuading farmers to diversify in an unknown future. The Curry report into the future of food and farming recognised the role that non-food crops could play in helping to produce energy crops, at the same time giving the farming community new opportunities within their existing businesses.
I believe that biofuels have much to offer in terms of energy and in helping to reverse the unwelcome increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector, which have gone up by 5 per cent since 1990. Good quality biomass electricity and biomass heat and power can save over 80 per cent of CO2 emissions when replacing fossil fuel sources. The British Association for Biofuels and Oils argues that biofuels have a range
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of environmental benefits. They produce fewer greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, produce fewer air pollutants and allow for the recycling of waste oils. We touched on that today with our statutory instruments, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, responded.
My honourable friend Jonathan Sayeed acknowledged the benefits from biomass in his EDM 21. He recognised that it plays a critical role in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and noted the significant environmental and economic benefits of using farm waste, such as slurry and poultry litter, to produce energy.
I smiled slightly at "poultry litter". It took me back 40 years when I used to run a poultry unit at home. It always seemed a shame to waste the waste litter. It is good that 40 years on there is another source for it.
The Government's own Performance and Innovation Unit review of Britain's energy policy recommended in February this year that a target of 20 per cent electricity should he generated by renewable sources by 2020. Perhaps I may remind noble Lords that when we took through the Utilities Bill I tabled one or two amendments to promote the better use of non-food crops and the role that they could play.
I understand also that the DTI has created a £66 million bioenergy capital grant scheme for the project developers considering investing in electricity generating projects fuelled by energy crops. That could support six power stations and up to 100 smaller heat and power plants. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what progress has been made.
The development of those new schemes would also offer significant benefits to rural jobs and incomes. Some argue that biofuels are an interim measure only and therefore not important, and that the use of hydrogen is the goal to which we should be working. Yes, indeed, that may be the way ahead. However, I understand that a realistic time for that goal for such production on stream is 15 or 20 years away.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, was disappointed not to be able to take part in today's debate. As noble Lords will accept, he has been one of the forerunners in promoting such discussions as we are having tonight, both in Questions for Written Answer and in debate in this House.
I sincerely thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for promoting this very important debate. Biofuels will give hope and opportunities to members of our farming community. For each of us individually. they will help to improve the air and the environment in which we live and work. More importantly, they will do two things: they will support and perhaps protect in future—although they only do so in a small way at the moment—our future fuel security; and, secondly, they offer wonderful new opportunities that should not he missed.
8.15 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty): My Lords, I associate myself thoroughly with the noble Baroness's penultimate point in regard to the initiative of my noble friend Lord Carter in introducing the debate. It is an indication of the tremendous advantage the House has in having him here in his new distinguished capacity of sitting on the Privy Council Benches and telling us about his experiences in agriculture. It is both nerve wracking and stimulating for those who have to reply on agricultural matters from these Benches and I thank him for introducing the debate.
The main focus of the debate has been on the possibility of using agricultural and other feedstocks to provide liquid biofuels. We also touched on the issue of biomass for energy.
In the area of transport, the Government face some fairly substantial challenges as part of our commitments under Kyoto and also, in some cases to an equivalent extent, in meeting our air quality emissions targets. On the CO2 front, it is clear that transport is the sector which still needs to be restrained if we are to meet the Kyoto targets; and a number of technological and management issues arise in relation to transport policy and the transport part of the climate change programme the Government have introduced.
We have taken action in a number of areas to encourage the introduction and take-up of cleaner fuels and technologies. We have altered quite substantially the structure of company car tax and VED to incentivise more efficient vehicles, to reduce the use of carbon-based fuels and to encourage new fuels.
We know that biofuels in this context can provide significant life-cycle reductions in CO2 emissions compared with the now standard ultra-low sulphur diesel. Both bioethanol and biodiesel from virgin crops can reduce CO2 by about half when compared with conventional fuels at the point of use. In the case of biodiesel, the benefits from waste vegetable oil are even greater because the life-cycle benefits are higher. We therefore believe that biofuels can play a significant part in our commitment to lower carbon fuels in transport.
The noble Baroness referred to the PIU report on energy policy and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked whether biofuels will play a part in our fuels policy generally. The Government are now taking forward the recommendations in the PIU report, including the target of 2020 for renewables, which could include a significant contribution from agriculturally based renewables. We are in the process of drafting a White Paper on energy policy which should emerge in the new year. That will deal with a wide range of energy issues, including this one.
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The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred also to the issue of food and fuel security. We shall take that matter into consideration in the energy policy developments, although we recognise that in this context, as in others, we operate in a world market for both food and non-food crops, including energy crops.
In terms of its benefit to the agriculture side as distinct from, but supportive of, the environmental side, establishing new markets and non-food markets is an important part of how we see agriculture developing. There was a strong reference to that strategy in the Curry report, as the noble Baroness said.
The potential for feed stocks for transport biofuels—mainly oilseed rape for biodiesel and wheat and sugar for bioethanol—are well established and known to farmers, and are potentially an attractive proposition from that end of the telescope as well. But the returns for farmers would need to be sufficient to compete in their terms with the established food and animal feed markets. Currently, the prices for those are higher, even given the present depressed levels of arable prices.
The effects of issues such as set-aside are complicated. The mid-term review of the common agricultural policy could in the medium term help, in the sense that it would de-couple the area aid for arable crops and would, therefore, put everything on a level playing field. In that sense, at the end of that process there would be no set-aside; but, on the other hand, it would in the short term remove the incentive to grow non-food crops on set-aside land when subsidised or regime crops cannot be grown. So the manner in which the mid-term review works its way through the system will be complicated. In any case, at the end of the day, it will be market demand for the new fuels that will determine the sustainable viability of those crops rather than the support system.
At this stage of the debate it is quite difficult to see what the structure of the support system will be in any case. But we do need to address the issue of the market. Significant other factors, such as the state of world markets, increased trade liberalisation under the WTO and so on would also enter into this. The potential for biofuels will, therefore, have to be part of this overall change in the balance of the demand and supply of crops more generally.
Fiscal measures, which have been emphasised substantially this evening, and regulatory measures can have an important effect. A cut in the duty on biodiesel of 20p per litre, which came last July, has provoked some supply of biodiesel into mainstream liquid fuels. The industry has waited for a long time for any move of this kind. It does not believe that the cut is enough, but we have given it the 20p. The letter written to the press by my colleague, John Healey, has been referred to. The figures that he gave indicate a very encouraging picture. The use of biodiesel has risen five-fold since the introduction of the duty cut, to

1365
over 300,000 litres a month. The indications are that those numbers will keep on rising. The industry indicates that it expects over 80 filling stations to be dispensing biodiesel blends by the end of the year.
It is true that that is based on largely waste-based
production. Recycled oil—not entirely chip-shop oil, but recycled oil in general—is a big contribution to how we deal more productively with waste. I revert to a debate that the noble Baroness, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and I had earlier in the week. Therefore, recycling waste oil is in itself an environmental and an economic benefit.
The PBR the other week built on the change with a similar 20p per litre cut for bioethanol; and the Government have announced that they will be consulting on the best time to implement that. Clearly, the market needs to be able to deliver the bioethanol supply at the point where there are maximum benefits.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked a series of questions which are related to the view which has come from the industry and from a number of independent studies that the fiscal cut needs to be larger than the 20p on biodiesel and probably bioethanol. I have no difficulty in accepting the first question that he asked; namely, whether the Government accept the beneficial effects. I have said that they are half—indeed, my notes say that the figure is 55 per cent, which is even better. So the Government have no difficulty with that.
The Government have no difficulty with the second question of whether they made a significant contribution to the Kyoto targets; that is to say, the indicative targets envisaged in the EU directive. They would yield between 0.7 and 1.5 million tonnes of carbon equivalent a year, contributing significantly to the transport sector's ability to deliver its part of the climate change targets. I accept the background to that argument.
My noble friend Lord Carter asked for details of the Treasury's cost-benefit analysis of why the fiscal cut for biodiesel and bioethanol was pitched at 20p. Academic and technical experts suggest a trigger figure between 20r) and 30p. The 20p cut in biodiesel is already significantly increasing the amount of biofuel entering the mainstream supply, which indicates that a market has been provoked. In that sense, the Treasury's analysis is correct, because we have already seen movement as a result of the 20p cut. We expect to see the same results from the 20p bioethanol cut.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred to the German studies. The Treasury and other departments, including the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, are also looking at German and other studies. Parallel work is being carried out in the UK at the Central Science Laboratory, which is studying the benefits for the whole economy of stimulating bioethanol and biodiesel markets in this fiscal way. The Treasury's appraisal, at this stage at least, concludes that the higher level of benefits that would result from a cut by more than 20p would not be
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justified by the return. The Government await the final version of the reports from the study conducted mainly by Sheffield Hallam and the non-food crops panel. It will feed into consideration of the position. In the energy policy context, we will be considering what needs to be done as regards transport and biomass to ensure, through various forms of stimulation, that fuel crops contribute significantly to the achievement of our energy targets.
My noble friend Lord Carter also asked whether there were agricultural benefits and whether we accepted the general estimates put forward by the industry. The European Union's indicative targets would mean that much land could be turned over to oilseed rape if biodiesel targets of around half a million hectares were met. That would be a significant new crop for the agricultural sector.
The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, and the noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked whether the changes would simply bring in imports. There is no a priori reason to think that mainly imports would be stimulated. The 20p cut has already stimulated growth in home production. We are, however, operating in an increasingly liberalised world, and I suspect that there will be imports and exports in the long run if we are all developing biofuels for transport purposes. There is no reason to suppose that the balance of trade should be to the UK's disadvantage.
Transport fuels from crops could, and should, provide major environmental benefits in terms of their carbon content. As regards their quality, they are probably beneficial, but the argument on that is more balanced. In terms of the possibility of using caste ste materials in a productive way, they can also help meet environmental targets. The discussions on how we support the development of such crops are being addressed in a number of different fora, but in the meantime we need to see the full effect of the 20p cut coming through. At present, the indications are very positive.
Reference was made, especially by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, to the bioenergy side of the matter, and the £66 million programme. I cannot give figures as regards the current take-up because we have not yet reached the end of the phase during which the reports will come in. On the heat side, the results of the heat application—the small operation—should be available by the end of this month. Those for power generation should be available early in the new year.
Clearly there have been some disappointments on that front. Reference was made to the ARB RE project. As the noble Baroness said, there have also been some planning difficulties. All such issues need to be addressed. On the planning side, in the review of planning guidance the Government are looking at ways in which we can ensure that such guidance is more favourable to renewable energy products.
The use of virgin crops in bioenergy production is most important but so, too, is the use of waste,

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including poultry waste, to which the noble Baroness seems to be very attached. Perhaps I should not say that because that is not quite right; I should say that that was something that she was advocating. Within that area we certainly wish to see a recycling as well as a virgin crop use as we develop such projects. Again, the Government are considering different ways to stimulate the market. Such considerations will feature significantly in the biocrops/biofuel renewable sustainable dimension of our energy policy document that will be published next year.
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On all those grounds—environmental, agricultural, economic and energy policy—there is, in our view, a significant role for biocrops. We need to get the act together technically in terms of the fiscal and regulatory framework and as regards the ability of the agriculture sector to meet those markets. But a future there is. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Carter for giving the House an opportunity to debate the issue.
House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes before nine o'clock.

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